[Bêthberry]

Well, Professor Fordim, Sir, I hardly need hazard a reply since you have so cleverly reinvented my points.

In this sense, I think you are absolutely right Bb the geography and sense of place (and placedness) we have in LotR is crucial to the narrative cohesion. The story is 'about' Middle-earth rather than the people walking and warring across it?

. . . .

Hmmmm. . .and back to the maps: since it is a readerly act of turning to the maps and referencing them that makes the experience of the story both interactive and unified. How many times I looked at the map to find where Frodo and Sam were, then looked as well to figure out where Merry and Pippin were as well; and then even, in later readings, ploughed into the Appendices to seek out dates etc to co-ordinate things in my own mind.

I don't think I would go so far as to say the book is about Middle-earth rather than the people in it. But I do think that, without the geographical lynchpins, it would be difficult to follow such an episodic plot, even given the rivetting suspense with which Tolkien builds chapters, particularly with the variety of battlescenes towards the end. But I also mean that Tolkien himself worked hard to provide that kind of consistency to the physical world. Here's a line from Letter 85:

I have been struggling with the dislocated chronology of the Ring, which has proved most vexatious, and has not only interferred with other and more urgent and duller duties, but has stopped me getting on. I think I have solved it all at last by small map alterations, and by inserting an extra day's Entmoot, and extra days into Trotter's chase and Frodo's journey (a small alteration in the first chapter I have just sent: 2 days from Morannon to Ithilien).

Isn't it interesting here that Tolkien refers to his story by its central image, the Ring. And he clearly identifies plot here with place. Other than having everything rely on the success of Frodo and Sam's quest, there is not much interconnectedness to the plot, but then tightly controlled plots are a feature of the late eighteenth and nineteenth century novels. LotR has always reminded me of the idea that what matters is not the planning ahead but the living at each moment. It does not 'move foreward' so much as circle around various ideas. The only progression is geographic--everyone moves south and then back again-- and so I think for this very reason is is valuable to have the Scouring of the Shire. It underscores that this is not, in fact, a 'modern' narrative, but a very old one. It is T.S. Eliot's line in "Little Gidding": to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. (Maybe I need to go find the quote and copy it here.)

And I very much like this idea of audience, for there are a number of points in the narrative at which Tolkien allows the story to become conscious of itself as story. In addition to the more obvious examples (such as Frodo and Sam's conversation upon the Stairs of Cirith Ungol) there are those odd moments in which the narrative steps outside itself (the narrative 'present') and acknowleges that there is an ending, and even hints at it. The two examples that come to mind here are the reference to the brown scar that Merry "bore to the end of his days" (giving away that he is going to survive and go on to live out his life) and the revelation that when Aragorn leaves the hill in Lorien where he and Arwen pledged troth (can't remember the name of the place) he "came there never again as living man". In each case, it looks as though the story is tilting its hand and giving something away, but of course it isn't as we know that Aragorn and Merry are going to survive and win -- we know that the good guys will triumph because that's just the kind of story this is. In this way, the story itself announces itself as story, which highlights to the audience that it is unified in and by and through our own reading act.

It was only upon rereading that I began to see how often, in fact, this story talks about itself as story. (Here I might go back and find a link to a post of mine on that Cerin Amroth scene.) But it is probably very instructive to recall a point here which Tolkien made to his son Christopher in one of their wartime letters. Christopher had, apparently (we don't have access to his letters to his father, only the father's replies) been very discouraged by his experiences in South Africa with his training there. I cannot now find the specific letter, but the gist of it was that Tolkien Sr. advised Christopher to take heart by recalling that he was in the midst of a story. Perhaps I just ought to post this now and try to find that letter!

EDIT:

Here's the letter # 66, 6 May 1944, written to CT:

We don't mind your grousing at all -- you have no one else, and I expect it relieves the strain. ... [my ellipsis]
Not that in real life things are as clear cut as in a story, and we started out with a great many orcs on our side .... [ellipsis here in the text] Well, there you are: a hobbit amongst the Urukhai. Keep up your hobbitry in heart, and thing that all stories feel like that when you are in them. Youare inside a very great story!

In terms of structure, though, there's another commend from Tolkien which I think pertains to his manner of plotting, which is to say, not much plotting per se. This is Letter #69, 14 May 1944, again to CT.

I suddenly got an idea for a new story (of about length of 'Niggle")--in church yesterday, I fear. A man sitting at a high widow and seeing not the fortunes of a man or of people all down the ages. He just sees it illumined, in borders of mist, and things, animals and men just walk on and off, and the plants and animals change from one fantastic shape to another but men (in spite of different dress) don't change at all. At intervals all down the ages from Palaeolithic to Today a couple of women (or men) would stroll across scene saying exactly the same thing (ie It oughtn't to be allowed. They ought to stop it. Or, I said to her, I'm not one to make a fuss, I said, but ... ) .... [ellipses in text].

Well, I've rambled on enough now. Back to you, Professor Fordim.