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Old 07-01-2004, 02:00 PM   #1
Estelyn Telcontar
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Silmaril LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 03 - Three Is Company

In this chapter, the journey begins – though reluctantly. There is another birthday party, quite different from the one in the first chapter. Though Frodo and his friends are still in the Shire, new foes and friends appear. There are several poems, and the passage with Gildor yields more wonderful, quotable wisdom. In short, there’s lots to discuss!
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Old 07-05-2004, 07:44 AM   #2
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My overall impression of this chapter is that its a transition from one world to another. We begin in the mundane world of the Shire, with packing up for a move, meals, washing up left for the next tenant. We end up in the world of the High Elves, ‘Ancient History’ come alive. Its a transition from the mundane to the mythic. While still in the Shire Frodo learns that the world is really ;larger, more magical & more dangerous than he could have imagined, or rather that the things he had imagined, the stories he had been told, are real. Its also, in a way, a microcosm of the whole story - setting out from home, the ordinary world, then a confrontation with the forces of evil, & finally ending at peace with the Elves.

We also discover more about Frodo & his role. One thing I wanted to pick up on from the early drafts is part of the conversation with Gildor which didn’t make it into the final version:

Quote:
The beginning of Bingo’s conversation with Gildor is extant in three forms. All three begin as in FR. p92 (‘They spoke of many things, old & new’), but in the first Gildor goes on from ‘The secret will not reach the Enemy from us’ with ‘But why did you not go before?’ - the first thing that he says to Bingo in the original version. (‘Why did you choose this moment to set out?’, P62). Bingo replies with a very brief reference to his divided mind about leaving the Shire, & then Gildor explains him to himself:

‘That I can understand,’ said Gildor. ‘Half your heart wished to go, but the other half held you back; for its home was in the Shiire, & its delight in bed & board & th evoices of friends, & in the changing of the gentle seasons among the fields & trees. But since you are a hobbit that half is the stronger, as it was even in Bilbo. What has made it surrender?’

‘Yes, I am an ordinary hobbit, & so I shall always be, I imagine,’ said Bingo. ‘But a most un-hobbitlike fate has been laid upon me.’

‘Then you are not an ordinary hobbit,’ said Gildor, ‘for otherwise that could not be so. But the half that is plain hobbit will suffer much I fear from being forced to follow the other half which is worthy of the strange fate, untill it too becomes worthy (& yet remains hobbit). For that must be the purpose of your fate, or the purpose of that part of your fate which concerns you yourself. The hobbit half that loves the Shire is not to be despised but it has to be trained, & to rediscover the changing seasons & voices of friends when they have been lost.’
I find this fascinating. Bingo (=Frodo), like Sam, is ‘torn in two’. Half of him wants to remain an ordinary hobbit, the other half wishes to leave & enter a different world - yet, the half of him that wishes to leave is ‘fated’ to go. He is called, against his will (or the will of his hobbit half) to a higher destiny. The hobbit half will have to surrender to that desire. And that hobbit half will be changed so much that by the end it will have to ‘ rediscover the changing seasons & voices of friends when they have been lost.’ The hobbit half will have to be ‘submerged’, put on hold, till the destiny of his other half has been fulfilled, &yet that hobbit half will be changed by the experience - so changed that it will have to learn how to be a hobbit all over again.

The other interesting thing Gildor says is: ‘For that must be the purpose of your fate, or the purpose of that part of your fate which concerns you yourself.’ Which means? Only part of Bingo’s fate concerns himself. So he has a ‘fate’ which only partly concerns himself. Yet how can Bingo’s fate not concern himself (not concern himself at all if we take Gildor’s words literally).

Perhaps Gildor is stating that there is a kind of ‘universal fate’, which involves each of us, of which our individual fate is a small part? Or perhaps he is implying that the fate of ‘Bingo son of Drogo’ is only a small part of the fate of a ‘greater’ being, whose life in Middle Earth is not the be all & end all.

