Chapter 7: In the House of Tom Bombadil
Jacob's Thoughts (3/13/14)
I had totally spaced on the existence of Goldberry, which just goes to show how memorable this chapter was to me as a child. I don't know what to do with her--but then, I don't know what to do with most everything in this chapter.
It's as though we've temporarily stepped into a different story, into a different genre, as we enter the house of Tom Bombadil, visiting midstream a totally different narrative before being returned to our own. Part of me wonders aloud if that radical dislocation was perhaps intentional on the part of Tolkien: the Hobbits all feel apparently spell-bound by Tom's story-telling, such that they lose track of all time, as Tom tells tales of how he predates time himself; then there are the strange dreams they experience there too, as Frodo for example hears Dark Riders closing in on him, despite this being a safe place--they have lost all track of space in this house, too. This is all to say, that the house of Tom Bombadil is this strange liminal area that exists outside of time, space, and even the main narrative.
Tom Bombadil is "Master" according to Goldberry, though not apparently of her--or of anything else for that matter, for Tom is wholly Master of himself. Time and Space do not affect him, evil does not seem to threaten him, and he can put on the ring without turning invisible or being seduced by its power. When I was a child reading for the first time, I assumed this meant that Tom would maybe appear later to help carry the ring when Frodo couldn't anymore or something; but nope, this apparently ground-breaking superpower never comes up again, because apparently for Tom to be total master of himself means for him to not be subject to anything or anyone, not even to Tolkien's narrative. He is not even subject to his own creator. He stays free of the worst of the novel by staying out of the novel altogether.
Tom in a sense is the exact opposite of Sauron--the latter seeks to make himself master by subjecting all other possible rivals (even as he himself is still subject to the fate of the ring), while Tom by contrast knows that the only way to be truly free, to never be enslaved is, to never enslave others. As G.B. Shaw once wrote, "When we learn to sing that Britons never will be masters we shall make an end to slavery." Sauron sang that he would never be aslave, and thus made slaves of all others; but Tom I think knows better.
Of course, Tom, at the very least, could have given us a far more complete account of Sauron's origins (as he hints at this chapter), and this chapter could then have justified existence by serving as a helpful data dump instead of requiring readership of theSilmarillion--but no, Tom does not even give us that. But then why would he? He is as radically disinterested in our primary narrative as I was in his as a child.
Part of me still wants to just role my eyes at this once-off character that doesn't really do much besides exist, but perhaps part of the point of Tom Bombadil is to provide an alternative possibility for existence--Middle-Earth, after all, with its mutual xenophobia, strained race relations, paranoia, general distrust, greed, and corrupting desire for power that destroys all it touches, really isn't all that different from our own world, is it. But Tom Bombadil is genuinely different. If the world (both Tolkien's and ours) were filled with people like Tom, then this would be very different world indeed, where there would truly be nothing to fear in the dark under the stars.
In a sense, Tom doesn't participate more in the primary Lord of the Rings narrative because he can't, he is on a fundamentally different plane from the rest of us. We and the Hobbits get only a brief glimpse of this alternative possibility, but no more, before being dropped back into this world, to carry on the best we can. Tom may be free of all other influences, but we are still not.
I still don't know what to do with this chapter.
Ben's Thoughts (3/15/14)
Ah, Tom Bombadil. Perhaps the most-maligned character in Tolkien. The question I asked myself going into the chapter: Is that anger, hate, and derision deserved or not?
The answer: Yes, in the context of the narrative structure of LOTR. While Tom's presence lends itself to some interesting comments on the themes Tolkien will develop throughout the novel (and as an aside, this in and of itself is a problem, because those themes have not yet been developed or even introduced yet, thus rendering such nuances over the heads of first-time readers), he has no place in the book as far as plot or structure goes. Tom is just a blip on Our Heroes' radar, not to be mentioned again (save once or twice as throw-off references) in the entire rest of the books.
Tom would have been great in a book like The Hobbit (if not, perhaps, in The Hobbit itself), but LOTR is not The Hobbit. Side-quests and one-off episodes such as this have no place in the tale Tolkien will reveal himself to be telling. Interestingly enough, this might have made Tom more palatable to the first-time, 1940's reader rather than to the voracious 21st-century readers. Readers when the books first came out might have been expectingHobbit-like side-quests rather than the streamlined narrative many readers today demand.
