LotR re-read: FotR I.2 revisited

[kate_nepveu]

Yes, I've already posted about "The Shadow of the Past," but I didn't talk about how the (really remarkably long) info-dump works—both in the sense of its mechanics and in the sense that it doesn't stop me-the-reader dead in my tracks. (With the usual caveat that I've been reading this book since forever, so familiarity helps too; yet when I try to look at it now with a fresh and critical eye, it still seems to work.)

Quite a lot of this is going to be me talking out loud to myself, trying to figure this out. And yes, I resort to a table.

I think structure is the place to start: there are nine sections, and my tentative thesis, looking at my quick notes, is that they're arranged in a circle. Let's see if that's borne out by looking at them in more detail.

(Nb.: I'm using "cliff-hanger" below very loosely.)

#	Subject	Opening	Closing	Notes
1	Danger to a mortal possessor of a Great Ring	Outside, peaceful: "Next morning after a late breakfast, the wizard was sitting with Frodo by the open window of the study."	Dialogue, reaction, contrasting with outside, peaceful: "'How terrifying!' said Frodo. There was another long silence. The sound of Sam Gamgee cutting the lawn came in from the garden."	Gandalf is remembering Bilbo running out of Bag End in the second paragraph.
2	When Gandalf became concerned for Bilbo and the Shire	Dialogue, follow-up: "'How long have you known this?' asked Frodo at length. 'And how much did Bilbo know?'"	Dialogue, cliff-hanger: "You do not know the real peril yet; but you shall. I was not sure of it myself when I was last here; but the time has come to speak. Give me the ring for a moment."	No references to outside.
3	Revealing the Ring's fiery letters	Action, follow-up: "Frodo took it from his breeches-pocket, where it was clasped to a chain that hung from his belt."	Dialogue, cliff-hanger: "Frodo sat silent and motionless. Fear seemed to stretch out a vast hand, like a dark cloud rising in the East and looming up to engulf him. 'This ring!' he stammered. 'How, how on earth did it come to me?'"	Shutters closed and curtains drawn partway through, though can still hear Sam's shears.
4	History of Ring from forging through Isildur	Dialogue, follow-up: "'Ah!' said Gandalf. 'That is a very long story."	Dialogue, cliff-hanger: "But at last I can carry on the story, I think."	"Time that is given to us." No references to outside.
5	History of Ring with Sméagol	Narrative continuation: "Long after, but still very long ago, there lived by the banks of the Great River on the edge of Wilderland a clever-handed and quiet-footed little people."	Narrative conclusion: "The Ring went into the shadows with him, and even the maker, when his power had begun to grow again, could learn nothing of it."	Only Gandalf's narration; no references to outside.
6	Gollum after the Ring; Gandalf getting information from Gollum	Dialogue, follow-up: "'Gollum!' cried Frodo. 'Gollum? Do you mean that this is the very Gollum-creature that Bilbo met? How loathsome!'"	Dialogue, cliff-hanger / narrative conclusion: "But I am afraid there is no possible doubt: he had made his slow, sneaking way, step by step, mile by mile, south, down at last to the Land of Mordor."	Longest sub-section. Possibly not realistic that Frodo waits until now to interject about Gollum, when he's referred to as such four paragraphs ago. "Meant." No references to outside.
7	The Enemy getting information from Gollum; danger to the Shire	Outside, ominous: "A heavy silence fell in the room. Frodo could hear his heart beating. Even outside everything seemed still. No sound of Sam's shears could now be heard."	Dialogue, cliff-hanger: "'No. But I suppose one could hammer it or melt it.' 'Try!' said Gandalf. 'Try now!'"	"Pity."
8	Destroying the Ring	Action, follow-up: "Frodo drew the Ring out of his pocket again and looked at it. It now appeared plain and smooth, without mark or device that he could see."	Dialogue, cliff-hanger: "I will help you bear this burden, as long as it is yours to bear. But we must do something, soon. The Enemy is moving." —preceded by reference to peaceful outside.	Gandalf refuses the Ring.
9	Frodo chooses to try to save the Shire	Inaction, follow-up: "There was a long silence. Gandalf . . . was watching Frodo intently. Frodo gazed fixedly at the red embers on the hearth, until they filled all his vision, and he seemed to be looking down into profound wells of fire. He was thinking of the fabled Cracks of Doom and the terror of the Fiery Mountain."	end of chapter, Sam reaction	Contains a reference to outside and tension-breaking reversal: mention of spies, silence, and then catching Sam.