I suspect that Tolkien felt he had strayed too far into metaphysics in this conversation & decided to cut the whole thing. But its fascinating to speculate where he was going. My own feeling is that, like the religious element, this idea was taken up into the story itself. I think its present in Frodo’s story, but Tolkien has decided he doesn’t want to have any character spell it out so blatantly.

Finally, the desription of the stars & constellations of Middle Earth. I don’t know if anyone has gone deeply into the astronomy (astrology? Men apparently watched the stars from the pinacle of Orthanc) of Middle Earth. I did find this site:
.http://users.cybercity.dk/%7Ebkb1782/tolkien/

which contains a star map of Middle Earth (it also has a nice interactive map of Beleriand).
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Old 07-05-2004, 08:17 AM   #3
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Boots

This chapter contains one of my favorite scenes in the entire work.

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As they begin to climb its first slopes they looked back and saw the lamps in Hobbiton far off twinkling in the gentle valley of the Water. Soon it disappeared in the folds of the darkened land, and was followed by Bywater beside its grey pool. When the light of the last farm was far behind, peeping among the trees, Frodo turned and waved a hand in farewell.
“I wonder if I shall ever look down into that valley again,” he said quietly.
I love that section. It is very atmospheric. Ted Nasmith has a painting in his 2002 calendar called “Last Sight of the Shire” that is (uncoincidently) one of my favorites. In fact, it graced my desktop for quite a long time.

Here in this chapter we have our first encounter with those pesky Black Riders who are so formidable in reputation and terror, and yet so incapable of finishing off the job. A subject we will probably return to during the book.

First, we have the incident on the road to Woody End. This was one of the times when the hobbits were the most helpless. Nothing could have saved them at that moment. Yet, ironically enough, when Frodo touched the Ring’s chain the Rider abruptly recalled a pressing appointment down the road and sped off. Of course, the Rider could not have known that Elves would save the hobbits later, but that was the most golden of opportunities. One wonders what made the Rider pass it up. I can only think of the daylight as a possibility.

The second time, that night, the Rider showed little hesitation until the Elves (who despite their vaunted woodcraft seemed utterly oblivious to all Udûn about to be unleashed nearby) came prancing past.

Also, just to note, there is a certain similarity between the indifference of hobbits to external concerns and the indifference of the elves to the doings of other beings.
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Old 07-05-2004, 09:28 AM   #4
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Miscellaneous points that I always notice in this chapter:

Gandalf's disappearance. This is really quite disconcerting, and very nicely lends suspense to the narrative. Gandalf is the archetypal wise, dependable mentor; his presence tends to impart a sense of security - he may not be infallible, we realize, but as long as he's there, we know that our heroes will have the best chance of success. His disappearance actually does two things. First, it simply removes him from the story for the time, forcing Frodo to handle things, and make decisions, himself. This is the same thing that happens when he goes away in The Hobbit (cf. also, for example, Lucas killing off Obi-wan and later Yoda in order to leave Luke without a mentor figure). But second, the fact of his unexpected disappearance is disquieting - the reader must at this point try to imagine what sort of thing might prevent even Gandalf from showing up when he says he will.

The Black Riders. In chapters one and two we have ominous signs, foreshadowing, and references to danger. But it is not until this chapter that the hobbits are in any actual danger. Notice how careful and restrained the introduction of that danger is. First there is the Gaffer's conversation with an unseen person. Then there is the Black Rider on the road that sniffs for them while they hide. In the midst of this external danger comes Frodo's desire to put on the Ring, which we know would be a bad mistake because of Gandalf's warning at the beginning of the chapter. Then there is another appearance by a Black Rider just before Gildor meets them. These episodes are no more or less than they ought to be: they are enough to indicate to us that the Hobbits are really in great danger and to make us nervous whenever hooves or dark shapes or sniffing is mentioned, but they are not so much that we yet know what sort of creatures these riders are, or what their powers are.

