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Menelwyn
Nargothrond
Jul 26 2008, 2:29pm
Post #1 of 16
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Window on the West 8: Gondor and the West
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I’m not sure I have a lot of questions as such for this post, but I can’t leave the chapter without talking a little about what we learn of Gondor in this chapter. Faramir gives an extended speech about his country, including some of its history and culture, and evidence for its decline. A good deal more was originally written for this section, including an extensive discussion about languages, that later got removed to the Appendices. Feel free to comment on any of this, even if I don’t have detailed questions.
Part of the decline has to do with the standard Numenorean obsession with the avoidance of death: “Death was ever present, because the Numenoreans still, as they had in their old kingdom, and so lost it, hungered after endless life unchanging.” (An interesting statement: death was present because the people sought life.) Faramir describes the building of impressive tombs, a fascination with ancestry rather than the future, and apparently an interest in alchemy and astrology with the possible intent of prolonging lives.
Any thoughts on this? Although this is supposed to be describing the time of the Kings, do these practices continue under the Stewards? How does this apply to Denethor and his family?
After outlining the history of the alliance between Gondor and Rohan, Faramir summarizes a division of Men into three groups: High (Numenoreans), Middle (including the Rohirrim, likely descendants of the Edain who did not go to Numenor; also called Men of the Twilight), and the Wild. Faramir describes how the Rohirrim have been elevated by their contact with Gondor, but at the same time, the Gondorians have fallen to the level of Middle. The latter is largely due to the value placed on skills in warfare: “we esteem a warrior, nonetheless, above men of other crafts.” In short, “we are a failing people, a springless autumn.”
Comments? Faramir himself connects this to his brother; are there any other connections with this family?
Another possible symptom of their decline is their estrangement from the Elves: “And we of Gondor grow like other Men, like the men of Rohan; for even they…shun the Elves and speak of the Golden Wood with dread. Yet there are among us still some who have dealings with the Elves when they may, and ever and anon one will go in secret to Lorien, seldom to return. Not I. For I deem it perilous now for mortal man willfully to seek out the Elder People. Yet I envy you that have spoken with the White Lady.”
What do you think about those Gondorians who go to Lorien? Why is Faramir so ambivalent, and what does this tell us?
Is it worthwhile to have all this information in the chapter itself, or should more have been relegated to the Appendices?
Finally, on a completely different note, let’s look at the chapter title itself: The Window on the West. Clearly, this is supposed to be a translation of Henneth Annun, the refuge that forms the setting for much of the chapter. In the only place that Faramir translates that name in chapter itself, though, he gives it as “the Window on the Sunset.” Now obviously this is in part Tolkien just playing with names—effectively the translation is the same. But there’s probably more to it—in this chapter, we have seen many windows on the West, and “West” can mean many places and things.
What windows have we seen on the West, in whatever sense, and what have we learned about the West?
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squire
Gondolin
Jul 27 2008, 2:43am
Post #2 of 16
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I find this section of the book to be uncomfortably close to the racialism theories of many Europeans and Americans in the early 20th century. I know that Tolkien was placing these ideas within an imaginative mythological framework, but the similarities are disturbing. "Blood" = "character" is not easy stuff to read about now, nor is the idea that when aristocratic people "mix" with "lesser races" of humans it is a sign of their downfall and destruction.
Faramir and the Gondorians, if not Tolkien, are confusing culture with genetics. The reason for this is, of course, because Tolkien tends to assign unitary cultures to his various races and peoples, and then has those cultures last, essentially unchanged, for millennia. When culture never changes, one may more easily begin to see it as a birthright, and eventually as inborn.
Another problem with this construct is that the good people are all equally good. Despite what Faramir/Tolkien says about (for instance) the Rohirrim being more "rustic" etc. than the highly civilized Gondorian/Numenoreans, in the action of the story they are equivalently noble, intelligent, and virtuous. Even Ghan-buri Ghan - aside from a slight speech impediment - is obviously just as smart as Denethor, if not smarter. Not a single class or cultural difference separates Faramir from Eowyn, no matter what she says in her taunt to him. Nor, as far as we know, did anything get in the way of any other marriage between the high race of Gondor and the lesser Men of the Twilight at any time. This is a good example of how authors, not just filmmakers, should "show, not tell" the basic themes or points of their writing.
