Over the hills and far away: The Lord of the Rings reconsidered
I first read the Lord of the Rings in the summer of 1971, at the age of 11. I read it two or three more times as a teenager, once in my mid-20s, once in my late 30s, and then again this year, for the first time in 25 years.
Some thoughts on one of the most influential books of the 20th century:
(1) A key to the work, in my opinion, is the overwhelming contrast between the idealized domesticity of the hobbits in the Shire, and the epic world of danger, evil, and heroism outside its borders. This is a very old literary device — see for example Don Quixote — but Tolkien handles it with particular brilliance.
(2) Another key is that Tolkien has imagined a vast world with a truly obsessional level of devotion to every detail, which creates for this reader at least a sense of alternate reality that is extraordinarily powerful. Take for example this moment, when Frodo speaks up at the end of the Council of Elrond and offers to take on the task of destroying the Ring of Power. Elrond responds:
“But it is a heavy burden. So heavy that none could lay it on another. I do not lay it on you. But if you take it freely, I will say that your choice is right; and though all the mighty elf-friends of old, Hador, and Hurin, and Turin, and Beren himself were assembled together, your seat should be among them.”
The typical reader of the LOTR — me for example — has no idea, at least at first reading, who any of these people are. But so intense is Tolkien’s imaging of the immense epic sweep of the history of Middle Earth behind the main story that it doesn’t matter: We feel we know who these people are, and we appreciate the epic sweep of ancient history that Elrond’s words allude to.
(3) There are passages in the book that have a kind of nightmare intensity, again because of the author’s almost inhuman devotion to crafting an entire alternate world. For example, when Gandalf faces the Balrog on the Bridge of Khazad-Dum:
“The Balrog reached the bridge. Gandalf stood in the middle of the span, leaning on the staff in his left hand, but in his other hand Glamdring gleamed, cold and white. His enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings. It raised the whip, and the thongs whined and cracked. Fire came from its nostrils. But Gandalf stood firm.
‘You cannot pass,’ he said. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. ‘I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.’
The Balrog made no answer. The fire in it seemed to die, but the darkness grew. It stepped forward slowly onto the bridge, and suddenly it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall; but still Gandalf could be seen, glimmering in the gloom; he seemed small, and altogether alone: grey and bent, like a wizened tree before the onset of a storm.
From out of the shadow a red sword leaped flaming.
Glamdring glittered white in answer.
There was a ringing clash and a stab of white fire. The Balrog fell back and its sword flew up in molten fragments. The wizard swayed on the bridge, stepped back a pace, and then again stood still.
‘You cannot pass!’ he said.
With a bound the Balrog leaped full upon the bridge. Its whip whirled and hissed.
‘He cannot stand alone!’ cried Aragorn suddenly and ran back along the bridge. ‘Elendil!‘ he shouted. ‘I am with you, Gandalf!’
‘Gondor!’ cried Boromir and leaped after him.
At that moment Gandalf lifted his staff, and crying aloud he smote the bridge before him. The staff broke asunder and fell from his hand. A blinding sheet of white flame sprang up. The bridge cracked. Right at the Balrog’s feet it broke, and the stone upon which it stood crashed into the gulf, while the rest remained, poised, quivering like a tongue of rock thrust out into emptiness.
With a terrible cry the Balrog fell forward, and its shadow plunged down and vanished. But even as it fell it swung its whip, and the thongs lashed and curled about the wizard’s knees, dragging him to the brink. He staggered and fell, grasped vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss. ‘Fly, you fools!’ he cried, and was gone.”
(4) A controversial feature of the book is the relative absence of women characters. I find this weakness ameliorated by how two of the books most memorable characters are women. Here is Galadriel, the elf queen, refusing the Ring of Power:
‘I know what it was that you last saw,’ she said; ‘for that is also in my mind. Do not be afraid! But do not think that only by singing amid the trees, nor even by the slender arrows of elven-bows, is this land of Lothlórien maintained and defended against its Enemy. I say to you, Frodo, that even as I speak to you, I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all of his mind that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see me and my thought. But still the door is closed!’
She lifted up her white arms, and spread out her hands towards the East in a gesture of rejection and denial. Eärendil, the Evening Star, most beloved of the Elves, shone clear above. So bright was it that the figure of the Elven-lady cast a dim shadow on the ground. Its rays glanced upon a ring about her finger; it glittered like polished gold overlaid with silver light, and a white stone in it twinkled as if the Evenstar had come down to rest upon her hand. Frodo gazed at the ring with awe; for suddenly it seemed to him that he understood.
