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squire
Half-elven
Feb 25 2016, 1:09pm
Post #1 of 26
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**The Stairs of Cirith Ungol** 4. ‘…some will say at this point: “Shut the book now, dad; we don’t want to read any more.”’
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Today we have reached a resting spot in the chapter. Frodo and Sam and Gollum, having climbed the Stairs of Cirith Ungol, have decided to spend the night where they are, in the high pass, before attempting the tunnel and tower still ahead.
Summary of today’s section
They take a scant meal and are especially careful with their water. They discuss where, if anyplace, they may expect to find drinkable water in Mordor and its approaches. Sam notes that, although they have left the deadly taint of Morgul Vale far below and behind, there is now a “wicked feeling” and “a queer kind of smell.” Frodo agrees that they are truly in an accursed spot.
This touches a chord of romance in Sam, and he begins to speculate on the nature of adventure stories, and the motivations and fates of people who appear in adventure stories. He realizes that adventures only become so when they are retold later, as tales; at the time they are dangerous and don’t always end happily ever after. He wonders if they will have a happy or sad ending. Frodo agrees, but points out that in a well-told tale, the characters don’t know their fates. Sam makes a connection to the Tale of Beren and Luthien, and realizes with a start that he and Frodo are in the same “great tale”, ages later. Unlike Frodo, who speculates gloomily that they are in for it, Sam assumes he will go home in the end and get back to his gardening. Then he wonders if he and Frodo will be put in a book that will be read to children in later years. The two hobbits josh with each other about how they will appear to hobbit-children listeners. Frodo darkly notes that they are actually right now at the kind of place where youngsters won’t want to hear any more, because it’s too scary. Sam disagrees – to him, tales are never too scary because by that time they “are different”. Even Gollum will probably be easier to take in the book than he is in real life. That jolts them into realizing that Gollum has disappeared.
The subject changes: has Gollum led them to this forsaken place just to betray them to orcs in the tower? Frodo and Sam analyze Gollum’s motivations: 1) Get the Ring; 2) Keep Sauron from getting the Ring; 3) Some “private trick of his own—that he thinks is quite secret”, as Frodo puts it. Sam doubts they will get into Mordor with the Ring, without Gollum showing his hand, whatever betrayal he may have prepared. With that, Sam begs Frodo to get some rest, while Sam is there to protect him. He cuddles Frodo into his lap, with his arm around his master, and Frodo in relief tries to sleep.
Some questions
A. Why does Sam assume that the old tales are true, about the adventures of real people?
B. How can Sam imagine having tales read to a child out of a book, when his father certainly did no such thing with him and his siblings?
C. Why would Frodo recognize that Sam’s dialect and speech is comic, in the context of a tale?
D. What does Sam mean when he says that once a tale is in a book, the scary parts are “different” so that he would never refuse to listen no matter how scary?
E. Is Sam right, that Gollum is “good in a tale, better than he is to have by you, anyway”?
F. How does Frodo so accurately predict that Gollum’s motivation is to betray them through “some private trick”?
G. Given his foresight, why does Frodo nevertheless does everything Gollum tells him to?
Two exhausted, scared and lonely males discuss their imminent deaths, or possible survival and return to the comforts of home.
H. Why do they not mention the females in their lives (girlfriends, mothers, sisters, etc. - e.g., "Shut the book now, ma; we don't want to read any more")?
I. To what degree is this entire episode a conversation that J. R. R. Tolkien was having with himself, or perhaps with the Inklings, about the nature of legends?
J. Are the hobbits talking about what we, and/or Tolkien, would call ‘Fairy-stories’?
K. Does this dialogue distract us from the horror of the end of Book IV, or does it enhance it?
Some pictures
 
1. Dagmar Jung “The famousest of all the hobbits” 2. Story time, early 20th C. England.
L. As a reflection of personal experience, which might be the stranger or odder illustration to a 21st century reader of The Lord of the Rings: A midnight campfire chat on a wild and rocky mountaintop, or cozy bedtime stories with the entire family listening?
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Footeramas: The 3rd & 4th TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion and NOW the 1st BotR Discussion too! and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Feb 25 2016, 3:11pm
Post #2 of 26
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The point at which one peeps at the end of the book?
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A. Why does Sam assume that the old tales are true, about the adventures of real people?
Well in Middle-earth the old tales are true, aren't they?
And in real-life didn't people then to believe the old tales, before the advent of archaeology and history as a rigorous discipline?
