“we all want something beautiful / man i wish i was beautiful”

[larryhammer]

Random thoughts on rereading The Lord of the Rings:

Old Man Willow and Barrow Wight: pick one, for pacing. My preference is ditch the first, as the escalations of Brandywine Ferry → Barrows → Knife in the Dark → Weathertop make a nice arc for the hobbits finally taking the world’s dangers seriously, but I can see a different editor choosing to keep the Old Forest’s thematic resonance with later events—plus without Tom Bombadil it’s harder to escape the Barrows. OTOH Bombadil arguably interferes thematically with the Ents and other Elder Entities. Not to mention his house gives too much comfort compared with the amount of peril so far. So 🤷🏼‍♂️

Théoden is freed from his diet of Fox News waaaaaay too easily.

I have trouble believing just how much land is completely unsettled. (This is not a new reaction.) Ditto how few herders there are in Rohan. (This is new.)

Skulking through the wilds outside Mordor remains a slog. It was very tempting to skip Book IV (again).

For added amusement, mentally replace every instance of “palantír” with “ansible.” (However “Gandalf” > “Ged” does not work, by Le Guin’s design.)

I remain convinced that the entire book exists solely to give emotional weight to that last line. 1008 pages of coherent story has immense heft. Oof. Seriously, this is the best example of sticking the landing I know.

---L.

Subject quote from Mr Jones, Counting Crows.

Comments

[cmcmck]

Being English I find Bombadil hugely important to how the story works, not to mention Goldberry.

[larryhammer]

I can see something of that, which is why I'm conflicted. OTOH, the story arc is really out of shape in that general area.

[graydon]

"All I have to do is to get them to Rivendell".

This shows up in the letters a few places, and I think there's a much different, much shorter, book where the ring gets to Rivendell and the hobbits fall out of the story and that book's pacing and structure really benefit from Bombadil's demonstration that the ring is not all-powerful and that the world is ancient and much much more organized than it looks if you are mortal.

(The book we do have benefits from the assertion of the efficacy of providence, but it's nigh-impossible for a modern to think like that.)

[sartorias]

With LOTR it's the journey. Listening to it, I discovered that everything is important, but mileage varies.

For me, the pinnacle of sticking the landing is MIDDLEMARCH, unmatched.

[larryhammer]

Middlemarch is very close.

[movingfinger]

I believe there are large herds in Rohan but we just don't see them. I think there's a mention somewhere of flocks (sheep)?

Not sure whether Théoden could have been saved by anyone but Gandalf; the light he brings isn't mere sunshine. But yeah, if only it were so simple. And Denethor is so far gone into his own darkness that Gandalf cannot pull him back.

[larryhammer]

IIRC it was a mention of herds. It was fleeting and left me ... unsatisfied.