XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.fan.tolkien
From: Troels@ThisIsFake.invalid
In message
Stan Brown spoke these staves:
>
> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:59:06 GMT from Troels Forchhammer
> :
>>
>> Many readers, as far as I know, envision the plot and the world
>> vividly, but I don't do that when I read the text, nor do I
>> 'hear' the plot -- for me the enchantment is in the words
>> themselves rather than in any images or sounds they conjure;
>
> I wonder: do you think not being a native English speaker(*)
> deepens your appreciation for the words? I know that when I read
> French authors in the original I enjoyed the words as much as the
> tales.
I suppose that there is an element of that involved as well, though
I'd also have to say that the enchantment is in the words about
reading in Danish. The odd thing is that if I stop reading, I can
close my eyes while still under the enchantment and see images, but I
rarely have time for that.
One thing that I know positively to affect my appreciation of the
words when I read English is the richness of the language -- it is a
grief to me that written Danish has lost its ability to express
dialect and that all texts are invariably modernized when a new
edition is made (that includes _everything_ -- the Bible,
Kierkegaard, Hans Christian Andersen, Ludvig Holberg, Grundtvig . . .
the only exception being a few psalms in the standard book of hymns
and psalms of the Church of Denmark). The ability in English to vary
the language three-dimensionally (both in time and in place)
contributes to the experience of depth in the book: especially, of
course, when done by a true master such as Tolkien.
Proficience is another thing that matters -- if I were to start
reading German more seriously I would have to be _very_ attentive to
the words, but I don't think they'd hold any enchantment for me until
I had practiced enough to expand me vocabulary considerably .
> (*) I'm not sure it's entirely accurate to say that Danes are not
> native English speakers. :-) As far as I can see, virtually every
> Scandinavian born after about World War II speaks English as well
> as most Americans.
You should at least not judge the average capability by what you see
here -- the level exhibited by the Scandinavians here (and of nearly
every other Scandinavian I've come across on usenet) is quite a bit
above average (even if some of us Tolkien fans probably have a
slightly outdated vocabulary -- on the other hand it's good to know
of oast, barner and byre ;-)
>> Still, insofar as I do imagine anything when reading, I, too,
>> tend to 'hear' the singing of the Ainur as traditional music
>> (symphonic, actually)
>
> I think Haydn captured some of their music in /The Creation/.
> There are several choruses of angels in it, with "pipes and
> trumpets and viols", and whenever I listen to it I think of the
> Ainulindalė.
Good choice. I have a piece in mind, but I can't remember neither
name nor composer, I'm afraid (that's only slightly less helpful than
what I do remember -- I think it's been used in a film at some point,
and though it is at places rather more pompous than my usual
preferences, I don't think it is Wagner).
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom
of thought which they avoid.
- Soren Kierkegaard
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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