I think there's also a sense in which the old tales are true - psychologically if not historically. Characters such as King Arthur or Robin Hood retain a place in the public imagination because of the meaningfulness fof them as stories, regardless of whether they were completely invented characters, or based in part on one or more historical people.
B. How can Sam imagine having tales read to a child out of a book, when his father certainly did no such thing with him and his siblings?
Reading the story out of a book "with red and black letters" is only one of the options Sam thinks of. I'm imagining that he heard plenty of fireside tales,and of course Old Mister Bilbo is known to be very eager for any audience that doesn't shuffle off as quickly as possible. I like to imagine the young Sam being one of Bilbo's less impatient listeners.
Sam, of course, can read - an unusual distinction for someone of his class it seems - and perhaps he already likes to imagine himself as paterfamilias, showing off this skill.
The book with red and black letters sounds to me as if it is being addressed somewhat ironically to us readers - Tolkien intended some sections (e.g. the fiery letters f the inscription on the Ring in Book I Ch 2) to be printed in red, though I believe this wasn't possible for production reasons in the initial printing. However, when I read my 60th Anniversary edition I am indeed reading exactly the kind of book Sam imagines.
...and internally to the story, Tolkien pretends that the book he has presented us with is a translation of the Red Book Of Westmarch, allowing the possibility that either Frodo or Sam have written up this bit of intertextuality sitting at home back in Bag End. This allows me as a reader to feel a bit of satisfaction for Sam, a bit of relief from the sombre mood of this part of the story. Lastly, of course, the story was originally to end with an epilogue in which Sam does indeed read this story to his children...
C. Why would Frodo recognize that Sam’s dialect and speech is comic, in the context of a tale?
I think that what makes Frodo laugh is Sam's impression of a Hobbiton father and son discussing the tale. I don't think he's laughing at Sam's speech when Sam is speaking naturally. I think this is one of the things which makes this part touching - Frodo, I think, hasn't given much thought to his legacy as a story character, whereas Sam has been thinking things through in this way: comparing their adventures to Bilbo's and to other Great Tales.
We can also think that Frodo is not destined to be thought of as "the famousest of hobbits" in his lifetime. The indifference of Shire society to the returned Frodo becomes a problem for both Frodo and Sam.
D. What does Sam mean when he says that once a tale is in a book, the scary parts are “different” so that he would never refuse to listen no matter how scary?
Unless one is reading George RR Martin, there's a pretty strong assumption that the hero will win through. How many of us at this point in the book really think that Frodo is about to be captured, and then tortured to death with the story then finishing as Sauron crushes the life out of Middle-earth and our other heroes?
E. Is Sam right, that Gollum is “good in a tale, better than he is to have by you, anyway”?
Well, we can't smell him for one thing! I like Sam wanting to know whether Gollum sees himself as the hero or villain of the tale - I think that's actually a deep question.
F. How does Frodo so accurately predict that Gollum’s motivation is to betray them through “some private trick”?
It seems like the logical conclusion of their analysis - the only way Gollum might secure the different aims they've listed.
G. Given his foresight, why does Frodo nevertheless does everything Gollum tells him to?
There has yet to be a better option. Frodo thinks he will see the trick coming. And he underestimates Gollum the dismissive 'little'in 'some little private trick' is revealing, I think. Lastly, Frodo has a degree of fatalism.
Two exhausted, scared and lonely males discuss their imminent deaths, or possible survival and return to the comforts of home.
H. Why do they not mention the females in their lives (girlfriends, mothers, sisters, etc. - e.g., "Shut the book now, ma; we don't want to read any more")?
beats me. Women-folk are, however, hardly ever mentioned in these circumstances. Before going through the Paths of the Dead, Aragorn makes a veiled reference that he'd rather be in Rivendell. But that is part of his discussion with Eowyn about duty (and implicitly about what footing if any their relationship is on) so he may be hinting to her deliberately that he has a girlfriend so as to spare her further false hopes or embarrassment. Aragorn drops a similar veiled hint to the hobbits at Weathertop, and they back away conversationally
I. To what degree is this entire episode a conversation that J. R. R. Tolkien was having with himself, or perhaps with the Inklings, about the nature of legends?
Possibly it is, though I think it has other uses. It provides a pause and some light relief. It gives us an opportunity to think of a way in which Frodo and Sam's 'path' is an unusual one in a tale. It's more usual for a hero to adventure to get something and return enriched by it - like Sam points out that Bilbo did. Frodo has to get rid of an unwanted thing. he is perhaps a bit like Sir Gawain (in the 14th century English verse epic which Tolkien translated) who has to undertake a perilous and difficult winter journey to keep an appointment to have his head chopped off, because that is what honour demands. Like Gawain, Frodo goes on without hope.
