Chapter 9: The Grey Havens
"I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil." -GandalfSo ends our long and unexpected journey. What do I even say now that I'm here? I suppose I'll begin by noting one last time that Tolkein's medievalism is ironically what marks him as distinctly Modern. Jed Esty has argued that as the global rise of industrialization, fascism, dialectical materialism, and laissez-faire capitalism left the modern subject feeling all the more alienated, isolated, and adrift, that the British in particular began to turn inexorably towards their own pre-modern past, to the forgotten lore of their countrysides, mining their own cultural resources in hopes of re-configuring a lost sense of national unity. J.R.R. Tolkein consciously participated in this same national reclamation project; despite his own devout Catholicism, he considered the disappearance of Britain's ancient pre-Christian mythology to be a tragic and irreparable loss--he arguably wrote Lord of the Rings in no small part as a replacement mythology for Great Britain.
Another more "High Brow" example of this Anglo-Modernist turn towards the pre-modern can be found in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. In his own footnotes to this watershed 1922 poem, Eliot announces that:
"Not only the title, but the plan and a good deal of the incidental symbolism of the poem were suggested by Miss Jessie L. Weston’s book on the Grail legend: From Ritual to Romance (Macmillan). Indeed, so deeply am I indebted, Miss Weston’s book will elucidate the difficulties of the poem much better than my notes can do; and I recommend it (apart from the great interest of the book itself) to any who think such elucidation of the poem worth the trouble."Ancient Arthurian Grail Legend is the chief organizing principle of The Waste Land, which is itself perhaps the single most definitive work of Anglo-Modernism (besides Joyce's Ulysses, which is itself modeled on Greek legend). Like Tolkien, Eliot turns towards the lore of a pre-modern past in order to somehow recover a lost sense of ontological and epistemological unity--"These fragments I have shored against my ruins" is one of the poem's concluding lines.
I touch on Arthurian legend because I actually once went to the trouble of reading Miss Jessie L. Weston's From Ritual to Romance (in a misbegotten quest to somehow make sense of that impossible poem), which is where I first got introduced to tale of the Fisher-King. The account survives only in fragments of ancient Welsh manuscripts, dating back to the very earliest sources of the King Arthur mythos. Briefly: A curse has fallen upon the land. The crops will not grow, the cattle die, babies are still-born. In desperation, a Knight of the Round Table is dispatched across the waste-land in search of the Fisher-King, to somehow lift the curse.
Not enough fragments survive to tell us what happens next; what's important is that the land has been wasted, and the quest of the modern subject is to traverse the waste in order to repair that which was irreparably lost.
Which, in broad strokes, is what we find at the outset of "The Grey Havens": The Shire has been wasted--and that in every sense of the word, those grand trees were wastefully felled for no other reason than sheer spite--as Saruman sought to set up a mini-Mordor. Even after the enemy has been expelled, Sam despairs of ever setting it right again, that it will not be until his great-grandchildren that the Shire will again "look like it ought." Something has been irrevocably lost.
But then Sam remembers his boon from Galadrial, that choice soil and seeds, and so begins planting a-new. The ensuing harvest is better than ever--the Shire's best beer is brewed from its hops. The Hobbits work like bees (which they apparently can when the inclination strikes them) in repairing the home-steads and tearing down that ghastly Mill. They begin to restore the Shire to its prior Edenic glory. These Hobbit knights of the round table have fulfilled their mission. The curse on the land has been lifted.
The destruction of the Mill is of special interest to me, because it feels like a specific representation of industrial Modernity, in all of its diabolical pollutions, inhumanity, and alienation. It's deconstruction is a symbolic rejection of Modernity generally, a conscious move back to a pre-modern communal unity. I cannot help but feel that there is a sort of call to arms in Tolkien's destruction of the Mill and restoration of the Shire, for Modern Man to likewise reject Modernity. The destruction of the Ring was likewise symbolic of the same; for unlike actual medieval texts, this series features not the conquest of a boon of great power, but the rejection of one.
