The Lord of the Rings

[hengest]

Well, it couldn't be helped -- a thread on LOTR.

I was stunned a few years ago by the pretty obvious revelation that the adventure in Moria is a major source for the 'dungeon' as we know it in fantasy RPGs. Further, it seems to have the same mythic shadow about it that the Underworld does in booklet 3. A deep place filled with monsters -- and things worse and more mysterious than monsters, some of which you don't even get to.

Further, the party comes down off a mountain and descends into the earth...but the party comes in at ground level and exits at the same level, while Gandalf descends to the very foundations of stone and exits at the peak, far above the earth, spanning more vertical space than anyone else (in the entire book?). Seems to be the sort of thing, apparently laden with meaning

What observations has anyone been dying to share about LOTR? Or what obvious or non-obvious connections between LOTR and the roots of this hobby?

[Admin Pete]

I have seen posts over the years where people characterize the LotR as slow moving and boring and yet when I read it - to me it is an exciting, riveting story the I can't put down. Back when I was a single man it was normal for me to read all three books in one sitting. Now that I am older and married, I am no longer able to do that and it is sooooooo difficult for me to put it down and go to bed at a reasonable time. I suppose an exciting story is in the mind of the reader.

[hengest]

I've seen that sort of thing, too, and I have to agree with The Perilous Dreamer that I've never found the basic story anything but gripping. And I can't attribute it to nostalgia or enjoying a movie or other adaptation as a kid, because I didn't read the novel til I was 22 and had seen the first two PJ movies, but couldn't follow them and didn't really enjoy them. I've read academic articles on the book, some of which are good, and taken my own notes to investigate aspects of the book that interest me but aren't exactly "the story", and read the work itself many times now, but the basic story I just can't see as boring in any place. On a given reading there will be one of two brief passages (a page, tops) that I find falls a little flat for me, but then on the next reading it's something else, and the previously "slightly boring" bit seems just fine.

I've read a couple things that point out Tolkien's mastery of ratcheting up and then releasing tension again and again and again. One of the pieces was an essay by Ursula Le Guin in which she examined mostly "Fog on the Barrow-Downs". A lot of readers today are accustomed to experiencing this sort of thing as uncool or unacceptable, and prefer a story with more obviously character-driven conflict. That's cool, but I still find LOTR a unique work that is not of the same type as any of its many sources, and certainly isn't the same type (for good or bad) as anything in the last hundred years of fantasy that I've ever read.

[makofan]

LOTR started out as a sequel to the hobbit, and thus it is really a picaresque. Critics hate these (a picaresque is a work with a lot of self-contained short stories shoe-horned into one longer work, like Don Quixote, for example). However, Tolkien managed to bring the gravitas of a well-founded history that tapped into mythological roots, and an overarching or ur-theme, to lift it to a higher level.

At least that's my take. Appendix A rocks

[hengest]

Not once have I thought of LOTR this way, but I see what you mean. It is indeed pretty episodic. And Appendix A does rock. No one now puts the emotional climax of their novel into an appendix...

I do think the episodes are deeply linked, however, which is why I'm having trouble really taking it as a picaresque. I may post a little more about this.

[hengest]

tetramorph, The Semi-Retired Gamer, makofan, Admin Pete:



Okay, a brief follow-up.



To recap: I see why one can call LOTR episodic. It is fairly episodic. It's pretty easy to locate just about any event or even most dialogue by chapter because the chapter-titles are fairly obviously keyed to the main events of the chapters.
For its size, it's a "small" book in that way.


But I don't think it's modular (where "modular" = "consisting of largely independent parts that can in principle be remove or swapped out), which keeps it from being closely related to picaresques.



In my examples, I'll show relations between apparently unrelated episodes that unite them down in the belly of the work.



Example 1)

"'It may be a help in many needs' he said: Haldir, or one of those folk.'" (Sam in "The Taming of Smeagol", Chapter 1 of Book IV)

This looks like a throwaway line. But look back at "Farewell to Lorien" in Book II, where Sam's quoting from:

'What are these?' asked Sam, handling one that lay upon the greensward.



'Ropes indeed!' answered an Elf from the boats. 'Never travel far without a rope! And one that is long and strong and light. Such are these. They may be a help in many needs.'



'You don't need to tell me that!' said Sam. `I came without any and I've been worried ever since. But I was wondering what these were made of, knowing a bit about rope-making: it's in the family as you might say.'



'They are made of hithlain,' said the Elf, `but there is no time now to instruct you in the art of

their making. Had we known that this craft delighted you, we could have taught you much. But now alas! unless you should at some time return hither, you must be content with our gift. May it serve you well!'



'Come!' said Haldir. `All is now ready for you. Enter the boats! But take care at first!'

