Chapter 18.2
Chapter 18.2 is added to A Secret Gate today: Mat Bucket arrives at Brandy Hall where he encounters all manner of surprises and-at last-reunites with Jamy.
I feel I should explain that I wrote in a virtual vacuum for several years before I came to LJ, and while I endeavor to follow canon as slavishly as I can, sometimes my isolated beginnings show up in big ways. So it is with Stairs, the subject of my remarks this time out!
One of the first things I noticed when I started reading fan-fiction at LJ and SoA was that there was strict adherence to the canon-ordered hobbits’ distaste for stairs. Of course, I have written stairs into both Brandy Hall and Great Smials and may I say now I’m grateful to all of you who have been so kind (and tactful) as to not make a canon issue of these heretical constructions. Still, I thought the time had come to acknowledge my departure in this vein; to that end you will find a nod to the business of stairs in this chapter!
I do not often defy canon, but I admit the choice to put stairs in the Great Houses was deliberate. Banking on the brash free thinking of the Brandybucks and the widely-discussed wealth, eccentricity and ostentation of the Tooks, I could not help but think that these huge, multi-branched family seats differed considerably from the average village hobbit hole (even the splendid Bag End) and in the matter of stairs might prove an exception to the rule. To wit, what I took into consideration as I thought it through and a series of anxious explanations!
1. The concept of the Shire “mansions” filled with many separate rooms and apartments for many different families seems to suggest that the Great Smials and Brandy Hall are the “castles” and/or “manor houses” of the Shire. There never was a Great House conceived with the same objectives as a cottage; they are completely different kinds of dwellings and as such, exhibit different characteristics.
2. The close sense of family that we consider to be proper for the residents of the Great Houses (though Tolkien never really expounded on it) requires a certain communal attitude that can’t really be achieved in a vast dwelling where everybody has their own front door and their own outside entrance. Anybody who’s lived in a modern apartment complex knows they are not conducive to friendly relations, and the “community rooms” are rarely if ever used.
3. Expanding on this, canon tells us that comfort is extremely important to hobbits and it is not a stretch to consider that the very wealthy (especially the Tooks) would go to what might seem extremes to insure eccentric notions of comfort (recall Bilbo had “whole rooms devoted to clothes”). Trudging up a hill, or worse, an escarpment (as David Day describes Great Smials) in Victorian clothing, carrying a baby or small child, a market basket, gardening tools, fishing gear, and what-have you to get to one’s front door in the rain is about as far from comfort as one can get. If I were a Brandybuck or a Took, it wouldn’t have taken too long to wonder whether there might be a better way to get in out of the elements as quickly as possible!
4. When navigating several levels without stairs, with an aim to accessing vast floors full of private apartments from more than one source location, the alternative to stairs is ramps. I once worked on a collaborative story under a very detailed and imaginative story leader who made blueprints of the interiors we were working in. One of our interiors was a mountain, in which was delved an ancient Dwarf fortress, and the lower levels were connected with ramps because carts were driven up and down them. Ramps take up an enormous amount of space, even in a tight spiral. Conversely, a wandering slope of a ramp (of the sort one sees in ant farms) crosses at a diagonal and is in danger of compromising the stability of the floors. Stairs are more efficient.
6. A curious thought came to me when I turned my thoughts to Merry, Pippin and Frodo and how they reacted to the various staircases they encountered along the way of the Quest: in Bree, Rivendell, Moria, Amon Hen, the Pass and the Tower of Cirith Ungol, Henneth Annun, Edoras, Minas Tirith, Isengard. It is true Pippin in particular very much disliked the open flets in Lothlorien, but with the exception of this, I cannot think of one instance in which they even commented on the existence of stairs-a rather unusual thing for people who lived in a culture where stairs were an aversion. I think they didn’t say anything because they were more used to the idea than the average hobbit.
7. Finally, there is the matter of Professor Tolkien’s painting “Hobbiton.” This can be viewed at The Thain’s Book (http://www.tuckborough.net/) under Place Index: Hobbiton. In this painting the Professor has given us a view of Hobbiton and the Hill from just this side of Bywater. In the foreground of this pretty picture is the Mill-a three-story House-like structure with a Tower. There are windows on the 2nd floor, and one higher up in the tower. It is a public building of sorts, and not a private dwelling, but unless it has very steep ramps, it has stairs. I think if the Professor could conceive of such a building in the Shire at all, there exists the possibility of precedent!
Anyway, that’s all my excuses and explanations for my shocking deviation in the matter of stairs, and I hope Ella and Eirien bring home to you the joys of them as well!
Many, many thanks to those of you who keep hanging in with this story. You make the author very humbly grateful. There are probably 3 chapters left till the end of Book I (the Shire part of the story), and I’m hoping to get them done this summer. I’ll continue as smoothly as I can with Book II, which will take the story to Edoras and Minas Tirith and the inevitable end of the journey-though there may be a tad bit of delay while I become a grandmother for the first time in October! Rather looking forward to that….
No pictures again this time; Rachel has her hands full with two little boys and the English spring-and who can blame her? But we’ll hope to see some soon!
