False Fear of the Old Forest
Steuard Jensen
discussion not long ago; let me know.]
A comment from Hammond and Scull's /Reader's Companion/ has given me a
rather different take on the chapter "The Old Forest". In a way, I'm
surprised that I hadn't noticed it earlier; I'm not sure whether I
should feel foolish or clever for not doing so. (I think it's just a
symptom of having first read the book when I was young and credulous.)
Merry tells the other hobbits that "long ago [the trees] attacked the
Hedge: they came and planted themselves right by it, and leaned over
it." As a kid, I believed Merry completely (no reason not to), and
that belief has stuck with me through probably two dozen readings. As
the hobbits pass through the Old Forest, they spend most of their time
in near terror: they mistrust the silence, they feel personally
threatened by dropped branches and jutting roots, and they blame the
trees for shifting paths and herding them toward the Withywindle.
Many of those fears are eventually confirmed to some degree when Old
Man Willow actually swallows Merry and Pippin (and that confirmation
presumably goes a long way toward reinforcing my original reading).
But Hammond and Scull's annotation to Merry's comment about the trees'
"attack" on the Hedge puts an entirely different spin on it, and
indeed on the whole chapter up to Old Man Willow. They say, "In fact,
the trees were naturally propagating." And now, in my first
read-through of the chapter since reading that comment, my entire
impression of it has been transformed. (Maybe the rest of you have
recognized this perspective from the start. :) )
In fact, "The Old Forest" now feels almost like comedy to me, with a
constant undercurrent of "Can you /believe/ how silly and
superstitious these hobbits are?" As far as I could tell, every
single thing that frightened or creeped out the hobbits during their
time in the forest could easily be observed in a typical forest hike
in the real world. Frodo and his friends are wary, or even scared
almost to the breaking point, of /perfectly ordinary trees/. The
paths haven't "shifted" due to trees moving around: Merry just got
lost. It honestly has much of the feel of a group of kids away at
camp for the first time. Even Frodo's claim that Old Man Willow's
root tipped him into the Withywindle and held him down seems
absolutely silly.
In the end, of course, Old Man Willow actually engulfs Merry and
Pippin, which is /not/ something that you typically see in real-life
forests. And that (together with Bombadil's comments on the Willow's
malign influence spreading throughout the forest) makes it much more
reasonable to conclude that the hobbits /were/ actually threatened by
trees that were unusually conscious and aware. But the point is that
right up until that point, any "sensible" person would (indeed
/should/) have been laughing at the hobbits and their superstitious
paranoia.
It's an entirely different perspective on the Old Forest than I'd ever
had before, and I'm pretty convinced now that Tolkien intended it. In
fact, it's not that different from other appearances of the
supernatural in Middle-earth. Consider for example the nasty weather
that besets the Fellowship on Caradhras: /were/ there actually hostile
voices on the wind, and were there rocks and boulders aimed at the
Fellowship? It's never entirely clear. The characters seem to
believe it, more or less, and by this point we've become used to the
notion that things in Middle-earth /can/ be supernatural. But still,
those differences from our familiar lives are almost never obvious or
clear cut. I think that's one of the things that makes Middle-earth
so compelling compared to much of the other fantasy out there.
Steuard Jensen
P.S. Hammond and Scull go on after their comment about the trees
naturally propagating to give a quote from Letters that, to my mind at
least, rather undercuts their claim:
"In a letter to the /Daily Telegraph/, 30 June 1972, Tolkien wrote:
'In all my works I take the part of trees as against all their
enemies. ...elsewhere forests are represented as awakening to
consciousness of themselves. The Old Forest was hostile to two
legged creatures because of the memory of many injuries."
That certainly makes it sound as if the Old Forest was to some degree
"conscious" and "hostile", which would seem to go beyond "naturally
propagating". But as I said, Tolkien was careful to avoid making that
explicit as long as he possibly could.
Phlip
> But Hammond and Scull's annotation to Merry's comment about the trees'
> "attack" on the Hedge puts an entirely different spin on it, and
> indeed on the whole chapter up to Old Man Willow. They say, "In fact,
> the trees were naturally propagating."
This is an admirable observation because it represents Tolkien reminding us
of the great difference between Hobbit's and Tree's lifespans. Trees
"attack" by propagating and crowding, if at all possible. One hobbit cannot
remember an attack, but the family traditions of a hobbit scion can.
> In fact, "The Old Forest" now feels almost like comedy to me, with a
> constant undercurrent of "Can you /believe/ how silly and
> superstitious these hobbits are?" As far as I could tell, every
> single thing that frightened or creeped out the hobbits during their
> time in the forest could easily be observed in a typical forest hike
> in the real world.
And yet remember why the trees were awake and irritated. The Witch King had
recently travelled through the area, and cast spells to awaken the
wickedness in all things.
> The
> paths haven't "shifted" due to trees moving around: Merry just got
> lost.
Now you are forgetting how difficult travelling away from the Withywindle
became. The trees (or Merry's forgetfulness) opened up great grooves in the
land, and climbing through them became harder and harder.
And hobbits are a little better at woodcraft than humans, or children. Most
of the hobbits' forest travels were successful, from Merry and Pippin in
Fangorn, successfully locating a lookout hill, to Bilbo in the very
Mirkwood. He successfully found the dwarves, captured by spiders, and then
he "successfully" got them captured by wood elves.
--
Phlip
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ZeekLand <-- NOT a blog!!!
Taemon
> [Again, my apologies if this came up during the Chapter of the
> Week discussion not long ago; let me know.]
Woah Steuard, woah! Did you just finished something major? Are you
attempting to take over T.T.'s stats? Welcome back! :-)
> A comment from Hammond and Scull's /Reader's Companion/ has given
> me a rather different take on the chapter "The Old Forest". In a
> way, I'm surprised that I hadn't noticed it earlier; I'm not sure
> whether I should feel foolish or clever for not doing so. (I
> think it's just a symptom of having first read the book when I
> was young and credulous.)
Well, it never occurred to me before now. But like you, I was young
when I first read the book.
It just fits in so well with the book. Portents. Creepy omens. Pushy
trees didn't at all sound unbelievable to me. And it did sound weird
for Merry to get lost. Apparantly the forest wasn't that crowded,
because they could make their way through it. But only in one
direction.
I don't know. I'll have to reread. Bummer!
T.
Steuard Jensen
<4ikn67F...@individual.net>:
> Steuard Jensen wrote:
> > [Again, my apologies if this came up during the Chapter of the
> > Week discussion not long ago; let me know.]
> Woah Steuard, woah! Did you just finished something major? Are you
> attempting to take over T.T.'s stats? Welcome back! :-)
Both. :) (Although I see that he hasn't started posting them for RABT
yet, for better or worse.) On July 12 I defended my Ph.D. thesis
(successfully) and on July 13 I had major surgery to remove a tumor in
a bone right next to my knee. I'm now stuck at home lazing about with
my knee locked straight in a brance and very little to do. So I've
been rereading LotR (it's been too long), and that's been raising all
sorts of interesting questions in my mind. And now I'm finally
sharing them. :)
Of course, in just a few more weeks I'll be starting my job as a
professor in Claremont, California, and who knows whether I'll have
any free time then. So I'm doing my best to take advantage of what I
have.
> > A comment from Hammond and Scull's /Reader's Companion/ has given
> > me a rather different take on the chapter "The Old Forest".
> Well, it never occurred to me before now. But like you, I was young
> when I first read the book.
> It just fits in so well with the book. Portents. Creepy omens. Pushy
> trees didn't at all sound unbelievable to me. And it did sound weird
> for Merry to get lost.
I agree: it does fit well. And at the moment I'm leaning toward
believing that there actualy was a "threat" from the trees, just as
the hobbits feared. But I'm telling you, just wait until you read the
chapter again with the notion that it's all in their heads. It's a
riot. :) (Well, right up until Merry and Pippin are eaten by Old Man
Willow.)
Steuard Jensen
Troels Forchhammer
sbje...@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) enriched us with:
>
It is possibly a sign that I need to take a bit of time off AFT & RABT
(in which case I'll do my best to ignore it) that I first read the
headline to suggest that the trees of the Old Forest were animated by
false spirits . . . ;-)
> A comment from Hammond and Scull's /Reader's Companion/ has given
> me a rather different take on the chapter "The Old Forest". In a
> way, I'm surprised that I hadn't noticed it earlier; I'm not sure
> whether I should feel foolish or clever for not doing so. (I
> think it's just a symptom of having first read the book when I was
> young and credulous.)
