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Hey there, fellow travelers. I
recently joined fellow Tolkien enthusiast Andrew Snyder on

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his Mythic Mind podcast for a discussion
of on fairy stories and all things Tolkien.

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For those of you who don't know, Andrew is doing great work on

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the Mythic Mind and is currently spending
some time with the Tales from the Perilous

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Realm. I highly recommend you check
it out. Here's a sample of our

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recent conversation. In order to hear
the whole thing, head on over to

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Mythic Mind it subscribe. To make
it easy, I've set up a convenient

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URL via Tolkien Road dot com slash
Mythic Mind, and now enjoy this sample

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of my recent interview on the Mythic
Mind. What is this essay about and

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why do you like it so much? Well? If I refer to it

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just very shorthand as Tolkien's literary manifesto, I think the thing you know,

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as I mentioned when I when I
became fascinated by Tolkien after the Jackson movies

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came out and I read and I
you know, so the first Jackson movie

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comes out two thousand and one,
I see it in the theaters. I

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quick I quickly saw it again for
the second time because I loved the first

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one so much. And then I
was like, now I gotta wait a

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year for the next one. So
I'm going to go ahead and read the

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books. And I read them.
I probably read them. I think I

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read them twice in that space,
uh, the whole Lord of the Rings

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before the next one came out.
And then you know, kind of started

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to wonder, like, Okay,
I just this is the greatest thing I've

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ever read. What's going on here? And so you start trying to find

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other other works, and so that
led me to on Fairy Stories eventually,

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and and I think on Fairy Stories
is not it's not an easy read,

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like it's not. It's not something
that just kind of um, I will

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say to bring up his his his
good friend and fellow inkling C. S.

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Lewis, Tolkien was not the same
kind of writer that Lewis was.

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Tolkien could be a little can be
a little frustrating at times in his sort

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of this isn't really the right term, but like wordiness, especially when he's

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just when he's just writing, he
can be a little can be a little

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elliptical. He's a little maybe a
little like Saint Paul in that way where

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it's it's kind of like, Okay, you're saying I can tell you,

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you're saying some really amazing things that
maybe isn't the most quotable way of saying

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it, but okay, but you
you spend time with it and you figure

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out where he's coming from. But
I think you know it's what it's how

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he rounds it all off. Right. It's those last couple of sections that

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really drive it home because you know, the next to last before the epilogue,

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you have the section on Recovery,
Escape and Consolation where he starts talking

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about like the emotional and spiritual impact
of good fantasy and the role it has

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to play. And that to me
was like, oh wait, because because

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we have in our minds, uh, you know, in the modern world

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that fantasy storytelling it's just kind of
the distraction, right that it really doesn't.

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Um, you know, it's just
it's just something we do to to

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kill time until the end, right, Um. And maybe some of it's

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better than the others, but it's
kind of a you know, it's almost

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like a utilitarian view of of fantasy
and of storytelling in general, right,

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Um, But what Tolkien does is
he he drives at home to have this

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much greater significance for us as human
beings. Right, that these are not

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simply distractions from uh, from the
dead ugly truth right of our mortality,

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and that the you know, like
like this this nihilistic view of creation and

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of a reality, that that these
things have deep meanings and call us to

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a greater understanding of reality, that
that there are, that there is,

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that there is something real beyond uh, you know, the veil of this

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world, right, that there is
something greater than our reality. Um.

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He goes through at the end and
he talks about recovery. You know,

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recovery is recovery is the way,
is this ability to see things not as

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they are, but as they are
meant to be seen. Right, That

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there's a meaning that transcends what we
may think about something to escape, right.

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So I love the I love the
twist he does on escape because you

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know, people who are you know, creative and things like that will be

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accused of escapism a lot. Right, you know, you're just trying to

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escape from the you know, from
your responsibility to reality and these sorts of

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things. And he turns, I
love what he does, He turns it

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on his head, and he says, of course we are right, Like

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who wouldn't want to want to escape
from, you know, from being falsely

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imprisoned, right like you know,
by some tyrant right. Um, we

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we applaud, we applaud those when
we think about, like, you know,

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the the escape stories of like World
War two is giving from the prison

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camp or from a you know,
a you know, from a Gestapo holding

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cell. Right. He almost,
I think uses that sort of image there,

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and um, you know he's like, we deploy, we applaud those

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people when they when they escape,
right, and but we when we want

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to escape from people who tell us
reality is this ugly thing we are told

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where we're wrong because of it?
Um, and and just the consolation of

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the happy ending, right um.
And then he ties he ties all of

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that into this notion in the epilogue
that um, we are inside of the

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great fairy story of the great of
the great fantasy tale that's in fact not

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fantasy at all. Right, Um, we're inside of this story that is

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the gospel. Uh, that is
the that culminates in this and it coins

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this term U catastrophe right uh.
In in the the happy turn the ucatast

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fee of the incarnation, and in
that story of the incarnation, there is

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the happy turn of the crucifixion leading
to the resurrection, the passion of Christ.