J. Are the hobbits talking about what we, and/or Tolkien, would call ‘Fairy-stories’?
yes - I don't think that hobbit culture goes in much for other kind sof adventures. Popular stories such as how was it that Frodo's parents drowned don't have the same epic properties.
K. Does this dialogue distract us from the horror of the end of Book IV, or does it enhance it?
Enhance it, I think. It works better for us to be encouraged to think about Frodo's role in a tale than if he tells us what he thinks. It gives Frodo a chance to thank Sam properly (hence Sam's immediate blushes). Personally, I needed this slight, light pause in the grimness.
~~~~~~
volunteers are still needed to lead chapters for our upcoming ROTK read-through http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=893293#893293
A set of links to our Book III discussions can be found here: http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=886383#886383
A wonderful list of links to previous read-throughs is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
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No One in Particular
Lorien
Feb 25 2016, 3:22pm
Post #3 of 26
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I'll take a stab at at a coupleof these...
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A. Why does Sam assume that the old tales are true, about the adventures of real people?
Because he met some of them in Rivendell and Lothlorien. :) I would imagine child Sam probably believed the stories because he was told they were true, and most likely tweenage Sam stopped believing because such things, while entertaining, were the stuff of legend. Then things started happening in the years between the Farewell Party and Frodo's journey, and he started believing again. After all, he has listened at Gandalf's knee every chance he gets...
B. How can Sam imagine having tales read to a child out of a book, when his father certainly did no such thing with him and his siblings?
I have always imagined "Old Mr. Bilbo" filled that role in place of the Gaffer. We know that Bilbo "learned him his letters" after all.
D. What does Sam mean when he says that once a tale is in a book, the scary parts are “different” so that he would never refuse to listen no matter how scary?
No matter how good the story, no matter how excellently told, at the end of the day it's still a story in a book, and therefore not really dangerous. Even if it happens to be a true story, it's over and done now, and the history has been written by the winners.
E. Is Sam right, that Gollum is “good in a tale, better than he is to have by you, anyway”?
Indubitably. :)
F. How does Frodo so accurately predict that Gollum’s motivation is to betray them through “some private trick”?
He understands Gollum's mind, either because the ring has granted him understanding of another Ring-bearer, or because he is intelligent and perceptive enough in his own right that he has been able to gain that insight on his own. I think probably the latter.
G. Given his foresight, why does Frodo nevertheless does everything Gollum tells him to?
What else will he do? He believes that his fate is bound to Gollum through the ring and the quest. By this time Frodo seems to have a slightly fatalistic view of his life. Also, perhaps he is trying to do something to reclaim Gollum in the process.
While you live, shine
Have no grief at all
Life exists only for a short while
And time demands an end.
Seikilos Epitaph
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oliphaunt
Lorien
Feb 25 2016, 4:53pm
Post #4 of 26
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A. Why does Sam assume that the old tales are true, about the adventures of real people?
No One said because he'd met some of the real people. Oliphaunt agrees with No One!
B. How can Sam imagine having tales read to a child out of a book, when his father certainly did no such thing with him and his siblings?
Mr. Bilbo read to Sammie.
C. Why would Frodo recognize that Sam’s dialect and speech is comic, in the context of a tale?
Frodo isn't laughing at Sam, but with him.
D. What does Sam mean when he says that once a tale is in a book, the scary parts are “different” so that he would never refuse to listen no matter how scary?
Because your bacon is not in the pan or on the stork, I mean fork. You are already past the end of the tale.
E. Is Sam right, that Gollum is “good in a tale, better than he is to have by you, anyway”?
Yes. I thoroughly enjoy book Gollum, but for sure would be horrified by in-person Gollum.
F. How does Frodo so accurately predict that Gollum’s motivation is to betray them through “some private trick”?
Frodo has been growing in wisdom and perceptiveness, as Galadriel pointed out.
G. Given his foresight, why does Frodo nevertheless does everything Gollum tells him to?
He's following the path set before him, as instructed by the Wise (Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel). Plus he thinks he can manage Gollum's tricks. He's controlled Gollum so far.
H. Why do they not mention the females in their lives (girlfriends, mothers, sisters, etc. - e.g., "Shut the book now, ma; we don't want to read any more")?
The bro-mance is fulfilling enough! Actually, Frodo doesn't have a mother, father, sister or brother. Sam doesn't have a mother either, as far as we know. There is Rosie, but he didn't "speak" to her. Sam loves Mr. Frodo more than he does Rosie.
