{"id":270,"date":"2006-06-16T01:01:30","date_gmt":"2006-06-16T05:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=270"},"modified":"2018-08-22T08:32:06","modified_gmt":"2018-08-22T12:32:06","slug":"j-r-r-tolkien-tree-and-leaf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=270","title":{"rendered":"(J. R. R. Tolkien) Tree and&nbsp;Leaf"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The first item, the essay \u201cOn Fairy Sto\u00adries\u201d, is essen\u00adtial read\u00ading for any\u00adone with a seri\u00adous inter\u00adest in Tolkien. It makes clear exact\u00adly what he was doing, and why. It was writ\u00adten dur\u00ading the height of the dom\u00adi\u00adnant posi\u00adtion of \u201creal\u00adism\u201d in lit\u00ader\u00ada\u00adture, when any\u00adthing even remote\u00adly imag\u00adi\u00adna\u00adtive was con\u00adsid\u00adered trash by lit\u00ader\u00adary peo\u00adple. Tolkien was par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlarly annoyed by those who saw fan\u00adtasy, espe\u00adcially the par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar kind of fan\u00adtasy that he called \u201cfairy-sto\u00adry\u201d, as exclu\u00adsively for chil\u00addren. He writes:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span id=\"more-270\"><\/span><em>Among those who still have enough wis\u00addom not to think fairy sto\u00adries per\u00adni\u00adcious, the com\u00admon opin\u00adion seems to be that there is a nat\u00adural con\u00adnex\u00adion between the minds of chil\u00addren and fairy-sto\u00adries, of the same order as the con\u00adnex\u00adion between children\u2019s bod\u00adies and milk. I think this is an error; at best an error of false sen\u00adti\u00adment, and one that is there\u00adfore most often made by those who, for what\u00adever pri\u00advate rea\u00adsons (such as child\u00adless\u00adness), tend to think of chil\u00addren as a spe\u00adcial kind of crea\u00adture, almost a dif\u00adfer\u00adent race, rather than as nor\u00admal, if imma\u00adture, mem\u00adbers of a par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar fam\u00adily, and of the human fam\u00adily at large.<\/em><i> <em>Actu\u00adally, the asso\u00adci\u00ada\u00adtion of chil\u00addren and fairy-sto\u00adries is an acci\u00addent of our domes\u00adtic his\u00adtory. Fairy sto\u00adries have in the mod\u00adern world been rel\u00ade\u00adgated to the \u2018nurs\u00adery\u2019, as shab\u00adby or old-fash\u00adioned fur\u00adni\u00adture is rel\u00ade\u00adgated to the play-room, pri\u00admar\u00adily because adults do not want it, and do not mind if it is misused.<\/em><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Touch\u00e9. I can still remem\u00adber when that atti\u00adtude was gospel, when a good sci\u00adence fic\u00adtion writer like Kurt Von\u00adnegut had to vocif\u00ader\u00adously deny that he wrote <span class=\"caps\">SF<\/span> so he could be tak\u00aden seri\u00adously, and the ency\u00adclo\u00adpe\u00addias described H. G. Wells as the author of <em>Tono Bun\u00adgay<\/em>, <em>Mr. Brit\u00adtling Sees It Through<\/em>, and, embarrass\u00adingly, \u201csome sci\u00aden\u00adtific romances\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">con\u00adtents:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">14691. [2] (J. R. R. Tolkien) On Fairy Stories<\/span><br>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\"> 14692. [3] (J. R. R. Tolkien) Leaf by Niggle<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first item, the essay \u201cOn Fairy Sto\u00adries\u201d, is essen\u00adtial read\u00ading for any\u00adone with a seri\u00adous inter\u00adest in Tolkien. It makes clear exact\u00adly what he was doing, and why. It was writ\u00adten dur\u00ading the height of the dom\u00adi\u00adnant posi\u00adtion&nbsp;of&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=270\">Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bu-reading-2006"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9555,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions\/9555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}