Except that can't ever happen, not really. Well over a half-century after The Lord of the Ring's publication, we are only all the more entangled and embedded in the worst of Modernity, we are further away from rejecting this treacherous boon than ever. Our pollutions are off the scale, industrialism is all the more firmly ensconced. If the One Ring came into our possession today, there would be no hesitation: we would use it to "strengthen our borders," increase "energy independence," bolster our military, expand our surveillance apparatus. Like Saruman, we are only too willing to cut our deals with the Dark Lord.
So what is there left to do? Leave. Withdraw. Which is what Frodo does, doesn't he.
He is still too marked by the wounds of the Black Riders, by the weight of his time as the Ring-Bearer, by the forces that attempted to swallow the whole of Middle-Earth. He has helped break the curse upon the Earth, but not upon himself. So now he takes to the infinite expanse of the ocean, to join with something that is even bigger than all of Middle-Earth. There is something romantic in his decision to leave behind the Shire. There is also something tragic.
Eliot's Waste Land finishes with a "Shantih Shantih Shantih", which his own footnote says is "a formal ending to an Upanishad. 'The Peace which passeth understanding' is a feeble translation of the content of this word." There is likewise a peace which passeth understanding at the finish of Lord of the Rings. Except I once had to do a research paper on this poem back in undergrad, and I distinctly remember coming across an article that pointed out that a proper ending to an Upanishad would have an "Om" following those "Shantihs" (think the Beatles' "Across the Universe," with its chorus of "jai guru deva om"). In other words, Eliot's poem only invokes that Peace formalistically, without really finishing it. The Peace is arrested. It has not quite yet been achieved. That primordial sense of wholeness still eludes us. We are still left wondering what to do next.
That peace has not been fully achieved for Frodo yet, either. He will not be able to fully recuperate his lost sense of self, anymore than will the Modern world. For that, he must seek elsewhere. For that he must seek over the seas and beyond the horizons.
Ben's Thoughts (8/30/17)
The final chapter of The Lord of the Rings never fails to put chills through me, because of its beauty, poignancy, and staggering sense of inevitability.
Frodo has long since realized that he cannot retain this "dream" he had, of comfortable life in the Shire. He is too damaged, too changed by his experiences to do so. This fact is something that the Wise--Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel--have been hinting and and telling him about practically since the first moment he realized that Bilbo's "ring" was in fact the "Ring"--the Ring of Power of the Dark Lord of Mordor. Taking part in the Quest irrevocably changed him.
But the touching thing about this change is that Frodo accepts it. He doesn't rail against it, or try to cling to his old life. He doesn't hang on to the Deputy Mayorship and push poor old Will Whitfoot aside in a desperate attempt to retain a place in the Shire. No--slowly, he diminishes, just as Galadriel said she would diminish (and yet, "remain Galadriel"--a powerful message to anyone engaged in that sort of struggle. You can lose yourself in trying to hang onto some past version of yourself). He moves aside for Pippin, and Merry, and Sam, and their descendants, and the new generation of hobbit-children that fill the Shire. He stays just long enough to record his account of what happened in the war and pass it on to Sam, who will hopefully in turn pass it on to his descendants. And then he moves on to the next great adventure. I think that is a strong message to all of us about letting go and moving on.
But that of course leaves us with Sam, standing in many ways alone on the shore, listening to the waves and watching where the ship vanished over the horizon long after the light of Galadriel faded into the darkness. Parting is one of the hardest things we ever do in life. Being separated from those we love, separated in time from experiences we have cherished. The loss of those memories, those people, those places is powerful; it's something that stays with us. As Sam says, we feel torn in two. We know that we must move forward, that we have joys and responsibilities and relationships in the here and now; but something continues to tug on us, pulling us back, causing us to look over our shoulder.
I think Tolkien is telling us that it's all right to keep looking over your shoulder. Far from the story of Lot's wife, we are not going to be turned into a pillar of salt for keeping these feelings, these experiences, these memories close to us. It is true: on the one hand, too much reliance on past experiences and relationships can hamper those we have in the present. But on the other, if they inform and support rather than consume, they can be used as founts of strength, information, experience, and empathy to buoy us up rather than drag us down.
