Our Sponsor Sideshow Send us News
Lord of the Rings Tolkien
Search Tolkien
Lord of The RingsTheOneRing.net - Forged By And For Fans Of JRR Tolkien
Lord of The Rings Serving Middle-Earth Since The First Age

Lord of the Rings Movie News - J.R.R. Tolkien

  Main Index   Search Posts   Who's Online   Log in
The One Ring Forums: Tolkien Topics: Reading Room:
** LotR Chapter Discussion, Book II: Lothlorien, part 2 **

Brethil
Half-elven


May 22 2015, 2:28am

Post #1 of 21 (8690 views)
Shortcut
** LotR Chapter Discussion, Book II: Lothlorien, part 2 ** Can't Post

Hullo all!

In this second post I wanted to discuss some powerful and moving images from the chapter. Its a chapter that makes me stop and savor the writing.


Beside the standing stone Gimli halted and looked up. It was cracked and weather-worn, and the faint runes upon its side could not be read.


Another symbolism here of Gimli and Legolas and their respective peoples, Dwarves and Elves, with both their kingdoms fading: the broken stone of Durin and the golden leaves - evocative here of the Two Trees but in our world of 'fall' and fading life?




The image of Aragorn, facing Caradharas, holding up his sword in goodbye to Gandalf. He looked towards the mountains and held up his sword. "Farewell Gandalf!" he cried. "Did I not say to you: if you pass the doors of Moria, beware? Alas that I spoke true! What hope have we now without you?"


A line I (oddly) actually like better in Bakshi's LOTR, slightly changed from the text: 'We must do without hope. There is always vengeance.' But the feel is the same in the book; and I enjoy the iconic image of Aragorn, blade in hand, bidding Gandalf goodbye. And that use again, as JRRT does, of 'hope'. This time spoken by the would-be Elessar, the hope himself. Topical use of the word, or the almost subliminal reminder of Aragorn's lineage, and what he stands to gain or lose?




At the head of the glen a torrent flowed like white lace over and endless ladder of short falls, and a mist of foam hung in the air about the mountains' feet.
Soon afterwards they came upon another steam that ran down from the west, and joined its bubbling water with the hurrying Silverlode.
The he looked eastward and saw all the land of Lorien running down to the pale gleam of the Anduin, the Great River. He lifted his eyes across the river and all the light went out, and he was back again in the world he knew.


Descriptions of water...its hard to say much analytical - I love the descriptions, and can read them over and over. Are these some of your favorites in Tolkien - particularly how he characterizes and animates the waters? A call back to the Silmarillion and Beleriand?

The use of the Anduin as the distant barrier: we don't tend to think of Anduin as 'dark' , yet in comparison to Lorien it falls into shadow. So an oblique characterization, or a subtle lead-in to The Great River, where the Fellowship will have to navigate this dividing line of good and evil that Frodo sees?




It was rough and broken, fading to a winding track between heather and whin that thrust amid the cracking stones. But it could still be seen that once long ago a great paved way had wound upwards from the the lowlands of the Dwarf-kingdom. In places there were ruined works of stone beside the path, and mounds of green topped with slender birches, or fir-trees sighing in the wind.
About it stood fir-trees, short and bent, and its sides were steep and clothed with harts-tongue and shrubs of whortle-berry.
While Gimli and the two younger hobbits kindles a fire of brush and fir-wood...
'It is clad in a forest of dark fir, where the trees strive against one another and their branches rot and wither.'


Lots of fir mentioned here...BlackFox had cited a passage from The Muster of Rohan a while back, and it also included a description of a fir-wood: Darkness had already crept beneath the murmuring fir-woods that clothed the steep mountain-sides. I wonder if, like Squire had mentioned a while back, there is a significance in the use of this particular tree (needles versus leaves? Heavy boughs? Twisted look? Christian holiday symbolism?) or if the auditory quality of the word itself was something JRRT used in crafting a certain feel?

I love too that many of these descriptions are similar to fallen Ithilien. I wonder if that is purposeful or habitual authorial voice...?


