"A Knife in the Dark" - Ben's Thoughts

"Fear! Fire! Foes! Awake! Awake!" Now this is a chapter.

It's chapters like this that made me fall in love with Tolkien -- and that make me forgive all of the slow introduction that came before. It has suspense, horror, beautiful travelogue, magnificent worldbuilding, lyrical poetry, action, and character building for all of the main characters (well, Pippin gets a little shortchanged). What more could you ask for in a chapter? I only have a few complaints (which I will address shortly).

Let's get the most obvious out of the way right off the bat. Fatty Bolger. Why did we need to return to him? Why was he important to the narrative at all? I like the suspense generated from the very outset with the creeping threat of the Riders, a glimpse into their physical abilities, and even the brief POV from the Riders themselves. But why Fatty Bolger? The only thing that the Riders' attack on Crickhollow adds to the story is a sense that the Riders are able to coordinate their attacks (as it seems this one and the assault on the inn occurred simultaneously). My question is why this sequence couldn't have been set in Bree? The Riders could have approached the inn, busted down the door, etc. in just the same way. I feel like Tolkien was clinging to Fatty Bolger's character for some reason -- perhaps in an earlier draft he had more to do, like the all-but-discarded 'Folco Boffin'? Maybe he just couldn't bear to excise him completely from the story. But if I was his editor, I would have encouraged him to do so, that's for sure. To use up that suspense on Fatty Bolger was a complete waste.

But despite this weak opening sequence, the chapter can only go up from there. The sequence of Strider and the Hobbits attempting to leave Bree was just the right amount of whimsical humor for me this time around (and as Eric pointed out -- Nob! He brightens your day whenever he's mentioned!) Of course the Hobbits were stymied in their attempts to leave quietly -- you can imagine Strider grinding his teeth as he leaves town under the eye of all those curious townsfolk. And yet at the same time a glimmer of insight is given into Strider's psyche, thanks to Bill Ferny, of all people. His comment that Strider "finally found a friend," and Strider's non-response to that jab, goes to show that under his gruff exterior, Strider probably is touched by the fact that he has been accepted by the Hobbits and Frodo in particular. After all that time alone, it would be nice to have some company (even if that company includes Pippin). I makes me sad to think that I don't remember these little tidbits of character development surviving into the "Aragorn the Savior-King" phases of later books.

A few nitpicks about the leave-taking sequence: First, as someone else pointed out, what is the deal with that aside about the ponies? I suppose Tolkien can't resist name-dropping his favorite character Tom Bombadil one more time (and who could pass up an excuse to mention "Fatty Lumpkin" -- the second "Fatty" character mentioned in the chapter; you can just see Tolkien giggling at his typewriter about such a hi-LARious nickname), but what really gets my goat is the quasi-spoiler of "[the ponies] missed a dark and dangerous journey. But they never came to Rivendell." Call me quaint, but I prefer my fiction to be suspenseful and the plot to keep me guessing. All but telling me up front that the company makes it to Rivendell is not exactly my favorite literary device.

I won't go into detail this time about Tolkien's beautiful descriptions and how he makes the journey of these characters come alive for me. But I certainly want to mention just how evocative his language is and how easy he makes it to conjure images of the landscape into your mind. One passage will suffice:

"Standing upon the rim of the ruined circle, they saw all round below them a wide prospect, for the most part of lands empty and featureless, except for patches of woodland away to the south . . . . Beneath them on this southern side there ran like a ribbon the Old Road, coming out of the West and winding up and down, until it faded behind a ridge of dark land to the east. . . . Following its line eastward with their eyes they saw the Mountains: the nearer foothills were brown and sombre; behind them stood taller shapes of grey, and behind those again were high white peaks glimmering among the clouds."