On a practical level, I think Faramir's rather talky lecture in this chapter is very well handled, and serves as an excellent introduction to the last third of The Lord of the Rings.
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Footeramas: The 3rd TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion; and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
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Elizabeth
Gondolin
Jul 27 2008, 4:43am
Post #3 of 16
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This younger generation is going to heck in a handbasket.
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Longing and admiration for the "good old days" seems to occur in every generation. Tolkien's generation had a particularly hard time of it: in his lifetime, England declined from being the most important world power with an empire on which the "sun never set" to being reduced to barely above 3rd world status (immediately following WWII, things were pretty grim at home, and the Empire was falling apart). I think I see a lot of this reflected in the "long defeat" themes in Tolkien's work.
In this same timeframe, the cultural acceptance of hereditary virtue and acceptance of class distinctions dissolved, and a dedicated traditionalist like Tolkien must have found himself regretting this.
The exaggerated concern with Death that seems to have characterized many Numenorians and which Faramir bemoans makes me think of the Egyptians, who had a similar obsession with death and monuments. The Egyptians didn't seem obsessed with *defeating* Death, though, probably because they weren't living along side of a race of truly immortal beings. That must have galled the Numenorians at times!
The notion of Gondorians slipping off on trips to Lorien is strange and a little hard to understand. It's tempting to wonder if this is somewhere between legend and coverage for some other kinds of adventures.
Thanks for an excellent week... sorry there weren't more of us around, I think it's mostly the fault of summer vacations. I would like to contribute this excellent essay by NZ Strider, from Dec. 2002, on the material of the Faramir chapters.
Sunset, July 3, 2008
Elizabeth is the TORnsib formerly known as 'erather'
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batik
Dor-Lomin
Jul 28 2008, 4:38am
Post #4 of 16
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Any thoughts on this? Although this is supposed to be describing the time of the Kings, do these practices continue under the Stewards? How does this apply to Denethor and his family? A word that comes to mind here is "stagnant". Could it be that the Kings became so involved in maintaining the status quo they neglected to think of the future? And that the current Steward is so embittered he too neglects the future. Not through building but by allowing things to fall into bad conditions.
Comments? Faramir himself connects this to his brother; are there any other connections with this family? "springless autumn"-again a reference to lack of future growth
What do you think about those Gondorians who go to Lorien? Why is Faramir so ambivalent, and what does this tell us? Not much to go on there. Who were these people?
Does he think that bond is a thing a the past, never to be re-established? Or that he is not worthy?
Is it worthwhile to have all this information in the chapter itself, or should more have been relegated to the Appendices? Worthwhile in that a more complete picture of Faramir was given.
What windows have we seen on the West, in whatever sense, and what have we learned about the West? A window into one Gondorian man's view of his people and their history. The factors related to the culture's decline, the motives that drive them now, the hope (or lack of) the future. Opinions of other ME inhabitants. Key term being Man of Gondor, not somebody who knows about Gondor but someone who lives there.
I think we learn that there is still a sense of honor and pride but as Faramir says long without hope.
Thanks Menelwyn, for providing a reason to re-read this chapter more closely. This is the last post of my first involvement in a chapter discussion. And my first post which references it being my last.
(This post was edited by batik on Jul 28 2008, 4:39am)
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Elizabeth
Gondolin
Jul 28 2008, 6:23am
Post #5 of 16
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Is "progress" a dirty word to Tolkien?
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Your mention of "stagnant" is right on. It seems like the best any society in ME can do is preserve the status quo (Rivendell, Lorien, via Rings, and maybe Rohan, an agrarian society), and there have been implications that their dedication to preservation on the part of the Elves is a Bad Thing. Gondor has stagnated and is sliding backwards. But is there a societal role model? The Shire, maybe... but there's only a different sort of status quo there, as well (locomotives and mantle clocks notwithstanding).