Any other images that strike you in this chapter - something that stays with you, or strikes you anew reading it this time?









(This post was edited by Brethil on May 22 2015, 2:31am)


oliphaunt
Lorien


May 22 2015, 1:10pm

Post #2 of 21 (8594 views)
Shortcut
Good morning! [In reply to] Can't Post

Hullo all!
Good morning!

Another symbolism here of Gimli and Legolas and their respective peoples, Dwarves and Elves, with both their kingdoms fading: the broken stone of Durin and the golden leaves - evocative here of the Two Trees but in our world of 'fall' and fading life?

Yes, and as it turns out they never go back to the old places of their people. They do continue on, but end up helping out in the world of Men.

Topical use of the word, or the almost subliminal reminder of Aragorn's lineage, and what he stands to gain or lose?

Yes, Aragorn has got to accept his role pretty soon. His humility is admirable, but he’s dealing with the temptation to let it turn into denial.

I love the descriptions, and can read them over and over. Are these some of your favorites in Tolkien - particularly how he characterizes and animates the waters?

Yes, whenever I get to this passage I read it over multiple times. The mountains have feet, and the water runs and hurries. The water sings too - melodies of Ulmo.
So an oblique characterization, or a subtle lead-in to The Great River, where the Fellowship will have to navigate this dividing line of good and evil that Frodo sees?


Only the evil has crossed the river…

Lots of fir mentioned here...
I think he’s working from his memories of hiking the Alps. I’m familiar with the sight of short and bent trees appearing near the alpine zone in the mountains, but I thought some of them were pine and spruce as well as fir. Maybe the names get interchanged a lot, and pines are called fir and visa versa. Maybe ‘fir’ just sounded better. Pines are softer and rounder than fir, and spruce somewhere between.

Any other images that strike you in this chapter - something that stays with you, or strikes you anew reading it this time?
Yes, I always wonder about the instruction not to drink of water that is “icy cold”. After a couple of days of lukewarm, strictly rationed water in Moria, icy-cold spring water sounds great to me!


Brethil
Half-elven


May 22 2015, 6:51pm

Post #3 of 21 (8570 views)
Shortcut
Goos morning back, Oliphaunt! (its afternoon, but who can resist saying 'good morning!?') [In reply to] Can't Post


In Reply To
Hullo all!
Good morning!

Another symbolism here of Gimli and Legolas and their respective peoples, Dwarves and Elves, with both their kingdoms fading: the broken stone of Durin and the golden leaves - evocative here of the Two Trees but in our world of 'fall' and fading life?

Yes, and as it turns out they never go back to the old places of their people. They do continue on, but end up helping out in the world of Men.

Topical use of the word, or the almost subliminal reminder of Aragorn's lineage, and what he stands to gain or lose?

Yes, Aragorn has got to accept his role pretty soon. His humility is admirable, but he’s dealing with the temptation to let it turn into denial.

I love the descriptions, and can read them over and over. Are these some of your favorites in Tolkien - particularly how he characterizes and animates the waters?

Yes, whenever I get to this passage I read it over multiple times. The mountains have feet, and the water runs and hurries. The water sings too - melodies of Ulmo.
So an oblique characterization, or a subtle lead-in to The Great River, where the Fellowship will have to navigate this dividing line of good and evil that Frodo sees?


Only the evil has crossed the river…

Lots of fir mentioned here...
I think he’s working from his memories of hiking the Alps. I’m familiar with the sight of short and bent trees appearing near the alpine zone in the mountains, but I thought some of them were pine and spruce as well as fir. Maybe the names get interchanged a lot, and pines are called fir and visa versa. Maybe ‘fir’ just sounded better. Pines are softer and rounder than fir, and spruce somewhere between.

Any other images that strike you in this chapter - something that stays with you, or strikes you anew reading it this time?
Yes, I always wonder about the instruction not to drink of water that is “icy cold”. After a couple of days of lukewarm, strictly rationed water in Moria, icy-cold spring water sounds great to me!