One tidbit from HoMe that I can't help but to mention, as it nicely encapsulates a lot about Tolkien's writing style. As originally written, the hobbits hear hooves on the road and decide to get off it and hide. A cloaked figure rides up and sniffs, then casts back his garment to reveal that he is Gandalf. Tolkien immediately rejected this version, which left him with two questions that it took considerable time for him to answer: what in fact the rider was and what had happened to Gandalf.

The fox. This is, as far as I know, one of only two passages in the book that the ostensible authors (Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam) could not even in principle have known about. It raises the interesting but probably trivial question of whether Tolkien had at this stage thought of the hobbits as the authors, and whether he knowingly or unwittingly violated that fiction. The fox passage is also notable for its fairy-tale sort of lightness and humor and is in that regard probably unique in the book. It has been criticized by some in the way of pointing out the discrepancy in tone between the early parts of the novel and the later.

The poems. This chapter has three, which is more than usual. Previously we have had only Bilbo's Road song and the Ring verse. Now we get a bit more of Bilbo's Road-related stuff, another, independent adventure-song of Bilbo's (both of these through Frodo), and a taste of Elvish song. A subtle distinction is implied here between Bilbo's character and Frodo's: Bilbo writes songs; Frodo learns them.

Gildor. This is the first in a long series of "safe place" scenes or chapters. A few elements common to nearly all of these can be seen here: 1. the scene begins with the threat of danger (here the appearance of the Black Rider); 2. there are corteous greetings; 3. they eat food; 4. they talk about grave matters and the hobbits are given advice.

Last edited by Aiwendil; 05-17-2005 at 02:56 PM.
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Old 07-05-2004, 09:32 AM   #5
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That pesky Fox

The journey begins! But just what kind of a journey is this…?

Thanks to the discussions about the ‘split-Frodo’ in Chapters One and Two, I have been alerted to something here in Chapter Three that I’d never really noticed before – how Frodo’s quest is being compared to Bilbo’s throughout its opening stages. His journey is both like and unlike the earlier one.

As usual, it is a hobbit’s clear thinking that leads Frodo to figure out the important relation between his journey and his uncle’s and to explain it to Gandalf:

Quote:
’For where am I to go? And by what shall I steer? What is to be my quest? Bilbo went to find a treasure, there and back again; but I go to lose one, and not return, as far as I can see.’
So far, we’ve been concentrating on Frodo as a flawed being (which he is) and I think he’s come off a bit worse in this respect than Bilbo. But here we see how the reverse is perhaps true. Bilbo’s quest was an acquisitive one: he went out and got the Ring and brought it back and kept it. Sure, he did not know what he was doing ‘wrong’ (he only knew the Ring as a ring), but the fact remains that he undertook a fairly standard quest: follow the map to the treasure, kill the dragon, keep the treasure for yourself. A clear goal and a precious object: what one normally has on quests. But Frodo is here quite astutely realizing that his quest must be undertaken in an entirely different spirit, for he must “lose” the precious object – he must seek not to enrich himself by destroying another (even if that other is an evil dragon) but make himself the poorer and give up the “precious” thing that he has been given.

So in this respect his journey is entirely different from Bilbo’s, but then we get a couple of interesting hints of how it is the same. First, when he leaves on his journey he does so:

Quote:
(following Bilbo, if he had known it)
Tolkien is so good at inserting these laden-with-meaning parenthetical comments! Frodo’s trip begins in a kind of enigma: he is following in Bilbo’s footsteps, even though he doesn’t know it! So he’s on the same journey as his uncle, even though it’s not the same, but he’s unaware or unconscious of his journey’s nature in ways that his uncle was or is not?