‘Yes,’ she said, divining his thought, ‘it is not permitted to speak of it, and Elrond could not do so. But it cannot be hidden from the Ring-bearer, and one who has seen the Eye. Verily it is in the land of Lórien upon the finger of Galadriel that one of the Three remains. This is Nenya, the Ring of Adamant, and I am its keeper.
‘He suspects, but he does not know — not yet. Do you not see now wherefore your coming is to us as the footstep of Doom? For if you fail, then we are laid bare to the Enemy. Yet if you succeed, then our power is diminished, and Lothlórien will fade, and the tides of Time will sweep it away. We must depart into the West, or dwindle to a rustic folk of dell and cave, slowly to forget and to be forgotten.’
Frodo bent his head. ‘And what do you wish?’ he said at last.
‘That what should be shall be,’ she answered. ‘The love of the Elves for their land and their works is deeper than the deeps of the Sea, and their regret is undying and cannot ever wholly be assuaged. Yet they will cast all away rather than submit to Sauron: for they know him now. For the fate of Lothlórien you are not answerable but only for the doing of your own task. Yet I could wish, were it of any avail, that the One Ring had never been wrought, or had remained for ever lost.’
‘You are wise and fearless and fair, Lady Galadriel,’ said Frodo. ‘I will give you the One Ring, if you ask for it. It is too great a matter for me.’
Galadriel laughed with a sudden clear laugh. ‘Wise the Lady Galadriel may be,’ she said, ‘yet here she has met her match in courtesy. Gently are you revenged for my testing of your heart at our first meeting. You begin to see with a keen eye. I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired to ask what you offer. For many long years I had pondered what I might do, should the Great Ring come into my hands, and behold! it was brought within my grasp. The evil that was devised long ago works on in many ways, whether Sauron himself stands or falls. Would not that have been a noble deed to set to the credit of his Ring, if I had taken it by force or fear from my guest?
‘And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!’
She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.
‘I pass the test,’ she said. ‘I will diminish, and go into the West and remain Galadriel.’
And here is the woman warrior of Rohan, Eowyn, in a speech that could have been translated right out of the Norse Sagas:
” ‘Shall I always be chosen?’ she said bitterly. ‘Shall I always be left behind when the Riders depart, to mind the house while they win renown, and find food and beds when they return? […] All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.’
‘What do you fear, lady?’ he asked.
‘A cage,’ she said. ‘To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.’ “
(5) Perhaps the book’s most interesting and successful character is Smeagol/Gollum, the pitiful creature who bore the Ring for centuries and has been destroyed by it.
Sam:
It’s a bog! He’s lead us into a swamp!Gollum:
Swamp, yes. Yes. Come master, we will take you on safe path through the mist. I found it, I did. A way through the mashes. Orcs don’t use it. Orcs don’t know it. They go around, for miles and miles! Come quickly. Soft and swift as shadows, we must be.Sam:
There are dead things. Dead faces in the water!Gollum:
All dead. All rotten. Elves, and Men, and Orcses. A great battle long ago… The Dead Marshes. Yes, yes, that is their name! This way. Don’t follow the lights. [Sam slips and almost ends up in the water] Careful now! Or Hobbits go down to join the Dead Ones, and light little candles of their own.
(6) Much of the poetry — and there’s a lot — in the LOTR is pastiche at best, but occasionally Tolkien achieves a kind of poetic grandeur in his verse, most notably here:
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
Again, the key here is the evident existence of a vast imaginative world beyond the confines of the narrative itself, which is only one story among countless others of which it is a continuation. This is the essence of epic sweep.
(7) A particularly subtle touch is that the title character of a 1,000-page plus book is almost completely absent from the text itself, appearing only once, in a terrifying passage when he is interrogating a hapless hobbit who has made the mistake of looking into a Seeing Stone:
Pippin… lay still now, but sleep remained far away…. The thought of the dark globe seemed to grow stronger as all grew quiet. Pippin felt again its weight in his hands, and saw again the mysterious red depths into which he had looked for a moment….
Driven by some impulse that he did not understand, Pippin walked softly to where Gandalf lay…. close beside him, between his right side and his bent arm, there was… something round wrapped in a dark cloth….