We know that The Professor was profoundly depressed by the industrialization of the Midlands, by motorcars, and by other elements of "progress", but can he conceive of society that does have some positive forward momentum?
Sunset, July 3, 2008
Elizabeth is the TORnsib formerly known as 'erather'
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sador
Gondolin
Jul 28 2008, 9:22am
Post #6 of 16
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Any thoughts on this? Although this is supposed to be describing the time of the Kings, do these practices continue under the Stewards? How does this apply to Denethor and his family?
Faramir himself said the Stewards were both wiser and more fortunate.
Denethor's view of death was that of a "long slow sleep of death embalmed" ('The Siege of Gondor'), and it seems very important to him to sleep like that with his family (consider Theoden's words to Merry before he died). I mentioned before that he was probably frustrated by being 'robbed' of Boromir in that sense.
Comments? Faramir himself connects this to his brother; are there any other connections with this family?
I feel with squire on the subject of blood. As someone who was born after 1945, the concept of race-inherent inequality fills me with horror.
But I can't subscribe to his belief that this inequality is necessarily untrue. It could very well be that the advance of genetics will reveal fundamental differences between people of different origins, and with less and less people accepting the principle of equality before God - this seems to be a very bad prospect for the future.
And that's not the only aspect of genetics which terrifies me. Modern psychology is torn between the poles of psychoanalysis and genetics - the ancient argument of inborn personal traits versus cultural influences has become a question of whther the parents are to blame or whether the siblings are contaminated, with a stigma worse than in the Middle Ages for being 'sceintific'.
And that's even if human cloning is impossible.
I am full of admiration for people who devote their lives to eradicating genetic dieases - but is this not another Faustian choice?
What do you think about those Gondorians who go to Lorien? Why is Faramir so ambivalent, and what does this tell us?
Had I known you would ask this, I wouldn't have raised the subject on the previous thread.
Is it worthwhile to have all this information in the chapter itself, or should more have been relegated to the Appendices?
No! Don't relegate this to the appendices!
As I've written before, this long discussion is critical for us to believe in Faramir, and in his choice. It would never have worked otherwise.
What windows have we seen on the West, in whatever sense, and what have we learned about the West?
I beg your pardon? First you state we have seen many windows on the West, and then ask us what they were - did you mean this to be a riddle?
Anyway, I think Faramir himself might be considered as a window on the West. And he is the last; it actually is a window on the sunset.
And thanks for leading us this week! The only thing I've missed was a discussion of Henneth Annun as a place - but you can't have it all.
"I would not have you go to death or to torment" - Faramir
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orcbane
Mithlond
Jul 28 2008, 7:52pm
Post #7 of 16
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I find this section of the book to be uncomfortably close to the racialism theories of many Europeans and Americans in the early 20th century. I know that Tolkien was placing these ideas within an imaginative mythological framework, but the similarities are disturbing. "Blood" = "character" is not easy stuff to read about now, nor is the idea that when aristocratic people "mix" with "lesser races" of humans it is a sign of their downfall and destruction. I have a somewhat different take, Squire. Tolkien loved his heritage as do most of us. He also thought the idea of racial superiority rubbish and stated so. He hated what the Nazi party did to it, which was to poison his heritage for the rest of his life & generations to come. New generations born after the war was over, are still called nazis at the drop of a hat.
The nobility he describes comes from your actions, not your parentage. The Edain came from the same people as all others, Easterling or Southron. They alone repudiated the darkness and all people of the light honored them for it. And when they turned again to darkness, they lost it. Tolkien told things like he saw them. Something partially lost in the prevalent theories in the early 21st century. Monarchy developed as simply the most reliable way of preventing bloodbaths as each new leader tried to wrest power. People in ancient and medieval times prayed to their deitities for an heir, not because they were better, but because they craved peace and stability. One of Rome's biggest problem's was their line failed. The recourse to 'adopting' a new heir never aquired the same legitimacy. The return of the King was not about the king.