It seems to me that this chapter circles around. It starts (section 1) with the danger just past, to Bilbo, and then (section 2) asserts that there is danger to the Shire. The Ring is definitively identified (section 3), which lets the furthest points of the circle (sections 4-6) be the furthest points in time, the Ring's history. The history then circles back to the present and why there's danger to the Shire (section 7); the last two sections look forward, to what needs to be done (destroy the Ring, section 8) and who's going to do it (Frodo and Sam, at the start, section 9). The levels of tension are reinforced by the references to the environment, as the chapter circles around from light and outside, to dark and inside, and back again (and ends with a slightly-comic gardener, where possibly both parts of the description are equally relevant).

(Le Guin would probably call this "there and back again," which didn't occur to me until just before posting.)

This is a logical progression: the primary concerns of Frodo and the reader, after chapter 1, are Bilbo and the Shire. The chapter draws readers in through these familiar things, hooks them with talk of danger, and then leads them through as much information as they need to know to understand the danger. (I'm struck, on looking at this now, post-Silmarillion and even the Appendices to Return of the King, by section 4's brevity.) With the exception of section 5, the end of each intermediate section draws readers on through cliff-hangers, though small ones; section 5 is the mid-point of the circle, a resting-point, and thus it ends with Gandalf finishing his revelation of the Ring's history.

The final thing that caught my eye, though probably not the final thing that makes this chapter work, is the mixing of narrative techniques. For instance, sections 4 and 5 are both history. In section 4, Gandalf tells the story from a quite remote distance, much abridged and with little color; but in section 5, Gandalf tells the tale from much closer, recounting dialogue and individual thoughts without intrusion. Like Gandalf, the omniscient narrator also varies its distance, providing a view on the internal thoughts of the characters on a few key occasions: to set up parallels to Bilbo, when Gandalf remembers him (section 1) or Frodo wants to follow (section 8); to foreshadow Frodo's relationship with the Ring, when Frodo thinks how precious it is (section 8) or looks into the embers and thinks of the Cracks of Doom (section 9), and also to emphasize the importance and unexpectedness of Frodo's choice.

Which leads me to another little unsatisfactory bit about Sam: Gandalf gives Frodo the opportunity to decide what he's going to do, and it's very important that Frodo chooses to take the Ring and leave the Shire. Sam's never given a choice; and though in some ways it's irrelevant because this is what he would have chosen, it's something that contributed to my negative reaction to the end. (Note to self: see if Sam ever explicitly chooses to keep going.)

[ more LotR re-read posts ]

Comments

[redbird]

Which leads me to another little unsatisfactory bit about Sam: Gandalf gives Frodo the opportunity to decide what he's going to do, and it's very important that Frodo chooses to take the Ring and leave the Shire. Sam's never given a choice; and though in some ways it's irrelevant because this is what he would have chosen, it's something that contributed to my negative reaction to the end.

I am reminded of Le Guin's comment about having the urge to start a Hobbit Socialist Party.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Sam wouldn't join it. I have great respect for most of Le Guin's remarks, but all this one shows is a lack of understanding of Sam's motives and desires, a lack shown by most others who spend a lot of time whining about Sam.

[mikeda.livejournal.com]

Le Guin's "Hobbit Socialist Party" remark is a bit of humor, not a serious suggestion. And the passage in which it appears is basically a bit of affectionate teasing about some of LOTR's quirks near the end of an essay strongly favorable to LOTR.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Of course it's not serious. But it's a humorous way of conveying a real feeling of annoyance - a feeling that reveals her lack of understanding of Sam.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Do you think she was annoyed at Sam, or annoyed at the British class system?

[kate_nepveu]

There's Sam's motivations, and there's the way the text treats Sam; I may not be able to understand the first, but I think I can judge the second as a reader of the text, which is what I'm trying to do here, putting my own baggage to the side as much as possible. And I don't think this chapter treats Sam entirely well, for the reasons I've stated.

