Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week One

[sigridhr]

 *smashes a bottle of champagne over the post* And we're off!

Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week One (The Hobbit)
Chapter I: An Unexpected Party
Chapter II: Roast Mutton

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 a barefoot gauntlet walk across a set of lego pieces. 
  
• 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 nerdy. Or too excited. 
• 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 11th January 2013 to Friday 18th January 2013. However, the post will remain open after that point, so you're more than welcome to continue discussions on. 

(I'm cheating a bit, as it's not quite the 11th here yet, but I want to get this up before I go to work tomorrow, and 6am posting is just asking for disaster). Have at it, guys! :) 

Comments

[j_quadrifrons]

In this particular go-round of the Tolkien obsession I've been thinking a lot about Tolkien's war experiences, and I don't really think there is a way to separate it out from everything else. He was a child who desired dragons with a profound desire, he was a young man who lost all but one of his close friends in what was arguably the most horrific and disastrous war in human history, and he was a scholar not only of language but of Northern European epic heroism. (Which, really, I am moved beyond words that he still loved those kinds of stories, even after the war. Our literary canon kind of says that the First World War destroyed the idea of heroism, but Tolkien refused to let it, and the way he did that is by saying, no, war can be awful and people in it can be glorious and both of those things can happen at the same time. And also by redefining heroism so that it includes things like mercy and pity and going on until you break and someone else picking you up and going on for you. Sorry, making myself cry now.)

I am far from an expert on traditional Northern European mythology, but I do incorporate a lot of it into my personal religious practice, and I am a nerd, so with that disclaimer: My understanding of wyrd is that it's almost like a script. These things ought to happen in this order, improvisation is acceptable but deviation is not. So while most instances of wyrd are tied to an individual, something like Ragnarok is more like the wyrd of all the gods and monsters involved at the same time. I think given Tolkien's Catholic (= monotheist) worldview the song of the Ainur could definitely be considered Arda's wyrd.

Yes, but don't forget that there's this overwhelming sense of "too little, too late" tied in with all that. Like, yes, you finally got there, but don't forget all the opportunities you missed along the way. The world at the end of the War of the Ring is a diminished world, better than it would have been had they lost the war, but not what it was supposed to be.

[sigridhr]

Which, really, I am moved beyond words that he still loved those kinds of stories, even after the war. Our literary canon kind of says that the First World War destroyed the idea of heroism, but Tolkien refused to let it, and the way he did that is by saying, no, war can be awful and people in it can be glorious and both of those things can happen at the same time. And also by redefining heroism so that it includes things like mercy and pity and going on until you break and someone else picking you up and going on for you.

THIS.

I love how Tolkien's true heroes aren't necessarily the sort to go out with a kleos-seeking bang. His focus, through the perspective of the Hobbits, was on ordinary, good people, who, when dropped into the most hellish situation imaginable, became capable of extraordinary things. And it's not, in the end, fighting and force of arms that saves the day, but Sam and Frodo dragging one another up the mountain – just a lone soldier and his batman (though not the caped crusader variety :P).

That makes sense to me.

Very true – because it will always be Arda-marred, after the fall of Melkor.

[j_quadrifrons]

And that is the thing that reeks of modernism to me, because modernism is about the individual, and Lord of the Rings is so, so much about individual effort. Victory cannot be won alone, but neither can it be won without every single person involved doing their utmost. They couldn't have won a war against Sauron, they had to destroy the Ring, and that had to be one person's responsibility - but likewise, Frodo couldn't have destroyed the Ring without Aragorn leading that army up to the gates of Mordor and serving as a distraction. (And, of course, Frodo doesn't actually destroy the Ring at all. But he tried until he couldn't any more, and it all worked out in the end. You could call that Tolkien's Catholic worldview, or you could call it hope. Fate is sometimes on your side, after all.)

...I always think that Gondor is my favorite part of LotR, but I actually think it's just that I have SO MANY FEELINGS about Sam and Frodo and the whole end of the Quest that I can't bear to think about it too much. Kind of like the end of Life on Mars, which is so perfect that I can never watch it again.

(I do think it's significant that he does have traditional heroes, too, though. Most modern fantasy doesn't - look at George R.R. Martin, fercrissakes. But Aragorn and Eomer and even Theoden and to an extent Boromir are all traditional heroes, and they're good guys and they do the right thing and their heroic deeds help save the day. They're not sufficient, but they're not insignificant, either. I can't help but feel that this ties into his essay on Beowulf's dragon in a way I can't quite articulate right now.)