Our different cultures are the most interesting thing in the world to me. My greatest heros are not the same race as me. As Tolkien's imaginary world is really a great way to see our own world more clearly, so too seeing your own culture through the eyes of anothers gives new insights. What is tragic to me is the loss of being able to discuss it, because so many abuse it and twist it to their dark purposes. Irony indeed, even as we take encouragement from these works, others adopt it as a battle cry for racial superiority.
An Ent juggling spikey things ?
(This post was edited by orcbane on Jul 28 2008, 7:57pm)
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squire
Gondolin
Jul 29 2008, 2:11am
Post #8 of 16
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Thanks for picking up on this. I know that Tolkien rejected aggressive assertions of racial superiority such as the Nazis propagated. I think he felt that every "race" of humans had a particular genius, each different and each honorable - as would be consistent with their all being God's children. But I do think he believed in "race" in a way that most people nowadays (or at least I) do not. We Americans, I think, tend to see race primarily as an expression of, first and foremost, skin color, but also odd minutiae such as physiognomic features.
But in Tolkien's time many Europeans believed in such things as the "Anglo-Saxon race", which was meaningfully different from the "Latin" or "Slavic" races (and don't forget the "Hibernian" (Irish) and "Nordic" races!), They're all "white" European people as far as the rest of the world is concerned, but the English ruling class constantly worried that their Anglo-Saxon "race" was losing its "vigor" and "strength", etc., because of any number of moral sins and missteps - like giving the lower classes the vote. The term in this sense was thus even more indistinct than when it was applied to larger groups we still unthinkingly use today such as "Caucasian" vs. "Negroid" vs. "Mongoloid".
I don't think Tolkien could transcend his own time and culture as much as we might like him to. For instance, he was firmly convinced that he had a mystic connection to the West Midlands of England, especially its language from the early medieval period, because his mother's father's family came from there. He tended to ignore the Germanic "Tolkien" side, and proclaimed proudly that he was in reality a "Suffield". He must have known this was nonsense (as every student of geneology knows how many unknown generations of ancestors we have when you start to go back more than a century) - but in his heart he wanted it to be so.
Likewise, I argued above, his (Faramir's) fictional discussion of the "races" of Middle-earth's "Men" (Edain) is very reminiscent of a common way of thinking about humanity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among educated Europeans. He can't help himself, even with the best of intentions. Even as he rejects prejudicial racism, he clearly believes in some sense that "race" exists in a biological or genomic sense. The fact that he is very liberally tolerant of the various "races" of Europe (he refers to the Jews as a race) shows this, rather than disproving it.
I think race exists as a cultural construct - very strongly exists and persists in the world today. We all know this, and we all conduct our daily lives as if it has some objective meaning, I as much as anyone! Your comment about your heroes being of "not the same race as me" is admirable, but as ever I think you are using race to signify a strong cultural identity using handy but only roughly coincident physical descriptors. Race as we (in America at least) tend to think of it - skin color, facial features, etc. - exists as indicative of predominant ancestry from local population groups in the human race in the pre-mobile era. But interbreeding, which is timeless but is more common in every modern generation, makes nonsense of that notion of race having any objective power of identity.
(I had a good laugh a month back when I read of someone calling Barack Obama "half African-American"! Even my young daughter, on thinking about it for a second, realized how absurd such a statement is. But it is indicative of the paradoxes we tie ourselves up in when we make more of "race" than it deserves.)
Tolkien's magic is that he makes true and right in his stories what we sometimes might nostalgically wish was true - the myth that "race" is a function of, and an indicator of, relative cultural virtue. In his mythology, virtue and cultural superiority are literally hereditable. Aragorn is the true King because he is the noblest Man on Earth; and he is the noblest Man on Earth because he is descended "father to father" from the original true and noble King of his "race".
