“I had no idea who Faramir was.”
Oh, really!
I feel a little odd bringing up the Letters for this discussion, since C.
Tolkien cites them in his HoME chapter, in my previous post – and also because
Menelwyn gave most of them
nice coverage in her RR Letters discussion just a few months ago.
Still, attention must be paid.
When J R R Tolkien picked up his ‘Ring’ project in early 1944, after having
left it alone for some time, he began to write what became Book IV. His
outlines and sketches from earlier years show his vague thoughts about how
Frodo would get into Mordor, and how the Ring would be destroyed. But Tolkien
liked to tell a story, and only when he began to write the actual narrative did
the creativity really flow.
Letter 62, 23 April 1944, to Christopher Tolkien:
I read my second chapter, Passage
of the Dead Marshes, to Lewis and Williams . . . it was approved. I have now
nearly done a third: Gates of the Land of Shadow. But this story takes me in
charge, and I have already taken three chapters over what was meant to be one!
A. Was Tolkien really surprised, by this point in his project (which had
long since expanded past his Hobbit-sequel expectations), that his “meant to
be” chapter lengths were drastically underestimated? Is he bragging a little
here?
Letter 63, 24 April 1944, to Christopher Tolkien:
Wed. April 26. . mowed three lawns,
and wrote letter to John, and struggled with a recalcitrant passage in ‘The
Ring’. At this point I require to know how much later the moon gets up each
night when nearing full, and how to stew a rabbit!
B. Before the internet, how would Tolkien typically have found the answers
to such questions? How much “research” of this sort do you suppose he put into
The Lord of the Rings?
Letter 64, 30 April 1944, to Christopher Tolkien:
I hope to see [Lewis] tomorrow, and
read some more of ‘the Ring’. It is growing and sprouting again (I did a whole
day at it yesterday to the neglect of many matters) and opening out in
unexpected ways. So far in the new chapters Frodo and Sam have traversed Sarn
Gebir, climbed down the cliff, encountered and temporarily tamed Gollum. They
have with his guidance crossed the Dead Marshes and the slag-heaps of Mordor,
lain in hiding outside the main gates and found them impassable, and set out
for a more secret entrance near Minas Morghul (formerly M. Ithil). It will turn
out to be the deadly Kirith Ungol and Gollum will play false. But at the moment
they are in Ithilien (which is proving a lovely land); there has been a lot of
bother about stewed rabbit; and they have been captured by Gondorians, and
witnessed them ambushing a Swerting army (dark men of the South) marching to
Mordor’s aid. A large elephant of prehistoric size, a war-elephant of the
Swertings, is loose, and Sam has gratified a life-long wish to see an
Oliphaunt, an animal about which there was a hobbit nursery-rhyme (though it
was commonly supposed to be mythical). In the chapter next to be done they will
get to Kirith Ungol and Frodo will be caught. Here is the rhyme cited by Sam:
Grey as a mouse,/Big as a house,/Nose like a snake,/I make the earth quake,/As
I tramp through the grass;/Trees crack as I pass./With horns in my mouth/I walk
in the South/Flapping big ears./Beyond count of years/I’ve stumped round and
round,/Never lie on the ground,/Not even to die./Oliphaunt am I,/Biggest of
All,/huge, old, and tall./If ever you’d met me,/You wouldn’t forget me./If you
never do,/You won’t think I’m true;/But old Oliphaunt am I,/and I never lie. I
hope that has something of the ‘nursery rhyme’ flavour. On the whole Sam is
behaving well, and living up to repute. He treats Gollum rather like Ariel to
Caliban . . .
We’ve heard comments this week already how dependent Tolkien’s writing style is
on sounding well when read out loud. Here we see him testing himself, chapter
by chapter, with readings to Lewis and Williams.
C. Are any other authors known to do this? Is this the key to Tolkien’s
“style” working despite its archaisms and changing points of view?
D. To whom is Ithilien “proving a lovely land”? Did any other landscape that he
invented take him by such surprise as this one seems to have?
E. What ‘nursery rhyme’, if any, does the Oliphaunt poem remind you of? Tolkien
is going for ‘flavour’, of course.
F. ‘Sam is behaving well, and living up to repute’: What is Sam’s repute? Is
Tolkien talking to the Gaffer in his head, here? Or to Christopher Tolkien?
G. Sam as Ariel; Gollum as Caliban. What does Tolkien mean? Does that
comparison change your opinion of the Rabbits scene?
Letter 66, 6 May 1944, to Christopher Tolkien:
A new character has come on the
scene (I am sure I did not invent him, I did not even want him, though I like
him, but there he came walking into the woods of Ithilien): Faramir, the
brother of Boromir—and he is holding up the ‘catastrophe’ by a lot of stuff
about the history of Gondor and Rohan (with some very sound reflections no
doubt on martial glory and true glory): but if he goes on much more a lot of
him will have to be removed to the appendices—where already some fascinating
material on the hobbit Tobacco industry and the Languages of the West have
gone. There has been a battle—with a monstrous Oliphaunt (the Mâmuk of Harad)
included—and after a short while in a cave behind a waterfall, I think I shall
get Sam and Frodo at last into Kirith Ungol and the webs of the Spiders.
H. Why does Tolkien so obsessively talk about the story as if it were
someone else’s? What was his state of mind at this point in the writing, do you
think?
I. ‘Very sound reflections no doubt on martial glory and true glory’ – To what
or to whom is Tolkien applying this irony?
Letter 85, 16 October, to Christopher Tolkien:
I have been struggling with the
dislocated chronology of the Ring, which has proved most vexatious, and has not
only interfered with other more urgent and duller duties, but has stopped me
getting on. I think I have solved it all at last by small map alterations, and
by inserting an extra day’s Entmoot, and extra days into Trotter’s chase and
Frodo’s journey (a small alteration in the first chapter I have just sent: 2
days from Morannon to Ithilien).
J. ‘More urgent and duller duties’ – has Tolkien literally been neglecting
his professional work at this point, to solve his chronology problems?
*whispers* Would anyone have ever noticed the dislocated chronology had he just
gone ahead and fudged it? *whispers even quieter* Are there any
parts of LotR that he did fudge?
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".
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