Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week Three

[sigridhr]

  Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week Three (The Hobbit)
Chapter V: Riddles in the Dark
Chapter VI: Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire

Rules

I very much doubt we'll require much in the way of formal rules, but just for the sake of formality and clarity:

• Discussion is welcome and encouraged, as is disagreement. Name-calling and personal attacks will be punished by purchasing $10,000 worth of shares in Mordor Inc. in your name. 
  
• There is no spoiler policy in place. Although we're reading the Hobbit, please feel free to bring in things from other Tolkien works, any of the films, the History of Middle Earth, the Letters of JRR Tolkien, and, if you should like, other literary sources. 
• There is no such thing as too much geekery. Or taking the text too seriously.  
• If you have any concerns at any point, I'm the closest thing this gong show has to a mod, so feel free to get in touch. I can be reached either by PM through this site, or directly by email at sigridhr.lokidottir@gmail.com. 

Discussion on this post will officially run from Friday 18th January 2013 to Friday 25th January 2013. However, the post will remain open after that point, so you're more than welcome to continue discussions on. 

Comments

[meinterrupted]

I AM ACTUALLY GOING TO COMMENT ON THIS ENTRY.

Imma read the chapters on my lunch break.

[sigridhr]

Chapter V:

I love that Bilbo's first response is to start smoking.

I'm a bit sad that Orcrist and Glamdring didn't glow blue in the film.

This is by far the creepiest chapter - I love it.

Polite!Gollum is hilarious. It's interesting - Gollum is such a calculating creature. I wonder how much Tolkien knew about Gollum when he wrote this - he clearly planned that Gollum was a Stoor of some kind, given he'd planned out his history to include living in a hole with his grandmother. Likewise, I wonder if he'd done any planning on the history of the ring at this point.

The fish riddle is my favourite. So creepily wonderful.

So, Gollum has pockets. Given how long he's been down there, it seems unlikely to me that his clothes would have survived - so I suppose he's either nicked them from the goblins or fashioned them himself. Something about him being clothed makes him more Hobbit-like for me than the loincloth in the films. I like the idea that, like the riddles and memories he's preserved from his life before the Ring, he keeps clothing as a sort of latent hangover of living within a complex society. The trolls as well are described as 'large persons' and have pockets (and anyway they would arguably best-fit a hunter-gatherer type society, and clearly do have an organized social structure of some kind given they live in groups), but the other sentient creatures we see who go mostly unclothed are Ungoliant, (arguably) Smaug, and Huan (I'm sure there are more, I just can't think of them at the moment). While they're sentient, they're also unique and solitary - not fitting into a larger society and never seen acting with others of their group. I guess I'd mentally put Gollum in that category, and something about him – even before Bilbo came along and caused him to remember things he'd started to forget about himself – wearing clothing makes me reconsider that assessment. Same with his attempt at manners – though Smaug pulls a similar trick in that he seems to be aware of conversational/social conventions, and manipulates them to his own ends.

'Course, then there's the Eagles, so I suppose I'm just talking nonsense.
:P I wonder what on earth he keeps batwing for, though.

I'm really, really disappointed that the film added footsteps for Bilbo in the scene where he's invisible in the caves. Hobbits are meant to be silent - that's part of why Gandalf chose a Hobbit as a burglar in the first place. And Gollum's not an idiot, and would have heard Bilbo if his footsteps were even half as loud as they were in the film.

Bilbo's pity for Gollum is quite possibly one of the highlights of the book for me. Because, like Frodo when he deals with Gollum, Bilbo is looking at a version of his future, even if he's not wholly aware of it. They came from similar roots - the riddles conversation demonstrated that - and Bilbo pictures this almost anti-Hobbit lifestyle. It's in a hole, but it is a nasty, dirty, wet hole filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, and it's alone.

He had lost: lost his prey, and lost, too, the only thing he had ever cared for, his precious.

This is pretty horrible, too, if it's the only thing Gollum's ever cared for. No friends or family, or anything before it. Smeagol was clearly a pretty ill-adjusted individual even before the Ring came along.

Chapter VI:

GANDALF IS ON TO YOUR SHIT, BILBO.

But, of course, Gandalf had made a special study of bewitchments with fire and lights

Yeah, because he's got Narya. Tolkien, you troll.

There were no wolves living near Mr. Baggins' hole at home, but he knew that noise.

You know, I sometimes forget how dark the history of the Shire gets. I mean, not long before Bilbo's lifetime you have famine and orc attacks, and the Fell Winter. I always think of it as really rosy and insular, but that's really only a recent development. And it's a bit sad, in way - because it's like their insularity is them trying to keep the big, dark world out because they're traumatized.