I don't think Tolkien's world helps us see our world "more clearly". I think his world points out the dichotomy between what we know to be true, and how we act on that knowledge. We know (or should know) that every human child is equally capable of good and evil, or right and wrong, to varying degrees. We act as if that capability is inborn and inbred, rather than formed by teaching and (sometimes) reformable.
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Footeramas: The 3rd TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion; and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
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orcbane
Mithlond
Jul 29 2008, 3:53am
Post #9 of 16
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I really don't think Tolkien believed the propaganda that the nobility is noble. If you study early germanic culture, you know Tacitus, and he explains how nobility comes along. Early successful chieftains are given hereditary rights to be rulers, because thats what best prevents endless struggle for power. The newly established 'noble' line is further strengthened by the claim that the original noble is decended from the gods themselves. In a time without recorded history this is easily done. The religious leaders support if not invent the claim, for the same reasons of stability. If Tacitus knew, Tolkien knew, or had sufficent similiar sources at hand. Its a roll of the dice, whomever happens to be successful at the right moment is 'kinged'. With the benefits of wealth that come with it, they have all the advantages to keep this power. But everyone wants a natural heir. The slightest doubts is what causes civil war, like Tolkien described the Gondorians having when more then one claims the throne. The germanic culture is only one example. The same pattern appears more or less worldwide.
The things I find most interesting are more cultural, then based on physicalities. I loved wandering Europe. If you move quick you can eat breatfast in one culture and dinner in another. Different food, different decor and building, different language...the list goes on. But the list of differences is shrinking under the effects of mass communication. If this drift towards sameness reduces frictions, wars, etc, then it will be worth it. But I can't help mourning its loss. I do also count the physical differences a thing of wonder and fascination. For me the face is the window to the soul, and I like to see different faces, and imagine you can almost see written there the paths of ages that this group has taken, since the time when we all were one. Variety is the spice of life, they say, and I think it true.
There is no pure strain of anything, particularly in europe. Its more an endless dance of peoples, constantly changing partners, or like a rocky creek, with main flows, but many side currents swirling and even still pools.
Your story about Obama illustrates the endless redefinition going on, naming and renaming. On the one hand you try to get rid of incorrect or derogatory terms, and on the other, people, sometimes try to move back towards there original culture. It creates a bit of confusion. On the one side trying to make cultural differences invisable, and on the other people wanting to bring their differences back iinto prominance.
An Ent juggling spikey things ?
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FarFromHome
Doriath
Jul 29 2008, 10:39am
Post #10 of 16
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is possible in Middle-earth. Aragorn brings renewal to Arnor and Gondor. The Shire is renewed when the ruffians are defeated and the hobbits finally understand what they have and how much they love it. So it's not all stagnation, and doom and gloom.
We know that The Professor was profoundly depressed by the industrialization of the Midlands, by motorcars, and by other elements of "progress", but can he conceive of society that does have some positive forward momentum?
I think Tolkien might say that the world can be made fresh again, but you do that by rediscovering what you already have, reviving and renewing the old forgotten traditions, rather than by trying to break away from those traditions in search of shallow novelty.
...and the sails were drawn up, and the wind blew,
and slowly the ship slipped away down the long grey firth;
and the light of the glass of Galadriel that Frodo bore
glimmered and was lost.
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Darkstone
Elvenhome
Jul 29 2008, 5:19pm
Post #11 of 16
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"Look in any window, yeah...."
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I’m not sure I have a lot of questions as such for this post, but I can’t leave the chapter without talking a little about what we learn of Gondor in this chapter. Faramir gives an extended speech about his country, including some of its history and culture, and evidence for its decline.
Of course the main reason Gondor must fall into decline, even after the Elessar administration, is to explain why it’s not around now.
Part of the decline has to do with the standard Numenorean obsession with the avoidance of death: “Death was ever present, because the Numenoreans still, as they had in their old kingdom, and so lost it, hungered after endless life unchanging.” (An interesting statement: death was present because the people sought life.) Faramir describes the building of impressive tombs, a fascination with ancestry rather than the future, and apparently an interest in alchemy and astrology with the possible intent of prolonging lives.
