"Treebeard" - Ben's Thoughts

I have a decidedly love-hate relationship with this chapter. On the one hand, it's a beautiful piece of lyrical prose, with (what I consider to be) lovely poetical interludes, vivid descriptions, and just the right tinge of sorrow and loss floating throughout that Treebeard's character really resonates with me, and the Ents' choice to go to war makes perfect emotional and logical sense. On the other hand, this is a massive chapter -- equivalent in length to "Council of Elrond" in Book 2, which we all agreed was just too lengthy to be of ultimate service to the narrative -- which drags down the pace of this book to a snail's crawl. Not to mention the fact that Merry and Pippin are without a doubt the least engaging characters among the Fellowship and they just don't get any better here.

So I don't really know what to say about the chapter beyond the fact that it's inventive, well-written, admirable from a literary perspective, and an absolute bore, all at the same time.

Treebeard -- the Old Ent doesn't really come across as much of a threat to anyone when he is first encountered at the beginning of the chapter, which is a strange juxtaposition when considered in the light of the threatening, sinister Old Man Willow of Book 1. He kind of comes across as a goof until we get the story of the Entwives and the sorrow behind the character and the Ents as an entire race emerges. Treebeard really doesn't come to life until that moment when he speaks and sings of the Entwives. I'm glad the Ents were given some life and motivation beyond just "shepherds of the trees". Frankly, it makes their march on Isengard all the more believable. They searched and searched for their missing wives and, when they finally gave up on finding them, retreated back to their last shrinking stronghold. And even there these orcs and dirty wizards won't leave them alone; instead they seek to destroy the last thing left to the Ents. It can't be tolerated further.

Jacob is right that the Ents' longevity really affects their characterization in these chapters; Tolkien's a little on the nose with it, in my opinion, but he gets his point across and makes the Ents quite unique in that respect. The Ents experience time in the same way as humans and hobbits do, and as a result they feel quite alien in many respects to the young hobbits. Jacob also talks about the Elves not having this same feel. I would argue that Tolkien has actually quite carefully laid out that Elves experience time quite differently than mortals do. The hobbits mention quite explicitly that in Lórien, and to a lesser extent in Rivendell, they completely lose track of the days and weeks; the hobbits are even confused about how many moons have passed while they stayed in the Golden Wood. This seems like the Elves' time-diluted lives have some kind of an effect on the mortals that surround them. Sam experiences something of the same during the evening they hobbits spent with the Wood-Elves way back at the beginning of Book 1. Tolkien, I believe, places starkly-defined lines between his mortals and immortals; the Elves, although capable of interacting with humans to the degree that they almost might seem human themselves, are actually quite different, and when the reader is reminded of these differences its effect is almost startling. (Remember just two chapters ago? Legolas didn't even need to sleep, and he could put his mind in a trance-like state while running that was just as good as sleep to him.)

Merry and Pippin -- Oh, those darn hobbits. I just can't warm up to them. They're wholly useless. I know they're given narrative purpose here, in swinging the Ents into violent action, but really, they serve as a catalyst only. They tell Treebeard what is going on in the outside world, and a very guarded version of their quest, and then Treebeard decides that enough is enough and takes the Ents to war. I can almost see why Peter Jackson changed this section so much, even though it makes the Ents come across as utter idiots. It simply makes the hobbits, who are supposed to be real characters, into something more than plot muffins. But as it is, here, they're just set dressing who distract us away from the interesting business: the Ents' discussion of whether or not to fight. Additionally, Pippin's weird flash-forward description of Treebeard's eyes is very strange and completely out of character; if there is one person who has been depicted as wholly clueless and unobservant to this point in the narrative, it's Pippin. There's no way the character as we know him would be that eloquent or articulate in describing something later on.

The concepts, the ideas, of the chapter, are wonderful. I love the Hurons (Tolkien's Ents and Hurons spawned a whole legion of tree-like characters in D&D an countless video games from these brief appearances in Lord of the Rings), the fact that Merry and Pippin can live off of the magical Ent-water (seriously, what is in that stuff?), the descriptions of the varying kinds of Ents, and the callback to "The Old Forest" with explanations of how trees might come alive or become corrupted. I also love the new perspective on Saruman; Treebeard seems dumb to have divulged so much to Saruman without receiving anything in return, but it makes perfect sence once we actually meet the White Wizard in a few chapters and see just what his superpower really can do to people.

But while the concepts are excellent, the execution and pacing is woefully turgid. I'm eager to get back to Aragorn and Friends in the next chapter.