Now I’d like to look at the chapter from a slightly different, perhaps more
technical point of view: the writing, and that elusive quality known as
‘style’. Tolkien was not just an imaginative genius at creating a mythic story,
he was an authority on words and their use. But as a writer of fantasy prose
and poetry, he was somewhat isolated, and mostly self-taught—that is, he wrote
initially for himself, and only later learned that what he wrote was popular.
As much as any writer, perhaps more, he struggled endlessly to express himself
to best effect. Was he always totally successful? Some think not.
It’s an endless pit, of course. Today I’ll just offer up some thoughts on style
that came to me as I was reading for and preparing this chapter discussion.
What was he thinking?
'If we reach the Fire in that time,
we'll be lucky at this rate!' he thought. `And we might be wanting to get back.
We might!'
He shook his head, as if finding words useless, and murmured: `I love him. He's
like that, and sometimes it shines through, somehow. But I love him, whether or
no.'
`That won't do! Never thought it would show like that!' he muttered, and he
started to hurry back.
`I wonder where that dratted Gollum is?' thought Sam, as he crawled back into
deeper shade.
Tolkien has been accused of not letting us hear his characters’ inner thoughts.
Here Sam variously thinks, and talks.
A. Are these “inner thoughts”? What is the difference for Tolkien, if any,
between Sam thinking and Sam speaking in these examples? Do you wish the
characters “thought” more in general in Tolkien’s works?
Who’s talking?
Here is how the narrator tells us stuff:
Ithilien, the garden of Gondor now
desolate kept still a dishevelled dryad loveliness.
South and west it looked towards the warm lower vales of Anduin, shielded from
the east by the Ephel Dœath and yet not under the mountain-shadow, protected
from the north by the Emyn Muil, open to the southern airs and the moist winds
from the Sea far away.
And here is how a character tells us stuff:
‘’Tis said that there were
dealings of old between Gondor and the kingdoms of the Harad in the Far South;
though there was never friendship. In those days our bounds were away south
beyond the mouths of Anduin, and Umbar, the nearest of their realms,
acknowledged our sway. But that is long since. 'Tis many lives of Men since any
passed to or fro between us. Now of late we have learned that the Enemy has
been among them, and they are gone over to Him, or back to Him—they were ever
ready to His will—as have so many also in the East.’
B. Is the difference just a matter of quotation marks? From the writing
style alone, can you distinguish Tolkien’s usage of third-person omniscient
narration from those times when some all-knowing character (usually one with
absurdly bushy eyebrows) spouts a lot of lore?
A style of his own
“Critics who have been embarrassed by the non-standard
elements of Tolkien's style (and they are more common than they are likely to
admit in print) might want to reconsider their defensiveness and instead try to
determine why that style, as different as it is from canonical Modernism, works
so effectively to achieve Tolkien's purposes. And critics who have focused
solely on source or themes should note that the analysis of style may unearth
new sources and shed new light on traditional themes as well.” – Michael
Drout
C. What is Drout talking about—just who is embarrassed? What is
“non-standard” about Tolkien’s style (give an example or two)? How exactly is
it different from “canonical Modernism”? Can anyone tell me what “canonical
Modernism” is, and why Tolkien is being held to its standard?
“…the garden of Gondor now
desolate kept still a dishevelled dryad loveliness.”
Brian Rosebury has a word
or two to say about this sentence.
D. Do you agree? Do comments like this, or like Drout’s above, affect your
interest in reading Tolkien, or Tolkien criticism?
More generally, Rosebury and Drout are two of the very few critics I have read
who insist that reading Tolkien need not be a love it or leave it experience.
They take each sentence as it comes, and generally show that Tolkien’s style
and command of his prose is of somewhat variable character, usually quite
wonderful and effective in its own way, but sometimes weak, ‘unfortunate’, or
otherwise inferior.
E. Again, do you agree? Are there any passages in this chapter that you feel
could have been written ‘better’?
Downstairs Color
Sam’s speech in this chapter is filled with:
Sayings
‘Higher
up for me.’
‘Third time pays for all’
‘rare good ballast for an empty belly’
‘if you turn over a new leaf, and keep it
turned’
‘something hot out of the pot’
‘We don't see eye to eye’
Colloquialisms
‘And we
might be wanting to get back. We might!’
‘I'd not be sorry for a change myself.’
‘if you don't put wet stuff on it and make a
smother’
‘If you give me a coney, the coney's mine, see, to
cook, if I have a mind. And I have.’
‘Then you won't see the fire, and I shan't see you,
and we'll both be the happier.’
‘Herbs we can manage, seemingly.’
‘nigh on half past eight by Shire clocks,
maybe.’
‘I haven't brought no bowls, nor nothing
proper’
‘I'll never forgive myself. Nor won't have a
chance, maybe!’
‘Meaning we're not, I take you. Thank you
kindly’
‘He stands a fair chance of being spitted for an
Orc’
‘Go quietly when you must!’
Curses. – so to speak
‘Well
see here, old noser,’
‘Don't you damage one of my pans, or I'll carve you
into mincemeat.’
‘Sméagol'll get into real true hot water’
‘I wonder where that dratted Gollum is?’
F. Does Sam’s colloquial speech strike you as authentic? Specific? Fake?
Which is your favorite, and why? Does anyone else in the LotR speak as
distinctively as Sam?
Even Faramir has a few sayings:
‘Elves
are wondrous fair to look upon, or so ‘tis said.’
‘the Sun is climbing!’
‘Wise man trusts not to chance-meeting on the
road’
G. Does Frodo ever speak with ‘sayings’ or other indications of verbal
color? What do Frodo’s speech patterns tell us about him, if anything?
Double Trouble
the fragrance of the air grew as
they went forward; and from the blowing and muttering of Gollum it
seemed that he noticed it too, and did not relish it.
…sweet odours rose about them. Gollum coughed and retched;
[Sam:]…the bones were best left in peace and not pawed and routed by
Gollum.
Gollum, in any case, would not move under the Yellow Face. Soon it would look
over the dark ridges of the Ephel Dúath, and he would faint and cower in
the light and heat.
H. Why does Tolkien use conjoined adjectives so often for describing
Gollum’s actions?
Sentence Structure
What became of him Sam never heard:
whether he escaped to roam the wild for a time, until he perished far from his
home or was trapped in some deep pit; or whether he raged on until he plunged
in the Great River and was swallowed up.
I. Why does Tolkien write this sentence this way? Does he write this way
often? What is the effect he achieves?
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:
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