I hope that there is no reason to feel foolish, but in any case I'd
know that I'm in good company.
It is part of the beauty of Tolkien's writings that it can be read both
ways; though the narrator obviously believes in the magic of Middle-
earth (the narrator believes that the trees did move), it is not always
completely clear whether it is his own superstition that affects him or
if there really is magic in the air.
<snip>
> But Hammond and Scull's annotation to Merry's comment about the
> trees' "attack" on the Hedge puts an entirely different spin on
> it, and indeed on the whole chapter up to Old Man Willow. They
> say, "In fact, the trees were naturally propagating."
They might, but how? ;)
Tom Bombadil also told the Hobbits about the Old Forest and its trees,
and his words 'words laid bare the hearts of trees and their thoughts,'
explaining how (and why) they were 'filled with a hatred of things that
go free upon the earth'. The latter does suggest that the trees
themselves do not go freely, but the replanting suggested by Merry
wouldn't, IMO, count as that.
Moreover he tells that 'none were more dangerous than the Great Willow'
suggesting that the Old Man Willow was as a Lord of the forest, though
the ruler, his subjects ('nearly all the trees of the Forest') were of
the same kind as he -- also concious and capable of tripping etc. the
unwary traveller.
> And now, in my first read-through of the chapter since reading
> that comment, my entire impression of it has been transformed.
I can well imagine ;)
I don't know if this duality, the possibility that the narrator is
conveying his own naive superstitions, is deliberate (in which case
it'd be part of the narrative conceit, I think), or if it is a sub-
conscious result of Tolkien's choice of narrative mode. Neither do I
know which outcome I would find most admirable :-)
> (Maybe the rest of you have recognized this perspective from
> the start. :) )
Never.
I haven't had time to sit down and read the Reader's Companion
thoroughly, so I hadn't noticed this before, and the thought would
never have appeared to me spontaneously.
<snip>
> In fact, it's not that different from other appearances of the
> supernatural in Middle-earth.
Precisely.
> That certainly makes it sound as if the Old Forest was to some
> degree "conscious" and "hostile",
That, I think, is well established also in the book, both by Tom
Bombadil (as quoted above), and later confirmed by Treebeard. In the
context of 'the trees and the Ents', Treebeard mentions that sometimes,
when trees awaken, 'you find that some have bad hearts' and that there
are 'still some very black patches' which are 'something like [the Old
Forest], but much worse'.
This whole converstation, to me, suggests that the trees of the Old
Forest aren't very different from the trees in Fangorn, of which we
know that some become 'entish'. Possibly the stories of trees moving
about in the Old Forest are exaggerated, but the dropping of branches
and tripping with roots is probably true (recall also the reaction of
the tree near the fire of the Three Hunters on the night they saw
Saruman).
> which would seem to go beyond "naturally propagating". But as I
> said, Tolkien was careful to avoid making that explicit as long
> as he possibly could.
I'm not sure that it is more explicit than what Tom and Treebeard said
(in particular when taken in combination).
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true.
- Niels Bohr, to a young physicist
Öjevind Lång
news:aX8xg.81$25....@news.uchicago.edu...
[snip]
> Merry tells the other hobbits that "long ago [the trees] attacked the
> Hedge: they came and planted themselves right by it, and leaned over
> it." As a kid, I believed Merry completely (no reason not to), and
> that belief has stuck with me through probably two dozen readings. As
> the hobbits pass through the Old Forest, they spend most of their time
> in near terror: they mistrust the silence, they feel personally
> threatened by dropped branches and jutting roots, and they blame the
> trees for shifting paths and herding them toward the Withywindle.
> Many of those fears are eventually confirmed to some degree when Old
> Man Willow actually swallows Merry and Pippin (and that confirmation
> presumably goes a long way toward reinforcing my original reading).
I see no reason to doubt Merry's story. He even shows them the glade where
the Bucklanders made a huge bonfire out of the trees they cut down on that
occasion.
Merry was extremely level-headed, and it is a fact, I think, that inthe
book the hobbits are deliberately guided to Old Man Willow by means of rifts
opening in the ground, the trees apparently rearranging themselves and so
on.
Öjevind
Troels Forchhammer
<snip>
> On July 12 I defended my Ph.D. thesis (successfully)
Not something to be hidden away in passing! Congratulations!
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was
standing on the shoulders of giants.
- Sir Isaac Newton
Öjevind Lång
news:Xns980B64E5...@131.228.6.99...
> In message <news:FBaxg.92$25....@news.uchicago.edu>
> sbje...@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) enriched us with:
<snip>
>
>> On July 12 I defended my Ph.D. thesis (successfully)
>
> Not something to be hidden away in passing! Congratulations!
From me too.
Öjevind
Steuard Jensen
<4ikuk0F...@individual.net>:
> "Steuard Jensen" <sbje...@midway.uchicago.edu>:
> > Merry tells the other hobbits that "long ago [the trees] attacked
> > the Hedge: they came and planted themselves right by it, and
> I see no reason to doubt Merry's story. He even shows them the glade where
> the Bucklanders made a huge bonfire out of the trees they cut down on that
> occasion.
Oh, it's not that I doubt that the trees began to grow near the Hedge
or that the Hobbits went in and burned a bunch of them down. The
question that arises is merely whether the trees were consciously
aware of what they were doing, and whether the Hobbits were truly
"teaching them a lesson" or just burning a bunch of wood. (I agree
that once we see Old Man Willow engulf Merry and Pippin, the
"supernatural" answer becomes a lot more likely!)
Steuard Jensen
Count Menelvagor
Steuard Jensen wrote:
> In the end, of course, Old Man Willow actually engulfs Merry and
> Pippin, which is /not/ something that you typically see in real-life
> forests.
it happened to my uncle albert all the time. he was always getting
laughed at for it.
(congratulations on the thesis defese!)
Count Menelvagor
Troels Forchhammer wrote:
> In message <news:aX8xg.81$25....@news.uchicago.edu>
> sbje...@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) enriched us with:
> >
>
> It is possibly a sign that I need to take a bit of time off AFT & RABT
> (in which case I'll do my best to ignore it) that I first read the
> headline to suggest that the trees of the Old Forest were animated by
> false spirits . . . ;-)
they DRANK false spirits. their cognac was absolute rubbish.
> I don't know if this duality, the possibility that the narrator is
> conveying his own naive superstitions, is deliberate (in which case
> it'd be part of the narrative conceit, I think), or if it is a sub-
> conscious result of Tolkien's choice of narrative mode. Neither do I
> know which outcome I would find most admirable :-)
it certainly is characteristic of tolkien to allow multiple
possibilities. this is often explicit, as in the passage on the ascent
of mt. doom: "whether frodo was so worn by his long pains [...] or
because some final gift of strength was given to him, sam lifted frodo
with no more difficulty than" etc. and in many other cases he has the
narrator avow ignorance (e.g., what happened to shelob). don't know if
this applies to to the ld forest, though.
Phlip
> Oh, it's not that I doubt that the trees began to grow near the Hedge
> or that the Hobbits went in and burned a bunch of them down. The
> question that arises is merely whether the trees were consciously
> aware of what they were doing, and whether the Hobbits were truly
> "teaching them a lesson" or just burning a bunch of wood. (I agree
> that once we see Old Man Willow engulf Merry and Pippin, the
> "supernatural" answer becomes a lot more likely!)
In terms of scales of time, sleepy trees slowly exerting a biological weapon
against encroaching hobbits is just as realistic as an awake and angry tree
orchestrating a direct attack.
Öjevind Lång
news:yygxg.137697$H71.1...@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
[snip]
> In terms of scales of time, sleepy trees slowly exerting a biological
> weapon against encroaching hobbits is just as realistic as an awake and
> angry tree orchestrating a direct attack.
I don't look for realism in a book of fantasy.