Agree with all your points - and resounding YES on the last one! SlyThat was my thought exactly. Icy cold might just be the thing to clear everyone's head and swap out from canteen water!


Also I see a lot of JRRT's alpine hiking in descriptions like these as well. I wonder of some of his sensations and amazingly accessible descriptions of running water are from that period as well?









(This post was edited by Brethil on May 22 2015, 6:52pm)


oliphaunt
Lorien


May 23 2015, 1:57pm

Post #4 of 21 (8549 views)
Shortcut
Endless stair [In reply to] Can't Post

I wonder of some of his sensations and amazingly accessible descriptions of running water are from that period as well?

I'll have to go look for pictures of waterfalls in the Alps. England is wet enough to have waterfalls, but not high enough to have an "endless stair"!


noWizardme
Half-elven


May 24 2015, 9:51am

Post #5 of 21 (8540 views)
Shortcut
Images - faerieland within faerieland - long post with many quotes (making myself a tome again, I'm afraid!) [In reply to] Can't Post

I think Lorien is a kind of faerieland within faerieland. Middle-earth is already a kind of faeieland (it has hobbits, wizards, magic, balrogs...) but in this chapter I think we enter into a faerieland within faerieland, where someone has been locally messing with reality. By the end of Frodo's visit, we have a good idea who that is and how she's doing it. But at the current point in the story we can only collect data - impressions very cleverly constructed by Tolkien that "normal" (for Middle-earth) reality is out of whack.

I think it might be interesting to compare this with stories where the protagonists are transported very obviously into fairyland. Tolken obviously knew many of these stories - he does an analysis during his essay "On Fairy Stories". But two handy well-known modern examples are a Alice, who goes down a rabbit- hole into Wonderland, or some more children who travel to Narnia by passing through a magic wardrobe. In each of those cases (and in many others), there is a sudden reveal that reality has altered. Alice does a slow-motion fall, surrounded by all kinds of weirdness: a wardrobe obviously cannot really have no back but instead lead out into a snowy landscape. I think some of the familiar rules are in play in Lorien - for example, time and reality are different: you cannot necessarily get out, but if you do, you might return with gifts.

Tolkien gets us into this faerieland within faerieland subtly, I think. As the Company arrive, we are softened up by Boromir's concerns about the magical land they are to visit.Crossing the Nimrodel, Frodo feels "that the stain of travel and all weariness was washed from his limbs" (you could possibly see this as one of a pair of immersions, with the Watcher's Lake outside Moria, where Frodo shudders at disgust at the touch of the unclean water). Then we're in a strange land - new trees, people who live in them - but this is different botany and anthropology, not altered reality.

Then, the next morning (January 16):


Quote
Day came pale from the East. As the light grew it filtered through the yellow leaves of the mallorn, and it seemed to the hobbits that the early sun of a cool summer’s morning was shining. Pale-blue sky peeped among the moving branches. Looking through an opening on the south said of the flet Frodo saw all the valley of the Silverlode lying like a sea of fallow gold tossing gently in the breeze.

(my italics)


What happens next is sneaky. The company are blindfolded. This akes sense within the story, and leads to a lesson in multi-race solidarity, as we have discussed. It also has a big effect on how faerieland within faerieland is revealed. First, Frodo thinks his other senses are heightened by his loss of sight:


Quote
Being deprived of sight, Frodo found his hearing and other senses sharpened. He could smell the trees and the trodden grass. He could hear many different notes in the rustle of the leaves overhead, the river murmuring away on his right, and the thin clear voices of birds in the sky. He felt the sun upon his face and hands when they passed through an open glade.


But I think more than this has happened. When Frodo's eyes are unbound, 'ta-dah': we've gone down the rabbit-hole or through the wardrobe.