All right. Enough with the hate in terms of the overarching narrative of the books. Yes, Tolkien probably should have cut old Tom. But they didn't -- and here he is -- and so we must deal with him. So what did I think?
Interestingly enough, a lot of my thoughts this time were about Goldberry. In some ways, Tom has been talked about to death, and I'll be talking him to death some more, so let's spend some time on "the daughter of the river." Tolkien's women, unfortunately, have taken some perhaps well-deserved criticism over the years. Many of them (and I use "many" in the lightest of senses, because so few of them appear in the books at all) are subjected to the worst kind of pedestal-setting. Take Goldberry. Here we have a woman who appears, at first glance, to be the ultimate achievement in domesticity -- she is beautiful and dutiful, setting the table for Tom and the Hobbits and letting them gawk at her constantly. Goldberry is adored (in the "worshipped" sense of the word) by the Hobbits for her beauty and grace, her otherworldliness, and her abilities in the home. I'm afraid feminist critics would have a field day with the descriptions of Frodo and Co.'s worship of her:
The one thing that I did find interesting about Goldberry this time around was the insinuation that Goldberry literally was the rain that fell upon the house throughout the Hobbits' full day at Tom's. Goldberry is gone when they wake up and the rain has already begun, and while they hear her voice, they do not see her until that evening when the rain has stopped (and her clothes have changed to reflect the change in weather, as well). Goldberry is associated with rain and streams and rivers throughout, both in descriptions and Tom's overt story about how he met her.
That of course brings me to the big question a fan of the Tolkien legendarium must ask about Tom and Goldberry -- what in the heck ARE they? And, for that matter, what is "Old Man Willow", or "The Great Willow," as Tom calls him at one point? As far as the evil tree goes, it might be easy to say that the Willow is a Huron (a tree turned Ent-ish, as Treebeard will describe them in "Two Towers") or an Ent become "tree-ish." Except the kind of power that Old Man Willow wields seems beyond that of even an Ent or powerful Huron. Tom describes how the Willow has extended his influence throughout the entire Old Forest, and how it is still spreading and seeking to grow continually. The Hobbits' interactions with him don't really square with what we learn about Ents and Hurons in later books, as well.
So what are they? Well, the second obvious answer is "Maiar." In Tolkien's legendarium, the "Gods," or pre-mortal spirits that attended Eru in the creation, are divided into the Valar (greater gods) and Maiar (lesser gods). The Maiar pop up a lot in the Silmarillion; one of the principal Elf protagonists is married to Melian the Maia, who together are the parents of Lúthien (and thus is one of the ancestors of Aragorn). Gandalf and Saruman are Maia. The Balrog is a Maia spirit of fire. Heck, Sauron is a Maia. So basically everything that doesn't fall into one of the easy categories of Mortals (Men, Elves, Dwarves, Ents, Hobbits -- and their various evil offshoots like Orcs) can probably be considered a Maia of some form or fashion. It would make sense that the "Great Willow" is a lesser Maia spirit of some sort, inseparably connected to the Forest.
This doesn't entirely square with Tom's description of himself, however. He was here "before the Dark Lord came from Outside." What does that mean? Is he referring to when Sauron crept back into the World in the Second Age after Morgoth's defeat? Or is he talking about when Morgoth came to Arda in the first place, waaaay back before the First Age? He says that he witnessed when the Elves came West for the first time, and when the Stars were the only lights in the sky, so he must mean the latter -- he was in Arda even prior to Morgoth.
This tells me one of two things: He was a semi-rebellious Maia who was just that interested in the earth that he abandoned Eru and the other Ainur to visit far before it was authorized. Or he is unconnected to the Ainur at all, and was somehow created along with the Earth by the music of the creators. I think the first option is far more interesting. Here's why: in Tolkien's legendarium, the Maia have all kinds of mighty powers, but in order to interact with mortals upon the earth, they generally have to clothe themselves in some kind of physical form or another. Thus when the Istari (the wizards, like Gandalf and Saruman) came to Middle-Earth, they were cloaked in the forms of Men (except they didn't get old). Doing so allows Maia to access powers that would be unavailable to them in their spiritual forms. Likewise, Morgoth chose to assume the physical form of a towering giant, and eventually he became so tied to that physical form that he could not longer shed it at all -- he was stuck looking like that. Sauron poured his powers into the Ring, and after it was destroyed no longer had the ability to take physical form (hence he's a distant antagonist throughout the books).
