Monday, February 17, 2014

"Three is Company" - Ben's Thoughts

Uh-oh. Here we go. The stretch from "Three is Company" up to and not including "Fog on the Barrow-Downs" is, in my opinion, some of the weakest and most self-indulgent material in LOTR. I always had to resist the urge to skim through these chapters when I read them for fun in years past, and I feel my old frustration creeping up on me now as I dive into them on this "deeper" re-read. As Eric and Bender noted, pacing is a huge problem. This chapter, for example, while is does have some witty banter between the hobbits and some beautiful description of the Shire, goes by at a crawl. I'll go through my thoughts, as usual, and address some of the problems I see in the chapter along the way.

First things first -- Gandalf. He doesn't stick around for very long, but my main problem is that he is extremely vague about where to go and doling out advice to Frodo. He doesn't say when Frodo should leave (the right response to Frodo's question should have been "right now") and doesn't even tell him where to go; only when pressed does he tell Frodo that he thinks Frodo should steer for Rivendell. Why this reluctance to direct Frodo? In Book 2, Gandalf has no problem with telling the whole Fellowship what to do and how to do it. I suppose it's just a desire not to insert himself too heavily into Frodo's affairs -- that "telling" him what to do is altogether too Sauron-like -- but it seems a silly thing to me when the fate of Middle-earth is at stake. At any rate, this reluctance mirrors Gildor's "advice" at the end of the chapter, but there it felt a lot more natural. It is implied, if not stated outright, that these "wandering" groups of Elves are, in the long run at least, headed to the Grey Havens and across the sea to Valinor, so it makes sense that they would not want to complicate themselves in the affairs of the denizens of Middle-earth any more.

The best part of this chapter by far is the sequence of Frodo leaving Bag End and heading out of Hobbiton. It's a beautifully-written sequence. Frodo's nostalgia at leaving is palpable (although his statement of "I wonder if I will ever look into this valley again" is a bit melodramatic), and image of everyone emptying out of Bag End and abandoning it to the mercies of the Sackville-Bagginses is very poignant. Gandalf's absence is very ominous at this point, and this apprehension mixes well with the arrival of the black rider to Bag End, which Tolkien wisely leaves off-screen as a conversation between the Gaffer and the rider.

But this brings me back to my complaint about this stretch of chapters. I really think the problem with these chapters is a narrative one, not really one of pacing. Tolkien let himself get really involved with hobbit "politics," if you will -- he seems intensely interested in the details of how Frodo is going to get himself out of the Shire without attracting attention. While I guess this has an in-universe explanation -- too much noise about his departure might alert the black riders -- it seems overdone. This is one major change that Peter Jackson did right in the movies. He skipped right over all this traveling around in the Shire, except for the hobbits' adventures running away from the riders (which is altogether too overdone in the movies, but more on that later) and then they arrive at Bree.

The trouble with trying to explain how Frodo sneaks out of the Shire is that it gets the narrative bogged down in interludes at Farmer Maggot's, Crickhollow, and then -- shudder -- the Old Forest. Thinking about it here, I can't decide whether all this really stems from Tolkien's need to explain Frodo's sneaking out in the context of what he already laid down about hobbits and how they react to events, or whether it was an extended lead-up explaining how and why Frodo meets Tom Bombadil, who, by all accounts, was a Tolkien favorite. I suspect that when I get to Bombadil in a few chapters, I will find it a delightfully written piece that would stand well by itself, but does NOT belong in LOTR. We'll see.

One thing that this chapter could have done, but ultimately does not do, is fill in the gaps about what we know of the hobbit main characters. At this point, we know very little about Frodo and Sam, and even less about sidekicks Merry and Pippin (but the less said about extraneous, useless characters such as "Folco Boffin" and "Fatty Bolger" the better). Here, Pippin is established as a bit of a wise-cracker, somewhat eager to shirk work and entirely ready to order Sam around (he fully expects Sam to have the breakfasts ready for the "gentle-hobbits," for example). But Frodo shows some of those same traits, as well (he complains about his pack when he first puts it on). If memory serves, Pippin is supposed to be considerably younger than Frodo at this point (I do know that Pippin, at least, is younger than Sam, as well) and it would be nice to have something more to distinguish that age gap or maturity level at this point (I think it gets explored a bit more down the road -- hopefully when all the hobbits get in the same room as each other in the Crickhollow chapter I'll be able to tell them apart. Aside from Sam, at this point, they all blur together.) And would it have killed Tolkien to physically describe these guys? Aside from Sam's "curly hair," we know nothing about what they look like.

On the black rider -- I forgot that the rider's initial on-screen introduction is so minimal. It's only there for a couple of paragraphs and then is gone. There's no indication that the rider can sense the Ring at this point -- indeed, the moment when Frodo touches the chain the Ring is hanging on is the moment the rider decides to move on down the road. I'm going to have to continually remind myself that the Nazgül of the books are a far cry from those of the movies. Peter Jackson's vision of the ringwraiths is one of physical power -- brooding, menacing, sword-wielding maniacs who slash and hack their way to the Ring. Not so here. The black riders, especially at this point, are a far more existential threat -- there's really no sense of what would happen if they caught the hobbits at this point. Even the rider who approaches the hobbits at the end of the chapter is crawling on the ground -- a disturbing image, perhaps, but not physically threatening. I'm looking forward to talking more about them as the threat to the hobbits becomes more clear.

Some final notes on the Elves. It was a nice surprise to see Gildor referencing his house. I remembered that Gildor was a Noldor, but didn't remember that he referred to himself as a member of the house of Finrod. For those unfamiliar with the lineage of the high-Elves (of which Elrond is a product), the high-Elves returned to Middle-earth from Valinor under the leadership of the hot-headed Feänor, creator of the Silmarils. After Feänor's death at the hand's of Sauron's then-boss Morgoth, the Noldor were ruled by a succession of "High Kings," none of which fared very well in their battles against the Enemy. One of these (Feänor's half-brother's son) was named Finrod Felagund, and he figures prominently in the "Lay of Luthién" that will be referenced by Aragorn later. In the Lay, Finrod battled Sauron (who was a powerful shape-shifter at the time) to save the lives of Beren and Luthién, sacrificing his life as a result. Who knows if Tolkien had any of this pinned down when he actually wrote LOTR, but it's still nice to see it referenced.

Gildor is a great one-off character. He and the other Elves are such a contrast from the hobbits or Gandalf or anyone else we've met to this point. His cryptic warnings serve to clarify and rack up the tension considerably ("Is it not enough to know they are servants of the Enemy?" "Flee them!") while at the same time establishing another perspective of what is at stake if Frodo fails (Sauron will wipe out the Elves as well as the Shire if he prevails). It is a nice interlude that helped distract me from my irritation at the hobbits' petty goal to sneak out of the Shire. It's interesting, but I think Gildor's character is better-established and enjoyable than any other Elf in the books, except for Galadriel. He's just the right mix of camaraderie for Frodo, amusement towards the other hobbits, and otherworldly connection to Elf-magic (brought in through the references to Elbereth especially). I'm looking forward to seeing if that will end up being the case throughout the series.

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