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I think Leaf by Niggle migt be the most beautiful story Tolkien ever wrote. Has anyone ever read it? It was a green, glowing surrealistic story about a tiny little man who only wanted to paint leaves. He became obsessed with Leaves and spent all of his time painting more and more intricate leaves. And then the rustic locals pressed him into community service and took his canvas and paint to fix a neighbor's roof. Then he got sick and goes to a place where they let him paint leaves again. From there it gets surrealistic and Niggle's world becomes filled with a forest of the leaves he painted and they're all real.
I loved it because I saw it as a metaphor for Tolkien's life, not even knowing what kind of a life he had. It probably was too.
For me, it was also a metaphor for my experiences reading his books. Because when you read everything he wrote, and come to the end, you feel like there's no more and it's depressing. Then, when you go on the internet and start looking up Celtic Paganism, Vikings, Mythology, Ogham, Futhark, Welsh history and things like that, you start to realize that Tolkien got all of his ideas from History and there IS more. There's a whole entire vast cosmos full of things that inspired Tolkien and things that could have inspired Tolkien, and things that are like things that inspired Tolkien. I was reading a small part of a Viking saga that mentioned a ring bearer named Frodi. I forgot which one. Something about a Viking named Cormac. I never knew anything about Welsh culture until I read a book about Welsh history and figured out it's a LOT like the elvish language. Tolkien was on about the lost history of England. He seemed to think the English were cheated out of their history. (Obviously by modern religions stamping out paganism.) He was right, but now they're taking it back. Something to do with dancing around Stonehenge at night.

Part of what made Tolkien's work beautiful was his clever use of white space.

I hope you don't forget to take into account that his work (at least those works dealing with Middle Earth) was influenced by his devout Catholicism besides his interest in mythology and ancient history.

I love how he was able to make what some would call conflicting subjects into one highly meaningful reading experience.

I just liked the pagan stuff. Same with Narnia. It's supposed to be a big Christian triumph, but all I remember about reading it as a kid was wondering what a Nymph or a Satyr was and what set of mythology centaurs were from. they had Santa Claus in the first Narnia movie. If you Google Odin in images, Santa looks a lot like Odin. There was a really neat book called, "When Santa Was a Shaiman." It was explaining how Santa coul have come from paganism. I forgot the author's name. Then, of course, all the Christian and Catholic holidays are set directly over Pagan holidays and observe the same rituals. now THERE's some interesting reading.

I can understand how the Christian influences may not speak to you as much as the pagan ones, but it would be a bit shortsighted to completely disregard them. Obviously both had a great impact on J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and they felt that those elements could be reconciled in their respective fantasy universes.

You seem to understand how understanding the influences on an author can lead to an enrichment of the reading experience. I think you would be doing yourself a disservice, and the authors as well, if you do not take their artistic vision into consideration.

Whether you agree with an author's views or not, it is always interesting and often thought provoking, to consider the perspective of another human being; and what better way to do so than through one's artistic output?

I am not Catholic, but I tend to give the Catholics of the past a certain degree of credit. They were not unwilling to assimilate the practices of pagans when those practices conveyed a certain degree of esoteric truth to them. I am sure there may have been other reasons for assimilation too, but I think where the two perspectives come together there is more enrichment than dilution.

To tell you the truth, i didn't even see the Chistian and Catholic stuff because I was raised Atheist. The pagan stuff appealed to me beause paganism is everywhere but no one talks about it.

Quite like Tolkein-can't stand Lewis. Narnia- -euh --Upper middle class Rollocks. But hey ho- there's always Fairy Tales-Love them.

Yeah, Tolkien beats Lewis like paper beats rock. I used to read fairy tales. Some of them are really gory! Not for kids at all. One of my favorites is Halvor and he trolls. You can find it in Google. Basically. Halvor is a viking dude who gets unwanted troll visitations until he stumbles across a creative solution.

Sounds like my kinda guy !