So if Tom left his fellow Ainur to come to Arda even before Morgoth, it would make sense that he would want to take physical form in order to better experience the joys of the new earth. And it would also make sense that he would be so limited in the present time. Think about it -- he has absolute power over everything, really, including the Ring and its powers of invisibility, but is completely limited in that power to his own little kingdom from the Old Forest to the barrow-downs.
I mentioned above that I think this does add something interesting to the themes of LOTR. It adds an essentially neutral character to the mix, one to whom the powers of good and evil cannot understand, and who does not care to participate in any way in the war. I find it interesting that the-powers-that-be like Gandalf spend their energy trying to bring about continent-wide changes, but Tom doesn't care about any of that. He's just trying to be happy in his own little kingdom. As Jacob noted, Goldberry states that no one has ever "caught" Tom, because he is Master. This makes perfect sense -- Tom has never been caught up in any of the climactic good vs. evil struggles because he just doesn't care. This raises the question of whether, if Sauron won, would he have power over Tom. I tend to think not, because Tom is above and apart from that kind of dominion.
One wonders if Tolkien is offering another way here -- that the binary between actively combating evil and seeking dominion over all others is a false one. Tom lives a pastoral, separate existence. Of course, I'm not really sure what Tolkien is trying to say, if that is the case. He certainly doesn't condemn Tom for his stance; far from it, his pastoral lifestyle is idealized. But since Tom doesn't enter into the story again, I can't think he's advocating it, either. I dunno.
But that's ultimately my conclusion about this chapter -- I dunno. Why is it here? Why did Tolkien see fit to include it? Like "the Old Forest," it contains some beautiful description, and it just feels completely packed with allegory and symbolism (like Tom and Goldberry's ever-changing colors of clothes). I'm just not qualified to pick it apart, I think. In the end, I'll stand by what I said before -- this would be an excellent short-story set in Middle-Earth, but probably not the best fit for an epic fantasy quest narrative like LOTR. Still, I found it far more enjoyable this time around than I have in the past.
Eric's Thoughts (4/5/14)
I had totally spaced on the existence of Goldberry, which just goes to show how memorable this chapter was to me as a child. I don't know what to do with her--but then, I don't know what to do with most everything in this chapter.
It's as though we've temporarily stepped into a different story, into a different genre, as we enter the house of Tom Bombadil, visiting midstream a totally different narrative before being returned to our own. Part of me wonders aloud if that radical dislocation was perhaps intentional on the part of Tolkien: the Hobbits all feel apparently spell-bound by Tom's story-telling, such that they lose track of all time, as Tom tells tales of how he predates time himself; then there are the strange dreams they experience there too, as Frodo for example hears Dark Riders closing in on him, despite this being a safe place--they have lost all track of space in this house, too. This is all to say, that the house of Tom Bombadil is this strange liminal area that exists outside of time, space, and even the main narrative.
Tom Bombadil is "Master" according to Goldberry, though not apparently of her--or of anything else for that matter, for Tom is wholly Master of himself. Time and Space do not affect him, evil does not seem to threaten him, and he can put on the ring without turning invisible or being seduced by its power. When I was a child reading for the first time, I assumed this meant that Tom would maybe appear later to help carry the ring when Frodo couldn't anymore or something; but nope, this apparently ground-breaking superpower never comes up again, because apparently for Tom to be total master of himself means for him to not be subject to anything or anyone, not even to Tolkien's narrative. He is not even subject to his own creator. He stays free of the worst of the novel by staying out of the novel altogether.
Tom in a sense is the exact opposite of Sauron--the latter seeks to make himself master by subjecting all other possible rivals (even as he himself is still subject to the fate of the ring), while Tom by contrast knows that the only way to be truly free, to never be enslaved is, to never enslave others. As G.B. Shaw once wrote, "When we learn to sing that Britons never will be masters we shall make an end to slavery." Sauron sang that he would never be aslave, and thus made slaves of all others; but Tom I think knows better.