Also, I don't know whether "whining" is intended to apply to anyone here; and while it feels odd for my non-confrontational polite self to be saying this, I think I'd rather you be specific about whether it is, rather than leave it as maybe-disparaging, maybe-not to the other participants in this discussion.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Nobody in this thread has been spending a lot of time whining about Sam.

Really, there's enough of it in the less clueful sort of Tolkien criticism.

[kate_nepveu]

Thank you for clarifying.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

That's very interesting. I never noticed how consistently it was set up that Sam is outside, but that's what makes the pay-off work when Gandalf pulls him inside.

[kate_nepveu]

I really have got to read some more criticism, because I keep coming back to Le Guin's rhythmic reversals, and I'm going to sound like a broken record. I need some other ideas to take up space in my head!

[calimac.livejournal.com]

That's a very acute analysis, and I look forward with interest to what you'll say about that even larger info-dump, the Council of Elrond. Some call it rambling and incoherent, but I think it's even more straightforwardly analyzable than this chapter.

That Frodo waits as long as he does to exclaim about Gollum has struck me also, but I presume he is caught up in Gandalf's story and does not wish to interrupt until a suitable moment.

The brevity of section 4, contrasted with the amount of backstory available elsewhere, is another example of how Tolkien conveys richness and depth by not laying out all the cards on the table at once.

Yes, Sam does choose to keep going. By the time they get past Faramir, in fact, Sam is considerably more optimistic than Frodo is.

[kate_nepveu]

Re: section 4: it'll be interesting to see how well the continued layering of backstory works. I remember not understanding the Earendil stuff for quite a while, for instance, which may have been my youth and inexperience, or may be that it was genuinely too fragmentary. We'll have to see.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think I understood the Earendil stuff until after I'd read the Silmarillion a couple of times. Up until then, Bilbo's recitation in Rivendell was just several pages of text where my eyes glazed over. (I still tend to skip over the actual poem when reading--Tolkien's poetry has never really grabbed me, I'm afraid). Although to this day, I'm not sure I understand Aragorn's apparent belief that it was a bit cheeky of Bilbo to be declaiming about Elrond's own father in Elrond's house...

--Trent

[kate_nepveu]

It might depend on what Bilbo was saying--which, as I tend to glaze over at the poetry myself, I can't speak to!

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Tend to agree with Trent here: Bilbo's poem is not clear on exactly who Earendil was and what he was doing. The clear information comes in Appendix A, and the Silmarillion expands on this.

I once taught a class on Tolkien whose students were expected to have read LOTR and the Silmarillion. They were pretty up on the plot of LOTR, but when I asked them "What did Earendil go to Valinor for?" I got a lot of blank looks.

It's rather bemusing...

[seawasp]

... to see this sort of careful dissection and think of someone ever trying it on anything *I* write. I wonder what Tolkien would have thought of it. Rather daunting.

Re: It's rather bemusing...

[kate_nepveu]

I believe his attitude while he was alive was something like "do what you like, just don't ask me to participate or read it"--I could be misremembering, there's something about it in a collection of essays I have, and I'll check tonight.

Other writers, what do you think?

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Tolkien didn't mind personal reactions to the book, even if they were negative. What he really disliked were attempts at explaining his intent and meaning. Most of them were ludicrously wrong or insulting (the theory that it's all a World War 2 allegory, the theory that it's all pre-adolescent), and those which were more on the spot he tended to consider cheese-paring and misleadingly reductionist.

Apart from book reviews, he tended to prefer that people who knew him not write about him at all. One review by a friend he went out of his way to praise was when his former student, the children's lit scholar Roger Green, said of "Smith of Wootton Major" that to seek for the meaning was to cut the rubber ball open in search of its bounce.

What he would have thought of purely analytical work that doesn't address his intent I'm less sure of. There wasn't that much of it during his lifetime that he read. But he did agree that there could be patterns and significances in a book that the author hadn't been aware of.

Re: It's rather bemusing...

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't mind at all, even when you were wrong. I might not like it, but it wouldn't upset me. Close reading and criticism seems to me an entirely legitimate way to engage with a text.