On to the worldbuilding aspect of this chapter (that I see Jacob is so eager to learn about). Against my best instincts, I really loved the poem of Beren and Lúthien that surfaced here. Far from sticking out like a sore thumb as I remember some of Tolkien's poems do, this one felt right at home. The idea that the company might want to focus on something beautiful to take their minds off of the horrors surrounding them, hiding down in that dell, resonated with me. Another nice touch was Sam's unexpected depths surfacing with the poem about Gil-galad, and Strider's quasi-indignation that Bilbo had (apparently) intimated to Sam that he had written the poem in the first instance. The elaboration upon Sam's character, as well, was appreciated. Strider was also quick to cut Frodo off when he realized that Frodo was going to go into the war of Sauron and the Elves in the Second Age, which I agree was probably not an appropriate topic with the Nazgûl closing in on them.

But back to Beren and Lúthien. For the uninitiated, the full story can be found in The Silmarillion. The story is one of two mostly-fleshed-out and realized short stories contained in that book (the other being the dark tragedy of Túrin Turambar, who in the course of the story kills his best friend, is the major cause of the destruction of one of the Elf-kingdoms, marries his sister by accident, and then causes her to commit suicide). The short version of Beren and Lúthien is as follows: Beren is the last scion of one of the noble houses of Men, who encounters Lúthien in an enchanted forest. Lúthien is an Elf, the daughter of Elwê (one of the three original rulers of the Elves) and Melian (a Maia), which makes her half-goddess (I suppose). Elwê Thingol at that time is trying to keep his kingdom out of the wars between Morgoth and the sons of Fêanor, and he refuses to let his beloved daughter Lúthien marry a Man of a house sworn to fight Morgoth. So Thingol decides to stop the marriage by making Lúthien's bride-price impossible -- he asks Beren to get him one of the Silmarils in exchange for his daughter's hand, which were at that time securely ensconced in Morgoth's iron crown.

Anyway, many adventures later, Beren and Lúthien manage to retrieve the Silmaril from Morgoth's crown, but Beren's hand (which contains the Silmaril) gets eaten by a wolf, and he dies in the process of retrieving it. Lúthien's love for him is so great that she dies as well and the Valar allow them both to return to mortality to live as mortals so they can be together. Aragorn has a strong connection to this story, because his romance with Elrond's daughter Arwen mirrors Beren's of Lúthien: Elrond won't let Aragorn marry his Elvish daughter Arwen until Sauron is defeated and Aragorn secures the crown of Gondor and Arnor. "Beren and Lúthien" really is a beautiful story. I would highly recommend that one (as well as "Túrin Turambar", because of and despite of all its almost wacky tragic elements) from Silmarillion even if you don't read anything else in that book.

The poem is quite lovely in an of itself: its structure is an interesting A-B-A-C, B-A-B-C pattern (which perhaps is a traditional one, but my poetry classes are nearly ten years behind me and I can't place it), and the words just flow off the tongue when recited. "One moment stood she, and a spell / His voice laid on her: Beren came, / And doom fell on Tinúviel / That in his arms lay glistening." It captures description and emotion equally well, in my opinion. Nobody else really talked about it in their commentary -- I'd be interested to see what your thoughts were on the poem specifically.

Strider's lyrical recitation is the calm before the storm of the Riders' attack on the camp. I don't really understand what Strider was planning here; did he know it was hopeless to try and hide, and he figured that he could beat off the Riders when they arrived with the fire they had lit? Because he didn't really try to conceal the camp, and if he wanted a defensible position, surely the top of Weathertop would have been better? Oh well. It certainly raises the tension with the Hobbits rushing back to inform Strider about the approaching shadows, and how the Riders are poised on the rim of the hollow, ready to rush down and strike.

The Riders truly are terrible, aren't they? Tolkien's description of them is masterful:

"There were five figures: two standing on the lip of the dell, three advancing. In their white faces burned keen and merciless eyes; under their mantles were long grey robes; upon their grey hairs were helms of silver; in their haggard hands were swords of steel. . . . The third was taller than the others: his hair was long and gleaming and on his helm was a crown."

That's all for now. I'll leave my discussion of "Elbereth" for the next chapter, where Strider references it in greater detail. What an amazing chapter. I know I'm gushing, but let's see if Tolkien can top it in the future.