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So he rounds it all off by
saying, guess what we live inside

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a fairy tale? We inhabit a
fairy tale. And when I read that,

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I was like, there it is
that is that is this man's genius

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right there. Um, that his
his that his his secret fire that he

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is serving. Um and uh,
and you know it, it has just

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fascinated me and kept me, you
know, coming back to this work,

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you know, referring to this work
for you, there's a lot, you

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know, there's so much there's so
much wisdom in the uh, you know,

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just in regards to like literary sort
of literary theory. Um. You

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know, in the first half of
it, um, leading up to those

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final parts that I just kind of
glossed over. But um, you know,

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little little notes like um, you
know, his his argument that we

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as moderns want to kind of say, like, oh, fairy tales or

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these nice cute little things we tell
to you know, to kids, but

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they don't really have any purpose for
adults and he's like, it's like,

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no, a good fairy tale,
a good fairy story, good fantasy should

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be oriented towards adults. Right.
If you oriented towards children, you're not

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doing a good job, right.
Um. And uh, and even just

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getting into like the origins, like
why do we as human beings do these

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things? Why did ancients you know, begin telling these tales? Going against

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the notion that, um, you
can kind of like like the reductionist attitude

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that says like, well, this
story is really just this story, right

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with with some little extra stuff added
on. And he's like, no,

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it's precisely the details that make it
worthwhile, right, It is precisely that

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it's this this maximal like creative maximalism, right that instead of this like minimalist

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um sort of mind and set.
Anyway, So I've been drunning on about

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it for about all of this for
a while, but uh, I mean,

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that's it's it's it's one I just
come back to constantly because Tolkien gives

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us the I think he unlocks it
all for us. And he says,

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this is where I'm coming from,
right when in all of my work and

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all of my stories and my legendary
um, this is where I'm coming from.

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Yeah, I think it's a great
overview. And as you pointed out,

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we really see that his literary philosophy
is inseparable from his real his theology,

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right, his deepest health philosophy,
and so it's all intimately connected.

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And this is why when you read
Tolkien you understand that something else is going

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on, right, and so on
one hand, yeah, obviously he's not

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writing allegory or it's not Chronicles Narnia. However, he's writing out of a

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deeply held belief that words ultimately have
transcendent, eternal significance, right, and

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so naturally his storytelling is going to
present that, um again in a very

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natural way. Right. Yeah,
and so now kind of going back to

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the beginning of hitting on some of
those points in a bit more detail.

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Um, on the most basic level, you know, he's talking about fairy,

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which he identifies with the perilous realm. You know, hence the title

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of this collection that we're that I'm
going through. Now, what for Tolkien,

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what exactly is fairy or the perilous
realm? What does that mean?

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Yeah? Um, this is this
is where um, you know, it

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starts getting it's I think it starts
getting a little challenging. You know,

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we've been Um, we just did
an episode on Smith of Wooten Major,

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um, which you know you'll probably
be getting too soon enough um and UM.

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It's interesting because Smith of Wooten Major
is a really really challenging work for

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me. UM. But it has
to do with that same question. It's

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basic. It's it's essentially this story
of of uh, this this figure who

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enters into the perilous realm and and
what is this? Interestingly enough, Tolkien

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wrote it towards the end of his
life, and it's really the perilous realm

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is this place, um that it
it goes, it goes beyond our reality,

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and there's no there's no easy way
of entering into it. Um.

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Within the story of Smith of Wooten
Major, it's like, uh, you

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know, you enter into the you
you enter into the character enters into the

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woods and he kind of and it's
never really clear how he eventually comes to

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this place, but it almost seems
like it's it kind of coexists with our

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own world. Um, you know, uh, but it but it seems

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to you know, it it seems
to go beyond it. UM. I

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think for Tolkien he himself was always
kind of, you know, kind of

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like trying to get out how do
I how do I connect it with our

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own reality? He almost he almost
seems to be like, it's not just

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something you you know, enter into
through a portal or something like that,

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like through a kind of a special
you know, a special portal or something

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like that. But you go off
and you and you decide to go on

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an adventure and you you enter into
this other place. I hope you enjoyed

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that sample of my recent interview on
the Mythic Mind podcast. There's a lot

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more where that came from, so
be sure to head on over to Tolkien

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Road dot com slash Mythic Mind to
listen to the whole thing. Thanks for

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listening, and until next time,
the Road goes ever On