I. To what degree is this entire episode a conversation that J. R. R. Tolkien was having with himself, or perhaps with the Inklings, about the nature of legends? Are the hobbits talking about what we, and/or Tolkien, would call ‘Fairy-stories’?
They are on the inside of the story, so for them it is not a story, but reality. But when Sam imagines retelling their adventure, he's creating a story. So they are both inside and outside the story at once.
K. Does this dialogue distract us from the horror of the end of Book IV, or does it enhance it?
Sam is trying to distract Frodo and himself from the horror. It does work, for the hobbits, for a bit. But for me, the reader outside the story, it increases my sympathy and draws me further into the horror of their experience.
L. As a reflection of personal experience, which might be the stranger or odder illustration to a 21st century reader of The Lord of the Rings: A midnight campfire chat on a wild and rocky mountaintop, or cozy bedtime stories with the entire family listening?
The hobbit illustration looks quite realistic. The other illustration is obviously a weird fantasy world where children wear ties and dresses and shoes to bed.
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enanito
Rohan
Feb 25 2016, 6:36pm
Post #5 of 26
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Back in chapter 2 of FOTR, Sam and Ted Sandyman are discussing the validity of fireside tales and children's stories. After Sam waxes lyrical about the Elves leaving Middle Earth across the sea, the author notes that the fragments and half-remembered stories about Elves had always moved Sam most deeply. I'm not sure we're given any reason 'why' Sam is this way, but he looks to have been like this from a young age.
That seems to be a characteristic that serves Sam greatly as Frodo's companion, his ability to see beyond the Shire-life and envision himself playing a role in these great stories. Albeit with a hobbit's sensibility, retaining a hope that when all is said and done and the story's roles pass on to others, he will return back home to a simple life of gardening (and that Rosie Cotton, if I'm lucky...)
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enanito
Rohan
Feb 25 2016, 6:46pm
Post #6 of 26
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Does Frodo really have a choice _not_ to do exactly as Gollum asks?
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And not in a fatalistic or pre-destined sense (although we know Frodo is fairly fatalistic about the Quest in many ways).
I think Frodo realizes that until an alternative appears, he's at a complete loss without Gollum. Since the Morannon (which he never would have found without Gollum anyways), Frodo has had no clue whatsoever how he might find a way into Mordor. Walking into a trap is palatable if at least you know it's the only way to move forward.
It's only at the end of this chapter when Frodo finally feels like he can chart his own path -- "Can we find the rest of the way by ourselves"? And Gollum reacts by playing on Frodo's known fear of not knowing the way, by replying "No, no, not yet... they can't find the way themselves, can they"?
So reluctantly Frodo again does what Gollum tells him to, against his own judgement but not trusting there's a better alternative.
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Darkstone
Immortal
Feb 25 2016, 7:38pm
Post #8 of 26
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"No one goes to The Green Dragon anymore. It's too crowded."
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"You have stumbled onto a tragic story, Phillipe Gaston. And now, whether you like it or not, you are lost in it with the rest of us."
-Ladyhawke (1985)
A. Why does Sam assume that the old tales are true, about the adventures of real people?
Perhaps because he’s one of those who believes if it’s on the internet it must be true?
Or perhaps because he knows that’s how Middle-earth works:
The Rider looked at them with renewed wonder, but his eyes hardened. "Then there is a Lady in the Golden Wood, as old tales tell!" he said. "Halflings!" laughed the Rider that stood beside Éomer. "Halflings! But they are only a little people in old songs and children's tales out of the North.”
-The Riders of Rohan
"I have heard many tales in Gondor and elsewhere," said Aragorn,"but if it were not for the words of Celeborn I should deem them only fables that Men have made as true knowledge fades.”
-ibid
"They are the shepherds of the trees," answered Gandalf. "Is it so long since you listened to tales by the fireside?”
-The Road to Isengard
"My people came out of the North long ago," said Théoden. "But I will not deceive you: we know no tales about hobbits. All that is said among us is that far away, over many hills and rivers, live the halfling folk that dwell in holes in sand-dunes. But there are no legends of their deeds. for it is said that they do little, and avoid the sight of men, being able to vanish in a twinkling: and they can change their voices to resemble the piping of birds.”
-ibid
"The old fortress, very old, very horrible now. We used to hear tales from the South, when Sméagol was young, long ago. O yes. we used to tell lots of tales in the evening, sitting by the banks of the Great River, in the willow-lands, when the River was younger too, gollum, gollum." He began to weep and mutter. The hobbits waited patiently.