[sigridhr]

I think hope is pretty much the central feature of the narrative in a lot of ways - the people we see lose hope (Denethor being the big one to come to mind) tend to fall off the party bandwagon. Then you have Aragorn, at the opposite end of the spectrum, who marches out with an army pretty much purely on hope. He's not going to win by strength of arms, but, as you say, Frodo couldn't've done it without him. Not to mention Gilraen's portentous: onen i-estel edain, u-chebin estel anim (I gave hope to men, but I kept none for myself). Hope is pretty central to the CoE discussion too - it seems an utterly hopeless task to try and destroy the ring, but they don't have another choice so they muster their courage and do it anyway on the slim chance it might work - and, of course, it does.

When I was much, much younger I used to find the Mordor sequences with Frodo and Sam the dullest parts of RotK, and it wasn't until I was in my mid to late-teens that I actually began to appreciate how wonderful they were.

I feel like Aragorn and Frodo are set up as two very different – I want to say paragons, but that's not quite the right word and my brain is not cooperating – of heroism.

[j_quadrifrons]

You are 100% right about hope being central to the narrative. (Also, I am impressed by your ability to pull out Gilraen's deathbed pun in the original Elvish.) (Ever noticed that every SINGLE time they use the word "hope" in the movies they cut to a shot of Aragorn? It gets hilarious after a while.)

I was a little bowled over, on this last re-read of The Hobbit, at how much of it does improve with the perspective of a little more maturity. Well, not improve exactly. I loved it as a child, but I also remember being deeply skeptical of the idea that not killing Gollum was the single best thing Bilbo ever did.

I think you're right about Aragorn and Frodo. They're two very different kinds of people and they're heroic in very different ways, Aragorn in an old-fashioned epic way and Frodo in a much more modern, understated way. What I find so significant is that Tolkien gives both of them their due: Aragorn gets all the traditional rewards of the hero, and so does Frodo. In the world of the story, everyone recognizes that these two very different people are both extremely valuable in their own ways. (...And no one but Frodo recognizes how invaluable Sam was, but that's a different issue entirely...)

[sigridhr]

I used to use part of it as my password, figuring it was unlikely to be cracked, so it's one of the few bits of Elvish I have memorized. I hadn't noticed that about the films, though! I probably will never be able to ignore it now, dammit. :P

I do sometimes wish that I could get that rush of reading the books for the first time again, but, I have to say, growing up and reading them at varying stages was really, really marvellous because it felt like peeling back layers to reveal something deeper and more mature each time I did.

Didn't Tolkien outright say that Sam was based off a couple of batmen he'd known during the war – who presumably would have been equally as invaluable to their masters, and equally unrecognized by anyone but.

[j_quadrifrons]

Glad to share. :D

I know what you mean - Jo Walton once said that she can't really read Lord of the Rings any more, she's read it too many times and what she does isn't reading, it's remembering. But I like that too, sometimes.

I think he did - and while I've always considered Sam's lack of recognition to be a manifestation of Tolkien's own class bias, I'm starting to think it might have been intentional: one of real heroes of the whole thing doesn't even get that much acknowledgement. (I originally wrote "the real hero," but I don't think you can say that, it's so complicated, the way that war ends.)

[sigridhr]

The wonderful thing about LotR is you can sort of do that, because it's a big enough world to submerge yourself in the mix of actual text and memory. There are a couple other book series that I re-read compulsively, but then most others once I've read them I don't get nearly as much enjoyment out of the re-reads.

He does get a sort of acknowledgement – at least in Hobbiton. It's not the same, but if I'm going to jump ship and argue the other side for a moment, it's pretty much Sam getting a huge class promotion to the position of mayor and father of way-more-children-than-is-necessary. So, it could be read as that being 'fitting' as a reward for Sam, given his lower station, I guess.

[j_quadrifrons]

Very true - Sam doesn't get covered in glory or anything, but he does most definitely get a happy ending. Which no one else gets, so.

[sigridhr]

Aragorn does, I think. Except for the whole 'sorry I nicked your daughter and condemned her to death, foster dad, but we're quite happy, thanks' thing. It's more bittersweet than Sam's, I suppose. :P

[j_quadrifrons]

That's what I meant - everyone else gets, at best, a bittersweet ending. Sam gets to go home to the Shire, have a million children, be Mayor, write his books, and then, in the end, go west to the Undying Lands to be with Frodo. No one else gets it anywhere near that good (with the possible exception of Merry and Pippin, who get the same except for going west.)

[sigridhr]

Mmm... very true.