Öjevind
Taemon
> Quoth "Taemon" <Tae...@zonnet.nl> in article
> <4ikn67F...@individual.net>:
>> Woah Steuard, woah! Did you just finished something major? Are
>> you attempting to take over T.T.'s stats? Welcome back! :-)
> Both. :) (Although I see that he hasn't started posting them for
> RABT yet, for better or worse.) On July 12 I defended my Ph.D.
> thesis (successfully)
Aw, we're so proud of you! Even if we have no idea what your thesis is
about. Do you want your title upgraded from Steward to Doctor? Or
would that be a downgrade?
> and on July 13 I had major surgery to
> remove a tumor in a bone right next to my knee.
Is it gone now, or don't you know yet?
> Of course, in just a few more weeks I'll be starting my job as a
> professor in Claremont, California, and who knows whether I'll
> have any free time then. So I'm doing my best to take advantage
> of what I have.
So will we.
>>> A comment from Hammond and Scull's /Reader's Companion/ has
>>> given me a rather different take on the chapter "The Old
>>> Forest".
It seems that, if you were stupid to read it your way, we all were.
> But I'm telling you, just wait until you
> read the chapter again with the notion that it's all in their
> heads. It's a riot. :)
This sounds good. I will. But, still... the whole of the book is
crammed with all kinds of mysterious things. Why would this one
suddenly be level-headed?
T.
Steuard Jensen
> Steuard Jensen wrote:
> > Quoth "Taemon" <Tae...@zonnet.nl>:
> >> Woah Steuard, woah! Did you just finished something major?
> > On July 12 I defended my Ph.D. thesis (successfully)
> Aw, we're so proud of you! Even if we have no idea what your thesis
> is about.
The title is "Instantons and Chiral Symmetry in String Theory". And
now you probably know just as little as you did before. :) (Some
discussion of parts of this work aimed at non-specialists can be found
on my website, but even that can get a bit technical.)
> Do you want your title upgraded from Steward to Doctor? Or would
> that be a downgrade?
I'll happily always be the Steward here. :)
> > and on July 13 I had major surgery to remove a tumor in a bone
> > right next to my knee.
> Is it gone now, or don't you know yet?
It was cut out and then cauterized with an argon laser, so we're
pretty sure that it's gone (at least for now). It was what's called a
"giant cell tumor of bone", and like most such tumors it was benign.
> >>> A comment from Hammond and Scull's /Reader's Companion/ has
> >>> given me a rather different take on the chapter "The Old
> >>> Forest".
> It seems that, if you were stupid to read it your way, we all were.
Which is quite comforting! :)
> > But I'm telling you, just wait until you read the chapter again
> > with the notion that it's all in their heads. It's a riot. :)
> This sounds good. I will. But, still... the whole of the book is
> crammed with all kinds of mysterious things. Why would this one
> suddenly be level-headed?
I think the crucial point is simply that this is one of the /first/
supernaturally mysterious things that the hobbits encounter. Up until
Merry and Pippin were trapped inside Old Man Willow, I think one could
(for example) film the whole story with zero special effects (well,
maybe the writing on the Ring). After that point, when someone starts
talking about supernatural effects or dangers, we really should
believe him!
Steuard Jensen
Steuard Jensen
> "Phlip" <phli...@yahoo.com> skrev:
> > In terms of scales of time, sleepy trees slowly exerting a biological
> > weapon against encroaching hobbits is just as realistic as an awake and
> > angry tree orchestrating a direct attack.
> I don't look for realism in a book of fantasy.
I do. Or at least, I look for "secondary reality". And despite its
supernatural aspects, Middle-earth is clearly meant to "inherit" the
vast majority of what we think of as "natural" from the real world.
(I guess the trick comes in recognizing when that isn't the case.)
Steuard Jensen
jal...@smartdm.ca
Steuard Jensen wrote:
> I agree: it does fit well. And at the moment I'm leaning toward
> believing that there actualy was a "threat" from the trees, just as
> the hobbits feared. But I'm telling you, just wait until you read the
> chapter again with the notion that it's all in their heads. It's a
> riot. :) (Well, right up until Merry and Pippin are eaten by Old Man
> Willow.)
I believe that the effectiveness of apparently purposive opposition
against the travellers in the Old Forest is that Tolkien does ascribe
exactly the same powers to the trees as someone in our world might in
reality ascribe to trees in the wild, at least emotionally.
The apparent perversity of "things" is well known. Humans will curse at
a golf club when a ball goes awry or talk encouragingly to a car which
as difficulty in climbing a steep hill. (I once saw a dog bark
angrially at a ball which had rolled behind a sofa out of its reach.)
Lovecraft makes much of the nosies in walls, drawing on our fears of
what they might be even though we know they are the normal sounds of a
house settling and cracking because of changes in temperature.
A common way of developing a horror story is to present a series of
events that may seem to be possibly natural, only to, at the end,
present a supernatural conclusion.
For a likely literary source for Tolkien's Old Forest see George
MacDonald''s Phanatastes, chapter IV at
http://george-macdonald.book-lover.com/phafr10/phafr10_chapter_iv.html
Here the fantasy elemens are far more obvious.
Jallan
Dirk Thierbach
> Merry tells the other hobbits that "long ago [the trees] attacked
> the Hedge: they came and planted themselves right by it, and leaned
> over it." [...] They say, "In fact, the trees were naturally
> propagating."
But that's nothing uncommon in fairy-tales, or in the way Tolkien
treats "supernatural" phenomena: You take a perfectly ordinary
behaviour for trees (propagating until they come close to a village),
and the reaction of the people to it (burn the trees), and then you
take it to a supernatural level by exaggerating it a bit (the trees
are "attacking" the village).
Only if one doesn't treat it as a fairy-tale like story, and needs a
clean story-internal explanation, the question "but did they
really attack, or were they just behaving naturally?" makes any sense
at all. In a fairy-tale they do *both* :-)
> In fact, it's not that different from other appearances of the
> supernatural in Middle-earth. Consider for example the nasty
> weather that besets the Fellowship on Caradhras: /were/ there
> actually hostile voices on the wind, and were there rocks and
> boulders aimed at the Fellowship? It's never entirely clear.
Exactly. Same device. For a fairy-tale, that's quite natural.
- Dirk
JimboCat
Of course you do.
Consistency of character and of physical law, the existence of an
external world that is independent of any one character's perception,
the depiction of ordinary people doing ordinary things: these are all
elements of "realism" and all of them are part of any book of fantasy I
can think of. You may not specifically and actively look (scrutinize)
for realism in a book of fantasy, but if you read one without any
realism at all your reaction would undoubtedly be "what is this
garbage: there's no story here: this is just way too weird!"
Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
"Mathematics is the part of science you could continue to do if you
woke up tomorrow and discovered the universe was gone." - K.Podnieks
Taemon
>>> Quoth "Taemon" <Tae...@zonnet.nl>:
>>>> Woah Steuard, woah! Did you just finished something major?
>>> On July 12 I defended my Ph.D. thesis (successfully)
>> Aw, we're so proud of you! Even if we have no idea what your
>> thesis is about.
> The title is "Instantons and Chiral Symmetry in String Theory".
> And now you probably know just as little as you did before. :)
I made that remark in the full knowledge of you having posted that
title here before :-)
>> Do you want your title upgraded from Steward to Doctor? Or would
>> that be a downgrade?
> I'll happily always be the Steward here. :)
Aw, shucks! You're too nice for us.
>>> and on July 13 I had major surgery to remove a tumor in a bone
>>> right next to my knee.
>> Is it gone now, or don't you know yet?
> It was cut out and then cauterized with an argon laser, so we're
> pretty sure that it's gone (at least for now). It was what's
> called a "giant cell tumor of bone", and like most such tumors it
> was benign.
Yes, you told us about it. So there's no risk of it coming back? And
will your leg heal completely?
>>>>> A comment from Hammond and Scull's /Reader's Companion/ has
>>>>> given me a rather different take on the chapter "The Old
>>>>> Forest".
>> It seems that, if you were stupid to read it your way, we all
>> were.
> Which is quite comforting! :)
I thought it would be.
<Old Forest being creepy>
> I think the crucial point is simply that this is one of the
> /first/ supernaturally mysterious things that the hobbits
> encounter. Up until Merry and Pippin were trapped inside Old Man
> Willow, I think one could (for example) film the whole story with
> zero special effects (well, maybe the writing on the Ring).
