[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I really don't see that the quotation from which this thread is derived really tells us enough about Pullman's opinion to admit a detailed examination of it. Every so often a thread begins that is based on a quotation from a newspaper, and each time it is mentioned at least once that journalists thrive on controversy, and will do whatever they can to get interviewees to say something juicy. I think that the problem with defining what is meant here by 'depth' is that we have no exposition of Pullman's opinion (as is only to be expected, since Tolkien was probably only mentioned because Pullman writes fantasy). He could mean almost anything by 'psychological depth': he might be talking about an absence of psychological detail, or he might be suggesting that Tolkien's characters are cardboard cut-outs that are pushed around the chess-board of his novel with little regard to how any of the story affects them. The problem with his statement is that it does not come from a considered argument but a fairly casual conversation. Pullman would probably have been much more careful to define his terms had he been attempting to present his opinion for debate, because without that detailed definition we cannot see what he really means.

Even when we ourselves talk about depth, we seem unsure of what we mean. Although I see unexplored depths implied in many of the characters who have been put forward as 'paper-thin', I am not looking for exhaustive detail and exploration when I look for depth. For me the author just has to show that there is more to the character than what appears on the surface. Detailed journeys through a character's mind are inappropriate in a work of very wide physical or temporal scope unless one wants to write the sort of book more suited to weightlifting than reading. I try to imagine The Lord of the Rings with long stream-of-consciousness passages à la Virginia Woolfe and I see twelve or more volumes, in which the story is constantly derailed by unnecessary exposition.

In any case, exposition was not Tolkien's way. What moved him in literature is well demonstrated by his comments on Beowulf in his introduction to the revised Clark-Hall translation:

The poet who spoke these words saw in his thought the brave men of old walking under the vault of heaven upon the island earth beleaguered by the Shoreless Seas and the outer darkness, enduring with stern courage the brief days of life , until the hour of fate when all things should perish, leoht and lif samod. But he did not say all this fully or explicitly. And therein lies the unrecapturable magic of ancient English verse for those who have ears to hear: profound feeling, and poignant vision, filled with the beauty and mortality of the world, are aroused by brief phrases, light touches, short words resounding like harp-strings sharply plucked.

What Tolkien admired in Old-English verse was what he saw as its ability to achieve through hint and nuance an impression of depths left purposefully unexplored by its author. The real question is the extent to which he succeeded in his attempt to emulate it. We must ask not whether there is detailed exploration of characters' thoughts and motivations, but whether we can infer from what he tells us that there is more to them than appears on the surface. It is my opinion that he does succeed, and that his approach to characterisation is the same as his approach to historical detail: he thought through what each of his main characters would be like and then revealed what he needed to reveal for the purposes of telling his story. For me, an explicit journey into Aragorn's head would be like Elrond going into a detailed description of Túrin's nature and deeds when he mentions him at the end of The Council of Elrond. Why bother, Tolkien appears to think, when one can show the reader what they need to know to understand the character as the narrative unfolds?

Consider the following passages:

Strider sighed and paused before he spoke again. 'That is a song,' he said, 'in the mode that is called ann thennath among the Elves, but it is hard to render in our Common Speech, and this is but a rough echo of it. It tells of the meeting of Beren son of Barahir and Lúthien Tinúviel. Beren was a mortal man, but Lúthien was the daughter of Thingol, a King of Elves upon Middle-earth when the world was young; and she was the fairest maiden that has ever been among all the children of this world. As the stars upon the mists of the Northern Lands was her loveliness, and in her face was a shining light.

As Strider was speaking they watched his strange eager face, dimly lit in the red glow of the wood-fire. His eyes shone and his voice was rich and deep.

In a dark moment, Aragorn sees the need for a story that will raise the spirits of his companions; and what passage is it that he quotes but the meeting of Beren and Lúthien? We have not yet met Arwen in the narrative, and Tolkien is purposefully keeping her relationship with Strider a secret. He could not refer to her using internal methods without spoiling the surprise, but later we find that Aragorn's first words to Arwen were those of Beren to Lúthien; that she was the living image of Tinúviel, and that her father, too is a great lord among the Elves. This speaks volumes for Aragorn's eager face and shining eyes. It explains perfectly why he has chosen this of all poems to recite to his companions; but we do not know this at the time. There is something more than just an appreciation of Elven literature in the scene, but we do not know what it is until we see Aragorn with Arwen later. An internal passage would draw the reader's attention from the reaction of the hobbits and reveal that which the author does not want to reveal; but with this method we can look back later and see that the meeting of Beren and Lúthien has a deep significance for Aragorn. We are in the same position as the hobbits who are our arbiters with the world of Middle-earth: we can sense that there is something more to the scene than meets the eye, but there is an air of mystery about it. If Aragorn were emotionally or psychologically shallow there would be nothing to see. He would simply be demonstrating his own knowledge of poetry at a singularly inappropriate moment. As it is, his quotation is a window on his soul.

