"The Old Forest" - Ben's Thoughts

I hated, hated hated the Old Forest chapters when reading LOTR as a child and teenager. I couldn't understand why these chapters were necessary, and only read them because of some (perhaps misguided) notion of loyalty towards the Professor -- the sense that I needed to read every word of the LOTR to get the full experience, even if I didn't think some particular words were worth too much.

So what was my impression this time around? I read "The Old Forest" and "In the House of Tom Bombadil" back-to-back this time around, because I missed my deadlines last week, and was somewhat pleased to find redeeming qualities in them. Now, don't get me wrong. In the greater context of The Lord of the Rings, I don't think that this segment (especially "The Old Forest" chapter, believe it or not above and beyond the coming "In the House" chapter), is necessary to the plot, themes, and forward movement of the book. As Jacob points out, this sort of nature vs. human progression commentary is done better down the line with Fangorn Forest and the Ents, and here it just seems like a test drive. But viewed separately, as its own pair (or perhaps really trio) of self-contained chapters -- a mini-short story, embedded in the text of Book 1 -- it is really quite lovely.

Because the prose in this chapter is quite beautiful. From the initial description of the trees, to the "swirling eddies" of Bonfire Glade, to the bare knob of a hilltop where the Hobbits eat lunch, to the shifting lights of the Withywindle, every description in this chapter is monstrously evocative. Despite my disinterest in reading this chapter as a kid, between those readings and this week's, I could tell you every step that the Hobbits took in the wood and how exactly they came to the riverside where they meet old Tom. Because Tolkien is just that good at conjuring up images inside our heads of what and where his characters are doing.

For example:

"As if through a gate they saw the sunlight before them. . . . A golden afternoon of late sunshine lay worm and drowsy upon the hidden land between. In the midst of it there wound lazily a dark river of brown water, bordered with ancient willows, arched over with willows, blocked with fallen willows, and flecked with thousands of faded willow-leaves. The air was thick with them, fluttering yellow from the branches; for there was a warm and gentle breeze blowing softly in the valley, and the reeds were rustling, and the willow-boughs were creaking."

Don't tell me you don't have a picture in your mind of that river after that paragraph. If so, you are completely devoid of imagination.

Nevertheless, these descriptions do not entirely redeem this chapter. The paragraph above evokes emotions of calm and comfort and a lazy Sunday afternoon relaxing in a sunlit glade -- a far cry from the sinister feeling that I believe Tolkien wanted to evoke with the Hobbits' encounter with "Old Man Willow" towards the end of the chapter. The contrast is jarring and not very effective. Besides, what kind of a name is "Old Man Willow" for a villain? It's hard to be terrified by a wicked old tree, especially when he never speaks or directly interacts with Our Heroes beyond his sleep spell.

So all in all a very beautiful but a very flawed chapter -- and that's before it takes a steep right turn and veers off in an entirely different direction with the introduction of Tom Bombadil. I'll give Tom this -- he certainly knows how to make an entrance. His song is distinctive -- and quite annoying. I think the singing threw me off of the Tom fanwagon more than anything else. I'll talk more about Tom in my analysis of the next chapter. I will note that it is interesting that Tom's singing seems to have such power. It ties nicely back to the fact that in Tolkien's legendarium, the earth and cosmos were created via the singing of "God" (Eru) and his spirit creations (the Ainur). I guess Tom carries on the tradition here.

About the Hobbits -- they don't really seem to have thought this plan through very well. They're cutting through the Old Forest to -- wait for it -- join back up with the east road as soon as possible on the other side? I guess they just have no idea about the ability, number, or intelligence of the Riders. Either that or Frodo was just concerned with having no Hobbit learn that he was leaving the Shire more than anything else. I think the Hobbits' naivete is highlighted by Strider in Bree, so hopefully we'll get to that in a few chapters.

Merry retains his take-charge attitude for a few pages, but then abruptly becomes foolish and incompetent and easily overcome by the Willow's sleep-song. Tolkien just can't pin down these Hobbits' personalities. Still no physical descriptions. I've all but given up hope on that score. There is also a jarring shift in point of view -- from semi-omniscient third-person to limited third person (Frodo's POV) and then bouncing again, within the space of a page or two, over to Sam (still limited third-person). Surely Tolkien could have done better.

As a comment on Jacob's eco-criticism, it is interesting how the Hobbits' rural domesticity was so threatened by the encroaching wild. Of course, as Tolkien presents it, the trees' absolute wildness is wholly evil, or at least chaotically evil, and the Hobbits are presented in a positive light for retaliating and containing the otherness. There is a sense of nostalgia in the next chapter when Tom comments on how the Old Forest is but a remnant of far greater woods, but there's no conveyance of how the Hobbits' destruction of trees and pushing back the Forest is a bad thing. However, as Jacob pointed out, it was adding insult to injury for the Hobbits to burn the trees (at the Bonfire Glade) inside the Forest itself. Couldn't they have done it elsewhere? No wonder the trees haven't grown back into the Glade. The Hobbits were really quite violent in their response. I don't get the sense that Tolkien was all that fond of letting nature just grown wild -- he seems much more sympathetic to Tom's neatly cultivated and tended-to semi-wilderness between Forest and barrow-downs. The change in the river seems to give his game away: in the Forest, it is brown, slow-moving, stagnant; while by Tom's house it has become "swift and merry." Tolkien liked things that were light and high and clear, not quiet and drowsy (note again the stars -- Frodo's link to Elbereth and the Valar -- mentioned as hanging over Tom's house as the Hobbits arrive).

More on Tom and Goldberry tomorrow. While "The Old Forest" wasn't that fun to read, except for the beautiful descriptions, it was fun to write about.