[j_quadrifrons]

Riddles in the Dark:

Corey observes that Gollum and Bilbo's riddles counter one another - Gollum tells a riddle about something creepy, so Bilbo tells a riddle about something bright and homey, so Gollum gets creepier, etc. etc. In that sense, Gollum wins the riddle game - the last proper riddle is his time riddle, which is pretty goddamn dark.

(I've always been entertained by Tolkien's observation that while Bilbo's question was not properly a riddle, by attempting to guess Gollum has accepted it and is bound by the rules of the game. I believe there's precedent in Norse myth for exactly that situation, actually.)

Tolkien geekery of the day: The Annotated Hobbit notes that someone has written a paper, published in Arda, on Tolkien's use of matches in the canon. (I would dearly love to read it.)

Two more observations from Corey. One: Although quite early on, this chapter is Bilbo's turning point in the story. Although he's incredibly lucky in the riddle game, this chapter marks the point where he becomes more proactive and really begins to think of himself as the professional adventurer that Gandalf advertised him as.

Two: Gollum's last mention in this book is his "shriek, filled with hatred and despair." That caught my eye, given our earlier discussion about despair as the one great evil in Tolkien's worldview.

Out of the Frying-Pan, etc:

I always forget that the wargs talk. (Talk about civilized monsters in unexpected places.) And yet they're still less terrifying than the goblins, because they're not sadistic, they're just giant intelligent wolves.

The goblins' song ("bake and toast 'em, fry and roast 'em") recalls the trolls from earlier. I like how the threat grows: they're still in danger of being roasted, but much more immediately. Also, Tom and Bert and William are pretty cuddly by comparison.

Balin bowing in respect to Bilbo's sneaking has always endeared him to me. <3 (Balin was my favorite Dwarf, and I cried when I read "The Mines of Moria" for the first time.)

[(Anonymous)]

Ugh, love these chapters, I have a lot of feelings about Gollum, even though he's kind of a creep.

'He put the ring in his pocket almost without thinking'
I think this just shows that it was always almost Bilbo's ~destiny~ to find the ring here, the whole thing of the ring knowing who it needs to latch it self to and everything. I don't know if there's any significance in him putting it in his pocket instead of immediately putting it on? Although to be fair if I found a random ring somewhere I probably wouldn't just immediately start wearing it!

Gollum. Oh, Gollum. I know Smeagol was supposed to be a somewhat devious kind of character, but I always get the impression that Gollum is sort of strangely innocent? Or maybe it's more that he's sort of child-like. I know he has probably killed many people and is not the nicest of characters, but maybe he's just become so dependent on the ring after all those years in the dark and cold that he's out of control of his own life. He's lonely in the dark cave but he also hates the light and the outside world.
Is it weird that a part of me wants to bake Gollum a cake and take him on a day trip to the zoo or something?

....yes, yes it probably is......

[gallifaerie.livejournal.com]

Chapter five is so excellent, and so eerie. I think, for me, it's the first part of the book where I get that sort of curiosity itch where I just have to keep reading and I just need answers about what lives in the depths of tunnels, about Gollum and the ring. It's such good writing from a 'page-turner' perspective.

One of my favourite parts of Bilbo and Gollum's interaction is when they're both repeatedly asking each other 'what have you lost?' and 'what has it got in its pocketses?’, and neither of them's answering the other. You can actually feel the tension building up as you see that they're both realising what's happened. It's just so GOOD that I can't really be any more coherent about it.

And I love this line about Gollum, when he realises that he's lost the ring and Bilbo has it: 'such a rage of loss and suspicion was in his heart that no sword had any more terror for him.' I mean, that really speaks volumes about the effect the ring has on Gollum, and how he feels not just when it's lost, but when he knows someone else has it, and has, in his mind, taken it from him.

I wondered if there was any significance to Bilbo's dream at the end of chapter six - it says he's sleeping more soundly on the eyrie than he ever has in Bag End (which could represent him finally taking on the role of 'adventurer' and being comfortable with it, like a few people were discussing above me in this post), but that in his dream, he's wandering into different rooms of his hobbit hole, looking for something that he can't find or remember what it looks like. He's obviously just found the ring at this point, but he's dreaming about loss, so is there some kind of parallel to be made there?

[hibari-sensei.livejournal.com]

I wish there was more about Gollum and his grandma. When I was reading it, my mind kept flashing back to this episode of Hawaii 5-0 in which this grandma went to great lengths to protect her serial killer grandson, who was very caring towards her. I know that Gollum hadn't gone over to the dark side since then, but it'd still be interesting to explore their relationship and figure out what happened to her.

Also, I find it interesting that the eagles are portrayed in a more humanoid manner. They have decorum and we get dialogue whereas wolves just howl and rabbit just are food.