> After that point, when someone starts talking about supernatural
> effects or dangers, we really should believe him!
Are you saying the the trek trough the forest is a sort of warning?
"Here be Monsters"? "All Bets Are Off". "Leave all Hope". "You Can't
Go Home Again". We did encounter the Black Riders before, but they
weren't really (behaving) powerful at that point. Sniffing, they did.
I'll have to keep all this in mind when rereading.
T.
Steuard Jensen
> >>> and on July 13 I had major surgery to remove a tumor in a bone
> >>> right next to my knee.
> >> Is it gone now, or don't you know yet?
> > It was cut out and then cauterized with an argon laser, so we're
> > pretty sure that it's gone (at least for now). It was what's
> > called a "giant cell tumor of bone", and like most such tumors it
> > was benign.
> Yes, you told us about it. So there's no risk of it coming back? And
> will your leg heal completely?
I never remember whom I've told what these days. :)
There /is/ a risk of recurrence, even with the state of the art care
that I had. The laser treatment is relatively new so the statistics
aren't great yet, but odds of recurrence seem to be around 7%
(maybe). I'll be going in for regular X-rays to check for that for a
few years. As for my leg, the doctor says that I probably shouldn't
run any marathons, but other than that I should be essentially back to
normal in a few months. (There may be increased changes of things
like arthritis long-term, but that's pretty typical for surgeries like
this.)
Öjevind Lång
news:1153935463.6...@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
Öjevind Lång" wrote:
[snip]
>>I don't look for realism in a book of fantasy.
>Of course you do.
>Consistency of character and of physical law, the existence of an
external world that is independent of any one character's perception,
the depiction of ordinary people doing ordinary things: these are all
elements of "realism" and all of them are part of any book of fantasy I
can think of. You may not specifically and actively look (scrutinize)
for realism in a book of fantasy, but if you read one without any
realism at all your reaction would undoubtedly be "what is this
garbage: there's no story here: this is just way too weird!"
Consistency is not the same as "realism". Judging a fantasy world by the
scientific criteria of this world seems a futile exercise to me.
Öjevind
Stan Brown
<sbje...@midway.uchicago.edu>:
> On July 12 I defended my Ph.D. thesis
> (successfully) and on July 13 I had major surgery to remove a tumor in
> a bone right next to my knee. I'm now stuck at home lazing about with
> Of course, in just a few more weeks I'll be starting my job as a
> professor in Claremont, California, and who knows whether I'll have
> any free time then. So I'm doing my best to take advantage of what I
> have.
Steuard, heartiest congratulations on (A) and (C), and my sympathy
for (B). I trust your recovery will be speedy and complete.
Congratulations on your doctorate and your professorship! Given the
level of competition, getting an academic job as a nwe PhD is a
*huge* achievement!
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html
FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm
Stan Brown
> believing that there actualy was a "threat" from the trees, just as
> the hobbits feared. But I'm telling you, just wait until you read the
> chapter again with the notion that it's all in their heads.
I'm going to do just that. /The Sixth Sense/ was a different movie
once you knew the central fact. With "The Old Forest" of course it's
debatable, but I expect it will be a different read if I try the
nothing-here-but-regular-trees hypothesis.
I guess I had always assumed the trees in the Old Forest were a
colony of Huorns, or something like.
Troels Forchhammer
"Öjevind Lång" <bredba...@ojevind.lang> enriched us with:
>
<snip>
> Consistency is not the same as "realism".
It seems inevitable that there must be a quotation from /On Fairy
Stories/ and I might as well be the one to supply it ;-)
The achievement of the expression, which gives (or seems to
give) 'the inner consistency of reality,'[28] is indeed
another thing, or aspect, needing another name: Art, the
operative link between Imagination and the final result,
Sub-creation.
[28] That is: which commands or induces Secondary Belief.
Tolkien, I think, argues that consistency is necessary for 'realism'
(in the literary sense of commanding or inducing Secondary Belief).
They are not the same.
> Judging a fantasy world by the scientific criteria of this world
> seems a futile exercise to me.
It is futile to demand full adherence to the natural laws that we
know (even if we accept the possibility of there being additions that
we don't know of -- magic can, for instance, be portrayed as an
addition to the normal natural laws rather than an exception).
On the other hand, I think it is absolutely necessary to look for
realism in any story whatsoever. Not, I hurry to say, the crass and
complete realism of the books describing everyday life, but elements
that can be recognized (and there are /many/ of those in Tolkien's
writings), which provides the reader with a mental 'foothold' or
'bridgehead' (not sure which is more appropriate) in the sub-created
world. A strong element of 'realism' (in the sense of existing also
in the primary reality) is, IMO, also necessary for inducing
Secondary Belief.
What I would have said is that I do not look for nothing unrealistic
in a book of fantasy, but I do look for, and except, strong elements
of realism, as I cannot otherwise understand the book at all
(dispense with all the physics involving our usual sensory apparatus,
light, sound, temperature etc. and the mind cannot grasp what's going
on -- we have enough problems as it is imagining the world as sensed
by a bat).
The realism must also extent to the general personality of the
characters (or at least the main protagonists) -- if their emotional
make-up and their approach to problem-solving doesn't seem in any way
realistic to us, then we can't identify with them at the literary
level, and again the book quickly loses our (or at least my)
interest.
So, yes, I do look for realism in a book of fantasy, but not for
complete realism.
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not
simpler.
- Albert Einstein
Öjevind Lång
[snip]
> On the other hand, I think it is absolutely necessary to look for
> realism in any story whatsoever. Not, I hurry to say, the crass and
> complete realism of the books describing everyday life, but elements
> that can be recognized (and there are /many/ of those in Tolkien's
> writings), which provides the reader with a mental 'foothold' or
> 'bridgehead' (not sure which is more appropriate) in the sub-created
> world. A strong element of 'realism' (in the sense of existing also
> in the primary reality) is, IMO, also necessary for inducing
> Secondary Belief.
>
> What I would have said is that I do not look for nothing unrealistic
> in a book of fantasy, but I do look for, and except, strong elements
> of realism, as I cannot otherwise understand the book at all
> (dispense with all the physics involving our usual sensory apparatus,
> light, sound, temperature etc. and the mind cannot grasp what's going
> on -- we have enough problems as it is imagining the world as sensed
> by a bat).
>
> The realism must also extent to the general personality of the
> characters (or at least the main protagonists) -- if their emotional
> make-up and their approach to problem-solving doesn't seem in any way
> realistic to us, then we can't identify with them at the literary
> level, and again the book quickly loses our (or at least my)
> interest.
>
> So, yes, I do look for realism in a book of fantasy, but not for
> complete realism.
I have no quarrel with this. My point is (and I am sure, you, Troels, are
aware of it) that I do not look for "natural explanations" when I read a
work of fantasy; and I think the uncertainty and mystery surrounding some
things in LotR are part of the book's charm. Such as the deliberate way the
"wings" of the Balrog were described in a less than anatomical way; or
Aragorn's statement that someone "sees better in the dark than the cats of
Queen Berúthiel". Later, Tolkien stated that he had no idea who Queen
Berúthiel was, that she and her cats just popped up. He should have kept it
that way, the story he wrote many years later to explain who and what they
were is not a very good one and actually detracts from the feeling of
mystery and depth in the book.
Öjevind
Larry Swain
apologize. But I wonder if the two perspectives (the "story-internal"
of the hobbits and Tom etc and the comment in the Hammond-Scull
Companion) are as mutually exclusive as they seem and as they have been
presented.
I'll take the unusual step and actually talk about a completely
different scene in the novel to illustrate what I think may be going on
here. The Ents, huorns etc who attack Isengard act like trees, but they
act like trees and the effect of trees sped up: instead of years and
centuries for tree roots to break apart stone, it takes an ent mere
seconds; instead of years and centuries to divert a river with broken
rock, shifted soil, tree limbs etc, it took part of a day. Instead of
taking years of steady growth, the trees moved through the soil and the
land more quickly--but NOT UNNATURALLY. But you get the point: th
Back to the Old Forest. There is nothing "unnatural" that occurs there.
