The Lord of the Rings: A Shortcut to Mushrooms

The Tale

Frodo wakes up the next morning to find that the elves are gone but have left them some fruit and bread and drink. The other hobbits are already up and about. While Frodo eats Pippin tries to interrogate him about what Gildor told him last night, but Frodo is evasive and asks to be left alone while he eats breakfast. Pippin walks off. Frodo has decided that he must leave his young cousins in the dark and behind him; he doesn’t want to lead them into suffering. Then he notices Sam watching him.

Frodo asks if he still means to go with him, now the road seems to be growing more dangerous.  Sam tells him that the elves told him not to leave Frodo, and that he told them he never meant to, Black Riders or no. Frodo asks him what he thinks of Elves, now that he’s met some. Sam thoughtfully remarks that they seem above his likes and dislikes. Frodo then asks if now that his dream has been fulfilled if he feels any need to leave the Shire. But Sam has been changed by his elvish encounter and he seems ‘to see ahead, in a kind of way’ and he has ‘something to do before the end’, and that it lies ahead. Frodo looks at this new Sam in wonder and says that Gandalf chose him a good companion for his journey.

Pippin returns, and to his dismay Frodo says that they’re cutting across country, staying off the Road to avoid those searching for them. At first this seems unnecessarily difficult, but when they look back and they see a black figure on the road behind them, it seems they left it just in time.

Their shortcut, however, is making a long delay, and is hard to navigate. When they finally stop for lunch, they find that the elves have filled their flasks with a mead-like drink. This leads to laughing, then humming, and finally a burst of singing. Their song is interrupted by a sudden desolate cry afar off, that is answered by similar wail in another direction. It is no call of any animal they’ve ever heard. It is plain now that they are being hunted by more than one Rider. They shoulder their packs and move on.

They travel through a line of woods for a while, but suddenly have to cross more open land, where they feel exposed. When they come to some farmland Pippin realizes where they are: the fields of Farmer Maggot. This perturbs Frodo. When he was a young lad in Buckland, he used to raid Maggot’s farm for mushrooms, a food specially loved by Hobbits. The farmer had caught him once, beat him, and threatened to set the dogs on him. Pippin says since Frodo’s coming to live nearby, he might as well make it up with him. Besides, Pippin knows him well enough.

They draw near to the farmhouse, and sure enough three ferocious, wolf-like dogs come out barking at them. They seem to remember Pippin, but stop and growl at Frodo and Sam, who freeze. Farmer Maggot strides up, angry and scowling, but calms down when he sees Pippin and recognizes the young Took. He apologizes. He's already had problems with trespassers today and is riled up. He calls off the dogs, and Pippin introduces Sam and Frodo. The farmer starts at the name of Baggins and invites them inside for some beer and talk.

It turns out he does remember Frodo, but he’s already heard the name of Baggins earlier that day. A tall black stranger on a black horse came trespassing over the fields and asked Maggot if he had seen Baggins in a strange, stiff voice. The dog Grip takes one sniff of him and runs off howling. When the farmer tells him the Bagginses live over in Hobbiton, the stranger says Baggins has left and that he knows he is now in the area. He promises Maggot gold for information when he returns, but the farmer turns down the offer and tells him to leave. The stranger rides off like a bolt of thunder.

Farmer Maggot makes some shrewd guesses that this is connected with old Mr. Bilbo’s business and says that Frodo should never have gone messing about with those ‘queer folk’ in Hobbiton. Sam bristles a bit. The people in Hobbiton have always thought it was folks in the marshy Marish and Buckland who were the odd ones. But the farmer has a plan.

They stay at his house undercover until nightfall, eating a hearty meal of bacon and mushrooms among other solid farmhouse fare. Then Farmer Maggot hides them in a ‘waggon’ and drives them to Bucklebury Ferry under cover of darkness. The farmer’s wife tells him to be careful and not to go arguing with no foreigners.

As they clop slowly through the five miles to the ferry, the night is still and quiet, and there is a chill in the air. The fog comes creeping in as they draw nearer to the river. Everyone’s nerves are strained as they listen for any sign of trouble. They finally reach the ferry lane and are starting to scramble out when the sound of approaching hooves stops them.

