Tolkienblogging: Hitting the road

Monday, Dec. 1st-Tuesday, Dec. 2nd

read: Note on the Text; Foreword; Prologue; A Long-expected Party; The Shadow of the Past; about a third of Three Is Company

Despite having already read this book about seven times, it’s occuring to me that blogging The Lord of the Rings isn’t going to be as easy as I anticipated. For starters, I didn’t give myself a whole lot of time to actually read the book, much less write about it, if I want to stick to my plan of having it finished by the release of the third film. (This is the way I’ve done it during the past two years.) Finishing off Gilbert Hernandez’s Palomar, an epic undertaking in its own right, pushed my projected start date from Thanksgiving to yesterday; and only now did I realize that the film comes out on the 17th, not the 19th as I’d had myself convinced. And this is to say nothing of an unusually busy period at work, a ton of new albums I’d like to give a solid listen to if not for the amount of time it’d take, several other writing projects I’m embroiled in (not the least of which is the rest of this blog)… Oh, confusticate and bebother the constraints of modern life!

That being said, these first sections of the book are like coming home again, aren’t they? I think I’m going to write about the book bullet-point style, just to save myself the effort of organizing comprehensible essay-style posts, unlike what I did to myself back in October. So away we go:

* Even things like the indescribably anal-rententive “Note on the Text,” which traces the publishing history of the book from edition to error-laden edition until its ultimate more-or-less perfection, mirrors the zealous complexity with which Tolkien detailed his world. I’m sure it’s no more necessary for me to read this every time than it would be for me to read the table of contents word by word, but what the hey?

* I always enjoy Tolkien’s foreword. I like how he says not that he dislikes allegory, but that he distrusts it–an altogether admirable trait, I think, particularly if one happens to be concerned with telling a good solid story. (Admittedly I only read the Narnia books as an adult, so maybe I missed out on its enchantments in some way, but particularly in the last installment the need to cleave to the Christian mythos seems to scupper the needs of the narrative almost entirely.) And his diss of his critics is a gem:

Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.

Prof. T. 1, Critics 0!

* The prologue contains the first of the many, many intriguing throw-away mentions of some thing or event that give my imagination hours and hours of things to chew over, quite possibly one of the book’s most endearing qualities. In this case it’s a brief discussion of the hobbits’ relations with the once-mighty Northern Kingdom of Men: “To the last battle at Fornost with the Witch-lord of Angmar they sent some bowmen to the aid of the king, or so they maintained, though no tales of Men record it.” Boy, but do I ever wish some tale did! The idea of little hobbits of ancient times fighting against the Witch-King centuries and centuries before Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin started out on their own adventures is a delightful mental Easter Egg. What did the Men make of these strange little people? Did they fight well? (One imagines they did.) Might the Witch-King have noticed them, and tucked the knowledge of these creatures away for future use? Ah, the joys of being a Tolkien nerd!

* “A Long-expected Party” is, if you’ll pardon the phrase, where the party really gets started. I was surprised to feel an almost physical sense of joy and pleasure when I read that first line: “When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End…” Hooray! We’re off! I know this chapter is often ragged on by pop-culture critics handicapping the books for film fans, but fiddlesticks to them. I love the little jokes, which all read like the japes of a mischievous old man, which I suppose they are. My favorite is the bit about Lobelia Sackville-Baggins being given a set of silver spoons by the departed Bilbo, who suspected her of having stolen several of them in the past: “she took the point at once, but she also took the spoons.”

* “The Shadow of the Past”: Another Easter Egg here–Sam’s ostensibly tall tale of a tree-creature walking around outside the Shire, which, we might surmise from later events, may not be so tall at all. Actually, when Treebeard the Ent tells Merry & Pippin that the long-lost Entwives might like a place like the Shire, neither they nor Tolkien makes the connection with Sam’s friend’s sighting. Are we supposed to? Well, that’s the fun of reading the books, isn’t it? This swell chapter also includes Gandalf’s tale of his years as a glorified private dick on the trail of both Gollum and the Ring’s real history. Images of Gandalf and Aragorn hunting for, capturing, and spending at least as much time with him as Frodo and Sam do later on are intriguing indeed.

* about one-third of “Three Is Company”: A nice creepy just-missed moment when the hissing stranger questions the Gaffer about Frodo’s whereabouts, and a charming little bit with a fox who wonders what the heck three hobbits are doing sleeping outside. Coming soon: the Ringwraiths’ grand entrance!

So, there you have it–I’d imagine that’s how these things will read. Nothing special, just some favorite bits, and some thoughts on what’s making the book tick at that particular moment. Glad you’re walking through it with me!