Of course, Tom, at the very least, could have given us a far more complete account of Sauron's origins (as he hints at this chapter), and this chapter could then have justified existence by serving as a helpful data dump instead of requiring readership of theSilmarillion--but no, Tom does not even give us that. But then why would he? He is as radically disinterested in our primary narrative as I was in his as a child.
Part of me still wants to just role my eyes at this once-off character that doesn't really do much besides exist, but perhaps part of the point of Tom Bombadil is to provide an alternative possibility for existence--Middle-Earth, after all, with its mutual xenophobia, strained race relations, paranoia, general distrust, greed, and corrupting desire for power that destroys all it touches, really isn't all that different from our own world, is it. But Tom Bombadil is genuinely different. If the world (both Tolkien's and ours) were filled with people like Tom, then this would be very different world indeed, where there would truly be nothing to fear in the dark under the stars.
In a sense, Tom doesn't participate more in the primary Lord of the Rings narrative because he can't, he is on a fundamentally different plane from the rest of us. We and the Hobbits get only a brief glimpse of this alternative possibility, but no more, before being dropped back into this world, to carry on the best we can. Tom may be free of all other influences, but we are still not.
I still don't know what to do with this chapter.
Ben's Thoughts (3/15/14)
Ah, Tom Bombadil. Perhaps the most-maligned character in Tolkien. The question I asked myself going into the chapter: Is that anger, hate, and derision deserved or not?
The answer: Yes, in the context of the narrative structure of LOTR. While Tom's presence lends itself to some interesting comments on the themes Tolkien will develop throughout the novel (and as an aside, this in and of itself is a problem, because those themes have not yet been developed or even introduced yet, thus rendering such nuances over the heads of first-time readers), he has no place in the book as far as plot or structure goes. Tom is just a blip on Our Heroes' radar, not to be mentioned again (save once or twice as throw-off references) in the entire rest of the books.
Tom would have been great in a book like The Hobbit (if not, perhaps, in The Hobbit itself), but LOTR is not The Hobbit. Side-quests and one-off episodes such as this have no place in the tale Tolkien will reveal himself to be telling. Interestingly enough, this might have made Tom more palatable to the first-time, 1940's reader rather than to the voracious 21st-century readers. Readers when the books first came out might have been expectingHobbit-like side-quests rather than the streamlined narrative many readers today demand.
All right. Enough with the hate in terms of the overarching narrative of the books. Yes, Tolkien probably should have cut old Tom. But they didn't -- and here he is -- and so we must deal with him. So what did I think?
Interestingly enough, a lot of my thoughts this time were about Goldberry. In some ways, Tom has been talked about to death, and I'll be talking him to death some more, so let's spend some time on "the daughter of the river." Tolkien's women, unfortunately, have taken some perhaps well-deserved criticism over the years. Many of them (and I use "many" in the lightest of senses, because so few of them appear in the books at all) are subjected to the worst kind of pedestal-setting. Take Goldberry. Here we have a woman who appears, at first glance, to be the ultimate achievement in domesticity -- she is beautiful and dutiful, setting the table for Tom and the Hobbits and letting them gawk at her constantly. Goldberry is adored (in the "worshipped" sense of the word) by the Hobbits for her beauty and grace, her otherworldliness, and her abilities in the home. I'm afraid feminist critics would have a field day with the descriptions of Frodo and Co.'s worship of her:
"Goldberry busied herself about the table; and their eyes followed her, for the slender grace of her movement filled them with quiet delight."I'm sure Tolkien meant this to come across in the "tender goddess" sort of way instead of the "creepy men come over to drool over their new friend's gorgeous wife," but that's how it comes across in a way. Goldberry begins with the beauty and grace and never gets past that stage. She is idolized, and is belittled as a result. The insinuation that Tom found her in a stream one day and took her home and claimed her doesn't help things much when we learn about her apparent origins later on.
The one thing that I did find interesting about Goldberry this time around was the insinuation that Goldberry literally was the rain that fell upon the house throughout the Hobbits' full day at Tom's. Goldberry is gone when they wake up and the rain has already begun, and while they hear her voice, they do not see her until that evening when the rain has stopped (and her clothes have changed to reflect the change in weather, as well). Goldberry is associated with rain and streams and rivers throughout, both in descriptions and Tom's overt story about how he met her.
