The Structure of The Lord of the Rings

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Despite its episodic nature, one way this marvellous yarn holds together so well is through the very careful and laborious effort of Tolkien at ceaselessly revising his drafts, coordinating dates, times, phases of the moon, distances. I think in particular the maps were not just a secondary inspiration, but became for him a way to help manage the tapestry. The temporal and geographical features are so precise that the looseness of the narrative structure is overcome--or compensated for, or held together, however one wishes to consider it.

I also think Tolkien had a very clear idea of audience as he was writing, in particular in the person of his son Christropher. But this is a harder thing to explain...

Excellent points, both. I do recall hearing Tolkien in his BBC radio interview say something to the effect of, "Of course when one is writing a really complicated tale you must have a map." 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?

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.

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.

Is all this just a much longer way of saying what you meant Bb?