"Tales out of the South," Gollum went on again, "about the tall Men with the shining eyes, and their houses like hills of stone, and the silver crown of their King and his White Tree: wonderful tales. They built very tall towers, and one they raised was silver-white, and in it there was a stone like the Moon, and round it were great white walls. O yes, there were many tales about the Tower of the Moon."
-The Black Gate is Closed
B. How can Sam imagine having tales read to a child out of a book, when his father certainly did no such thing with him and his siblings?
If not his father, then I’m sure others did: an adult in charge of the kiddie corner at parties, Bilbo, a teacher.
(That Sam went to school seems to me to be indicated by his elementary school recitation posture:
Sam stood up, putting his hands behind his back (as he always did when "speaking poetry"), and began: “Grey as a mouse, Big as a house.”)
And come to think of it, Sam did discover the old poem about oliphaunts was true after all!
BTW, the phrase “read out of a great big book with red and black letters” refers to the medieval practice of rubrication, where words and sentences were inked in red for emphasis. (Pretty fancy books Sam is talking about!!) A modern example is a “red letter edition” of The Bible, where the words of Jesus are printed in red.
C. Why would Frodo recognize that Sam’s dialect and speech is comic, in the context of a tale?
The humor of all of Sam’s “Gamgeeisms”.
One might imagine a few from his later years:
"Getting to Mordor was 90 percent mental. The other half was physical."
"I really didn't do everything I did."
And:
"If the Shire was perfect, it wouldn't be."
D. What does Sam mean when he says that once a tale is in a book, the scary parts are “different” so that he would never refuse to listen no matter how scary?
Because he knows there’ll be a eucatastrophe.
And, as Tolkien said in On Fairy Stories:
For one thing they are now old, and antiquity has an appeal in itself. The beauty and horror of The Juniper Tree (Von dem Machandelboom), with its exquisite and tragic beginning, the abominable cannibal stew, the gruesome bones, the gay and vengeful bird-spirit coming out of a mist that rose from the tree, has remained with me since childhood; and yet always the chief flavour of that tale lingering in the memory was not beauty or horror, but distance and a great abyss of time, not measurable even by twe tusend Johr. Without the stew and the bones—which children are now too often spared in mollified versions of Grimm —that vision would largely have been lost. I do not think I was harmed by the horror in the fairytale setting, out of whatever dark beliefs and practices of the past it may have come. Such stories have now a mythical or total (unanalysable) effect, an effect quite independent of the findings of Comparative Folklore, and one which it cannot spoil or explain; they open a door on Other Time, and if we pass through, though only for a moment, we stand outside our own time, outside Time itself, maybe.
E. Is Sam right, that Gollum is “good in a tale, better than he is to have by you, anyway”?
Because if he’s with you you have to worry about him throttling you in your sleep, but in a book you know he won’t be throttling the hero because, hey, it’s the hero. (But throttling the plucky comic relief is another matter entirely.)
F. How does Frodo so accurately predict that Gollum’s motivation is to betray them through “some private trick”?
Because they’re on the same wavelength: Station KRNG, Number One on your radio dial!
G. Given his foresight, why does Frodo nevertheless does everything Gollum tells him to?
What other choice does he have? Besides, he probably thinks he can anticipate Gollum’s moment of treachery. Unfortunately, Frodo is not that treacherous. (Or fortunately?)
Two exhausted, scared and lonely males discuss their imminent deaths, or possible survival and return to the comforts of home.
H. Why do they not mention the females in their lives (girlfriends, mothers, sisters, etc. - e.g.,
That’s a very, very, very, very, very, very good question. But I don’t think Frodo fans want to go there.
I. To what degree is this entire episode a conversation that J. R. R. Tolkien was having with himself, or perhaps with the Inklings, about the nature of legends?
That. Plus the nature of the Gospels, “Stories that must be told”.
For example, how can LOTR be “ a fundamentally religious and Catholic work” without the mention Christ, God, the Holy Spirit, or The Bible?
Take a Christian or a handful of Christians who, in the midst of their own community, show their capacity for understanding and acceptance, their sharing of life and destiny with other people, their solidarity with the efforts of all for whatever is noble and good. Let us suppose that, in addition, they radiate in an altogether simple and unaffected way their faith in values that go beyond current values, and their hope in something that is not seen and that one would not dare to imagine. Through this wordless witness these Christians stir up irresistible questions in the hearts of those who see how they live: Why are they like this? Why do they live in this way? What or who is it that inspires them? Why are they in our midst? Such a witness is already a silent proclamation of the Good News and a very powerful and effective one.