The changing of the paths, the shifting things downward to the river
valley, the feeling of malice etc. These are all things that could
happen naturally. But we do have a mind at work in Old Man Willow: we
have a being who is at least a huorn, nearly awake, and the most "awake"
tree in the Old Forest. He isn't an ent, and he can not and does not
act as quickly as an ent, especially one in wrath. But I would suggest
that he and the not quite asleep trees of the Old Forest were capable of
speeding up what would have happened naturally: i. e. to take minutes or
even hours to subtly change the landscape to certainly lead to the river
valley. Did Merry get lost quite without the trees...absolutely. But
this is more than Merry getting lost. Even when they tried to go uphill
and away from the river they quickly find themselves forced back down.
That suggests more than simply getting lost and turned around.
There's a will there. That will isn't "evil" so much as "dark", not in
league with Sauron or Saruman, but certainly against those who go on 2
legs (prob. specifically men, dwarves, and hobbits). More specifically
though, the hobbits of Buckland have encroached on the Old Forest, and
when the Forest does what forests do and grows again up to the Hedge,
the hobbits mercilessly cut the trees down and burn them in a great
bonfire. How is this different (except by degree) than Saruman and his
orcs chopping down trees in Fangorn to fuel his fires (except of course
that the hobbits didn't just chop down trees to chop down trees and
leave them to rot, hence, a difference of degree). I suggest it isn't,
and that the trees of the Old Forest feel toward the hobbits SOMETHING
of what the ents, huorns, and trees of Fangorn feel toward Saruman, and
while the Old Forest can not react as the ents do, they can react albeit
a little more slowly, but just as effectively against four unprepared
hobbits.
All this to say that I don't think the views expressed here as
"different" readings need to be different at all, and that the Old
Forest is rather more like Fangorn than what I've seen in the discussion.
Does that make sense to anyone but me?
grimgard
"Steuard Jensen" <sbje...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote in message
news:aX8xg.81$25....@news.uchicago.edu...
> [Again, my apologies if this came up during the Chapter of the Week
> discussion not long ago; let me know.]
>
> surprised that I hadn't noticed it earlier; I'm not sure whether I
> should feel foolish or clever for not doing so. (I think it's just a
> symptom of having first read the book when I was young and credulous.)
>
> Hedge: they came and planted themselves right by it, and leaned over
> that belief has stuck with me through probably two dozen readings. As
> the hobbits pass through the Old Forest, they spend most of their time
> in near terror: they mistrust the silence, they feel personally
> threatened by dropped branches and jutting roots, and they blame the
> trees for shifting paths and herding them toward the Withywindle.
> Many of those fears are eventually confirmed to some degree when Old
> Man Willow actually swallows Merry and Pippin (and that confirmation
> presumably goes a long way toward reinforcing my original reading).
>
> "attack" on the Hedge puts an entirely different spin on it, and
> the trees were naturally propagating." And now, in my first
> read-through of the chapter since reading that comment, my entire
> recognized this perspective from the start. :) )
>
> constant undercurrent of "Can you /believe/ how silly and
> superstitious these hobbits are?" As far as I could tell, every
> single thing that frightened or creeped out the hobbits during their
> time in the forest could easily be observed in a typical forest hike
> in the real world. Frodo and his friends are wary, or even scared
> almost to the breaking point, of /perfectly ordinary trees/. The
> paths haven't "shifted" due to trees moving around: Merry just got
> lost. It honestly has much of the feel of a group of kids away at
> camp for the first time. Even Frodo's claim that Old Man Willow's
> root tipped him into the Withywindle and held him down seems
> absolutely silly.
>
> In the end, of course, Old Man Willow actually engulfs Merry and
> Pippin, which is /not/ something that you typically see in real-life
> malign influence spreading throughout the forest) makes it much more
> reasonable to conclude that the hobbits /were/ actually threatened by
> trees that were unusually conscious and aware. But the point is that
> right up until that point, any "sensible" person would (indeed
> /should/) have been laughing at the hobbits and their superstitious
> paranoia.
>
> It's an entirely different perspective on the Old Forest than I'd ever
> had before, and I'm pretty convinced now that Tolkien intended it. In
> fact, it's not that different from other appearances of the
> supernatural in Middle-earth. Consider for example the nasty weather
> that besets the Fellowship on Caradhras: /were/ there actually hostile
> voices on the wind, and were there rocks and boulders aimed at the
> believe it, more or less, and by this point we've become used to the
> notion that things in Middle-earth /can/ be supernatural. But still,
> those differences from our familiar lives are almost never obvious or
> clear cut. I think that's one of the things that makes Middle-earth
> so compelling compared to much of the other fantasy out there.
>
> Steuard Jensen
>
> P.S. Hammond and Scull go on after their comment about the trees
> naturally propagating to give a quote from Letters that, to my mind at
> least, rather undercuts their claim:
>
> "In a letter to the /Daily Telegraph/, 30 June 1972, Tolkien wrote:
> 'In all my works I take the part of trees as against all their
> enemies. ...elsewhere forests are represented as awakening to
> consciousness of themselves. The Old Forest was hostile to two
> legged creatures because of the memory of many injuries."
>
> That certainly makes it sound as if the Old Forest was to some degree
> propagating". But as I said, Tolkien was careful to avoid making that
> explicit as long as he possibly could.
The point you seem to be making is that the hobbits and the fellowship were
paranoid. As much as it pains me to quote G. Gordon Liddy, "Just because
you're paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you." Or, as a
fabled king once said "I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid *enough*?"
Öjevind Lång
news:cpOdnWjOKd3JulTZ...@rcn.net...
[snip]
> All this to say that I don't think the views expressed here as "different"
> readings need to be different at all, and that the Old Forest is rather
> more like Fangorn than what I've seen in the discussion.
>
> Does that make sense to anyone but me?
Absolutely. Weare specifically told that the Old forest and Fangorn are
remnants of one single, huge forest that once reached across all the lands
inbetween.
Öjevind
Phlip
> Absolutely. Weare specifically told that the Old forest and Fangorn are
> remnants of one single, huge forest that once reached across all the lands
> inbetween.
Gee. I don't think I mentioned the Great Old Forest of Eriador more than
like 5 times all summer...
Hypothesis: Treebeard just thinks the Entwives went to Rhovanion. They
really went to the uplands north of the Shire. There, they stood like trees
for thousands of years, and the Arnoreans missed them. But they started
moving again when Sauron reclaimed Mordor.
Troels Forchhammer
>
> meddelandet news:Xns980D6609...@131.228.6.98...
>>
<snip>
>> So, yes, I do look for realism in a book of fantasy, but not for
>> complete realism.
>
> I have no quarrel with this. My point is (and I am sure, you,
> Troels, are aware of it)
A very strong suspicion, at least ;)
> that I do not look for "natural explanations" when I read a work
> of fantasy;
I'm afraid that I'm not quite able not to -- though I'm careful not to
be disappointed when I fail to find one ;-) As I said earlier in a
reply to Steuard, it is my basic training to always look for the
meaningful question beginning 'how' or 'why', and my first instinct
(which is sound for a scientist, though not necessarily for a fantasy
reader) is to look for a 'natural' explanation.
> and I think the uncertainty and mystery surrounding some things
> in LotR are part of the book's charm.
It is, I agree.
At the same time it is also a part of the charm that one has the
feeling that there really /is/ a natural explanation ('natural' in the
sense it) -- even if we're not allowed to know it.
But there are exceptions even to that -- and it adds to the fascination
that they are just that, exceptions for which there seems to be no
natural explanation (Tom Bombadil's nature is one such, IMO).
> Such as the deliberate way the "wings" of the Balrog were described
> in a less than anatomical way;
Yes -- allowing each reader to imagine the worst ;)
I know it's not the sense in which you meant the 'natural explanation',
but the Balrog wings is one of the cases where I would say that there
is a natural explanation -- if we had been standing there, on the
bridge of Khazad Dum, then we wouldn't be having that discussion.
Similarly, if we could ask Tolkien, he would have a clear mental
picture and be able to answer (though not necessarily willing).
With Bombadil I am not so sure. It seems to me that he was never fully
integrated into the 'nature' of Arda, and hence I doubt that even
Tolkien would have an explanation (though of course he would be able to
make one up -- or possibly he had made one up after putting Tom in
LotR).