A dark, cloaked figure seems to loom out of the fog, coming towards them. Farmer Maggot stoutly challenges it to stop and asks what it wants. A voice comes back asking for Mister Baggins – but it is Merry Brandybuck on a pony, his figure magnified by the darkness. They are late getting to Frodo’s new house in Crickhollow and he has ridden out to make sure they haven’t lost their way in the fog.

Farmer Maggot hands over Frodo, Sam and Pippin, and gives Frodo a large basket, with Mrs. Maggot’s compliments. As they watch him drive away, Frodo laughs. From the covered basket he holds comes the rising scent of mushrooms.

Bits and Bobs

Tolkien once attended a dinner given by Dutch fans, that included ‘Maggot Soup’, which of course turned out to be mushroom soup. ‘Maggot’ is a word that can refer to worms in general, and suggests something that delves in the earth, as well as a flesh-eating grub.

Farmer Maggot’s farm is named Bamfurlong (‘Bean-field’?) and lies in the Marish (Marsh) area near Buckland. Because of the flat nature of the area the Hobbits there live mostly in houses. In one early draft the three travelers have a discussion about the weird and dizzying custom of sometimes having a second floor!

Also, in an earlier draft Frodo’s youthful encounter with Farmer Maggot’s dogs is when he is on a walking tour with Bilbo, who, in an uncharacteristically violent act, splits the attacking dog’s skull with a stone, killing it.

In that draft, ‘Bingo’ (Frodo) puts on the Ring to avoid the farmer while ‘Frodo’ (Pippin) goes inside to talk with him. Bingo pulls a few ‘invisible man’ tricks on Maggot before they leave, including drinking off his beer. These kinds of shenanigans were of course abandoned as Tolkien’s conception of the Ring grew more serious.

In the Peter Jackson films, Farmer Maggot is reduced to an unidentified hobbit with a dog who seems to be ratting out Frodo to a Black Rider, and then to an angry voice and a scythe waving over a field of corn. A rather shabby treatment for a character that Frodo eventually calls ‘a good friend’ in the book.  

The Lord of the Rings: Three's Company

The Tale

Despite what might seem the urgency of the matter, Gandalf believes that if Frodo just disappeared it would cause too many tongues to wag and increase the danger. Frodo decides that he will sell the Sackville-Baggins’s Bag End at last and say that he is moving to Crickhollow, a little house in Buckland on the borders of the Shire, and from there leave quietly for Rivendell to seek counsel and perhaps even see Bilbo again. He decides to leave on his and Bilbo’s birthday in September, as the autumn weather always makes him feel like travelling anyway.

Towards the end of June Gandalf receives a message that makes him feel restless, so he rides out to beat the bounds. He promises that he will return soon, by the Birthday at the latest, and then he promptly disappears. Frodo has his friends Folco Boffin, Fredegar (Fatty) Bolger, Meriadoc (Merry) Brandybuck, and Peregrin (Pippin) Took clean out the hobbit hole and move stuff to Crickhollow.

The day of the Birthday arrives, but still no Gandalf. The next day the grasping Lobelia and her son Lotho came at noon to get a key and take inventory before assuming ownership. Frodo and Pippin and Sam prepare to leave at sundown, with Merry driving a last load of furniture ahead. Before they leave, Frodo hears someone making inquiries at the Gaffer’s close by but dismisses it as mere poking and prying. The three head out and walk late into the night, then camp. The next day they’re off again.

Towards evening Sam hears a horse coming up the road behind them, and Frodo decides they should hide, as he’d rather not anyone see them on the road. It’s well that he did, because it turns out to be the menacing figure of a tall, black-cloaked man on a black horse. His face is hidden, but as he draws near, he can be heard sniffing, as if to catch a scent. Frodo feels tempted to put on the Ring and disappear. After a tense moment the Black Rider rides on.

It is now that Sam recalls that just such a figure had appeared to his Gaffer yesterday on Bagshot Row (which is what Frodo heard), asking after Baggins. It gave him the shudders. It seems that Frodo is being hunted.

They proceed more cautiously at first, then grow careless and start singing a walking song as twilight draws on.  Suddenly they hear hoofbeats again and they try to hide. The sound of hoofs stop, and a black horse appears, led by a crouched and searching black figure. It pauses just where the hobbits left the road and seems about to follow them, when a sudden burst of song and laughter makes it mount and ride away. A band of wandering Elves is approaching. 