-Evangelii Nuntiandi, Pope Paul VI
J. Are the hobbits talking about what we, and/or Tolkien, would call ‘Fairy-stories’?
More like Folk Tales (like, say Beowulf), but the category does include fairy tales.
K. Does this dialogue distract us from the horror of the end of Book IV, or does it enhance it?
Typical “retirony” for when the bad stuff happens. Like when someone starts talking about going home and marrying their sweetheart, or seeing the kid they’ve never seen, or being two weeks from retirement, or how when they finally finish their mission of destroying the One Ring they’ll go home to the Shire and live happily ever after but then they end up dead or worse.
Some pictures
L. As a reflection of personal experience, which might be the stranger or odder illustration to a 21st century reader of The Lord of the Rings: A midnight campfire chat on a wild and rocky mountaintop, or cozy bedtime stories with the entire family listening?
Probably the bedtime stories. Like how no one today could conceive of the entire family huddled in the dark around the radio listening to Burns and Allen.
******************************************
I met a Balrog on the stair.
He had some wings that weren't there.
They weren't there again today.
I wish he would just fly away.
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squire
Half-elven
Feb 25 2016, 8:49pm
Post #10 of 26
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I appreciate TV Tropes as the treasure it is, but I am curious if Tolkien would have recognized the idea that talking about the girl back home is a down payment on the worm farm.
On the one hand, TV Tropes is all about the irony that infuses scriptwriting for the post-modern era. On the other hand, even Victorian critics were recognizing the tropes of their own time in the penny-dreadfuls and pulps of popular entertainment, well before Tolkien's time.
How would we find out if Great War literature is suffused with doughboys passing around pictures of the girl back home and then dropping to the floor of the trench with a sniper's bullet in their heads? Or Boer War literature, for that matter? Etc.
One rule to remember in inquiries like this is that the Great War itself is often said to have launched Modern Irony in literature - and Tolkien, in writing Lord of the Rings, was trying to combat that kind of literature, even though he was inevitably a Great War writer as well.
One of the reasons I asked the question is that later in the book, when Sam finally realizes he is actually going to die, he does - finally - mention Rosie. And as noted in an earlier post, Aragorn only mentions Arwen as he faces the uncertainty of the Paths of the Dead.
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Footeramas: The 3rd & 4th TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion and NOW the 1st BotR Discussion too! and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
= Forum has no new posts. Forum needs no new posts.
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Feb 25 2016, 9:06pm
Post #11 of 26
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I was, to be honest, teasing Darkstone- but it's a good question to take seriously.
The earliest reference the TVTropes folks have is All Quiet On The Western Front (1929) which is of course about the First World War. I think you're right that Tolkien was swimming against the post (First-world) war tide of irony as an effect. What irony I see in LOTR is the "oft evil will shall evil mar" kind. If someone does their best (as opposed to their worst) we are unlikely to have it made pointless.
~~~~~~
volunteers are still needed to lead chapters for our upcoming ROTK read-through http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=893293#893293
A set of links to our Book III discussions can be found here: http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=886383#886383
A wonderful list of links to previous read-throughs is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Feb 25 2016, 10:22pm
Post #12 of 26
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Tolkien definitely read Boer War stories.
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A few years ago, the late Maggie Burns wrote a Mallorn article about the books that schoolboy Tolkien had checked out of the King Edward's School library, and those included tales set in that south African conflict. Investigating those books with an eye toward your question might be a worthwhile exercise.
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(This post was edited by N.E. Brigand on Feb 25 2016, 10:23pm)
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enanito
Rohan
Feb 25 2016, 11:12pm
Post #13 of 26
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M.E. love is quite a different animal
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Frodo still is thinking that if he can just get over this last pass, somehow the end will be in sight. And Sam definitely hasn't given up hope of the return trip. Like Squire said, it's only when true despair is imminent that Sam's thoughts rest on Rosie -- but even then she's only mentioned in conjunction with her brothers, not in the sense of "if ever I was to marry someone it would have been her"!
In Tolkien's literary world, love can be a great and powerful thing, but the love between a husband and wife, mother and son, or brother and sister is often a cause of as much grief as it is happiness. And in some cases, it is rather non-existent in the written pages (Does Galadriel really love Celeborn since they've got like the longest-running marriage around? Why doesn't Aragorn do everything he does for the love of Arwen instead of for King and Country?)
Seems like Tolkien made a conscientious decision to leave most aspects of romantic love out of his M.E. writings. And there's pros and cons of that decision, this here being a great example where most of us would definitely be thinking of mom, grandma, or sisters.