That of course brings me to the big question a fan of the Tolkien legendarium must ask about Tom and Goldberry -- what in the heck ARE they? And, for that matter, what is "Old Man Willow", or "The Great Willow," as Tom calls him at one point? As far as the evil tree goes, it might be easy to say that the Willow is a Huron (a tree turned Ent-ish, as Treebeard will describe them in "Two Towers") or an Ent become "tree-ish." Except the kind of power that Old Man Willow wields seems beyond that of even an Ent or powerful Huron. Tom describes how the Willow has extended his influence throughout the entire Old Forest, and how it is still spreading and seeking to grow continually. The Hobbits' interactions with him don't really square with what we learn about Ents and Hurons in later books, as well.
So what are they? Well, the second obvious answer is "Maiar." In Tolkien's legendarium, the "Gods," or pre-mortal spirits that attended Eru in the creation, are divided into the Valar (greater gods) and Maiar (lesser gods). The Maiar pop up a lot in the Silmarillion; one of the principal Elf protagonists is married to Melian the Maia, who together are the parents of Lúthien (and thus is one of the ancestors of Aragorn). Gandalf and Saruman are Maia. The Balrog is a Maia spirit of fire. Heck, Sauron is a Maia. So basically everything that doesn't fall into one of the easy categories of Mortals (Men, Elves, Dwarves, Ents, Hobbits -- and their various evil offshoots like Orcs) can probably be considered a Maia of some form or fashion. It would make sense that the "Great Willow" is a lesser Maia spirit of some sort, inseparably connected to the Forest.
This doesn't entirely square with Tom's description of himself, however. He was here "before the Dark Lord came from Outside." What does that mean? Is he referring to when Sauron crept back into the World in the Second Age after Morgoth's defeat? Or is he talking about when Morgoth came to Arda in the first place, waaaay back before the First Age? He says that he witnessed when the Elves came West for the first time, and when the Stars were the only lights in the sky, so he must mean the latter -- he was in Arda even prior to Morgoth.
This tells me one of two things: He was a semi-rebellious Maia who was just that interested in the earth that he abandoned Eru and the other Ainur to visit far before it was authorized. Or he is unconnected to the Ainur at all, and was somehow created along with the Earth by the music of the creators. I think the first option is far more interesting. Here's why: in Tolkien's legendarium, the Maia have all kinds of mighty powers, but in order to interact with mortals upon the earth, they generally have to clothe themselves in some kind of physical form or another. Thus when the Istari (the wizards, like Gandalf and Saruman) came to Middle-Earth, they were cloaked in the forms of Men (except they didn't get old). Doing so allows Maia to access powers that would be unavailable to them in their spiritual forms. Likewise, Morgoth chose to assume the physical form of a towering giant, and eventually he became so tied to that physical form that he could not longer shed it at all -- he was stuck looking like that. Sauron poured his powers into the Ring, and after it was destroyed no longer had the ability to take physical form (hence he's a distant antagonist throughout the books).
So if Tom left his fellow Ainur to come to Arda even before Morgoth, it would make sense that he would want to take physical form in order to better experience the joys of the new earth. And it would also make sense that he would be so limited in the present time. Think about it -- he has absolute power over everything, really, including the Ring and its powers of invisibility, but is completely limited in that power to his own little kingdom from the Old Forest to the barrow-downs.
I mentioned above that I think this does add something interesting to the themes of LOTR. It adds an essentially neutral character to the mix, one to whom the powers of good and evil cannot understand, and who does not care to participate in any way in the war. I find it interesting that the-powers-that-be like Gandalf spend their energy trying to bring about continent-wide changes, but Tom doesn't care about any of that. He's just trying to be happy in his own little kingdom. As Jacob noted, Goldberry states that no one has ever "caught" Tom, because he is Master. This makes perfect sense -- Tom has never been caught up in any of the climactic good vs. evil struggles because he just doesn't care. This raises the question of whether, if Sauron won, would he have power over Tom. I tend to think not, because Tom is above and apart from that kind of dominion.
