happiness bites
So I have a hard time writing something genuinely *happy*. Not like that's a big secret... There's some measure of angst in almost all my stories, even when there's happiness, and that actually makes it more tangible to me. It's that murky tracing of risk and loss around happiness and fulfillment, the bedrock of realism that sharpens its edges.
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The other I particularly liked was Pretty Good Year, which handled the ambiguity of Tolkien's ending in an imaginative way: the co-authors explored both endings, one where Frodo stayed in Middle Earth with Sam and Rosie and one where he left, but refused to choose between them.
*Frodo* refused to choose...? Hmm. ;-)
Perhaps you're joking, but . . . no, I meant the authors refused to choose between the two endings. Which, I thought, was a pretty good trick, because the two endings were equally persuasive, and equally as beautifully written.
I really do urge you to give "A Pretty Good Year" a chance. You mention that you can't get into Frodo/Rosie at all. I never would have believed it could have worked either, as well as it did here. I didn't really have much interest or liking for Rose as a character until I read this story (admit it: so many readers just hate her deep down inside because she comes between "our" Frodo and Sam). But in this story, Rose is a sprightly, interesting, and loveable character, and you can understand why Sam fell for her in the first place. Moreover, I find the Frodo/Rosie storyline that develops to be entirely consistent with all the characters and totally believable. At the very least, "A Pretty Good Year" is a lovely examination of Frodo's struggles to attempt to get well so that he could stay in the Shire, in the year and a half before he finally left--and what the despair did to all of them when it became clear that he couldn't.
If you read only one bit, read the chapter titled "Winter's Road," which spells out the ties between Frodo, Sam, Rosie, and Elanor so beautifully. The story ties back very movingly to that chapter near the end of the book, in the scene between Rose and Frodo that gives the novella its name.
Another thing that is quite interesting and worthy of reflection is the careful attention given to Sam, Rosie and Frodo as parents. After all, when you think about it, Sam had so many children that being a father was a huge part of his life, but so many fan writers entirely ignore this.
Peg
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I really do urge you to give "A Pretty Good Year" a chance. You mention that you can't get into Frodo/Rosie at all. I never would have believed it could have worked either, as well as it did here. I didn't really have much interest or liking for Rose as a character until I read this story (admit it: so many readers just hate her deep down inside because she comes between "our" Frodo and Sam).
That may be so, but it's not how I feel about her. I don't think she came between Frodo and Sam in any sense, and most of the time, I feel rather sorry for her (though, who knows, perhaps the marriage fulfilled her expectations). Still, adding a romantic relationship between her and Frodo is just as arbitrary to me as a Frodo/random hobbitlass would be, and simply not very likely, considering both the background of hobbit culture, their investment in genealogy, and Frodo's apparent disinterest in females, unless they fit the pattern of 'unattainable goddess'. ;) Oh, I'm planning to read PGY, don't get me wrong (when work finally leaves me the time for it) -- it's just that the story premise is fundamentally different from, say, Frodo/Sam or Merry/Pippin stories, since it invents a relationship for which there's no foundation in the books. And without meaning to slight Rosie, I really don't think she's the type of person Frodo could be attracted to. In the few scenes Tolkien gave her, he characterized her as the 'ordinary hobbit' who'll never understand what the travellers went through. In the course of their relationship, and particularly during the quest, Sam and Frodo crossed all kinds of boundaries, but they're very obviously unique. I just find it difficult to imagine that anything similar would be possible between Frodo and Rose, under so very different circumstances.
But in this story, Rose is a sprightly, interesting, and loveable character, and you can understand why Sam fell for her in the first place.
Well, I guess that makes me a heretic *g*, but I see no indication in LOTR at all that Sam ever fell in love with her. From all we know about hobbit society, I it seems far more likely to me that marriages serve quite different (mostly social) purposes and are based on friendships and ties between families rather than individual sentiments.
If you read only one bit, read the chapter titled "Winter's Road," which spells out the ties between Frodo, Sam, Rosie, and Elanor so beautifully.
Thanks for the recommendation! I'll definitely give it a try. I'm just trying to explain where I'm coming from here, not criticizing this storyline in any sense... See, to me much of LOTR is about Sam and Frodo's relationship, and a love that defies all categories, whereas Sam's marriage is a late addition (also in term of Tolkien's writing process) which doesn't come anywhere near the depth and intensity of the love between Sam and Frodo. And there are few 'mainstream' books that so openly celebrate love between characters of the same gender, even if Tolkien didn't intend it to be interpreted as a potentially physical relationship. I understand why some women writers focus on the (few) female characters and create larger roles for them, but turning the intense bond between Sam and Frodo into a threesome with a female partner in the middle also seems to reflect a heterocentric ideology -- and I'm rather happy with its minimized form in Tolkien. :) So, ultimately, I'm just more interested in AUs focussing on the established relationship between Sam and Frodo, rather than seeing them both nudged back into a heterosexual mold.
Another thing that is quite interesting and worthy of reflection is the careful attention given to Sam, Rosie and Frodo as parents. After all, when you think about it, Sam had so many children that being a father was a huge part of his life, but so many fan writers entirely ignore this.
Yes, that's definitely an interesting subject, and I hope to write more about it myself eventually -- based on my medievalistic understanding of hobbit marriages and families. ;)
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Just looking over comments and this is one I also wanted to add something to - then I'm off to writing papers and such..
and Frodo's apparent disinterest in females, unless they fit the pattern of 'unattainable goddess'. ;)
You've noticed! hihi. Joking, of course you noticed. Though I wonder what that's all about, because I personally "noticed" on a very intuitive/reflective level: as our society transforms, we get the pattern in fandom and star-struck reactions (divas = devas = god/desses). But this reaction in myself, I *already* knew as an *old* pattern of initiation (don't ask me how!). So perhaps it has to do with that door into the 'world of ideals' (akin to seeing, was it Glorfindel - how he was "on the other side").
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