Oubliette by Dwimordene

[dwimordene_2011]

Title: Oubliette
Author: Dwimordene
Challenge: Writing: Note
Summary: Turn the page…
Characters/Pairing: Faramir, Éowyn
Rating: K
Book/Source: LOTR
Disclaimer: I'm neither JRRT nor making money off this.

Comments

[kortirion]

That garden of buried horrors…

That's a great line!

“Not nearly enough,” he answers.

...and that one's so shivery sad! Yes, I'm sure Faramir has a great deal that he would prefer to consign to the written page rather than keep hold of in memory. Very nice response to the prompt.

[dwimordene_2011]

Thanks, Kortirion! This Writing challenge promises to prove interesting, since despite the presence of books in M-e, I think most cultures are primarily oral - even the Elves'. So memory houses like Faramir's seem likely to be the norm, and that makes books and notes and what not assume different functions, I think, or else brings out how books really work for us.

Of course, traumatized war survivors probably wish they didn't have that mental garden that keeps sprouting nightmares, but who could possibly put a stop to that? I imagine Éowyn's garden is just as... fruitful.

[kortirion]

I think most cultures are primarily oral - even the Elves'.

Really? Hobbits write genealogies, Bilbo writes his adventures down, he also writes down his poetry before reading it to the Elves, and it is noted that he reads 'the many books of lore' in Rivendell, plus there's 'elvish script' inscribed above the doors to Moria, which any traveller has to be able to read to 'speak friend and enter'. There's Tengwar inside the One Ring in the Black tongue - so that obviously could be written down, even if Orcs don't seem likely book readers.

Minas Tirith holds an extremely extensive library that takes Gandalf some time to go through... dare say Dol Amroth held written records also, although that would be speculation but if the Book of the Kings and the Akallabeth exist, then what of the histories of the Princes of Dol Amroth

[dwimordene_2011]

It's true that there's plenty of writing in Middle-earth, but I think it's also historically true that just having writing - even putting writing up all over major monuments, as in ancient Egypt or on Greek steles - does not imply that a culture is print-based or relies mostly on the written word to communicate its history and important ideas. It may not even have a high literacy rate. As a technology, writing requires a certain level of infrastructural support, as well as technical development (like punctuation to make texts truly friendly to the eye, rather than forcing one to rely on how the text sounded when read aloud in various ways to figure out where all the stops were

[someplacetobe]

I quite liked this glimpse.

[dwimordene_2011]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the drabble.

[shirebound]

I never thought about how Eowyn (or anyone from Rohan) would marvel at all the books other cultures write and collect. What a treasure trove for her.

[dwimordene_2011]

Aragorn tells Legolas and Gimli, while they're hunting orcs across Rohan, that the Rohirrim sing many songs, but write few books, which seems to be a contrast with contemporary practice in Gondor and possibly at one point in Arnor or even Harad. I assume Éowyn therefore keeps almost everything in her head and would see books as very exceptional, and perhaps more like objects of art, made for their beauty, rather than replacements for memorization and songs.

[aliana1]

Just great. It seems natural that Éowyn, growing up in an oral-storytelling tradition, would associate the necessity of recorded history with forgetting. And meanwhile, Faramir: The mausoleum for casualties. The slaughterhouse for tactics. For him, the ability to forget must be a neat trick, indeed. A nice shift to something more intimate, after the impressive larger scale of your Disaster drabbles.

[dwimordene_2011]

It seems natural that Éowyn, growing up in an oral-storytelling tradition, would associate the necessity of recorded history with forgetting

Have you ever watched Ghost in the Shell (the Mamoru Oshii set, not the tv series)? There, it's made very explicit that books, computer files - they're all "external memory" for humanity. Which means they really are about personally forgetting - we say we write things down to remember them, but what that works out to is an expectation to forget most things. Writing implies forgetting.

I think Éowyn, coming from an oral culture, is simply in a better position to recognize that point - why would you write something down for reasons other than the prestige of the book or its beauty? Why so many books, unless you've really forgotten most things?

A nice shift to something more intimate, after the impressive larger scale of your Disaster drabbles.I think memory is going to be my way into this series of prompts, and memory - even external memory - is fairly intimate, so I imagine this whole series

[huinare]

An apt look at the written word as viewed by the Rohirric and Gondorian psyches respectively. This looks to be an interesting series.

[dwimordene_2011]

Thanks, Huinare! I'm looking forward to the prompts, too.