> or Aragorn's statement that someone "sees better in the dark than
> the cats of Queen Berúthiel".
Gandalf, I think. And wasn't it something about finding his way in the
dark -- on the occasion of them finding their way through Moria, IIRC.
> Later, Tolkien stated that he had no idea who Queen Berúthiel was,
> that she and her cats just popped up. He should have kept it that
> way,
Yes, the explanation in this case wasn't very good, but I'm not
convinced that it is the attempt at explanation in itself that detracts
-- learning the full story of Lúthien and Beren, for instance, didn't,
for me, detract from enjoying the appearance in LotR -- the mystery was
pushed back a step, so to speak, but it didn't, for me, disappear.
--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>
It is useless to meet revenge with revenge: it will heal
nothing.
- Frodo Baggins, /The Return of the King/ (J.R.R. Tolkien)
grimgard
> Quoth "Taemon" <Tae...@zonnet.nl> in article
> <4in1h6F...@individual.net>:
>> Steuard Jensen wrote:
>> > Quoth "Taemon" <Tae...@zonnet.nl>:
>> >> Woah Steuard, woah! Did you just finished something major?
>
>> > On July 12 I defended my Ph.D. thesis (successfully)
>
>> Aw, we're so proud of you! Even if we have no idea what your thesis
>> is about.
>
> The title is "Instantons and Chiral Symmetry in String Theory". And
> now you probably know just as little as you did before. :) (Some
> discussion of parts of this work aimed at non-specialists can be found
> on my website, but even that can get a bit technical.)
Well, I'm just glad you had the GUT's to defend your thesis.
>
>> Do you want your title upgraded from Steward to Doctor? Or would
>> that be a downgrade?
>
> I'll happily always be the Steward here. :)
Are you sure? Old Doc Jensen has a real *RING* to it.
>
>> > and on July 13 I had major surgery to remove a tumor in a bone
>> > right next to my knee.
>
>> Is it gone now, or don't you know yet?
>
> It was cut out and then cauterized with an argon laser, so we're
> pretty sure that it's gone (at least for now). It was what's called a
> "giant cell tumor of bone", and like most such tumors it was benign.
Wow, an argon laser. A noble undertaking.
BTW, let me take this opportunity to thank everyone who responded about my
newsgroup problems. The problem *did* originate with the server and,
although I can now retrieve all the newsgroup messages, I'm still having
some problems tweaking the reader. I decided to take Deidre's advice and
download Agent to handle the newsgroups. I may give Eudora a try for e-mail
as well, eventually. It's nice to see so many old-timers still in the
group, although many of the topics are outside my main area of interest -
although I read The Silmarillion, I never got as engrossed in it as I did in
The Hobbit and LOTR. Okay, I better get back to Party Poker.
Öjevind Lång
> Öjevind Lång wrote:
>
>> Absolutely. Weare specifically told that the Old forest and Fangorn are
>> remnants of one single, huge forest that once reached across all the
>> lands inbetween.
>
> Gee. I don't think I mentioned the Great Old Forest of Eriador more than
> like 5 times all summer...
My bad. To tell the truth, I usually don't read your posts because they are
so bloody boring.
Ö. Lång
Phlip
>> The title is "Instantons and Chiral Symmetry in String Theory". And
>> now you probably know just as little as you did before. :)
Dang! You figured it out!
We're not worthy! We're not worthy! We're not worthy!
(BTW the paper obviously refers to how string theory can represent phenomena
that are right-handed or left-handed depending on their moment...)
Larry Swain
> Mon, 24 Jul 2006 21:04:37 GMT from Steuard Jensen
> <sbje...@midway.uchicago.edu>:
>
>>On July 12 I defended my Ph.D. thesis
>>(successfully) and on July 13 I had major surgery to remove a tumor in
>>a bone right next to my knee. I'm now stuck at home lazing about with
>>my knee locked straight in a brace
>>
>>Of course, in just a few more weeks I'll be starting my job as a
>>professor in Claremont, California, and who knows whether I'll have
>>any free time then. So I'm doing my best to take advantage of what I
>>have.
>
>
> Steuard, heartiest congratulations on (A) and (C), and my sympathy
> for (B). I trust your recovery will be speedy and complete.
I'm late in joining the crowd, but a sincere and heart felt
congratulations Steuard! Nicely done! ANd best wishes on the recovery!
Stan Brown
<the_sta...@fastmail.fm>:
> Mon, 24 Jul 2006 21:04:37 GMT from Steuard Jensen
> <sbje...@midway.uchicago.edu>:
> > And at the moment I'm leaning toward
> > believing that there actualy was a "threat" from the trees, just as
> > the hobbits feared. But I'm telling you, just wait until you read the
> > chapter again with the notion that it's all in their heads.
>
> I'm going to do just that.
I've marked three passages that I think are inconsistent with "it's
all in their heads", two from the second page of the chapter and one
from the third page. But I agree that much of the chapter (before
Old Man Willow) could well be put down to their own fear and muddle-
headedness.
1. Merry has been in the Forest before: "I have only once or twice
been in here after dark. ... I thought all the trees were whispering
to each other, ... and the branches swayed and groped without any
wind." The "trees whispering" could well be in his head; indeed, our
poets often use such language without meaning that the trees are
aware. But branches moving without any wind, that seems much more
objective. Notice he says _branches_, not leaves: I think we can rule
out some light breeze he was just unaware of.
2. "Whenever one comes inside one finds open tracks; but they seem to
shift and change from time to time in a queer fashion." Of the four
hobbits, Merry is the one least likely to lose his head in the
Forest, because it's *not* new and strange to him. He has already
pooh-poohed the old wives' tales about "goblins and wolves and things
of that sort". When he reports past experience that paths don't stay
in the same place, I'm inclined to believe him.
3. Finally the hobbits find the Bonfire Glade. '"Well, well!" [Merry]
said. "These trees *do* shift. There is the Bonfire Glade... but the
path to it seems to have moved away!"' Previously there was a path
leading to that glade from the west; now there isn't. Remember that
Merry is not old, just in his thirties. He's been in the forest
before, and it can't have been that long ago. While trees can fall
across a path in a few years, they can't grow up and obscure all
traces of a path. (Remember that we are told there was no
undergrowth.)
When they emerge into the Bonfire Glade, we're told that there's
a path leading out, on the far (east) side. But we aren't told of any
path leading in from the west. Certainly, after Merry announcing that
the path had disappeared, if they had got to the Bonfire Glade and
seen that there was a path but they had missed it, we would have been
told of their relief and chagrin.
I think we have to conclude that the path really did shift, and that
it was not natural. This blows a hole in the "all in their heads"
philosophy, I believe.
That said, they made things a lot worse by what was in their heads.
But then their foolish behavior is a theme of the story, from the
start of it till Strider takes them in hand.
Stan Brown
bothers me every time.
The hobbits pass through the tunnel under the High Hay. "It was dark
and damp. At the far end it was closed by a gate of thick-set iron
bars. Merry got down and unlocked the gate, and when they had all
passed through he pushed it to again. It shut with a clang, and the
lock clicked. The sound was ominous."
1. Merry was apparently carrying a key to this gate. If he could
unlock it, what was so ominous about the lock clicking?
2. Why was he carrying the key? Surely there weren't that many
duplicates -- or were all Bucklanders issued copies? How would the
key get back to its usual custodian? This falls in the same category
as Thorin & Company's disappearing musical instruments. :-)
Stan Brown
<Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid>:
> With Bombadil I am not so sure. It seems to me that he was never fully
> integrated into the 'nature' of Arda, and hence I doubt that even
> Tolkien would have an explanation (though of course he would be able to
> make one up -- or possibly he had made one up after putting Tom in
> LotR).
This reminds me of a fascinating book I've been reading, /The
Happiness Hypothesis/ by Jonathan Haidt.
He finds an explanation of how our minds work in the metaphor of the
rider and the elephant. It's a very rich metaphor, and just *one* of
its aspects is that the elephant goes where it wil and then the rider
(our conscious, logical mind) explains it after the fact. This seems
to match very well with Tolkien's descriptions of his creative
processes: a word pops into his head, and then later he devises a
story to contain it.