Quote
The others cast themselves down upon the fragrant grass, but Frodo stood awhile still lost in wonder. It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world. A light was upon it for which his language had no name. All that he saw was shapely, but the shapes seemed at once clear cut, as if they had been first conceived and drawn at the uncovering of his eyes, and ancient as if they had endured for ever. He saw no colour but those he knew, gold and white and blue and green, but they were fresh and poignant, as if he had at that moment first perceived them and made for them names new and wonderful. In winter here no heart could mourn for summer or for spring. No blemish or sickness or deformity could be seen in anything that grew upon the earth. On the land of Lórien, there was no stain


Sam, of course is a keen observer and interpreter:


Quote
"It's sunlight and bright day, right enough," [Sam] said. "I thought that Elves were all for moon and stars: but this is more elvish than anything I ever heard tell of. I feel as if I was inside a song, if you take my meaning.". . .


Some other odd things are going on...


Quote
They entered the circle of white trees. As they did so the South Wind blew upon Cerin Amroth and sighed among the branches. Frodo stood still, hearing far off great seas upon beaches that had long ago been washed away, and sea-birds crying whose race had perished from the earth.


This, of course would not get by scientific peer review! Empirically Frodo (who has not seen the sea) cannot interpret this observation in this way. It's a mystical moment of insight, presumably.

And the mystical insight continues through touch:


Quote
...he laid his hand upon the tree beside the ladder; never before had he been so suddenly and so keenly aware of the feel and texture of a tree's skin and of the life within it. He felt a delight in wood and the touch of it, neither as forester nor as carpenter; it was the delight of the living tree itself.


I think the prose might become tiresome if it went on too long like this. I love the way Tolkien gives us Frodo's impressions from a panorama, and then brings us back to 'reality', as Frodo looks towards Mirkwood and Dol Gildur:


Quote
Frodo looked and saw, still at some distance, a hill of many mighty trees, or a city of green towers: which it was he could not tell. Out of it, it seemed to him that the power and light came that held all the land in sway. He longed suddenly to fly like a bird to rest in the green city. Then he looked eastward and saw all the land of Lórien running down to the pale gleam of Anduin, the Great River. He lifted his eyes across the river and all the light went out, and he was back again in the world he knew. Beyond the river the land appeared flat and empty, formless and vague, until far away it rose again like a wall, dark and drear. The sun that lay on Lothlórien had no power to enlighten the shadow of that distant height.
‘There lies the fastness of Southern Mirkwood,’ said Haldir. ‘It is clad in a forest of dark fir, where the trees strive one against another and their branches rot and wither. In the midst upon a stony height stands Dol Guldur, where long the hidden Enemy had his dwelling. We fear that now it is inhabited again, and with power sevenfold. A black cloud lies often over it of late. In this high place you may see the two powers that are opposed one to another; and ever they strive now in thought, but whereas the light perceives the very heart of the darkness, its own secret has not been discovered. Not yet.’


That having to look at the source of trouble reminds me of Frodo on Amon Hen (as does Haldir's " In this high place you may see the two powers that are opposed one to another; and ever they strive now in thought,")

