"The Old Forest" - Jacob's Thoughts

So.

Fun Fact: After I first saw Fellowship of the Ring in the theater, a friend of mine who was reading the series for the first time asked me excitedly how the film portrayed Tom Bombadil, and was crestfallen to learn the movie had utterly cut him out.  Apparently Mr. Bombadil really is a favorite among some readers, go figure!  I'm sure we'll get much more into this anomalous, eminently-excisable character with next week's chapter, but for now it's worth noting that Tom seems to genuinely resonate with at least some people (just not me).

I suppose I should be warmer to the possibilities of this character, at least as he relates to my favorite theme of a light-shining-through-the-darkness in Lord of the Rings; for here, in the heart of the suffocating darkness of this hostile forest, where even the trees themselves mischievously alter your paths, disorient your direction, drug you to sleep, then try to entrap and murder you, this carefree man just wanders in like a ray of sunlight right when you need him most, to free your friends and lead you out of the Old Forest like it was his own backyard.  Again, the darkness is worst than you think, but nor is it ever as total.  It's a good theme to keep returning to.

Nevertheless, this chapter simply doesn't work for me. In contrast to my old friend, I personally was relieved to see that Peter Jackson had the good sense to trim this episode out of the film (though could you imagine what would have happened if Jackson had been allowed the same sprawling freedom for Fellowship as he was for The Hobbit?  One shudders...).  To borrow Ben's phrase, this chapter is the worst sort of "wheel-spinning," in how it artificially raises stakes, only to promptly deflate them without consequence or ever bring them up again.  It's like Tolkien had built up all this danger and menace surrounding the Old Forest, then forgot how to execute on it.

Moreover, this idea of menacing, conscious trees is executed much more effectively later on with the Ents, so here it just feels like a dull dry run.  There's a fine line between tension and tedium, and this chapter crosses it.  I suppose this chapter is performative, because whatever the Old Forest did to make the hobbits fall asleep put me to sleep, too.

It was at this point as a 10-year-old that I nearly gave up on Lord of the Rings for good.  Glad I didn't, but this particular chapter, even after finding so many other things to respect about the previous chapters this time around, and after a lifetime of experience and countless books read and earning degrees and graduate degrees in English, still bores me as much today as it did when I was 10.

I'm taking a graduate seminar on Eco-Criticism this semester, so I suppose I should find it interesting how the ecosystem here is literally imbued by Tolkien with consciousness and vitality and vibrant matter, and how the trees themselves develop hostility against us bipeds who violate and destabilize the ecosystem, as mother nature turns on us after we have turned on her, and etc (also, it is rather troubling to consider that when the hobbits chopped down the invading trees, they were in fact murdering sentient beings--which massacre is especially unconscionable when one considers how Tom Bombadil has apparently learned to co-exist easily with them); nevertheless, I cannot summon the theoretical interest to perform an Eco-Critical reading here.  This chapter will always be a chore to get through, and the quicker we get to the good stuff, the better.