Here are
some maps to look at.
Maps and the text
Start with the triptych I’ve labeled A.
Christopher Tolkien, of course, was working directly from his father’s sketch
maps, but here he enlarges the detail and adds highly specific contour-lines in
the course of making a larger-scale map for the third volume of LotR. Fonstad
and Strachey, each in their own way, are re-interpreting Tolkien’s map for
later generations of fans who demand more information than the original map
seems to give.
A. Which of these do you like best? Which do you dislike? Or don’t you care?
Read the following sections with an eye for where the road is in relation to
the mountains, the steeper slopes, and the shallower slopes. Also pay attention
to where the hobbits stop for rests, stop for the night, and decide to go on
the road instead of beside it.
For many miles the red eye seemed
to stare at them as they fled, stumbling through a barren stony country. They
did not dare to take the road, but they kept it on their left, following its
line as well as they could at a little distance. At last, when night was
growing old and they were already weary, for they had taken only one short
rest, the eye dwindled to a small fiery point and then vanished: they had
turned the dark northern shoulder of the lower mountains and were heading
southwards.
With hearts strangely lightened they now rested again, but
not for long . . . So soon they struggled on once more, until the dawn
began to spread slowly in the wide grey solitude. They had then walked almost
eight leagues; and the hobbits could not have gone any further, even if they
had dared.
The growing light revealed to them a land already less barren and ruinous. The
mountains still loomed up ominously on their left, but near at hand they could
see the southward road, now bearing away from the black roots of the hills and
slanting westwards. Beyond it were slopes covered with sombre trees like dark
clouds.
As soon as the land faded into a formless grey under coming night, they started
out again. In a little while Gollum led them down on to the southward road; and
after that they went on more quickly, . . .
Now they climbed up the westward bank and looked abroad. Day was opening in the
sky, and they saw that the mountains were now much further off, receding
eastward in a long curve that was lost in the distance. Before them, as they
turned west, gentle slopes ran down into dim hazes far below.
B. Do you agree with Christopher Tolkien’s topography, based on the texts
cited here?
C. Do you agree with Fonstad’s or Strachey’s placement of Frodo’s route and
campsites, based on the texts cited here?
D. Note some of the “changes” or “additions” that the two more recent
mapmakers have made. Are they justified by the text, or by any other logic?
Maps and the real world
Take a quick look at diptych B. I’ve tried to find topographic representations
of southern European geography that match Tolkien’s imagined region that he
calls Ithilien. I apologize for the crummy graphics and distracting placenames,
but I wanted to see how “real” maps represent “real” landscape forms.
E. Do you find the ‘real’ maps satisfying as representations of geography?
F. Do Tolkien’s vivid and clear descriptions deserve more ‘complex’ maps than
his own schematic sketches, his loyal son’s translations of those sketches, and
his fans’ reworking of the same material, can provide?
G. Would an illustrator be justified in creating an Atlas of Middle-earth based
on the vision Tolkien provides in his writing, but with a topographic
complexity that more closely mirrored real life, even if it diverged from or
elaborated heavily on the ‘canonical’ maps?
H. Did you ever think of the encircling Carpathian Mountains, and the
Transylvanian plateau within, as a geographic analogue to Mordor?
Text of this
chapter
Everyone is laughing for heart's ease, now that they're in Ithilien! Join me in the Reading Room this week for a squireific topic-oriented discussion of Chapter 4, Book IV of The Two Towers: "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit".
squire online:
Footerama: "Tolkien would have LOVED it!" (improved!)
The Valaquenta discussion
A Shortcut to Mushrooms discussion