To return to the example of Húrin raised above, Eurytus is quite right to tell us that the fact that Húrin kills seventy trolls tells us nothing about him other than that he was fairly handy with an axe. This argument, however, fails utterly to address the matter of the circumstances and more specifically Húrin's choice of words as he fights (those factors that are actually relevant to a discussion of characterisation). In the Silmarillion we are told, firstly, the counsel of war between the leading survivors as the battle turns to disaster.

Then Húrin spoke to Turgon, saying: 'Go now, lord, while time is! For in you lives the last hope of the Eldar, and while Gondolin stands Morgoth shall know fear in his heart.'
But Turgon answered: 'Not long now can Gondolin be hidden; and being discovered it must fall.'
Then Huor spoke and said: 'Yet if it stands but a little while, then out of your house shall come the hope of Elves and Men. This I say to you, lord, with the eyes of death: though we part here forever, and I shall not look on your white walls again, from you and from me a new star shall arise. Farewell!'
And Maeglin, Turgon's sister-son, who stood by, heard these words, and did not forget them; but he said nothing.

This passage is interesting as it explains more precisely just what Húrin is trying to achieve in his last stand with Huor; but it also gives us a foreshadowing of the conflict between Tuor and Maeglin and the circumstances of the Fall of Gondolin. Maeglin's silence speaks volumes because it seems so unnecessary to the plot. What does it matter what Turgon's nephew heard, and what he did or did not choose to say? The battle is lost; the armies must try to escape. Only later do we find out about Maeglin's unrequited love for Idril, which would give him pause for thought at Huor's words.

We are then told that the men of Dor-lómin volunteer to fight a rearguard action that can only end in their destruction. We are told their motivation, but we have already seen that Huor and Húrin already have cause for hope: not for themselves, but for their cause.

But the men of Dor Lómin held the rearguard, as Húrin and Huor desired; for they did not wish in their hearts to leave the Northlands, and if they could not win back to their homes, there they would stand to the end. Thus was the treachery of Uldor redressed; and of all the deeds of war that the fathers of Men wrought on behalf of the Eldar, the last stand of the men of Dor-lómin is most renowned.

This puts Húrin's words as he fights the trolls into a context that the reader can understand. Without the earlier build-up to this crisis, his words would make less sense (although they would be no less heroic for that). Facing what seems certain death, Húrin has his mind set only on the future and what his actions will achieve. His own fate is sealed and he draws inspiration from his certainty that what he is doing will play its part in final victory: "Aurë entuluva: day shall come again." Not just the physical dawn that is coming as he fights, but a dawn ending the night of Morgoth's domination.

This is what I think Tolkien meant when he spoke of gentle touches revealing a writer's intentions. Húrin's words are an echoing of the same northern heroic spirit that is present in Beorhtwald's famous lines from The Battle of Maldon:

Hige sceal Þe heardra, heorte Þe cenre,
mod sceal Þe mare Þe ure maegen lytlað

('Will shall be the sterner, heart the bolder, spirit the greater as our strength lessens')

It refers to an entire mode of thinking that was as familiar to Tolkien as it was to the author of The Battle of Maldon more than seven-hundred years earlier. Men facing death in this milieu are not thinking about the final end, but of how they will behave as it approaches. Húrin's thoughts are plain to those with eyes to see, but his actual ability to kill seventy trolls, while in itself remarkable, is irrelevant in any other sense save as a means to bring him alive before Morgoth. In this scene, even more than in that involving Aragorn mentioned above, an internal dialogue or other journey through the man's psyche would break up the action, drawing attention away from other elements in the plot. It is enough that Húrin's motives and feelings are visible, and there is no need further to elaborate. "Brief phrases, light touches".

Even with Legolas and Gimli, presented by some as 'paper-thin' and a poor substitute for the Odd Couple, I think that it requires a considerably insensitive reading of their scenes to come to that conclusion. Yes, their relationship with one another is a simple friendship, but it serves its narrative purpose without interfering with the plot. Quite a large part of that purpose was, in my opinion, to demonstrate that if we will only open our minds a little the rewards may be immmense. Of course it is a minor plot-line, with much less significance than Frodo, Sam and Gollum's journey or the fall of Saruman and Denethor; but though it is minor, and given the detail appropriate to a minor part of the story, I feel that to describe the characters themselves as 'paper-thin' is again to overlook subtleties of expression in the text.

Legolas and Gimli are not closely-drawn characters, but it is still possible to infer without external reference their thoughts, their motivations and their emotions. Gimli particularly is inclined to wear his heart on his sleeve, as we see when the Fellowship discuss the road ahead in Hollin:

'I need no map,' said Gimli, who had come up with Legolas, and was gazing out before him with a strange light in his deep eyes. 'There is the land where our fathers worked of old, and we have wrought the image of those mountains into many works of metal and stone, and into many songs and tales. They stand tall in our dreams: Baraz, Zirak, Shathûr.
'Only once have I seen them from afar in waking life, but I know them and their names, for under them lies Khazad-dûm, the Dwarrowdelf, that is now called the Black Pit, Moria in the Elvish tongue.