Stan Brown
<thes...@operamail.com>:
> But I would suggest that [Old Man Willow] and the not quite asleep
> trees of the Old Forest were capable of speeding up what would have
> happened naturally: i. e. to take minutes or even hours to subtly
> change the landscape to certainly lead to the river valley.
I think this is pretty much what happened. But that speeded-up
action, while "natural" to those trees, is not "natural" in our world
and is not just all in the hobbits' heads. Remember the original
premise: that the trees (except Old Man Willow) were just ordinary
trees such as might be found in the Shire (or in our world), and that
any *perceived* difference was simply hobbits' interpretations.
Phlip
> 1. Merry was apparently carrying a key to this gate. If he could
> unlock it, what was so ominous about the lock clicking?
Uh, they were in a tunnel, with echos?
Maybe because, to set a mood, Tolkien will associate the mental Omen of
entering the Old Forest with sights, sounds, and senses. As you read you
correlate a cool morning, damp iron (probably with a patina of dark but
solid rust), and stone. People feeling an omen will react to loud noises.
Their repressed emotions will pop up. And the lock is probably not built
carefully enough to be sound-proofed.
> 2. Why was he carrying the key? Surely there weren't that many
> duplicates -- or were all Bucklanders issued copies? How would the
> key get back to its usual custodian? This falls in the same category
> as Thorin & Company's disappearing musical instruments. :-)
How long had he been planning to slip out of the Shire? How long had he
known their party might not take the main road?
Didn't he warm up Crickhollow first, for a couple days? Suppose each hobbit
town had a warden or such entrusted to a key. Who was closest to
Crickhollow?
(Oh, and did he carry that key all the way to the Pelennor Fields??)
Morgil
> Rereading this chapter, I was again bothered by something that
> bothers me every time.
>
> The hobbits pass through the tunnel under the High Hay. "It was dark
> and damp. At the far end it was closed by a gate of thick-set iron
> bars. Merry got down and unlocked the gate, and when they had all
> passed through he pushed it to again. It shut with a clang, and the
> lock clicked. The sound was ominous."
>
> 1. Merry was apparently carrying a key to this gate. If he could
> unlock it, what was so ominous about the lock clicking?
Actually there is no mention of the key. Maybe the door
could be unlocked from one side, but not from the other,
dangerous side. That would explain both issues.
Morgil
Larry Swain
> Rereading this chapter, I was again bothered by something that
> bothers me every time.
>
> The hobbits pass through the tunnel under the High Hay. "It was dark
> and damp. At the far end it was closed by a gate of thick-set iron
> bars. Merry got down and unlocked the gate, and when they had all
> passed through he pushed it to again. It shut with a clang, and the
> lock clicked. The sound was ominous."
>
> 1. Merry was apparently carrying a key to this gate. If he could
> unlock it, what was so ominous about the lock clicking?
They're truly leaving the Shire behind, home, everything they knew (at
least for a time) and entering a hostile forest. The gate is there to
keep things out, and they're now on the other side of the gate.
> 2. Why was he carrying the key? Surely there weren't that many
> duplicates -- or were all Bucklanders issued copies? How would the
> key get back to its usual custodian? This falls in the same category
> as Thorin & Company's disappearing musical instruments. :-)
>
Yes, I agree there. But then they didn't really expect to be gone so
long and go through so much. They knew they had to leave the Shire with
the Ring, and planned in a way to make for Rivendell if they could find
it; a nice few days on pony, hoping to lose the Riders by cutting
through the forest. So I don't think Merry's taking the key would have
been such a big deal in their minds, they'd be back soon.
Taemon
This:
> They're truly leaving the Shire behind, home, everything they
> knew (at least for a time) and entering a hostile forest.
And this:
> So I don't think Merry's taking the key would have been such a big
> deal in
> their minds, they'd be back soon.
do not sit well together.
T.
Öjevind Lång
news:eaflrc$ce4$1...@nyytiset.pp.htv.fi...
[snip]
> Actually there is no mention of the key. Maybe the door
> could be unlocked from one side, but not from the other,
> dangerous side. That would explain both issues.
Or perhaps the key was kept on the Buckland side of the gate, and Merry
unlocked the gate, replaced the key in its recess or whatever and then
passed through the gate, slamming it shut behind him. No doubt, ordinarily
visitors to the Od Forest took great care to bring the key with them, for
obvious reasons.
Öjevind
Öjevind Lång
[snip]
> With Bombadil I am not so sure. It seems to me that he was never fully
> integrated into the 'nature' of Arda, and hence I doubt that even
> Tolkien would have an explanation (though of course he would be able to
> make one up -- or possibly he had made one up after putting Tom in
> LotR).
I do think attempts to "explain" Tom Bombadil are very misguided.
Öjevind
grimgard
"Stan Brown" <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote in message
news:MPG.1f35133a5...@news.individual.net...
> Rereading this chapter, I was again bothered by something that
> bothers me every time.
>
> The hobbits pass through the tunnel under the High Hay. "It was dark
> and damp. At the far end it was closed by a gate of thick-set iron
> bars. Merry got down and unlocked the gate, and when they had all
> passed through he pushed it to again. It shut with a clang, and the
> lock clicked. The sound was ominous."
>
> 1. Merry was apparently carrying a key to this gate. If he could
> unlock it, what was so ominous about the lock clicking?
I think the 'ominous' part is what the sound represented. Of course, they
already knew they were leaving the Shire, but having that act punctuated by
the sound of the clanging lock of an iron gate really drove the point home.
And, even though Merry had the key, they had no intention of going back.
Although there was no immediate threat of danger, it surely must have been
an unsettling situation.
>
> 2. Why was he carrying the key? Surely there weren't that many
> duplicates -- or were all Bucklanders issued copies? How would the
> key get back to its usual custodian? This falls in the same category
> as Thorin & Company's disappearing musical instruments. :-)
Oh! Oh! I know this one! The key (and the instruments) were made of ice!
Phlip
> I think the 'ominous' part is what the sound represented. Of course, they
> already knew they were leaving the Shire, but having that act punctuated
> by the sound of the clanging lock of an iron gate really drove the point
> home.
Oh, and a bunch of Ringwraiths are chasing them too, so the Old Forest is
the devil they /do/ know...
Steuard Jensen
<4j1pgpF...@individual.net>:
> I do think attempts to "explain" Tom Bombadil are very misguided.
To each his own. :) I had fun, and may even have learned something.
Steuard Jensen
JimboCat
[Old Forest being creepy]
> I think the crucial point is simply that this is one of the
> /first/ supernaturally mysterious things that the hobbits
> encounter.
The /first/ one is years earlier, when Merry saw Bilbo vanish as the
Sackville-Bagginses approached, then reappear and put something in his
pocket. We only hear about it later in "A Conspiracy Unmasked", but
that's still long before "The Old Forest". Gandalf's fireworks, too,
are a bit too good to be "natural".
But you are right in that the Shire is a very down-to-earth place, and
hobbits in general (like the Breelanders who quickly exit the Inn after
Frodo's stunt with the Ring) don't take with anything unnatural-like.
As Butterbur put it: "We're a bit suspicious round here of anything
out of the way -uncanny, if you understand me; and we don't take to it
all of a sudden." I think that is why we see so little of the
"supernaturally mysterious" before the hobbits leave the Shire: even
Gandalf has to be circumspect there, for fear of offending the
populace.
Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
JimboCat
>"JimboCat" <10313...@compuserve.com> skrev i meddelandet
>news:1153935463.6...@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
>Öjevind Lång" wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>>>I don't look for realism in a book of fantasy.
>
>>Of course you do.
>
>>Consistency of character and of physical law, the existence of an
>>external world that is independent of any one character's perception,
>>the depiction of ordinary people doing ordinary things: these are all
>>elements of "realism" and all of them are part of any book of fantasy I
>>can think of. You may not specifically and actively look (scrutinize)
>>for realism in a book of fantasy, but if you read one without any
>>realism at all your reaction would undoubtedly be "what is this
>>garbage: there's no story here: this is just way too weird!"
>
>Consistency is not the same as "realism". Judging a fantasy world by the
>scientific criteria of this world seems a futile exercise to me.
Consistency is a part of "realism". There are some SF stories and
novels that deliberately lack it: they are hard indeed to read!
