Writing style, Hobbit vs. LOTR

[Belin]

I think there's more to it than that, and I also think Child was on the right track when she mentioned the gradual change of style in LotR. Tokien's style fits itself to its subject matter in interesting ways. Let's look at the changes in LotR.

Among the Rohirrim:

Right through the press drove Theoden Thengel's son, and his spear was shivered as he threw down their chieftain. Out swept his sword, and he spurred to the standard, hewed staff and bearer; and the black serpent foundered. Then all that was left unslain of their cavalry turned and fled far away.

Notice, particularly, the rhythm and the alliteration. It sounds a little like Anglo-Saxon poetry, not a surprise considering all the connections between them and the Rohirrim. As Child noted, the early parts of LotR, set in the Shire, sound both "Hobbitish" and hobbitish. In Tom Bombadil's house, the narration sounds like this:

Its walls were of clean stone, but they were mostly covered with green hanging mats and yellow crtains. The floor was flagged, and strewn with fresh green rushes. There were four deep mattresses, each piled with white blankets, laid on the floor along one side.

Here, although you don't get the same bouncy rhythm of Tom's songs, you do get a similar sounding attention to a particular kind of detail, especially the mention of colors. Or Fangorn Forest:

The drink was like water, indeed very like the taste of the draughts they had drunk from the Entwash near the borders of the forest, and yet there was some scent or savour in it which they could not describe: it was faint, but it reminded them of the smell of a distant wood borne from afar by a cool breeze at night. The effect of the draught began at the toes, and rose steadily through every limb, bringing refresment and vigour as it coursed upwards, right to the tips of the hair.

The sentences are long and unhasty, dealing slowly with each part of the experience and the memories it brings.

And so forth... LotR is not one style, but many. I also notice a difference between Lothlorien and Gondor and Mordor, but have not yet been able to quantify it. In any case, the effect is almost that of a history assembled from the acconts of several different groups of people, a view the appendices support.

Unfortunately, I am in great need of rereading both the Hobbit and the Sil, but the feeling of vocally-told-to-children the Hobbit has seems to me perfectly suitable, considering the subtitle, "There and Back Again," which envisions us pretty strongly as Shire-Dwellers. I imagine some later relative of Bilbo's telling it to their children. I would also imagine, although I still have to go looking for this, that the style of the Sil is closer to that of the elven-parts of LotR than to the rest, given that it is mostly Elvish history.

--Belin Ibaimendi

[ May 26, 2002: Message edited by: Belin ]