Look at Gimli's reaction to seeing this place that resonates so deeply with the dreams of his people. He has seen the peaks 'once in waking life': he could as easily say 'Only once have I seen them' and leave it at that, but he goes on to imply that here is something that he has seen in his dreams a thousand times. This emotional reaction is typical of him. He repeats it in Lothlórien in his scenes with Galadriel, and we see it again when he has his first glimpse of the Glittering Caves. His conversation with Legolas as they leave Lothlórien reveals depths to each character that are not admitted by the 'paper-thin' argument:

The travellers now turned their faces to the journey; the sun was before them, and their eyes were dazzled, for all were filled with tears. Gimli wept openly.
'I have looked the last upon that which was fairest,' he said to Legolas. 'Henceforward I will call nothing fair, unless it be her gift.'
He put his hand to his breast.
'Tell me, Legolas, why did I come on this Quest? Little did I know where the chief peril lay! Truly Elrond spoke, saying that we could not forsee what we might meet upon our road. Torment in the dark was the danger that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come had I known the danger of light and joy. Now I have taken my worst wound in this parting, even if I were to go this night straight to the Dark Lord. Alas for Gimli son of Glóin!'
'Nay!' said Legolas. 'Alas for us all! And for all that walk the world in these after-days. For such is the way of it: to find and lose, as it seems to those whose boat is on the running stream. But I count you blessed, Gimli son of Glóin: for your loss you suffer of your own free will, and you might have chosen otherwise. But you have not forsaken your companions, and the least reward you shall have is that the memory of Lothlórien shall remain ever clear and unstained in your heart, and shall neither fade nor grow stale.'

'Maybe,' said Gimli; 'and I thank you for your words. True words doubtless; yet all such comfort is cold. Memory is not what the heart desires. That is only a mirror, be it clear as Kheled-zâram. Or so says the heart of Gimli the Dwarf. Elves may see things otherwise. Indeed I have heard that for them memory is more like to the waking world than to a dream. Not so for Dwarves.
'But let us talk no more of it. Look to the boat! She is too low in the water with all this baggage, and the Great River is swift. I do not wish to drown my grief in cold water!'

Is this the conversation of two characters without depth? It takes little imagination to see in Legolas' words the pity of the Elves' relations with other races. The mortals move on and leave, but the Elves are trapped within the world, unchanging and unable to follow. The most beautiful of their creations are destroyed, and they live to see most triumph turn back to disaster. Legolas speaks with the voice of experience. He has had many years to learn that we cannot hold on to the world; but Gimli is feeling for the first time the pain that the Elves feel at the passing away of beautiful things: a pain that they live with daily, and must overcome in bringing about the fall of Sauron. Even for one whose memory is like waking life, memory is not enough, and it is telling that Legolas never claims that it is. What he says is that an unstained memory is a great gift, and he has already implied that memory is what everything must eventually become. Who among the Fellowship is so well-placed as he to know this? This is a conversation about very profound thoughts, and if the characters are talking about them, they must also be thinking them. They might be talking about Lórien on the surface, but on a deeper level they are talking about the very relationship between experience and memory. This seems to indicate as well as anything that there is more to Gimli than a solid Dwarven miner and more to Legolas than the woodland prince. It may not come out often, but it is there; and we need to know that it is there if we are to feel for those characters at all.

Returning to Philip Pullman's comment that sparked off this whole furore: I agree entirely with Saucepan that it is his opinion, expressed and valid as such. Tolkien's characterisation is clearly not satisfying to Pullman, and this is neither a positive nor a negative reflection on him as a reader. Child said it very well when she said that there is too much of Tolkien in Tolkien's characters for some people. If one thinks as Tolkien does, this will cause his characters to resonate deeply; if, as in the case of Pullman, one's mind works differently, the same characters may seem undeveloped and thin. I do not share W.H. Auden's opinion, dismissed by Tolkien, that The Lord of the Rings can be used as a measure of literary taste. It is a deeply individual work, and like all things of great individuality it can be as off-putting for some as it is attractive for others. This is as true of the characterisation as it is of the language employed or the themes explored, and it is something that cannot leave anyone objectively in the right or the wrong. Pullman is entitled to talk about a lack of psychological depth because it is clearly his honest reaction to the book. He is not trying to convince us, but briefly explaining why he did not enjoy it; and in the context of an interview it seems to me that this is a reasonable line to take. Needless to say, though, I do not share his opinion.

[ 9:28 AM December 01, 2003: Message edited by: The Squatter of Amon Rûdh ]