One wonders if Tolkien is offering another way here -- that the binary between actively combating evil and seeking dominion over all others is a false one. Tom lives a pastoral, separate existence. Of course, I'm not really sure what Tolkien is trying to say, if that is the case. He certainly doesn't condemn Tom for his stance; far from it, his pastoral lifestyle is idealized. But since Tom doesn't enter into the story again, I can't think he's advocating it, either. I dunno.
But that's ultimately my conclusion about this chapter -- I dunno. Why is it here? Why did Tolkien see fit to include it? Like "the Old Forest," it contains some beautiful description, and it just feels completely packed with allegory and symbolism (like Tom and Goldberry's ever-changing colors of clothes). I'm just not qualified to pick it apart, I think. In the end, I'll stand by what I said before -- this would be an excellent short-story set in Middle-Earth, but probably not the best fit for an epic fantasy quest narrative like LOTR. Still, I found it far more enjoyable this time around than I have in the past.
Eric's Thoughts (4/5/14)
Well, I’ve fallen behind in my blogging, but I finally read about Tom’s house.
This chapter clearly should have been cut. Tom just doesn’t really fit into the narrative structure, and a modern reader demands a better payoff for this much time spent introducing a character. Tom is mentioned once in the Council of Elrond, but then ceases to matter.
But nevertheless the chapter is here, and so, plot structure and overall scope aside, I will review it on its own merits, ignoring the overall arc inconsistency.
The descriptions and writing are very good, with some great passages of description. I particularly liked Goldberry’s description:
In a chair, at the far side of the room facing the outer door, sat a woman. Her long yellow hair rippled down her shoulders; her gown was green, green as young reeds, shot with silver like beads of dew; and her belt was of gold, shaped like a chain of flag-lilies set with the pale-blue eyes of forget-me-nots. About her feet in wide vessels of green and brown earthen-ware, white water-lilies were floating, so that she seemed to be enthroned in the midst of a pool.
Now, in regard to plot structure for the chapter itself, Frodo and company say hello to Goldberry, they eat honey, go to sleep—nightmares occur—they wake up and it’s raining, Tom tells them stories, then they go to bed. Not much happening in terms of plot, so one thought I had is that this chapter might have served as a rest chapter after a particularly intense scene. But the Old Man Willow confrontation (the prior chapter) just didn’t do it for it, so this chapter (following the slowest and weakest chapter) in the book made me feel antsy.
In regard to characters, the first question is, what are Tom and Goldberry? Tom is (the text says Tom is, likened to God is), so we know that he’s something more than just a guy. But we knew that already, since he sang a song and Old Man Willow responded. To me he represents the earth itself, unaffected and uncaring of the lusts of man. However, I’m not sure if this is congruent with the living forests that Tom describes, where the Trees have feelings and feel malice towards the walking people and Hobbits. Old Man Willow supposedly represents this malice, as the Willow had exercised dominion over the Old Forest.
So since Trees have malice, maybe that makes Tom the dirt that the trees grow in? I can argue this thesis because (1) trees need dirt and (2) we know that Goldberry is water. In regard to the first point, that trees need dirt, the fact that the Old Man Willow needs dirt probably explains why Tom can order him about. And for the second point, Goldberry rains down on the house, so she is water and represents the feminine that interacts with the dirt, which are married and intertwined. So since we know Tom doesn’t include trees, and isn’t water, he must be dirt.
This symbolism is very poetic and all, but how does any of that matter? How does it make sense when Trees have malice? These questions kept running through my head as I was reading.
Definitely the best moment of the whole chapter occurred when Tom takes the ring, and the ring stretches to fit his finger, and he puts it on and doesn’t vanish. This tells you that Tom transcends the desires and lusts of Man and Hobbit, and even of lesser gods like Gandalf. He is, and is unaffected by the ring. (So maybe the ring doesn’t affect dirt?)
Frodo puts the ring on, and disappears, and Tom can see him. Perhaps Tom’s power is greater than Sauron’s? What if Sauron had won, would his power extend into Tom’s domain? These are questions I don’t have answers to, and really it’s always up to the author anyway, so anything is possible.
I think if a high school teacher graded this particular blog for a grade s/he would say: “Unfocused thesis, sarcastic, and lacks any insight whatsoever.” In response to that I say: Thank goodness I’m not in high school anymore. I don’t have to worry about that stuff.
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