Chapter 8: The Road to Isengard

Jacob's Thoughts (7/10/15)

In contrast to the refreshingly clipped pace of events that lead up to the Battle of Helm's Deep (seriously, every chapter seemed to have some new, grand development that kept me engaged), Tolkien is now certainly taking his sweet time building up to the climactic confrontation between Gandalf and Saruman.

It's an anxious balancing act Tolkien's trying to pull of here: string the audience along just long enough, and the final show-down will pack just that much more oomph; but string it along for too long, and the tension crosses the line into tedium.  Seeing as how the Table of Contents assures me that I'm still at least 2 chapters from Book III's ostensible climax, Tolkien frankly has me a little nervous.

For how should I engage with this chapter?  Is this like in an RPG, wherein half the purported fun is just running around exploring this world, having conversations with the various characters?  Because that's what Gimli and Legolas' wistful conversations of old haunts feels like; same with Merry and Pippin recounting the discovery of Tobacco amongst the Hobbits before Gandalf thankfully saves Theodun from the tedium. I know Ben hasn't been a fan of Merry and Pippin in Book III, and for valid reasons; nevertheless I did find their laid-back reunion with the remainder of the old Fellowship, smoking pipes and sipping wine amidst a devastated yet victorious battle-field, to be just too darn charming to hate on.  This was humor that felt well-earned.

Nevertheless, the question arises again: what is the raion d'être of this chapter?  Is this just a break after the break-neck pace of the preceding chapters?  Some long-delayed character development?  A release of the tension?  Some world building?  A reminder that no one seems to know what Hobbits are?  So much of this prose, while pleasant enough, feels a little extraneous, obstacles to getting to the good stuff.  This chapter's most charming moments feels like it could have easily been merged into the following chapters without much of a loss.

Also, it just now occurs to me: I know part of the joke of Merry and Pippin in this chapter is that they are so blase around these earth-shattering events, but how are they so blase about seeing Gandalf again?  Gandalf has basically come back from the dead, transformed into a being even more powerful than before; shouldn't the import of that strike to the heart of even Merry and Pippin?  Not that I need a constant string of characters swooning over a resurrected Gandalf, but at least an acknowledgment, or even a flippant "Aren't you dead?", feels merited here.

Eric's Thoughts (8/10/15)

The Road to Isengard feels like an unnecessary chapter on many different levels. It begins with the entertaining resolution to Gimli and Legolas's subplot -- Gimli's 42 kills over Legolas's 41.

After that, it goes downhill as Theoden, Gandalf, and other supporting characters decide to pay Saruman a visit. That's all that literally happens in this chapter -- a journey to Isengard.

The terrain is described in great detail in this chapter. While I was reading this chapter, I was thinking about Orson Scott Card's theory that there are four different types of stories. In that article, Orson Scott Card argues there are milieu stories, idea stories, character stories, and event stories. Card argues that Lord of the Rings is an event story. While I think his model oversimplifies -- many stories include elements of all four, playing along I think Card is wrong. Perhaps Lord of the Rings is more of a milieu story than event story. Tolkien seems to focus heavily on having characters explore the world. At the very least, this chapter is a milieu chapter.

Not everything is bad. I perked up when Theoden and friends finally arrived at Isengard. Reading the description of Isengard was interesting. Reading about its ruin was fascinating. The reader had already known that the Tree Ents had marched to war, and this was the result. This is one things that Tolkien did well -- I think showing the devastation of the Ents was far more compelling than having a line by line account of Tree Ents crushing orcs.

Of course, I remember that the chapter where Saruman is introduced is one of the best of the series. Tolkien certainly takes his sweet time in building up to it.

Ben's Thoughts (8/20/15)

These two chapters, as Jacob guessed, are another part of the reason why I find Book 3 so tedious and disappointing. While "Helm's Deep" is far from a perfect chapter, it does provide forward-moving action as well as serving as its own self-contained narrative. But "Road to Isengard" is just a bridge chapter, taking our characters from one place to another. While the chapter does have some merit when viewed in isolation, it really doesn't contribute anything to the narrative as a whole and could easily have been condensed into "Flotsam and Jetsam" for a more consice, streamlined approach. I think Jacob has nailed it here: Tolkien should make you a little nervous, because this word count bloat will recur to haunt us in later books, particularly in both books of "Return of the King."

That's the bad; now on to the merit. Eric and Jacob both point out that the company's first impression of the hobbits and their subsequent interactions is ridiculously charming. The hobbits are never more endearing and worthwhile than when outsiders consider them with awe and respect. Tolkien invokes this theme often and effectively in the earlier books, and will employ it to schmaltzy effect after the Ring is destroyed (singers spontaneously compose and perform songs about the hobbits' valor!) but the effect does feel particularly well-earned in this chapter, to some degree. Tolkien does a respectable job of building up the imposing nature of Isengard, coupled with Gandalf's tongue-in-cheek efforts to keep the company in the dark about what happened the night before ("Gandalf, we see great smokes and fumes! Are we riding to our deaths???" "Maaaaaybe....") Thus the moment when the reader is expected to be presented with Isengard in all of its sound and fury is completely bowled over by the revelation that "the doors lay hurled and twisted on the ground" and the whole of Isengard stands in ruins. And to find the hobbits here, smoking and eating, is icing on the cake.

Finally, Tolkien manages to slip in another reminder that The Lord of the Rings is a book about endings, not beginnings (leaving the last line of the trilogy aside for a minute). Theoden, upon seeing what may be the most marvelous sight of his life -- the Ents shepherding the trees outside of Helm's Deep -- comments that "also I should be sad . . . For however the fortune of war shall go, may it not so end that much that was fair and wonderful shall pass for ever out of Middle-earth." Gandalf, always the kill-joy, responds: "It may . . . The evil of Sauron cannot be wholly cured, nor made as if it had not been." While victory may come -- and this easy triumph over Saruman's forces always led me to consider the ultimate inevitability of Sauron's defeat as well (easy at least when considering the driving thrust of Tolkien's narrative) -- it doesn't come without a heavy price, in lives and damage to men's (and hobbit's) souls. Theoden manages to come across here as a poignantly bitter-sweet character; one who relishes the victory over a ferocious enemy, but at the same time embodying an old man whose life has extended beyond the precious lives of so many fallen in battle, including that of his own son. In my line of work I come across on a regular basis tragic, wasteful death, as well as individuals who have so thoroughly squandered their time and talents as to render themselves incapable of making meaningful choices that the rest of us consider intrinsic to our human experience, so to some degree I can relate. Tolkien certainly saw this during and after the war. Now that I think about it, Tolkien probably related to Theoden a great deal.

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