The hobbits watch in wonder as they pass by, and then the last turns and greets Frodo. He is Gildor Inglorion, and his folk are a band of High Elves, who have been on a pilgrimage between Rivendell and the Tower Hills on the western sea. He is disturbed when Pippin asks them about Black Riders and declares the hobbits should stay with them in their camp above Woodhall for the night.

They march a while into the night, and when they reach their destination, the Elves treat them to their ‘poor fare’ for supper, which Frodo declares good enough for a birthday party. Sam is in seventh heaven to finally see (and hear!) Elves. After the feast Pippin falls asleep and is taken off to bed while Sam curls up and closes his eyes at Frodo’s feet. Frodo stays awake and talks to Gildor, asking his advice.

The Elf is cagey about telling him about the Black Riders, saying only that they are in the service of Sauron and best avoided. He looks grave at the news of Gandalf’s absence. But when Frodo asks him where he shall find courage on his journey, Gildor tells him courage is found in unlikely places. He blesses Frodo with the name of Elf-friend. Frodo, weary with the day’s events, goes to bed and falls into a dreamless sleep.

Bits and Bobs

The chapter title is a play on the old phrase, “two’s company and three’s a crowd”, not a reference to an old janky sitcom from the Seventies. This section of the journey is one that tends to get greatly abbreviated or left out altogether in most adaptations.

Frodo’s move to Buckland seems all the more likely because that’s where his mother Primula was born, and his earliest years were spent in Brandybuck Hall.

I love the fact that after the last meal in Bag End, Frodo leaves the washing up to Lobelia, and Sam has a last ‘goodbye’ with the beer-barrel. I also like Sam’s hat, ‘a tall, shapeless felt bag’ that makes him look like a dwarf in the gloom. I’d like to see a picture of that! I wonder if he’s supposed to wear it all through the books, at least until he gets a hooded cloak in Rivendell or Lothlorien.

Also of interest is the strange case of the thinking fox in the night, astonished to see three hobbits sleeping out. Of course, describing his 'thoughts' might just be a manner of speaking. And, if the Red Book of Westmarch is the record of what happened to the hobbits, and they were sleeping, who observed this?

In the first draft of this chapter, the mounted, sniffing figure turned out to be Gandalf! This was soon changed but goes to show that the Black Riders were completely unmeditated at the time.

Pippin comes across as shrewder that he is portrayed in most adaptations, and certainly willing to needle Frodo in a good-natured way. He asks a load of pertinent questions, to some of which he seems already to guess the answers.

We also get a good first look of Tolkien’s more noble conception of the Elves, a serious advancement on what we are told in The Hobbit and closer to what he’d written in The Silmarillion. This is conveyed mostly by how the hobbits react to them; their thoughts and opinions guide ours more than a mere description could.

The Lord of the Rings: The Shadow of the Past

                                           The Tale

Seventeen years pass sleepily in the Shire. At first Gandalf visits every now and then, never staying long, but as the chapter begins Frodo has not seen him for nine years. Frodo has kept up Bilbo’s reputation for eccentricity, wandering about the land, talking to passing Dwarves, and maybe even going off to see Elves occasionally. There are rumors filtering through of a Dark Power returning to the distant and evil land of Mordor. Frodo’s doings are discussed one evening in the Green Dragon. Sam Gamgee, who has become his gardener, defends Frodo and all the legendary world, while Ted Sandyman is more skeptical. Sam goes home, looking up thoughtfully at the stars.

That same April evening, Gandalf turns up at last and he and Frodo talk late into the night. When morning comes the old wizard tells him some evil tidings that he did not wish to speak of in the darkness. The Dark Lord Sauron has indeed returned.

He explains the nature of the Great Rings of Power, how they prolong the lives of mortals and bestow invisibility when they are worn by them. He grew curious about the nature of Bilbo’s ring almost immediately, but all that Saruman, the ring expert of the wizardly order, could tell him quieted his fears for a while. Until the night of Bilbo’s departure.