Any thoughts on this?
Tolkien is anticipating the Egyptians here, with Numenor the inspiration for Egypt’s monolithic tombs and fascination with the afterlife. It would seem that in Tolkien’s version of pre-history Elessar’s Numinoreanism was father to Alexander’s Hellenism, spreading Numenorean culture south and east. One can imagine Elessar’s trusted companions founding great empires in the East and in the South, precursors of Seleucid Asia and Ptolemaic Egypt. Indeed one can assume these satraps were where Elessar’s unnamed daughters ruled as Queens, married to trusted Kings.
Although this is supposed to be describing the time of the Kings, do these practices continue under the Stewards?
One can readily imagine Denethor sitting in a high chamber, gradually convincing himself that a palantir was merely one more alchemical or astrological tool. And one can imagine that Denethor had an extensive tomb already prepared, yet with the imminent prospect of his corpse being carried around as a trophy at the head of Mordor’s army he chose immolation.
How does this apply to Denethor and his family?
"And this I remember of Boromir as a boy, when we together learned the tale of our sires and the history of our city, that always it displeased him that his father was not king. "How many hundreds of years needs it to make a steward a king, if the king returns not?" he asked. "Few years, maybe, in other places of less royalty," my father answered. "In Gondor ten thousand years would not suffice." Alas! Poor Boromir. Does that not tell you something of him?"
So actually Boromir seems the more forward looking of the trio, willing to break from the past. Both Denethor and Faramir seem stuck it in the past. Even Elessar with his rebuilding of Ithilien and preservation of the Shire seems backward looking. Ironically besides Boromir only The Dwarf seems to have an eye for the future, introducing new and advanced building techniques to Man. He’s the only Prometheus in a world of petrification.
After outlining the history of the alliance between Gondor and Rohan, Faramir summarizes a division of Men into three groups: High (Numenoreans), Middle (including the Rohirrim, likely descendants of the Edain who did not go to Numenor; also called Men of the Twilight), and the Wild.
It’s interesting to remember the origins of the linguistic terms for High German and Low German. The terms “high” and “low” do not refer to quality, but to geographic location. High German was spoken in the highlands of central and southern Germany, whereas Low German was spoken in the lowlands of the coasts and plains of northern Europe. Middle German is the language spoken in, well, the middle. Similarly the High Men live in high places like Minas Tirith whereas the Middle Men live in the fertile midlands of the Calenardhon. (Also, “twilight” can mean either sunset or sunrise, so the Rohirrim could be the future.) Of course one might readily suspect that the proud Gondorians assumed that “High Men” referred to superiority. More a matter of attitude than altitude.
Faramir describes how the Rohirrim have been elevated by their contact with Gondor, but at the same time, the Gondorians have fallen to the level of Middle.
Pure jingoism, as provincially minded as Sam. Like King Elessar offers to take Eomer’s son Elfwine and educate him in the ways of Numenor so that he can return to Rohan a better ruler. King Eomer responds with an offer to take Prince Eldarion and educate him in the ways of Eorl and Helm Hammerhand so he can return to Gondor a better ruler.
Anyway, where do the princes of Dol Amroth fit in to this?
The latter is largely due to the value placed on skills in warfare: “we esteem a warrior, nonetheless, above men of other crafts.” In short, “we are a failing people, a springless autumn.”
Comments?
The rise of a warrior culture in an already established culture usually alarms those of the status quo. Yet it can also weed out decadence and set the stage for a cultural awakening. Take for example the Kamakura period in Japan, where rude and crude bandits began to evolve into the culturally refined samurai.
Faramir himself connects this to his brother; are there any other connections with this family?
It’s interesting to compare the Denethor-Boromir-Faramir triangle with the Ecthelion-Thorongil-Denethor triangle. Both Faramir and Denethor were scholar-soldiers who were eclipsed in the esteem of their fathers by thickheaded warrior-captains.