Also, Chapter 12.1 is posted today at Stories of Arda.
I feel I should explain that I wrote in a virtual vacuum for several years before I came to LJ, and while I endeavor to follow canon as slavishly as I can, sometimes my isolated beginnings show up in big ways. So it is with Stairs, the subject of my remarks this time out!
One of the first things I noticed when I started reading fan-fiction at LJ and SoA was that there was strict adherence to the canon-ordered hobbits’ distaste for stairs. Of course, I have written stairs into both Brandy Hall and Great Smials and may I say now I’m grateful to all of you who have been so kind (and tactful) as to not make a canon issue of these heretical constructions. Still, I thought the time had come to acknowledge my departure in this vein; to that end you will find a nod to the business of stairs in this chapter!
I do not often defy canon, but I admit the choice to put stairs in the Great Houses was deliberate. Banking on the brash free thinking of the Brandybucks and the widely-discussed wealth, eccentricity and ostentation of the Tooks, I could not help but think that these huge, multi-branched family seats differed considerably from the average village hobbit hole (even the splendid Bag End) and in the matter of stairs might prove an exception to the rule. To wit, what I took into consideration as I thought it through and a series of anxious explanations!
1. The concept of the Shire “mansions” filled with many separate rooms and apartments for many different families seems to suggest that the Great Smials and Brandy Hall are the “castles” and/or “manor houses” of the Shire. There never was a Great House conceived with the same objectives as a cottage; they are completely different kinds of dwellings and as such, exhibit different characteristics.
2. The close sense of family that we consider to be proper for the residents of the Great Houses (though Tolkien never really expounded on it) requires a certain communal attitude that can’t really be achieved in a vast dwelling where everybody has their own front door and their own outside entrance. Anybody who’s lived in a modern apartment complex knows they are not conducive to friendly relations, and the “community rooms” are rarely if ever used.
3. Expanding on this, canon tells us that comfort is extremely important to hobbits and it is not a stretch to consider that the very wealthy (especially the Tooks) would go to what might seem extremes to insure eccentric notions of comfort (recall Bilbo had “whole rooms devoted to clothes”). Trudging up a hill, or worse, an escarpment (as David Day describes Great Smials) in Victorian clothing, carrying a baby or small child, a market basket, gardening tools, fishing gear, and what-have you to get to one’s front door in the rain is about as far from comfort as one can get. If I were a Brandybuck or a Took, it wouldn’t have taken too long to wonder whether there might be a better way to get in out of the elements as quickly as possible!
4. When navigating several levels without stairs, with an aim to accessing vast floors full of private apartments from more than one source location, the alternative to stairs is ramps. I once worked on a collaborative story under a very detailed and imaginative story leader who made blueprints of the interiors we were working in. One of our interiors was a mountain, in which was delved an ancient Dwarf fortress, and the lower levels were connected with ramps because carts were driven up and down them. Ramps take up an enormous amount of space, even in a tight spiral. Conversely, a wandering slope of a ramp (of the sort one sees in ant farms) crosses at a diagonal and is in danger of compromising the stability of the floors. Stairs are more efficient.
6. A curious thought came to me when I turned my thoughts to Merry, Pippin and Frodo and how they reacted to the various staircases they encountered along the way of the Quest: in Bree, Rivendell, Moria, Amon Hen, the Pass and the Tower of Cirith Ungol, Henneth Annun, Edoras, Minas Tirith, Isengard. It is true Pippin in particular very much disliked the open flets in Lothlorien, but with the exception of this, I cannot think of one instance in which they even commented on the existence of stairs-a rather unusual thing for people who lived in a culture where stairs were an aversion. I think they didn’t say anything because they were more used to the idea than the average hobbit.
7. Finally, there is the matter of Professor Tolkien’s painting “Hobbiton.” This can be viewed at The Thain’s Book (http://www.tuckborough.net/) under Place Index: Hobbiton. In this painting the Professor has given us a view of Hobbiton and the Hill from just this side of Bywater. In the foreground of this pretty picture is the Mill-a three-story House-like structure with a Tower. There are windows on the 2nd floor, and one higher up in the tower. It is a public building of sorts, and not a private dwelling, but unless it has very steep ramps, it has stairs. I think if the Professor could conceive of such a building in the Shire at all, there exists the possibility of precedent!
Anyway, that’s all my excuses and explanations for my shocking deviation in the matter of stairs, and I hope Ella and Eirien bring home to you the joys of them as well!
Many, many thanks to those of you who keep hanging in with this story. You make the author very humbly grateful. There are probably 3 chapters left till the end of Book I (the Shire part of the story), and I’m hoping to get them done this summer. I’ll continue as smoothly as I can with Book II, which will take the story to Edoras and Minas Tirith and the inevitable end of the journey-though there may be a tad bit of delay while I become a grandmother for the first time in October! Rather looking forward to that….
No pictures again this time; Rachel has her hands full with two little boys and the English spring-and who can blame her? But we’ll hope to see some soon!
Also, Chapter 12.1 is posted today at Stories of Arda.