"The Great River" - Ben's Thoughts

I always loved this chapter when I read it growing up. The Fellowship on a road trip! What could be better! Road trips were always my favorite when I was young, because I got to lay down in the back seat without a seat belt and take off my shoes (something that was usually forbidden in the car) and the warm sun would be shining in through the windows and often we would stop at a Dairy Queen and get Blizzards, and I would lay down back there and get to read for something like 5 hours straight… Believe me, it was heaven for the little bibliophile that I was. When I got to college and my love of books was partially translated into a love for music, and I got my own car -- well, you can imagine that trips from Dallas to Provo were no burden but rather a sheer joy. (Of course, after 10 or so of those 22-hour road trips, the joy of it tends to eke away a little bit. But no matter.) I think something of that joy translated into my perception of "The Great River." The Fellowship finds itself in a very liminal state, neither here nor there, neither committing to the dangers and dread of the east bank of the river, nor the uncomfortable finality of the west bank and its final destination of Minas Tirith.

Quite a large chunk of this chapter is description of scenery, and I found myself enraptured this time around. Descriptions like this are marvelously evocative:

"Soon the River broadened and grew more shallow; long stony beaches lay upon the east, and there were gravel-shoals in the water, so that careful steering was needed. The Brown Lands rose into bleak wolds, over which flowed a chill air from the East. On the other side the meads had become rolling downs of withered grass amidst a land of fen and tussock." [A wold is an elevated stand of trees, in case you were wondering.]

Although the scenery is bleak, it's a vista that I would love to experience firsthand. The trip down the river, culminating in the breathtaking float-by of the Argonath, that culminates in the beautiful expanse of the river bisected by the island, with the three majestic mountains in the distance and the sound of the falls dominating everything… wow. That sounds magnificent. You have to hand it to Tolkien -- he really visualized his locales and this one especially sprung to life for me as a place that I'd want to visit. No man has set foot upon (what I assume is the peak) of Tol Brandir? Sign me up. I'll be the first. I'd take it as a challenge.

I cannot identify at all with Sam's terror at the sight of the Argonath and the dark chasm leading to the lake. I'm much more in line with Aragorn, standing tall with eyes shining, just drinking it all in. (More on Aragorn's dilemma in a minute.) Tolkien seems to me very much divided between a hopeless homebody (not quite an agoraphobe), like Sam, and someone who was desperate to get out and see things that awed and inspired in the natural world in which we live, like Bilbo at the beginning of The Hobbit when the Dwarves' song awakens within him a seed of excitement and a desire to see the mountains and the gold and the dragon. I think something of this duality exists in us all; I myself love comfortable evenings relaxing on the couch, reading to myself or aloud to my wife, but at the same time there is within me a fierce longing for the mountains or the sea. For years I believed that this longing was for the mountains and the mountains alone, but I've been to the ocean twice in the last two years, on beaches on two oceans on practically opposite ends of the United States, and something of that longing and wonder at the majesty of the fathomless depths of the sea, with the waves crashing against one's legs and the birds wheeling overhead, has wormed its way inside me as well. O the restrictions of the modern life! (The great comfort, and the great restrictions.) It's unfortunate that responsibility and routine cannot be abandoned at a moment's notice to go haring off into the Wild, and then lay there until such time that a person wishes to return to the comfort of routine! The freedom to do that comes, unfortunately, only with money -- which I have in short supply at the moment, not sure about everyone else. One day, perhaps, I'll be able to visit the equivalent of the Falls of Rauros, or the Argonath, or the hills of Amon Hen and Amon Lhaw. Mark my words.

Jacob's already written very eloquently on the complexity of Gollum's character, and I'm sure I'll be diving into it a bit more as well in Book IV. One of the things I wished to muse about was the Nazgûl -- what exactly is it trying to do here? It seems clear that the orcs have set something of a trap for the Fellowship on the east bank, just before the rapids of Sarn Gebir, and that their hope was that the peril of the rapids would push the Company onto the east bank and into their waiting arms. First, how did they know that the Company was going to pass that way? Did Gollum really tell them? I find that hard to believe -- no matter what Aragorn thinks, I don't believe that Gollum would willingly rat on the Fellowship, because he wants the Ring for himself, not for Sauron. Neither do I think that the orcs (and heaven forbid, Sauron through the Nazgûl) would just let Gollum waltz back to his little log in the river after getting his hands on him again. Sauron tends to overlook the little things, but I doubt he'd miss a detail like that this late in the game. So perhaps these were just patrolling orcs who happened to be at the right place at the right time?

Likewise, the Nazgûl's M.O. at this point confuses me. I know Sauron was waiting to unleash the Ringwraiths on their new flying mounts until later; indeed, the next time we will encounter a flying Nazgûl will be weeks later in LOTR-time, at the very end of Book III. So what is this one doing, soaring over the river in range of Legolas' Elven-bow? (I can just see the orcs snickering behind their hands at the sodden Ringwraith dragging itself out of the river after getting shot down, too.) Somehow I have to believe this was an attempt at a northern incursion into Rohan, rather than a concerted effort to snare the Ring-bearer. Although -- the orcs of the Eye that pop up at the end of the book and kidnap Pippin and Merry, along with Saruman's Uruk-hai, were searching for hobbits, so maybe I'm way off base. It just seems like shoddy planning, with little hope of success on the bad guys' part.

Finally, Aragorn. The narrator has not referred to him as "Strider" in some time, since the beginning of Book II if I remember correctly, but here it tosses off all pretense that this figure is anything but a kingly one. "In the stern sat Aragorn son of Arathorn, proud and erect, guiding the boat with skilful strokes; his hood was cast back, and his dark hair was blowing in the wind, a light was in his eyes: a king returning from exile to his own land." But this very transformation intensifies Aragorn's dilemma -- as a returning king, he now feels obligated to return to "Minas Anor" (even more tellingly, he calls the city by its ancient name, "The Tower of the Sun," signifying its beauty and power, rather than by its current name, "The Tower of Guard," reflecting its current status as capitol of a nation at war. Aragorn is really reaching to evoke the past glories of Gondor, for when he served Ecthelion in years past, the city was already titled "Minas Tirith." Long parenthetical ended.) You can feel the narrative building towards something powerful with Aragorn's choice -- whether or not Tolkien delivers on what is simmering in the pot here is a question I'll leave for the next chapter.