LotR -- Book 4 - Chapter 10 - The Choices of Master Samwise

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

ha ha! "lobbed"? Surely that was on purpose?

The sexual undertones of Shelob's defeat at Sam's hands was not lost on me this time around. I found it interesting that our little hero has not lost his "sting". But where is Gollum? Hiding? Fallen? Why is he not anywhere to be found at this point, considering that he shows up again later?

Of course it was, lmp

Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle

Hey -- you want Freud? What about the act of thrusting a finger into a Ring? Or how about a race of people who live in womb-like holes in the ground?

"Absent" indeed! Lurking, m'dearies, lurking.

My amenable fellow, I must thank you for providing such examples as make a veritable operational definition of exactly what my examples are not. You do my work for me.

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Yeah, but how else would one describe a spider? I mean, legs are their most prominent feature (the awful, wretched things).

Well, Kuru, either the words are a meaningful facet of his writing/art or they are forced upon him, with no credit to him.

Originally Posted by davem

Even if Tolkien had the story of Lilith in the back of his mind we mustn't, or we'll be dragged out of Middle-earth into the realm of comparative mythology or worse

So readers dare not go where only authors care to tread? Well, well. What are readers to do who see imagery and symbolism of the Virgin Mary in Galadriel, which was 'put there' "consciously so in the revision" by Tolkien's own statement? Are they to discount it as irrelevant intrusion of primary world? Why one and not the other? (oh dear, have reached my smilie limit.)