That disquieted him so much he began a search in earnest to discover the true nature of the ring. There is but one final test to be made. Frodo gives him the ring, and the wizard throws it into the fire. Frodo cries out, but when Gandalf removes the ring, it is not even warm. But there are suddenly fiery letters surrounding the band, inside and out, that identify it as the long-lost One Ring.

That Ring was made by Sauron long ago, but when Elendil and Gil-Galad overthrew him (though perishing in the deed) Isildur Elendil’s son cut it from the Dark Lord’s hand. Sauron’s spirit fled and hid for long years, slowly taking shape and growing again over the centuries. But when Isildur was attacked by Orcs while returning to his kingdom in the north, he put the Ring on and leapt into the Anduin River to escape. It slipped from his finger, and becoming visible, Isildur was slain and the Ring lost.

Gandalf has been trying to fill in the gap in the history between Isildur and the creature Gollum, from whom Bilbo won the Ring. With the help of Aragorn, “the greatest traveller and huntsman of this age”, he finally found Gollum, and questioning the wretched thing, pieced together his story.

Long ago, Gollum had been a Hobbit-like creature named Smeagol. When his friend Deagol had found the Ring in the river while fishing, he killed him and took the precious thing. He was banished from his family and wandered off, eventually crawling into the caves in the Misty Mountains. There the Ring prolonged his life for centuries, until he lost it to the passing Bilbo, who rather unwisely told him his name. After a year or so Gollum left the mountains and followed Bilbo’s trail all the way to Mirkwood, overhearing Bilbo’s story (it was great news in those parts) and learning the name of the Shire. As he headed vaguely south, he was drawn at last to the evil of Mordor, where he was captured, tortured by the Dark Lord for his information, then let loose to work his mischief. That was when Gandalf found him, questioned him, then left him in the care of the Wood Elves. Frodo wishes that Bilbo had killed the vile creature, but Gandalf says it was Bilbo’s pity that helped him to resist the corruption of the Ring for so long.

After hearing the tale, Frodo asks why they don’t just destroy the Ring. Gandalf asks him to try, but it already has such a hold on the hobbit that he finds himself unable to even seek to damage it. Gandalf tells him it is only in the volcanic fires of Mt. Doom, in Mordor, in the very heart of Sauron’s land, that it can be unmade. He also reveals that with the names of Baggins and Shire now known to the Dark Lord, it is inevitable that his evil servants will come seeking it. Frodo tries to pawn the Ring off onto Gandalf, but the wizard dares not take it lest he become corrupted. Frodo reluctantly realizes that for the safety of the Shire he must leave and draw danger away from his home. Gandalf is impressed by his resolve and warns him to beware enemy spies and to adopt the traveling name of Mr. Underhill.

Gandalf hears a noise outside the window and suddenly hauls Sam inside, who, having been working in the yard, has become enthralled by the tales told and overheard Frodo’s resolve to leave. Frodo makes him promise to tell no-one of his plan, and Gandalf humorously decides to punish him by making him go with Frodo, thus fulfilling his lifelong dream to see Elves. Sam bursts into happy tears.

Bits and Bobs

Tons of information given here, and quite a bit of time summarized, albeit in an engaging and intriguing manner.

Ted Sandyman (who seems to embody the worst of the small-minded elements of the Hobbit race) thinks Sam’s cousin Halfast is ‘half-ast’ when he reports seeing a creature like a walking tree on the North Moors.  A foreshadowing of the Ents, or maybe a Huorn from the Old Forest, or even one of the lost Entwives, the incident is never exactly explained. Sam, who has been ‘infected’ with wonder by the tales of Bilbo (who taught him his letters), wants to believe.

In an interview reported in A Reader’s Companion, Tolkien said he composed the Ring-Verse in his bathtub, although it underwent several revisions (for example, at first there were 9 rings for Elves and 3 for Men). This verse helped solidify the number of the Great Rings. Also, in an early version the rings could turn Elves into ‘elf-wraiths’ (although not under Sauron’s domination), and some were given to Orcs to make them ‘orc-wraiths’. I suppose this was later deemed unnecessary as Orcs were already in his control.

Gandalf hints obscurely that there is another power beyond Sauron (‘chance, if chance you call it’ or ‘luck’ or something that ‘meant for Bilbo and Frodo to find the Ring’). In retrospect, this suggests that Eru (the One, the Creator) is guiding events so that there is an opportunity to defeat Sauron if people will act on it.