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Feb 26 2016, 10:58am
Post #14 of 26
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I agree that's the most likely conclusion - Tolkien didn't think those things important for his story
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Frodo (like Bilbo) has been set up not to have many close relatives - he's an orphan and I don't believe we hear of any brothers or sisters. It is of course far too late in the writing for Frodo suddenly to start to talk of some love he left behind in the Shire, or some an older female Brandybuck who was kind to him when he was an orphan at Brandy Hall. If those characters existed, we ought to have heard about them during Frodo's protracted farewell to the Shire. But what he was tearing himself away from was the land, not people.
Introducing some tear-jerker of a relationship at this late point would risk being cheap writing - like the 'deadly family photo' trope that can be used lazily to make us sympathise quickly with a walk-on part.
It isn't just Frodo of course. We don't know about Rosie Cotton yet in the book: as far as I can see she's not mentioned until Book VI, and then only in Sam's private thoughts, which extend to her brothers too. I don't think we encounter strong hints of Rosie as a romantic interest until we get back to the Shire. Nor do the other Fellowship members reflect on the home front, in our 'hearing': if they pine for wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, or other relations, we don't get to hear about it.
So the lack of a 'home front' is a constant in the story, not just an omission at this point. Maybe that is an authorial choice to simplify things. Maybe it reflects Tolkien's time as opposed to ours - others know much more about Tolkien's life than I do , but my impression was that he tended to compartmentalize his life. His TCBS cronies were told that he was marrying, I believe, rather than having been his confidants or allies in his courtship. I don't think it was assumed that then new Mrs Tolkien was automatically owed a place in the TCBS, nor in the Inklings later. I don't know how typical Tolkien was of his time in that regard - perhaps male comradeship was one world, and family life another?
Lastly, I've led a life free from encountering significant danger, so I don't know what subjects would come up in the kind of situation in which Sam and Frodo find themselves. Maybe some things in life (love, religion etc.) are too big and too dangerous to raise at such a time? Safer to talk about Tales?
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volunteers are still needed to lead chapters for our upcoming ROTK read-through http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=893293#893293
A set of links to our Book III discussions can be found here: http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=886383#886383
A wonderful list of links to previous read-throughs is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Feb 28 2016, 3:27pm
Post #15 of 26
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I. A conversation with the Inklings - or perhaps with Christopher?
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I. To what degree is this entire episode a conversation that J. R. R. Tolkien was having with himself, or perhaps with the Inklings, about the nature of legends?
I believe that these chapters were sent out by JRR to his son Christopher, who was serving in South Africa in the RAF at the time. I wonder whether this insert about tales, and children's' reactions to being read them might be seen as a father-son nod? Perhaps JRR, being concious that his son was going to be the first reader of his drafts, was put in mind of this image of fathers reading to sons?
~~~~~~
volunteers are still needed to lead chapters for our upcoming ROTK read-through http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=893293#893293
A set of links to our Book III discussions can be found here: http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=886383#886383
A wonderful list of links to previous read-throughs is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
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Darkstone
Immortal
Feb 29 2016, 5:16pm
Post #16 of 26
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Shippey notes that Tolkien was a fan of Scottish novelist Thomas Buchan, whose series of Bond-like spy novels featured the Boer War veteran Richard Hannay, who was based on the real-life Edmund Ironside, who was a British spy during the Second Boer War. (Though Tolkien may have been more interested in Buchan's historical novels.)
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I met a Balrog on the stair.
He had some wings that weren't there.
They weren't there again today.
I wish he would just fly away.
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sador
Half-elven
Feb 29 2016, 5:37pm
Post #17 of 26
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C. Why would Frodo recognize that Sam’s dialect and speech is comic, in the context of a tale?
A working-class father reading to his children? Come on!
H. Why do they not mention the females in their lives (girlfriends, mothers, sisters, etc. - e.g., "Shut the book now, ma; we don't want to read any more")?
It is basically Sam who does the talking, and he won't presume to broach such delicate matters.
And we never know Rosie Cotton's name until Mount Doom.
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Mar 1 2016, 1:30am
Post #18 of 26
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I've never read any of John Buchan's novels.
