{"id":5741,"date":"2014-05-05T10:24:50","date_gmt":"2014-05-05T14:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=5741"},"modified":"2014-05-05T10:24:50","modified_gmt":"2014-05-05T14:24:50","slug":"reading-the-lord-of-the-rings-as-spiritual-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=5741","title":{"rendered":"Reading The Lord of the Rings as Spiritual Food"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Why is the Lord of the Rings so <a href=\"http:\/\/notionclubpapers.blogspot.com\/2014\/04\/why-is-lord-of-rings-so-good-at.html\">good at nourishing the spiritual flame<\/a>?&#8221; asks Professor Bruce Charlton. &#8220;I think the answer is metaphysical &#8211; in other words, it is related to the basic set-up of imagined reality which structures the story and the ancillary material.<\/p>\n<p>When people say that Middle Earth seems real &#8211; realer, in a sense, than this earth &#8211; this is what they probably mean.<\/p>\n<p>It is not convincing characters, nor detailed landscapes and maps, nor the specifics of languages and history that sets Tolkien&#8217;s mythic world apart from any other I have encountered; it is a step back from all that: the sense that everything fits together in a deep and coherent fashion.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Why is the Lord of the Rings so good at nourishing the spiritual flame?&#8221; asks Professor Bruce Charlton. &#8220;I think the answer is metaphysical &#8211; in other words, it is related to the basic set-up of imagined reality which structures the story and the ancillary material. When people say that Middle Earth seems real &#8211; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=5741\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Reading The Lord of the Rings as Spiritual Food<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[994],"class_list":["post-5741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coffee-tea-drinks","tag-food"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}