Frodo’s threat to have Gandalf turn Sam into a toad is apparently a joke, as Gandalf never shows such a power, but Sam takes it seriously. 

The Lord of the Rings: A Long-Expected Party

To begin with, the title of this first chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring echoes the title An Unexpected Party, the first chapter of The Hobbit.  Tolkien reports that he began trying to write a sequel to his surprisingly popular children’s book a mere three months after it was published in 1937. As it happened, it was 1954 before the first volume of this sequel came out; that’s a whole 17 years. And The Lord of the Rings became more than the simple adventure that the publishers Allen & Unwin had requested and expected.

                                             The Tale

To summarize the events: Bilbo Baggins, having lived to the respectable age of 111, is preparing ‘a party of special magnificence’. His neighbors, family, and friends are all humming with anticipation and are busy remembering and recounting his peculiarities and history. For one thing, he has never married but has adopted young Frodo, who is both his first and second cousin (not his nephew). The wizard Gandalf comes to Bag End to visit his old friend and to set off his fireworks at the gathering. Gandalf and Frodo are the only ones who know that Bilbo has a special surprise planned for the end of the party.

The evening of the birthday celebration arrives, and after hours of feasting and entertainment (including fireworks), Bilbo gets up to give a speech. After teasing and insulting his special 144 party guests, he astounds them all by announcing that he is leaving the Shire; then, using his secret magical ring, promptly disappears. He leaves the party field and returns to Bag End. While he is preparing to depart, Gandalf comes in to see him off. After some disturbing behavior from the old hobbit, Gandalf finally persuades him to leave his ring behind for Frodo, and Bilbo hits the road, heading for the Lonely Mountain with three dwarves who had come to assist him.

The next day Frodo is left to manage the aftermath of the party. As Bilbo’s legal heir and the new master of Bag End, Frodo must deal with Bilbo’s legacies and the legal ramifications of his disappearance. It has particularly upset his relations the Sackville-Baggins who have been waiting for sixty years (since Bilbo’s first disappearance on the Quest to Erebor) to take over Bag End and the headship of the Baggins family. Gandalf briefly visits Frodo and advises him to use the ring as little as possible or not at all; his suspicions have been aroused by Bilbo’s troubling actions. The old wizard leaves and Frodo does not see him again for a long time.

Bits and Bobs

As this is the oldest chapter, it is also the most heavily re-written, especially as Tolkien tried to feel his way into the tale. He had little or no idea of where it would go. As is told in The Return of the Shadow (History of Middle-earth Vol. 6) at one point in Tolkien’s many efforts Bilbo even had a son, named Bingo (so-called after a family of teddy bears owned by daughter Priscilla), who through many permutations eventually turned into Frodo. What is particularly fascinating about this process is noticing how many elements and phrases remain basically the same, no matter how rearranged or repurposed they are. It is also filled with reminders and elements from The Hobbit, from dwarves to Dale to dragons to treasure, forging the links between ‘the enchanting prelude’ and the new epic.

“A Long-Expected Party” is the most concentrated example of Hobbitry in the whole saga. As remarked by Tolkien elsewhere, the short stature of the Hobbits reflects the reach of their imagination, and he seems to delight in recounting their simple (but occasionally shrewd) outlook on life. Some readers have found them more annoying than delightful, but that is part of their charm. Even Frodo, who has a larger grasp of the world, finds them smug and tiresome at times. They are a down-to-earth rustic folk, with all the good and bad qualities that implies. Their world, with its post offices and birthday parties, is one we can easily slip into before going on to more unusual adventures.

It is in this chapter that we are first introduced briefly to Sam, and later Merry. We also encounter Lobelia Sackville-Baggins (at one time in the early versions named ‘Griselda’) who, with her family, will play a short but significant role in Frodo’s life in the Shire. An artifact of interest is this real-life invitation, reminiscent of the post-party hobbits wheeled off in barrows after a hard night of celebration.   

