For the first half of this chapter, I worried that Tolkien had fallen back into old habits, indulging in that same, dull wheel-spinning that dragged down so many of the middle-chapters of Book 1. Part of it is all that discussion of cram and fine elvin rope; I hadn't cared before how the Fellowship was provisioned (it's not like Tolkien had cared before either), and I wasn't about to start now. (The most boring chapter in Moby Dick is also about getting rope).
Moreover, as Aragorn and Borimor et al argued inconclusively about where to go next, I began to worry that Tolkien didn't know at the time either, that he was making this all up on the fly. Maybe I had been spoiled by so many solid chapters in a row, but "Farewell to Lórien" felt like a misstep.
Or maybe I just hate long goodbyes, and that's exactly what "Farewell to Lórien" is--and despite the wonderful "Mirror of Galadriel" chapter, I didn't feel like we spent enough time in Lórien for us to feel all that invested in this grand au revoir. (Besides, what is this, the third time they had to say goodbye to somewhere nice? After the Shire and Rivendell, the trope begins to wear thin).
But by the end of the chapter, I had warmed up to it. Part of it were the touches of character development and foreshadowing: here Frodo (and the reader) first gets the sense that Borimor is not quite as deferential and bland a traveling companion as he has seemed so far, that he never actually took his eye of the Ring, that there is in fact some dissemination hidden within the ranks of the Fellowship; here Gimli allows himself some genuine vulnerability, grace, and courage in humbly begging a strand of hair from the Lady Galadriel, which elevates him from mere "obligatory generic Dwarf no. 473" to an actual person with hidden depths and a real personality, someone I might want to get to know better; and here, Aragorn receives a brooch which, while seemingly little more than an old heirloom, seems to lift the burden of "many years" from his countenance. This is all Hemingway's ice-berg theory at its best (I had to give a class presentation on Ernest Hemingway's debut In Our Time this week, so the ice-berg theory--that 7/8ths of the story should be hidden beneath the surface--has been on my mind a lot lately).
If we wanted to get all Campbellian-Hero-Cycle here, this chapter is where the hero receives the "supernatural boon" before the great confrontation. As such, Frodo's reception from Galadriel of a light that will shine in his darkest hour implies that this darkest hour is fast closing in. And indeed, for the first time in this journey, our heroes here have begun to discuss Mordor as a place they may actually approach soon--that is, for the first time, Mordor feels real. Already Tolkien is setting us up for the next book, which, based on the thinness of the pages remaining in my right hand, is also fast approaching.
In fact, not only is Tolkien already setting us up for the final approach to Mordor, but for post-Mordor, intriguingly. For the Lady Galadriel's gift to Sam is a patch of dirt from Lórien. She straight up admits will this boon not help him keep the right road nor protect him on his journey, but is instead to help his garden flourish and bloom if/when he ever gets home. Now, she explicitly does not promise him that he will ever get to go home ("all foretelling is now vain")--nor does she promise that the Shire won't be a barren, scorched wasteland if he does--only that he will be able to grow again. It's a small hope maybe, but in this ever-enclosing darkness, it's an encouraging one.
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