And this, I think, might actually help to explain that pesky fox that has bedeviled readers of the book for so long. You all know the one I mean – it’s the one that seems to step off the pages of The Hobbit by ‘speaking’:

Quote:
’Hobbits!’ he thought. ‘Well, what next? I have heard of strange doings in this land, but I have seldom heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors under a tree. Three of them! There’s something mighty queer behind this.’ He was quite right, but he never found out any more about it.
This moment, which seems so out of keeping with the rest of the book, is perhaps a reminder that Frodo’s journey really is the continuation of Bilbo’s; that even despite the differences, there is still very much the same between their adventures. Once more, I think that Frodo has this kind of understanding when he remembers Bilbo telling him:

Quote:
‘“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door…Do you realize that this is the very path that goes through Mirkwood, and that if you let it, it might take you to the Lonely Mountain or even further and to worse places?”’
So Frodo and Bilbo are on the same Road, bound for different destinations, with different purposes. It this way, I think this chapter concludes the opening ‘movement’ of the book in that it rounds out the comparison of Frodo and Bilbo by mirroring them. Frankly, given what we see here, I think that Frodo comes off much better than Bilbo. Frodo is on a more obscure and dangerous form of the same Road, in which he is both dedicated to giving something up (rather than claiming something) and he is also far more ‘aware’ of that which was hidden to Bilbo (he never ‘saw’ Gildor or Black Riders in the Shire!).

Kuruharan you wrote that:

Quote:
Also, just to note, there is a certain similarity between the indifference of hobbits to external concerns and the indifference of the elves to the doings of other beings.
I think that this is an excellent point, and I hope that others will address it at some length (I haven’t the time at this precise moment)

EDIT Cross posting with Aiwendil who wrote:

Quote:
The poems. This chapter has three, which is more than usual. Previously we have had only Bilbo's Road song and the Ring verse. Now we get a bit more of Bilbo's Road-related stuff, another, independent adventure-song of Bilbo's (both of these through Frodo), and a taste of Elvish song. A subtle distinction is implied here between Bilbo's character and Frodo's: Bilbo writes songs; Frodo learns them.
More Frodo-Bilbo comparisons, and a really interesting one at that!

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Old 07-05-2004, 10:42 AM   #6
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White Tree

Well, I started reading the chapter and I realized that there was yet another difference between Frodo and Bilbo (that I hope no one has pointed out and I'm very sorry if they did). Bilbo was more anxious to go on his adventure in The Hobbit than Frodo was. That would make Frodo more of a heroe then because he was an unwilling hero....just a thought that leaped out at me.

I always liked the splashes of humour in this chapter as well. It puts silver linings in the clouds of darkness and makes Frodo a much more likeable character, methinks.

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They left the washing up for Lobelia
Simply classic. I think that moments like these makes Frodo's character more hobbity, as opposed at the end of the book when he is more elvish.

Regarding the fox, I think that, technically it was a violation of fiction but maybe that's one of the reasons it's so loveable. Maybe that was a segement of the rough draft with Bingo when the novel was going to be nothing more than a sequal to a children's story.

Well, those are my thoughts on the chapter.
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Old 01-02-2014, 03:05 PM   #7
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Leaf

I was struck by the elves' laughter. "There came a sound like mingled song and laughter." And, " Come! Come! Now is the time for laughter and merriment!"

I am far too serious.
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Old 01-10-2014, 09:18 PM   #8
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I was struck by the elves' laughter. "There came a sound like mingled song and laughter." And, " Come! Come! Now is the time for laughter and merriment!"

I am far too serious.
I think Gildor's company was meant to harken to the Elves, as they were represented in The Hobbit.

In "A Short Rest" one might view the Rivendell Elves' song on the tired dwarven travellers bordering on insulting. Although the tone reads in more of a jesting manner. Gildor's barbs about hobbits being dull company, might come off insulting, but Frodo retorts back about you shouldn't go to Elves for advice because they will say both "Yes and No."