The Lord of the Rings: Foreword and Prologue

Let me first begin with a few words about The Lord of the Rings itself. It is often referred to as a ‘trilogy’ (“Three books!”) but that only happened because of the exigency of the British publishing industry at the time (1954-1955), which was still suffering from the shortages that were a consequent of World War II. It was always meant to be one long tale, not three separate but interconnected volumes. It has since been published in that one volume format, many times, in increasingly elaborate editions as the popularity of Tolkien has grown. The Lord of the Rings itself consists of six ‘books’ or divisions, The Ring Sets Out and The Ring Goes South in The Fellowship of the Ring, The Treason of Isengard and The Ring Goes East in The Two Towers, and The War of the Ring and The End of the Third Age in The Return of the King. There have actually been times when each of these six divisions have been published this way serially, with a seventh volume for maps and appendices.

When I first read The Fellowship of the Ring, I can almost guarantee that I skipped over the Foreword. My instinct (at the time) was to get right into the story. At best, I probably skimmed over the Prologue, not paying complete attention to the lore that would become such a deep interest to me after I had completed the tale and was eager, nay, thirsty for more detail.

The Foreword of the 1965 Second Edition replaced the much shorter and somewhat ‘twee’ Foreword of the First Edition. In that one, Tolkien was rather more committed to the fiction of the historicity of this translation of ‘The Red Book of Westmark’. After a dozen or so years of success and criticism, he had a lot more to say about his struggles to complete it. He also had a few tart words for his detractors: “Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible: and I have no cause to complain, since I have a similar opinion of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.” Zing! This Second Edition, while correcting many errors of the First, also included the new Foreword to help secure copyright in the USA, where Ace Books was putting out a pirate edition that they believed was permissible through a legal loophole. The courts eventually decided against Ace, and they had to start paying Tolkien recompense. It was also this controversy that began the custom of printing on the authorized Ballantine paperbacks the statement: “This paperback edition, and no other, has been published with my consent and co-operation. Those who approve of courtesy (at least) to living authors will purchase it and no other.” It was certainly still a thing when I got my paperbacks. Whether it is yet a custom so many decades after the original reason or not, I do not know.

The Prologue is divided into five parts, Concerning Hobbits, Concerning Pipe-weed, Of the Ordering of the Shire, Of the Finding of the Ring, and Note on the Shire Records. The first three give a lot of background about Hobbits in general, information that it would be difficult or clumsy to include in the course of the narrative.

It is here that we learn that ‘pipe-weed’ or ‘leaf’ is “a variety probably of Nicotiana”; i.e. tobacco, and not ‘weed’ or marijuana. This was an association made as far back as the Hippie Age of Tolkien fandom and perpetuated by jesting insinuations in the Jackson films.  It is also here that we learn that Harfoots are definitely Hobbits, and that Hobbits are an offshoot of the human race, ‘cousins of ours’, mortal and not magical. The accumulation of details go far to building up the verisimilitude not only of the Hobbits but of the world they live in. They begin grounded in the likely, and gradually progress into the wondrous and heroic. ‘Of the Finding of the Ring’ brings details from The Hobbit to readers who may have forgotten them, or indeed had never even read them. It brings them into a more ‘grown-up’ context and accounts for the differences between the story of Bilbo’s encounter with Gollum from the original edition to the revised version, which put things more in line with The Lord of the Rings. It even offers an in-world reason for the change. ‘Shire Records’ gives a pedigree for the ‘copy’ of The Red Book of Westmark that was ‘translated’ by Tolkien, and even teases the possibility of the forthcoming Silmarillion with Bilbo’s Translations from the Elvish.

And now being primed for the actual tale, we are ready to begin The Lord of the Rings.

A New Door or A Secret Gate

 

Second Edition, Eighth Printing (Not My Copies)

A very peculiar thing happened to me yesterday. When I went looking for a particular quote to preface my post on Tolkien’s birthday, I pulled out my old ex-library copy of The Return of the King as the easiest to go searching in, as it would lay open at the page while I transcribed it. And then something happened that I had not intended.

I became re-enchanted.

Let me explain. The set that this volume belonged to is the very first place that I ever read The Lord of the Rings, way back in middle school, the 1976-1977 school year. As such, it carries not only my first impressions of the tale, but also of all the sensory experiences I had while reading it, from its size in my hand to its unfamiliar British quotation marks to its characteristic letter font. The runes, the metallic embossment on the covers (coppery-orange, red and purple) shining in the black covers as if out of the deeps of time, the maps, perhaps even the (then to me) unfamiliar format of one enormous story told in a trilogy, made reading it an intense and immersive experience.