So, it looks like it wasn't Haldir, but some other Elf of Lorien. But Sam refers to the speaker as "Haldir, or one of those folk." But who cares? Well, you can see it as Sam's being revenged on Elves for the episode in "Many Meetings":

'Not too tiring for you,' the Elves answered laughing. 'You know you are never tired of reciting your own verses. But really we cannot answer your question at one hearing!'



'What!' cried Bilbo. 'You can't tell which parts were mine, and which were the Dúnadan's?'



'It is not easy for us to tell the difference between two mortals' said the Elf.



'Nonsense, Lindir,' snorted Bilbo. 'If you can't distinguish between a Man and a Hobbit, your judgement is poorer than I imagined. They're as different as peas and apples.'



'Maybe. To sheep other sheep no doubt appear different,' laughed Lindir. `Or to shepherds. But Mortals have not been our study. We have other business.'

Some random (to Sam) Elf says all mortals seem alike. Sam is asleep during this, but present. I guess he absorbs it in his sleep and later "bites back", though very gently. Elf saying mortals all seem alike -- mortal failing to distinguish one Elf from another. Then very "revenge" is tied to this bit in "The Mirror of Galadriel":

'You are wise and fearless and fair, Lady Galadriel,' said Frodo. `I will give you the One Ring, if you ask for it. It is too great a matter for me.'



Galadriel laughed with a sudden clear laugh. `Wise the Lady Galadriel may be,' she said, `yet here she has met her match in courtesy. Gently are you revenged for my testing of your heart at our first meeting...'

Frodo (says Galadriel in Sam's hearing) is "revenged" for her testing of him in the previous chapter.  Some time later, Sam is (very gently) revenged against Elves for the somewhat dismissive comment in "Many Meetings".

Example 2)

He got up and clenched his long hand into a bony fleshless knot, shaking it
 towards the East. 'We won't!' he cried. 'Not for you.' Then he collapsed again.
 'Gollum, gollum,' he whimpered with his face to the ground. 'Don't look at us! Go
away! Go to sleep!' ("The Taming of Smeagol")

Gollum exhorts Sauron to "go to sleep".  We have seen a "consumption" villain* told to go to sleep before:

'What?' shouted Tom Bombadil, leaping up in the air. 'Old Man Willow? Naught worse than
 that, eh? That can soon be mended. I know the tune for him. Old grey Willow-man! I'll freeze his
 marrow cold, if he don't behave himself. I'll sing his roots off. I'll sing a wind up and blow leaf and
 branch away. Old Man Willow!' Setting down his lilies carefully on the grass, he ran to the tree.
There he saw Merry's feet still sticking out – the rest had already been drawn further inside. Tom
 put his mouth to the crack and began singing into it in a low voice. They could not catch the words,
 but evidently Merry was aroused. His legs began to kick. Tom sprang away, and breaking off a
 hanging branch smote the side of the willow with it. 'You let them out again, Old Man Willow!' he
 said. 'What be you a-thinking of? You should not be waking. Eat earth! Dig deep! Drink water! Go
 to sleep! Bombadil is talking!' He then seized Merry's feet and drew him out of the suddenly
 widening crack.


There was a tearing creak and the other crack split open, and out of it Pippin sprang, as if he had
 been kicked. Then with a loud snap both cracks closed fast again. A shudder ran through the tree
 from root to tip, and complete silence fell. ("The Old Forest")

Sauron and Old Man Willow:

Old Man Willow swallows Pippin up, while Merry is less swallowed.

Sauron has direct contact with Pippin through the palantir.  Aragorn notes that in an alternate turn of events, Merry might have been the one so threatened:

'A beautiful, restful night!' said Merry to Aragorn. 'Some folk have wonderful luck.
 He did not want to sleep, and he wanted to ride with Gandalf – and there he goes!
 Instead of being turned into a stone himself to stand here for ever as a warning.'
 

'If you had been the first to lift the Orthanc-stone, and not he, how would it be
now?' said Aragorn. 'You might have done worse. Who can say?' ("The Palantir")

Two villains are told to go to sleep.  Each of them has deep, potentially destructive contact with Pippin, while Merry is threatened in an alternate timeline or just by being less tasty.  

Well, the book is just thick with this stuff, rather than being only a "Middle-Earth's Greatest Hits" with unrelated episodes strung together.  It is episodic, but the episodes are deeply interrelated.

*I call them both "consumption villains" because Old Man Willow tries to eat Merry and Pippin, and Gollum says of Sauron that he will "eat all the world":

'No, no, master!' wailed Gollum; pawing at him, and seeming in great distress. 'No
use that way! No use! Don't take the Precious to Him! He'll eat us all, if He gets it,
eat all the world." (The Black Gate Is Closed")