The Fellowship of the Ring discussion, part I

I'm jumping into the Lord of the Rings readalong a little late. I read this LotR for the first time in junior high and liked it, but I think a lot of it went over my head. I listened to the unabridged audiobooks a few times and reread excerpts in college when I wrote a paper about JRR Tolkien for an Old English class, but this is the first time since junior high that I've reread the whole text rather listening to it.

1. Hobbits seem to have songs for everything!  I didn’t realize this was a musical. . . . how are you liking all the songs?

The first time I read this book, I skipped over all the songs. But listening to the audiobooks and writing a research paper about Tolkien's relationship to languages gave me a whole new appreciation for them. Tolkien understood the importance of the sounds of words. I think one of the most well-known anecdotes about Tolkien is his love for the phrase "cellar door":

Most English-speaking people, for instance, will admit that cellar door is 'beautiful', especially if dissociated from its sense (and its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful. Well then, in Welsh for me cellar doors are extraordinarily frequent. [JRR Tolkien, from a 1955 lecture about English and Welsh]

This time, I've been taking my time reading the songs, paying attention to the sound of the words and the way it feels to say them out loud. One of my favorites is the elf song in Chapter 3:

Snow-white! Snow-white! O Lady clear!
    O Queen beyond the Western Seas!
O Light to us that wander here
    Amid the world of woven trees!

Gilthoniel! O Elbereth!
    Clear are thy eyes and bright thy breath,
Snow-white! Snow-white! We sing to thee
    In a far land beyond the Sea.

O stars that in the Sunless Year
    With shining hand by her were sown,
In windy fields now bright and clear
    We see your silver blossom blown!

O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!
    We still remember, we who dwell
In this far land beneath the trees
    Thy starlight on the Western Seas.

This song gives me goose bumps not just because of its tone of melancholic longing, but because of the sounds of the words and the way Tolkien constructed the stanzas. Beautiful.

Of course, "The Road goes ever on and on"--the whole song, but even that one line. If you think about all the different ways you can rephrase that line: "The road goes on forever," "The road keeps on going," etc.--the care Tolkien took in constructing individual phrases is clear.

2. I love that we learn about Gollum and his past so early on. It gives a dark and foreboding (dare I say, perilous?) feeling to the whole thing. Were you surprised that the story took a dive towards the dark and scary so quickly?

This is something that struck me the first time I read these books. I remember starting out with the birthday party and thinking it the series was going to be an extended version of The Hobbit, which never really gets dark. But the Gollum chapter, and the early appearance of the Black Riders, makes clear right away that this series is much darker, more foreboding and more complicated than The Hobbit. I think this is why Lord of the Rings stands up much better to rereading than The Hobbit, in my opinion.

3. Tom Bombadil!  what and who is he???  If you met him in a forest, would you trust him?

I would definitely trust Tom Bombadil. I know a lot of readers dislike him, but the thing about Tolkien's world is that the division between good and evil is pretty clear. Sure, you have good characters who falter (e.g., Bilbo's behavior while Gandalf is convincing him to leave the ring behind) or bad characters for whom you might feel some pity (e.g., Gollum). But with most of Tolkien's characters, virtue or lack thereof is pretty obvious. So when a jolly little man comes bouncing into the scene singing happy songs and saving hobbits from hobbit-eating trees, I'd be inclined to trust him.

One thing that was interesting about reading the Tom Bombadil chapter after listening to the audio books is that I realized that even when Tom's speech isn't represented in stanzas in the text, he still speaks in song. For example, his speech to Old Man Willow when he's rescuing Pippin and Merry:

Old Man Willow?
Naught worse than that, eh?
That can soon be mended.
I know the tune for him.
Old grey Willow-man!
I'll freeze his marrow cold,
if he don't behave himself.
I'll sing his roots off.
I'll sing a wind up
and blow leaf and branch away.
Old Man Willow!

You let them out again,
Old Man Willow!
What be you a-thinking of?
You should not be waking.
Eat earth! Dig deep!
Drink water! Go to sleep!
Bombadil is talking!"

In the book this speech is presented as in-line with the rest of the text, not set off like the other songs, so when I read it as a teenager I didn't notice the unique rhythm of Bombadil's speech. This is another aspect that I think is enhanced by listening to the audiobooks--Rob Inglis, who narrates them, does an excellent job with Tom Bombadil's speech. 

As far as what or who Tom is, I suppose Goldberry's explanation that he is "Master of wood, water, and hill" is going to be the best explanation we get in this book. I'm most intrigued by the fact that he doesn't disappear when he wears the ring, and he can see Frodo when Frodo is wearing it, though no one else can.

4. What did you think when Pippin, Merry and Sam told Frodo about their “conspiracy”, and that they pretty much knew what he was planning from the beginning?

I was concerned about Frodo's ability to get the ring to Mordor without any of the baddies discovering him ;) But it's also reassuring to learn that Pippin, Merry, and Sam are so loyal and determined, and that they at least have an inkling of what they're getting themselves into but want to help Frodo anyway.

5. What’s your favorite part of the book so far?

I really love the language. I've said it before, but the care Tolkien takes in constructing even the smallest elements of the text makes this the perfect book to savor. Even some of the chapter names are lovely: "Fog on the Barrow Downs," "The Shadow of the Past," "A Conspiracy Unmasked." The wonderful story and characters, for me, are bonuses--but then I was an English major and am kind of a nerd about that sort of thing.