This probably doesn't fit with the later manner of the Elves, but the whole story gets more serious as the journey progresses; Elven fate of departing Middle-earth and their gloomy battle to "fight the long defeat," as Galadriel puts it.
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Old 09-25-2016, 05:28 AM   #9
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And the project continues! I feel like I should say at this point that Boro or anyone else out there willing to discuss the chapters can feel free to go on even if Legate and I are not posing anything yet - we'll catch up. But whenever I'm not to busy, I think I'll roughly aim to read a chapter a day, that's a nice pace.

So, Three Is Company. It's a nice chapter, further introducing our heroes, introducing the antagonists Black Riders that will shadow our heroes for several chapters to come, and it's of course also the beginning of a journey. A very important chapter then. It also has one of my favourite dialogues - that between Frodo and Gildor.

On this reread, however, there was hardly anything "new" I paid attention to - the chapter was to me as it ever was, no great moments of insight here. Do you guys feel the same? Like, sometimes when you reread LotR you discover hidden gems and catch great undercurrents and themes in between the lines, and sometimes the book just is. Maybe you know every paragraph and sentence, or maybe there are cool details and implicatons but you've already noticed them a thousand times, so you end up somehow just flying through the chapter, enjoying it but not very profoundly? That's what happened to me today.

Some notes, however -

When I was a kid, I always felt a bit bummed out that Merry is not part of the company because he was one of my favourites. As a teenager, I wondered why Tolkien left him out of this pivotal introduction of the hobbits. But of course, there's a reason why Merry - unlike Pippin - is already introduced in A Long-Expected Party, and then later he has a prominent role in A Conspiracy Unmasked. Now I also appreciated the dynamics of the Frodo - Pippin - Sam trio, and the space each of them gets in this combo.

I feel like I only became aware of the class distinctions in Tolkien's works a couple of years ago, and the relationship between Pippin and Sam is very interesting in that light. Pippin talks to Sam as to a servant - "is my bath ready?" - but there seems to be nothing strange about them doing chores together and in practice they're very equal. I also notice Pippin affectionately mocks Sam but Sam never returns the treatment. Subtle class division or a question of personality? Who knows. I can't help to think that Pippin - and later also Merry's - attitude towards Sam is a little patronizing.

Another thing I thought of were the Elves. They throw really weird parties. First they just sit around, then when their favourite stars appear starts singing and eating and drinking that goes on long into the night. I wonder if they always sleep in and travel late because of that. Like, I'm not complaining. Walking and looking at the stars and singing and good food sounds excellent to me but I somehow never considered High Elves to be so... laid-back? chill? in their activities.
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Old 09-25-2016, 09:17 AM   #10
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Another thing I thought of were the Elves. They throw really weird parties. First they just sit around, then when their favourite stars appear starts singing and eating and drinking that goes on long into the night. I wonder if they always sleep in and travel late because of that. Like, I'm not complaining. Walking and looking at the stars and singing and good food sounds excellent to me but I somehow never considered High Elves to be so... laid-back? chill? in their activities.
I think you'll find in these instances (and in the Silvan Elves' feast that disappears a couple times in The Hobbit), Tolkien hearkening back to Faery and the folklore of Elvish races and their appearance under the moon to lonely travelers in desolate places. The mythology of the British Isles is full of such occurrences and chance meetings in the dead of night.
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Old 09-25-2016, 01:51 PM   #11
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I think you'll find in these instances (and in the Silvan Elves' feast that disappears a couple times in The Hobbit), Tolkien hearkening back to Faery and the folklore of Elvish races and their appearance under the moon to lonely travelers in desolate places. The mythology of the British Isles is full of such occurrences and chance meetings in the dead of night.
That's actually an interesting notion - now that I think of it, this chance meeting is probably the closest Tolkien gets to the traditional Faery mythology, barring the Lay of Leithian of course. And time passing strangely in Lórien. I should probably look up separate threads about this.