[Pippin] put his hands out stealthily, and slowly lifted the lump up…. He stood for a moment clasping it. Then an idea came into his mind. He tiptoed away, found a large stone, and came back.
Quickly now he drew off the cloth, wrapped the stone in it and… laid it back by the wizard’s hand. Then at last he looked at the thing that he had uncovered…. a smooth globe of crystal, now dark and dead…. Pippin lifted it, covered it hurriedly in his own cloak, and half turned to go back to his bed….
‘You idiotic fool!’ Pippin muttered to himself. ‘You’re going to get yourself into frightful trouble. Put it back quick!’ But he found now that his knees quaked, and he did not dare to go near enough to the wizard to reach the bundle…. He stole away….
Pippin sat with his knees drawn up and the ball between them1…. At first the globe was dark, black as jet…. Then there came a faint glow and stir in the heart of it, and it held his eyes, so that now he could not look away. Soon all the inside seemed on fire; the ball was spinning, or the lights within were revolving. Suddenly the lights went out. He gave a gasp and struggled; but he remained bent, clasping the ball with both hands. Closer and closer he bent, and then became rigid; his lips moved soundlessly for a while. Then with a strangled cry he fell back and lay still….
All the camp was soon astir.
‘So this is the thief!’ said Gandalf. Hastily he cast his cloak over the globe where it lay…. ‘This is a grievous turn to things!’ He knelt by Pippin’s body: the hobbit was lying on his back rigid, with unseeing eyes staring up at the sky…. ‘What mischief has he done — to himself, and to all of us?’ The wizard’s face was drawn and haggard.
He took Pippin’s hand and bent over his face, listening for his breath; then he laid his hands on his brow. The hobbit shuddered. His eyes closed. He cried out; and sat up, staring in bewilderment at all the faces round him….
‘It is not for you, Saruman!’ he cried in a shrill and toneless voice shrinking away from Gandalf. ‘I will send for it at once. Do you understand? Say just that!’ Then he struggled… but Gandalf held him gently and firmly.
‘Peregrin Took!’ he said. ‘Come back!’
The hobbit relaxed and fell back, clinging to the wizard’s hand. ‘Gandalf!’ he cried…. ‘Forgive me!’….
‘Tell me first what you have done!’
‘I, I took the ball and looked at it,’ stammered Pippin; ‘and I saw things that frightened me. And I wanted to go away, but I couldn’t. And then he came and questioned me; and he looked at me, and, and that is all I remember.’
‘That won’t do,’ said Gandalf sternly. ‘What did you see, and what did you say?’
Pippin shut his eyes and shivered, but said nothing. They all stared at him in silence, except Merry who turned away. But Gandalf’s face was still hard. ‘Speak!’ he said.
In a low hesitating voice Pippin began again…. ‘I saw a dark sky, and tall battlements,’ he said. ‘And tiny stars. It seemed very far away and long ago, yet hard and clear. Then the stars went in and out — they were cut off by things with wings. Very big, I think, really; but in the glass they looked like bats wheeling round the tower. I thought there were nine of them. One began to fly straight towards me, getting bigger and bigger….
‘I tried to get away, because I thought it would fly out; but when it had covered all the globe, it disappeared. Then he came. He did not speak…. He just looked, and I understood.
‘”So you have come back? Why have you neglected to report for so long?”
‘I did not answer. He said: “Who are you?” I still did not answer, but it hurt me horribly…, so I said: “A hobbit.”
‘Then suddenly he seemed to see me, and he laughed at me. It was cruel…. I struggled. But he said: “Wait a moment! We shall meet again soon. Tell Saruman that this dainty is not for him. I will send for it at once. Do you understand? Say just that!”
‘Then he gloated over me. I felt I was falling to pieces. No, no! I can’t say any more. I don’t remember anything else.’
(8) This is a particularly eloquent argument against the death penalty:
Frodo: It’s a pity Bilbo didn’t kill him when he had the chance.
Gandalf: Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo’s hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.
Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: 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 to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil.
(9) It seems to me that many criticisms of the LOTR is that it’s an unrealistic book, given the standards of naturalistic fiction. This strikes me as criticizing an opera because people don’t normally burst into song spontaneously.
I have much more I could say, but I want to hear from other people for who this book has been important.