This all sounds very trite when I read it back over. But Tolkien has managed to capture powerful essences of our human experience and portray them in plot and narrative. It's a rare author who manages to do this for me. This feels real to me, unlike so much other literature which instead feels like a pale copy, if it's striving to capture anything at all.
As I stand with Sam there on the shores of Middle-earth, I think about my quests, my adventures, and the ones that I have yet to experience. Tolkien has managed, once again, to assist me in my travels.
Eric's Thoughts (12/31/17)
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that life is a journey, not a destination. In the spirit of Emerson, I've used this opportunity to peek at our old posts and see how we progressed through the years (along with Frodo and Company).
And what progress! Jacob, Ben, and I have wrote our way through sixty-two lengthy chapters, and between school, and children, and marriages, it's taken a little under three years to complete this project. At the time we started (January 2014), I was just out of law school, Ben had just finished his clerkship, and Jacob was working on his Ph.D.
Since that time, we've visited Yellowstone (June 2015), Capital Reef / Arches / Canyonlands (June 2016), and Yosemite (June 2017). Marriages, and kids, and Ph.Ds happened. Most certainly we have all grown as Frodo and Co. did within Tolkien's wonderland.
The Grey Havens is a haunting chapter that is enigmatic and a pleasure to read.The growth of the hobbits really wouldn't have been apparent without the Scouring of the Shire and the Grey Havens. This is classic hero's journey -- the transformed character(s) return with a boon.
So what is the boon? I would submit that the greatest boon the hobbits bring back to the shire are their changed selves, with skillsets and leadership that allows the hobbits to drive out evil before it fully takes root. Of course, this is a boon that is only seen through the hobbits' acts and deeds. The literal boon is that Sam brings back Galadriel's earth that allows the Shire to heal and grow stronger than before. Most memorable to me (even from many years ago) is how Sam replants seeds of trees that are buffered with a single grain of Galadriel's gift of earth, and of course the mallorn tree with silver leaves (that replaces the old party tree).
Interspersed between these denouements lies Frodo, where Tolkien describes Frodo clutching a jewel and muttering to himself. Indeed, Frodo's behavior foreshadows that he cannot live a life of peace amongst the shire (though he does seem to try). Frodo's war wounds are simply too great:
"Where are you going master?" cried Sam[.]Frodo then embarks on a ship with Gandalf, the elves, to go on a journey to the Havens. A haven, in the literal sense, means a place of refuge or safety. Interestingly, it also can mean a harbor or a port, that is to say a place of departure or destination for a ship. (In his descriptions, Tolkien hints that the Havens is both a place of departure and a place of destination.) And Tolkien complicates this description by calling the havens "grey," which signifies images of age, fog, clouds, and blurring.
"To the Havens, Sam," said Frodo.
"And I can't come."
"No, Sam. Not yet, anyway, not further than the Havens . . ."
"But," said Sam, and tears started in his eyes, "I thought you were going to enjoy the Shire too, for years and years, after all you have done."
"So I thought too, once. But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them . . ."
The only real clue in the text is that "And then it seemed to [Frodo] that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to a silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise." In contrast, "But to Sam the evening deepened to darkness as he stood at the Haven, and as he looked at the grey sea he saw only a shadow on the waters that was soon lost in the West."
I would study those words in church growing up, Lord of the Rings hidden between my bible, and ponder them. At the time, Tolkien's uncertainty left me scratching my head and bothered me. My younger self always wanted a clear answer to what the Havens was.
But now, I appreciate Tolkien's ambiguity. He ends the story in a way that signifies new beginnings. Sam returns home, ready to start his next adventure. Frodo goes on to see a "swift sunrise" in a land with far greener pastures.
In essence, Frodo and his friends become legends, and an older age lives on through the Red Book, reality turning to fantasy as years pass.
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