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Originally Posted by Pitchwife
They didn't sleep in - they were gone by the time Frodo awoke next morning. (Yes, I'm cheating, that's in the next chapter.) They may not have slept at all like we do. In LotR Book III, The Riders of Rohan it is said that
Quote:
Quote:
[Legolas] could sleep, if sleep it could be called by Men, resting his mind in the strange paths of elvish dreams, even as he walked open-eyed in the light of this world.
I'm sure Gildor & company did the same, at least while travelling.
And does it say what time Frodo awoke? Seriously though, silly me for forgetting the Elves' disturbing sleeping habits. That kind of explains why they stay up so late... I don't envy them though; I love sleeping.
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Old 09-25-2016, 12:29 PM   #12
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Just commenting, I can't commit to a full reread right now, but I may add my two farthings every now and then. (And I just almost wrote 'fartings'; blame narfforc and his book.)
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Another thing I thought of were the Elves. They throw really weird parties. First they just sit around, then when their favourite stars appear starts singing and eating and drinking that goes on long into the night. I wonder if they always sleep in and travel late because of that. Like, I'm not complaining. Walking and looking at the stars and singing and good food sounds excellent to me but I somehow never considered High Elves to be so... laid-back? chill? in their activities.
They didn't sleep in - they were gone by the time Frodo awoke next morning. (Yes, I'm cheating, that's in the next chapter.) They may not have slept at all like we do. In LotR Book III, The Riders of Rohan it is said that
Quote:
[Legolas] could sleep, if sleep it could be called by Men, resting his mind in the strange paths of elvish dreams, even as he walked open-eyed in the light of this world.
I'm sure Gildor & company did the same, at least while travelling.

Singing and good food is also what we see Elrond's people in Rivendell spending a good part of their time on when they're not busy sitting in council about the fate of Middle-earth. Maybe there comes a time when you've studied and discussed all the ancient lore there is ever so often and it just gets boring (especially considering you may have written some of it yourself), but songs and good food just never get old.
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Old 09-25-2016, 02:07 PM   #13
Legate of Amon Lanc
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Legate of Amon Lanc is spying on the Black Gate.Legate of Amon Lanc is spying on the Black Gate.Legate of Amon Lanc is spying on the Black Gate.Legate of Amon Lanc is spying on the Black Gate.Legate of Amon Lanc is spying on the Black Gate.Legate of Amon Lanc is spying on the Black Gate.
In this chapter, I really like sketching out of the relationship between the hobbits in question (including all the interesting "class dynamics" and other things Lommy mentioned - I really think in Sam's case, it's partly a question of personality, but that personality had been a little influenced by his status). And this time, I really enjoyed the first moment the Nazgul appeared - in the name of all, it is Khamul, you know, it is just super-creepy and supercool that he is so close to Frodo. In fact, being quite a bit conscious about the timing and everything, Frodo just missed being caught, the Riders are only hours (in the case of meeting Gaffer, minutes) off. Talk about narrow escapes.

This also brings in my mind a horror-scenario we once discussed with Lommy, sometime ages ago: of course the first thought, when one starts to imagine "what ifs", is "what if the Riders arrived a few hours earlier" and found Frodo still in Bag End - helpless, obviously. But what we thought about was what if the Riders arrived only a bit later - for example the day after. Imagine.

*knock knock* The new master of Bag End, Lotho Sackville-Baggins, opens the door. "Does Baggins live here?" "Y-yes, that is me..."

It would make for a brilliant and terrifying horror movie, when the family after years and years of waiting finally inherits the house they always desired, only instead of a happy ending, they get this...