I agree with your second comment. But by "scientific criteria" we mean
a great deal more than we mean by "realism". It is perfectly possible
to maintain a high degree of realism while including dragons, elves and
magic rings, just as it is possible to lose realism without any of
these "fantasy" elements. It is even possible to maintain realism
without (complete) consistency: do you know of the movie "Rashomon"?
I've never seen it, but it is a classic and oft-quoted example: the
same events are depicted from the viewpoints of several different
characters. Each character's version of events is internally
consistent, but none of them agree on even basic facts with any other's
version! (ObSimpsons: Marge: "You liked Rashomon." Homer: "That's not
the way I remember it.")
"Scientific criteria" implies that everything that happens accords with
our current best theories of physics, biology, etc (or at least with
plausible -- and plausibly-explained -- extensions of them). "Realism"
is a lot more malleable...
People who dislike, say, Harry Potter generally don't mock the
existence of magic and of other fantasy elements because they don't
accord with scientific principles: rather, they mock things like poor
character motivation, amateurish writing, and plot and logic loopholes
that exist even within the "story-internal" world of magic. Those are
the elements of story-telling that I find so "realistic" in JRRT's
works.
Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
"I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is
much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that
might be wrong."
- Richard Feynman
Emma Pease
> Rereading this chapter, I was again bothered by something that
> bothers me every time.
>
> The hobbits pass through the tunnel under the High Hay. "It was dark
> and damp. At the far end it was closed by a gate of thick-set iron
> bars. Merry got down and unlocked the gate, and when they had all
> passed through he pushed it to again. It shut with a clang, and the
> lock clicked. The sound was ominous."
>
> 1. Merry was apparently carrying a key to this gate. If he could
> unlock it, what was so ominous about the lock clicking?
They were leaving Hobbit occupied lands and the sound emphasized
this.
> 2. Why was he carrying the key? Surely there weren't that many
> duplicates -- or were all Bucklanders issued copies? How would the
> key get back to its usual custodian? This falls in the same category
> as Thorin & Company's disappearing musical instruments. :-)
Not all Bucklanders but Merry was the heir to the Master of the Hall
and he mentioned that Brandybucks sometimes got the urge to explore.
Possibly he could check out a key (one of the several available) but
who could check a key out was probably restricted (e.g., no really
young hobbits). If you then vanished, well they would have some idea
of where and someone might go looking for you. Merry presumably kept
the key though he might have lost it along the way (most likely at
Parth Galen).
Emma
--
\----
|\* | Emma Pease Net Spinster
|_\/ Die Luft der Freiheit weht
JimboCat
I picture an old-fashioned skeleton key, rather like this one:
Many hobbits of the Shire may have had an interchangeable key or two
like that: it is said that they didn't lock their doors at night
(except in Buckland), but that implies that their doors did at least
*have* locks.
Such locks, however, have a mostly symbolic significance. They keep
animals from accidently knocking open a door and getting into the
house, but they don't present much of an obstacle to a determined
hobbit. We see this sort of symbolic barrier still today: the example
that I've noticed just recently is a gate across a road with a simple
latch and a "Private Property" sign, but the gate is not even part of
an enclosing fence: it is just a free-standing gate that does nothing
whatsoever to physically prevent access. You can just walk right around
it, if you want to.
It wouldn't surprise me, either, if there was a key hanging within
reach from even the opposite side of the gate: after all, Merry didn't
believe in the stories about goblins in the Old Forest, and trees, no
matter how nimble, are unlikely to use keys. It strikes me as "plain
hobbit-sense" to put a lock on the gate, but to hang a key within easy
reach from either side.
Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
" They probably did not need to use Velcro." - Larry Niven, et. al.
Larry Swain
Sure they do. Not one of the four had ever left the Shire before,
period. Merry had at most spent a few hours in the Old Forest but
always hurried back through the gate. So they are truly leaving the
Shire behind, home, everything they knew and entering a hostile forest,
even if THEY thought it might only be a few weeks.
Further, there is of course what the characters think and know, and what
the author is trying to convey to us through devices like foreshadowing
and mood. I suggest that the closing of the gate is among the latter
class, a communication to the audience by the author that the characters
are not privy too, in spite of all us witnessing the same event.
Öjevind Lång
Öjevind Lång wrote:
[snip]
>I agree with your second comment. But by "scientific criteria" we mean
a great deal more than we mean by "realism". It is perfectly possible
to maintain a high degree of realism while including dragons, elves and
magic rings, just as it is possible to lose realism without any of
these "fantasy" elements. It is even possible to maintain realism
without (complete) consistency: do you know of the movie "Rashomon"?
I've never seen it, but it is a classic and oft-quoted example: the
same events are depicted from the viewpoints of several different
characters. Each character's version of events is internally
consistent, but none of them agree on even basic facts with any other's
version! (ObSimpsons: Marge: "You liked Rashomon." Homer: "That's not
the way I remember it.")
LOL at Homer. Yes, I gave seen "Rashomon"; it's a great film.
I've been trying to think of something else to write in reply to you, but
it seems to me that we are basically so much in agreement that any further
arguing on my part would constitute mere quibbling.
Öjevind
JimboCat
>LOL at Homer. Yes, I gave seen "Rashomon"; it's a great film.
> I've been trying to think of something else to write in reply to you, but
>it seems to me that we are basically so much in agreement that any further
>arguing on my part would constitute mere quibbling.
What else, pray tell, is UseNet for?
I do think we cross some sort of line here in RABT when we try, for
instance, to calculate the gravitational field of a flat Arda before
the rounding, but there are so many physicist-types in the RABT
community that I think such excesses are inevitable. OTOH, we are
pretty quick to mock theories like "Bombadil is Dark Matter" (this is
still a running joke, a year later, the latest riff on which has been
"Bombadil is a tectonic plate").
The issue does raise the question of Tolkien's attitude toward science,
however. It's a tricky one: I hesitate to even mention it for fear of
waking the sleeping balrog of the "is Tolkien a Luddite" question. But
it seems clear to me that in addition to his obvious suspicion and
dislike of "big technology", Tolkien with his mostly-Classical
education had little knowledge of science in general and still less of
what modern science is actually *about*.
Saruman is the pre-eminent scientist of Middle-Earth at the time of
tLotR, and he is Evil. The ridiculousness and non-canonicity of
"wizard-fu" fighting and "pod-people" orcs aside, this is something
that PJ's movies showed rather well, I thought. Farther back in the
canon, we have the copacetic melding of Knowledge and Art in such
things as Fëanor's Silmarils (and more recently in the cloaks and
ropes of Lothlorien), but whether JRRT consciously identified this with
(what I mightcall) "Real Science" I rather doubt. He seems to have been
simply unaware of how close Fëanor's achievement is to that of, say
Einstein. Or, perhaps better, to that of Shuji Nakamura, the inventor
of the blue LED (since he actually created a bit of technology, like
Fëanor did, which is something Einstein never did).
But I ramble...
Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
"In the world of words the imagination is one of the forces of nature."
-- Wallace Stevens
Steuard Jensen
<1154627386.3...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>:
> I do think we cross some sort of line here in RABT when we try, for
> instance, to calculate the gravitational field of a flat Arda before
> the rounding, but there are so many physicist-types in the RABT
> community that I think such excesses are inevitable.
I don't think we're generally /that/ bad (though I will admit that
there are surprisingly many of us physicist-types around). But the
nitpicking can occasionally seem a bit excessive (except when I'm
doing it, of course).
> ...it seems clear to me that in addition to his obvious suspicion
> and dislike of "big technology", Tolkien with his mostly-Classical
> education had little knowledge of science in general and still less
> of what modern science is actually *about*.
That's probably true, though I'm not sure that his lack of
understanding was particularly worse than what's typical (or that his
hostility to natural science--as opposed to "technology"--was
greater). I think in particular of Tolkien's comments about Bombadil
in Letter #144:
"He is in a way the answer to them [the Entwives] in the sense that
he is almostthe opposite, being say, Botany and Zoolgy (as
sciences) and Poetry as opposed to Cattle-breeding and Agriculture
and practicality."
So there's at least some sense in which Tolkien recognized the
distinction between science as science and science as a path to
technology. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have time at the moment to
ramble on myself. :)
Steuard Jensen