"Looney", as initially written (1934?), probably contained references to (at least) Tolkien's own post-World War I feelings. I have read that the veterans who came back from that war, who were heroes in it, yet were broken men because of what it did to them, were not honored in Britain because they were not understood. Which sounds a lot like Frodo. The Britain they came back to, I'm told, was a very different place than they'd left. It had changed into a modern society while they were at war, and so they lost what they had gone to war to save; and saddest of all, those who remained behind, being so close to it, couldn't even tell that they themselves were different. I can imagine that, caught off guard, looking in a veteran's eyes, saw their own strangeness, and couldn't stand the sight and so looked away from the veteran. Again, very much like what happened to Frodo. Perhaps this is something like what Tolkien was trying to express in Seabell? It's only a guess.
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01-19-2003, 04:09 PM
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