The years passed, and I must have read The Lord of the Rings dozens of times, first in these books and then in many other editions. I became so familiar with it that I did not even have to read it again; all I had to do was summon up a scene, and it would play out in my mind. Indeed, it became almost impossible to reread it as a whole without losing patience and trailing off at some point. I would still review certain sections at times, but it had become like one’s nose: you can always see it, but your mind usually edits it out unless for some reason you become aware of it.

Well, I found my quotation, and then started flipping around a bit, assessing the condition of the book, and sniffing its old, somehow watery smell. I started reading, almost at random, the section concerning the Siege of Minas Tirith and the arrival of the Rohirrim, certainly one of the most enthralling episodes of the book. And here I made a rather unsettling discovery.

I found that I had been expecting the arrival of Aragorn with the Dead Men of Dunharrow, only to realize or remember with a bit of a shock that that happened only in the Jackson movies, that Aragorn’s army in the black ships consisted of living men that he had gathered coming upriver after defeating the Corsairs with the undead host! Perhaps my memories could use a bit of touching up after all; perhaps I was finally ready for a complete rereading at last. One other line cemented my resolve. It says that it was ‘given’ to Gandalf to see what was happening on the battlefield while he went to rescue Faramir and take him to the Houses of Healing, a detail, and a power that I never paid attention to before. Who gave it, and under what circumstances? There were clearly corners where I could still find little mysteries and surprises. And the format was giving me very strong nostalgic vibes, and ... I was re-enchanted again.

So, I have determined to begin my new reading tomorrow and chronicle it here. My plan is to read a chapter a day, remark on passages that particularly strike me, and even add background points of interest mentioned in places like The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion (Hammond and Scull) or the four volumes in The History of Middle-earth that deal with the composition of the tale. I doubt if my reviews will be exhaustive (though possibly exhausting after a while) and will be interrupted by other subjects in the blog, but by the end I should have a renewed understanding of Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings. Anyway, that’s my proposed story arc going into 2023. Let’s see how far it will take me.

"Oh, Most Happy Birthday For Us All!"

 

Then Bilbo woke up and opened his eyes. ‘Hullo, Frodo!’ he said. ‘Well, I have passed the Old Took today! So that’s settled. And now I think I am quite ready to go on another journey. Are you coming?’

 

Today is the 131^st anniversary of J. R. R Tolkien’s birthday in 1892. That would make him the exact age of Bilbo when he headed off for the Grey Havens, after surpassing the Old Took’s record. Every year I like to take a little time to remember Tolkien himself, personally, and not only his incredible literary achievements.  Indeed, there are few authors who can claim that they changed the course of literature in quite the way that he did, almost accidentally, while he was working his day job and raising a family.

This Catholic orphan fought his way up through poverty, using philology, of all unlikely tools, to develop a mythology and a philosophy that has influenced millions. Even when he was finally enjoying a good measure of fame and fortune, he refused to trim his sails to the winds of his fandom or compromise his vision simply for the sake of money. Well, to be fair, he once said that he might, if he was offered a simply enormous, prohibitive amount; it was ‘Cash or Kudos’, meaning either a ton of money or artistic faithfulness to his tale. As neither was forthcoming, he squashed the deal, a deal his grandson later accepted, taking the cash and abandoning the kudos.

Still, Tolkien’s creations stand above the winds of the Zeitgeist, and as Matthew Arnold said about Shakespeare,

“Others abide our question. Thou art free.

We ask and ask—Thou smilest and art still.”

That such an outwardly simple but inwardly profound work was produced by a life of common virtue is a deep consolation and an astonishing example for us all. And it still stands above all the flaws of all the adaptations that have been attempted.

I would like to end this rather rambling post with an acknowledgement and an appreciation for the influence that Tolkien has had on my life. What I would be like now if I had never found him, I cannot even comprehend. He has provided for me a certain depth of thought, a key into an older world, a release from the bondage of the Spirit of the Age. I might not even be Catholic if it weren’t for his protoevangelium.

I look forward to some day meeting him and thanking him face to face. It is a hope that I have.