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I'm very fond of Alfred Hitchcock's film of The 39 Steps, although I gather it departs significantly from the source. You're absolutely right about Shippey, who has been pushing the idea of Buchan as an influence on Tolkien for more than 25 years, although his only specific treatment of the subject I know of was in a J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia (2006) article (discussed here). In the same book, Dale Nelson devoted a few paragraphs to Buchan in his very long article titled "Literary Influences, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries". There had been a few earlier attempts to connect Tolkien to early 20th century adventure fiction by Jared Lobdell and by Robert Giddings and Elizabeth Holland. More recently, Marjorie Burns (no relation to Maggie, I believe), wrote about one specific Buchan influence in "Tracking the Elusive Hobbit (In Its Pre-Shire Den)" in vol. 4 of Tolkien Studies (2007), and Mark Hooker attempted to synthesize previous efforts and add some new thoughts of his own in "Reading John Buchan in Search of Tolkien", a chapter in Jason Fisher's award-winning 2011 collection, Tolkien and the Study of His Sources.
Shippey feels that Midwinter, The Blanket of the Dark, Witch Wood, and perhaps The Dancing Floor and Huntingtower, plus the essay "The Novel and the Fairy Tale", would have been most important of Buchan's works for Tolkien. Burns focuses on Huntingtower. Nelson considers that work as well as "The Far Islands" (from The Watcher by the Threshold, and a story that Douglas Anderson also identifies as Tolkienan), The Power-House, Greenmantle, Mr. Standfast, The Four Hostages, and The Gap in the Curtain. Hooker discusses Midwinter, The Blanket of the Dark, and Huntingtower.
It is probably important to emphasize that the only confirmation (of which I am aware) that Tolkien liked or even knew Buchan's work is that Humphrey Carpenter said so in Tolkien: A Biography. We've never seen any documentation to back up this claim. There is more published evidence of Tolkien having read James Joyce than there is of him having read John Buchan!
Returning to the Boer War, I find in my notes that while Maggie Burns, in her 2009 Mallorn article, "The Desire of a Tale-teller", notes several Boer War books that were popular with students at King Edwards, she was specifically able to confirm Tolkien borrowing only one of them, Scouting for Buller by Herbert Hayens.
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Mar 1 2016, 5:14am
Post #19 of 26
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What does "kiss his hand" mean here?
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Debating what Gollum might be doing while they rest, Frodo says that he is unlikely to betray them now to Sauron's forces, when he could have done so just as well earlier. Then we read:
"'Well, I suppose you're right, Mr. Frodo,' said Sam. 'Not that it comforts me mightily. I don't make no mistake: I don't doubt he'd hand me over to Orcs as gladly as kiss his hand. But I was forgetting--his Precious.'"
What does Sam mean by "kiss his hand"? To me it looks to mean Gollum kissing his own hand, but why would he do that? Or is it a figure of speech, and if so, what does it mean?
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Darkstone
Immortal
Mar 1 2016, 7:34am
Post #20 of 26
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And my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand:
This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above.
-Job 31:27-28
It was (and is) the custom for worshippers in some religious sects to kiss their hand and throw a kiss to (or touch) a venerated physical object, such as an idol or a holy relic.
So Gollum would just as likely betray Sam as pay obeisance to the One Ring. The latter of course is absolutely certain, so therefore the former just as likely.
******************************************
I met a Balrog on the stair.
He had some wings that weren't there.
They weren't there again today.
I wish he would just fly away.
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squire
Half-elven
Mar 1 2016, 12:51pm
Post #21 of 26
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Evidently it's a slang phrase, better known perhaps to Tolkien's English audience than to us
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I don't usually look in Hammond and Scull's LotR Readers Companion, but you've shown us that it often has solutions to textual puzzles like this. Their comment on this line is that Gollum would turn Sam over to the Enemy readily, "as shown by the slang phrase as easy as kiss your hand."
"The slang phrase" assumes we've heard of the phrase, or else chooses to present new information as if we should have heard of it before. I never have (and I'd never thought about Sam's line before today), but that's a large part of the fun of reading Tolkien: language, language, language. I'm guessing it was a common English working-class locution that Tolkien had noted and enjoyed using here.
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
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sador
Half-elven
Mar 1 2016, 1:23pm
Post #22 of 26
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I suppose it means "as somebody kissing his hands"
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Which in England would mean Gollum is the Sovereign, and somebody is appointed to the Privy Council - or in this cases, an Orc-*chieftain receiving Sam from him for dispatching.
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Hamfast Gamgee
Tol Eressea
Mar 1 2016, 1:47pm
Post #23 of 26
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for my sins! I must admit that I don't hear the phrase easy as kissing your hand in everyday conversation but the. I do live about fifty years after the time Tolkien did! It does sound a bit Monarchal though, the Idea of kissing the hand do the Monarch or even kissing the Popes ring. Though which one?
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