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Forgive me for another bit of structural/functional rambling . . .
"The Shadow of the Past" is the first of two big expository chapters in the book. Now The Lord of the Rings has a lot of exposition to be dealt with, enough to give some authors nightmares no doubt. Before we can really get on with the story of the Ring we must first understand what the Ring is, the circumstances of its being made, how Sauron came to lose it, how it then came to Gollum, what Sauron means to do about it, how much he knows, etc., etc. In other words, we must learn much of the history of the Second Age and nearly all that of the Third.
Tolkien faced quite a task in presenting all this to the reader. The conventional wisdom holds that exposition is a necessary evil, to be dealt with as briefly as possible and preferably not until the main action of the plot has gotten underway. As Tolkien has certainly not gotten the main plot underway in chapter one, it would appear almost ludicrous for him to put the burden of about half the exposition on chapter two.
Yet it comes off splendidly. Why?
I don't think I have a complete answer to that, and I would certainly appreciate anyone else's thoughts on the matter. But as far as I can see there are three things that make the exposition engaging rather than boring:
1. Tolkien uses the simple but effective trick of presenting the exposition in the form of a dialogue between a character with the information and a character that needs the information. Imagine how much more dry the chapter would be if all this backstory were presented in the narrator's voice rather than Gandalf's. The dialogue allows the reader to idenitify with Frodo, to sympathize with Frodo's curiosity and thus to be satisfied when Gandalf presents the information.
2. The whole chapter is, like the second expository chapter of the novel in book II, framed in terms of a big question: what is to be done about the Ring? The various pieces of information thus have a direct relevance and an immediate significance that they would not have if they were presented merely as a story. We want to hear the exposition because we want to understand the Ring so that we can weigh the various courses of action that Frodo might take.
3. For Tolkien, exposition was not just a necessary evil; it was a valuable thing in itself. Tolkien was, after all, quite used to writing this sort of history; he had been working on the Silmarillion material since about 1918. He did not consider the story of the making of the rings, and the Last Alliance, and the slaying of Isildur just necessary backstory to the tale at hand. He thought they were interesting in themselves, and so he made them interesting in themselves. And no doubt he realized that a large part of what was going to make The Lord of the Rings (or any similar novel) work was the depth and "reality" or inner consistency of the world in which it takes place. So the exposition has triple value - it sets up the primary story, it's interesting as a story in itself, and it provides a sense of depth to Middle-earth.
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