Anyway: back to the merry hills of the Shire, what I actually love the most about this chapter are the descriptions of the landscape. They are all so vivid, so beautiful. One funny thing I noticed this time: I imagine the Shire landscape (the very same, specific places or scenes I have pictured in my mind many times over) differently when reading in different languages (obviously the first time I read LotR, it was in my native language, as well as many times after, but of course I have read it also in English, but I alternate between those a lot). Currently I am reading it in English, and it struck me that one specific scene - the first waking up when Frodo goes to look for water, or actually doesn't - is painted vividly red in my mind (the sunrise and mist Frodo sees), as opposed to when reading in Czech, I imagine it much more yellow and not as bloody red. The translation does not differ in any significant way, in fact, it is pretty much the same - but I guess it has to do with the sound of the words or maybe the syntax or something. A random observation.

But anyway, yes, this is mostly about the landscapes (and "skyscapes", too - I love the part about stars rising when the Hobbits meet the Elves), and that is actually why I like this chapter a lot - I would probably rank it about my favourites. Hard to say how high, but high.
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Old 09-27-2016, 01:19 AM   #14
skip spence
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Originally Posted by Thinlómien View Post
I feel like I only became aware of the class distinctions in Tolkien's works a couple of years ago, and the relationship between Pippin and Sam is very interesting in that light. Pippin talks to Sam as to a servant - "is my bath ready?" - but there seems to be nothing strange about them doing chores together and in practice they're very equal. I also notice Pippin affectionately mocks Sam but Sam never returns the treatment. Subtle class division or a question of personality? Who knows. I can't help to think that Pippin - and later also Merry's - attitude towards Sam is a little patronizing.
I agree. They are mocking him, in a humorous way sure, but knowing he'll never dare to return the favour makes the laughter stick in my throat. In contrast Frodo never makes fun of Sam in a demeaning way as far as I can recall, though he certainly smacks Merry and Pippin with as many few punch-lines as they do with him.

For the duration of the book, Sam does not for a second step away from his subservient role. Mr Frodo on the other hand never orders him to do anything either as far as I remember. It's a very idealized Master and Servant relationship, one based on mutual love and respect but still a vertical and not horizontal one.

Beth, Esty and others have some excellent points about these relationships earlier in thread by the way.
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Old 06-12-2018, 12:12 PM   #15
Marlowe221
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Last November I had the chance to go on a long hike through one of our National Forests in Mississippi. Two friends and I covered a distance of 42 miles over the course of 3 and a half days. While there were plenty of rolling hills, they were mostly wooded and there were no surprise meetings with a company of Elves to feed us a late dinner.

Throughout the course of our hike, I thought often about this chapter and the following one. Some of it is definitely because I was travelling with two other companions. Some of it was because of the pretty, green (though fading) evnironment.

But mostly, I think it was because when you are travelling on foot, you have the chance to appreciate your environment and surroundings in a way that faster, mechanized modes of transportation rob you of entirely. You really get to know a landscape when you walk through it. There is an intimacy you just don't get through a car or train window.

Walking is also a great way to remind ourselves how big the world actually is. Airplanes, cars, and trains have made us forget this fact. They fool us into not seeing the world around us. We think of the world as being composed of effectively empty space between our starting point and destination because it all passes by so quickly. Mechanized transportation is a wonderful thing in many ways, but it also decieves us, makes us think of the world on a different scale than the reality we are missing all around.

To me, this chapter embodies this idea. In The Hobbit, we have no real concept of the Shire. We don't get much description of it at all actually. Bilbo lives in a village of some kind and all the place names are rather vague. Once the journey begins we are told, almost in passing, that at first Thorin's company travels through Hobbit lands. Otherwise, everything is glossed over until we get to the Trolls! (I understand why, it's a children's book after all).

But in The Lord of the Rings, things are quite different. Here, Tolkien firmly establishes the Shire as a PLACE. There is an entire forward devoted largely to its history, geography and people. Essentially the entirety of the first four chapters are spent within its borders. While the Hobbits are walking through the Shire to Crickhollow, the reader is also going at a walking pace, in a literary sense. Here, we have the chance to explore the Shire as we get to know it through its people, some of its history, and through the land itself.

That's what the early parts of Fellowship are about to me - getting to know the Hobbits and the land they come from.
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