Another possible symptom of their decline is their estrangement from the Elves: “And we of Gondor grow like other Men, like the men of Rohan; for even they…shun the Elves and speak of the Golden Wood with dread. Yet there are among us still some who have dealings with the Elves when they may, and ever and anon one will go in secret to Lorien, seldom to return. Not I. For I deem it perilous now for mortal man willfully to seek out the Elder People. Yet I envy you that have spoken with the White Lady.”
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
-WB Yeats, The Stolen Child
What do you think about those Gondorians who go to Lorien?
Lotus eaters, Rip Van Winkles.
Why is Faramir so ambivalent, and what does this tell us?
He wants to visit the land of ancient wisdom. But he doesn’t know if he’d have the strength to leave and return to his land and duty.
Is it worthwhile to have all this information in the chapter itself, or should more have been relegated to the Appendices?
Who ever reads the appendices the first time through?
But there’s probably more to it—in this chapter, we have seen many windows on the West, and “West” can mean many places and things.
“Gone West” is a WWI euphemism for death.
What windows have we seen on the West, in whatever sense, and what have we learned about the West?
The Elves look West, in a sort of infinite regression to Lorien, to Rivendell, to the Grey Havens, to Tol Eressëa, to Valinor. Adventuresome hobbits seem to look East, to Rivendell and the Misty Mountains. Dwarves look North to South and vice versa, to Erebor or Moria. The Dunedain also look North to South, from Arnor to Gondor.
It’s interesting that “the Window of the Eye in Sauron’s shadow-mantled fortress” faces West. And of course the captured palantír of Minas Ithil is also Sauron’s window on the West
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The audacious proposal stirred his heart. And the stirring became a song, and it mingled with the songs of Gil-galad and Celebrian, and with those of Feanor and Fingon. The song-weaving created a larger song, and then another, until suddenly it was as if a long forgotten memory woke and for one breathtaking moment the Music of the Ainur revealed itself in all glory. He opened his lips to sing and share this song. Then he realized that the others would not understand. Not even Mithrandir given his current state of mind. So he smiled and simply said "A diversion.”
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Elizabeth
Gondolin
Jul 30 2008, 8:16am
Post #12 of 16
(1493 views)
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We've missed you!
Sunset, July 3, 2008
Elizabeth is the TORnsib formerly known as 'erather'
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Darkstone
Elvenhome
Jul 31 2008, 3:30pm
Post #13 of 16
(1444 views)
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I've missed you guys. I'm trying to catch up.
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The audacious proposal stirred his heart. And the stirring became a song, and it mingled with the songs of Gil-galad and Celebrian, and with those of Feanor and Fingon. The song-weaving created a larger song, and then another, until suddenly it was as if a long forgotten memory woke and for one breathtaking moment the Music of the Ainur revealed itself in all glory. He opened his lips to sing and share this song. Then he realized that the others would not understand. Not even Mithrandir given his current state of mind. So he smiled and simply said "A diversion.”
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Aug 2 2008, 1:52am
Post #14 of 16
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to the Appendices!
Tolkien originally had Faramir talk far longer about the differences between types of Men; but as he wrote to Christopher, "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".
And it was.
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"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Aug 2 2008, 2:06am
Post #15 of 16
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Other windows on the West: I can think of other literal ones, such as the West-facing windows of Bag End, the village of Bree with houses "nestling on the hillside with windows looking west", the West Gate of Moria, and the palantír at the Tower Hills, which, if I recall correctly, looked only West.
Figuratively, though, anything that referenced Númenor or Elvenhome could be said to be a "window" on the West. The Elfstone, the entire land of Lórien (and later Sam's mallorn), and the White Tree are examples that come readily to mind.
Thank you, Menelwyn, for leading this!
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"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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N.E. Brigand
Gondolin
Mar 22 2009, 5:13am
Post #16 of 16
(1392 views)
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Nice questions and excellent responses.
Minor observation: Faramir is thrice described as “grave” in this chapter.
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