More skippable stuff
I have not given up, just slowed down the re reading pace...
The Shadow of the Past
One of my favourite chapters, despite, again, its being packed with information. I love how it hints at Frodo’s slowly awaking restlessness. These years between 3001 and 3018 are an interesting period, I believe, from the pov of gap filling.
“There were rumours of strange things happening in the world outside; and as Gandalf had not yet, at that time appeared or sent any message for several years, Frodo gathered all the news he could. Elves, who seldom walked in the Shire, could now be seen passing westward through the woods in the evening, passing and not returning;
So while Frodo enjoyed his freedom and well being as master of Bag End, the world ran swiftly to great troubles and tings were moving around the secluded Shire, without hobbits knowing or *caring*, as we learn from the conversation in The Green Dragon.
Saruman had increased his pressure of spies on the Shire, and supposedly the Dunedain had reinforced their watch while Aragorn and Gandalf hunted for Gollum. Gollum on his part had crossed Mirkwood twice and then had gone into Mordor and had been captured and tortured, and Sauron had finally learnt of the One Ring. Orcs had multiplied in the Mountains and the lands were, in general terms, unsafe and more troubled than they had been. The hobbits only knew that there were more strangers at the borders than what was usual. And that some hobbits claimed that they had seen Walking trees!
And then 2017-18 proves to be a hard year for both Gandalf and Aragorn. When Gandalf reaches Hobbiton in April 3018, he comes from a long tiring trip of months that had taken him to Gondor, when he read the manuscript of Isildur concerning the Ring. Then news reached him from Lórien that Aragorn had passed there with the creature Gollum, and so Gandalf passed into Thranduil’s realm in March 27 to question Gollum.
Aragorn had come from the Dead Marshes into Thranduil’s stronghold in fifty something days on foot with his prisoner, but Gandalf’s deed is not lesser. He departs Mirkwood on march 29 and reaches Hobbiton on April 12, with a brief stop at Rivendell to change horse, and presumably, share his suspicions with Elrond and getting them all started and in warning for what was coming. Surely Aragorn must have followed at a slower pace, because we find him watching the road to Bree in September when the Ring Bearer departs The Shire, and we had left him in Mirkwood in March with the creature Gollum. We can guess that he spent some time in Rivendell, plotting with Elrond, Glorfindel and the twins, and after that he must have been reorganizing the Rangers into a stricter watch over The Shire.
So it is no wonder that, when Frodo opened the door of Bag End to Gandalf on that April 12th, he thought that the wizard seemed older and more careworn. The last years and, particularly the past months had not been easy for the wizard.
IT is curious to think of that scene from Gandalf’s pov. He must have been overexcited to the point of frantic! He knows so much while Frodo ignores all. He is frightened and worried and full of omens and knowing that he’s in the brink of being out of time, while Frodo cannot even begin to think what hit him. It is a wonder that Gandalf consented in going to bed and leaving the matter of the Ring till morning, He must have been exhausted indeed.
I love the idea that they settled to talk in Frodo’s study after a late breakfast. It is a good time and mood for that kind of business, to me. And then the conversation flows from mundane into ominous, distant, mythical maters. I really love the feeling when Frodo stands up and opens the shutters and sees that outside the day is clear and the sun shines in a spring morning, although his life has been changed for ever. I can so relate with that feeling, that suddenly you are changed, or shocked by news and cannot help wondering that the world seems to keep going on unaffected while you are all shaken and awed or confused or shocked… It is perfectly expressed here I find, Frodo’s bewilderment, the whole strangeness of those matters in a normal Shire morning, and their solidity and unavoidability. It is a masterfully done scene, from my point of view.
And it is properly unnerving as well, from Gandalf’s account and changes of mood, to the uncanny feeling of fire letters appearing in the Ring and the verses and its impact on Frodo. “This Ring” he stammered. “how, how on earth did it come to me?” I’d be dumbfounded as well.
Then, the account of those perilous years in Gandalf’s understated manner, and the unveiling of some of the great Themes. That Bilbo was meant to find the Ring and some other will was there at work. That pity stood his hand and that pity might rule the fate of many. Gollum’s adventures since he came out of the mountains are blood freezing as well. HE crossed Mirkwood twice and even went into Lake town. The rumours of a thing that stole babies from their cradles is terrifying. There must have been a general feeling of ill omens in the air in those years, for we know that isince TA 3000 “the shadow of Mordor lengthens." Besides, in 2994 something happened to Balin’s colony in Moria, something none knows about yet.. too many dark things at work in those years, signs that Gandalf tells quite succinctly to Frodo. This leads to one of my favourite exchanges.
“I wish it need not had happened in my time” said Frodo.
“So do I” said Gandalf. “And so do all who live to see such times.. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Frodo’s outrage at Gandalf’s suggestion that Smeagol could be a hobbit is hilarious. This Frodo has so much growing to do, before he confronts the wretched Gollum creature in the Emyn Muil and suddenly understands what Gandalf meant with “pity”! It is beautiful to see his change from this starting point!
Gandalf first speaks the name of Aragorn here, but there is such amount of information given in this chapter, from Gil-galad and Elendil to Gollum, the elves of Mirkwood and Aragorn, that it is no wonder that by the time Strider makes his appearance in the Pony, both first time reader and the hobbit remember nothing of a ranger called Aragorn! ;-)
“I should like to save the Shire, if I could -though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words…” The change in Frodo is beautiful and truly believable to me. He has been feeling restless for some time now, and suddenly, it all explodes inside with the feeling of sense and purpose, and the longing for adventure and following Bilbo and having an adventure… “ I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again” maybe he was being literary and adventurous, and a bit exaggerated, but he was speaking true, and he would not know, poor one. That’s the feeling of a true nomad, one who no longer will belong to a single place. And then Sam Gamgee enters the tale as one who, as well, will experience a lot of growing.
I love this chapter. The information dug from a rich, vast and quite dark past, but also seeing Frodo swept off his comfortable life and how he changes from predictable hobbit into adventurous and brave Ring Bearer. Gandalf’s wisdom and importance, only glimpsed in his knowledge, his occasional fits of rage, his acknoledgement of his weakness when confronted with the Ring and the understated tale of all his toils in the previous years, as a true mover of things.
These Maiar truly impress me. I cannot begin to imagine how it must have felt for them to agree to be thusly sent, deprived of much of heir powers, to wander among lesser beings, with their own nature denied or forgotten, forced to coax and induce and move wills rather than leading and imposing.. that is such a frustrating task that I do not wonder that almost all failed, and the one who succeeded did so by “chance,” or rather by his faith in "divine providence" and his firm belief that he was a tool for a power greater than his.
And of course that bit about “many that live deserve death…”
Tolkien said, I think in the Letters, that this chapter was of the greatest importance in the book. I can very well believe it. To me it sums up perfectly the whole tale: the high and the low, the great and the small, pity and compassion and fate and free will and sacrifice and hope and duty and loyalty all mixed in the characters and circumstances and setting the premises for a great adventure. When I finished this chapter for the first time I was totally hooked and awed.
I do not intend to through all chapters one by one, but this one has so many tips that I could not let it pass. There are som many gaps to fill, from the adventures outside the Shire, Saruman's spies gathering and the silent struggle with the Rangers, Gildor and the Wandering companies, Elrond getting to know that the One Ring was in the Shire and probably sending messages to Cirdan and Lórien... it is a very exciting time, and the storm is still brewing, as we are still in April!
I am truly enjoying this.