It also, of course gives Frodo and us a number of clues as to what is odd about this place (though we don't see it all fully answered for us until The Great River, where Sam can't work out how long they were in Lorien and this leads to a discussion on the nature of Time (which it's not Time to discuss right now, I expect Smile )

~~~~~~

"nowimë I am in the West, Furincurunir to the Dwarves (or at least, to their best friend) and by other names in other lands. Mostly they just say 'Oh no it's him - look busy!' "
Or "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"

My avatar image s looking a bit blue, following the rumbling of my 2 "secrets" Wink : http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=855358#855358

This year LOTR turns 60. The following image is my LOTR 60th anniversary party footer! You can get yours here: http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=762154#762154


squire
Half-elven


May 25 2015, 1:44am

Post #6 of 21 (8512 views)
Shortcut
Your questions all relate to "powerful and moving images from the chapter" - an excellent theme [In reply to] Can't Post

Beside the standing stone Gimli halted and looked up. ...
A. Evocative here of the Two Trees but in our world of 'fall' and fading life?
I see the comparison of the Dwarves and Elves; I don’t see any connection with the Two Trees. The theme of ‘fall’ and ‘fading’, as you put it, is strong here for both Dwarves and Elves, in the worn stone and the golden leaves of the wood. The season itself is winter, symbolizing the end of life. But even before we get to the end of the book, with its elegiac sense of renewal and rebirth mixed with a passing of the older generation in favor of the new, here in this passage we learn that both Dwarves and Elves have their own approaches to the decline symbolized by the Third Age. For the Dwarves, as Gimli, explains, the stars in the pool symbolize the promise of the return of their King, Durin arisen once more in day to come; for the Elves, as Legolas explains, the golden leaves of the Wood in fall and winter, still gracing the trees rather than falling and exposing the barren branches, are regarded as a miraculous sign of beauty and promise of renewal even in the fading seasons.

The image of Aragorn, facing Caradharas, holding up his sword in goodbye to Gandalf. ... "Alas that I spoke true! What hope have we now without you?"
B. Topical use of the word [hope], or the almost subliminal reminder of Aragorn's lineage, and what he stands to gain or lose?
Yes, a nice catch that Aragorn seems here to disclaim his own ability (as a man named “Hope”) to replace the Hope that Gandalf represented to the Fellowship and the West. But it is dangerous to put too much weight into common words like ‘hope’; as we will see, other characters will refer to their hope or lack of it even when Aragorn is not present. His nickname contributes to the theme of the story, rather than controlling it.

1. At the head of the glen a torrent flowed like white lace ... 2. they came upon another steam that ran down from the west, and joined its bubbling water ... 3. He lifted his eyes across the river and all the light went out, and he was back again in the world he knew.
C. Are these some of your favorites in Tolkien - particularly how he characterizes and animates the waters?
Of the three passages you bring up, only the description of the Dimrill Stair appeals to me as writing about water effects. Tastes vary, and we all have our various favorite examples of the Prof’s style. He does do personification of nature very well.

D. A call back to the Silmarillion and Beleriand?
No more than a host of other usages and styles that, when the Sil was finally published, attentive readers could discern. I don’t think LotR really depends on the text of the Sil, although of course Tolkien did.

E. So an oblique characterization, or a subtle lead-in to The Great River, where the Fellowship will have to navigate this dividing line of good and evil that Frodo sees?
Definitely this vision presages what is to come. But Anduin doesn’t fall into shadow. It’s the dividing line between light and shadow.

1. In places there were ... fir-trees sighing in the wind. ... 2. About it stood fir-trees, short and bent, ... 3. While Gimli and the two younger hobbits kindled a fire of brush and fir-wood... 4. 'It is clad in a forest of dark fir, where the trees strive against one another and their branches rot and wither.' .....5. BlackFox had cited a passage from The Muster of Rohan: Darkness had already crept beneath the murmuring fir-woods that clothed the steep mountain-sides.... I wonder if, like Squire had mentioned a while back, there is a significance in the use [of the fir tree]
F. Needles versus leaves?
That’s possibly part of it.

G. Heavy boughs?
I guess you mean visually heavy; again, possibly a component.

H. Twisted look?
We might take this from the phrase ‘short and bent’ in the second quote. But not all firs in Tolkien’s imagery are presented this way.

I. Christian holiday symbolism?
Very unlikely, to me. The Evergreen is the Christmas Tree because it is, apparently, alive and green in the grey and white waste of late December, thus symbolizing the birth of the Savior. If nothing else, this is a positive association and we are trying to pin down whether a negative association is Tolkien’s default for firs and their kin.

J. Or if the auditory quality of the word itself was something JRRT used in crafting a certain feel?
I don’t think that carries a lot of weight. Fir and birch have a very similar sound, after all.

I’m flattered that you cited my comment in starting this line of questioning. The best I can say is that I suspect Tolkien associates firs with more evil environments because the evergreens thrive in more hostile physical environments: colder and/or higher lands and landscapes. Tolkien favors the North over the South, but he also avoids taking his heroic lands too far North: when it gets cold and dark in the far northern latitudes, we are in the lands dominated by Morgoth in the First Age and by memories of his taint of those lands in the Third Age. Likewise the higher elevations in his verbal cartographies are often populated by firs, with the same associations of cold, uninhabitable places. Here, as we leave the heights of Moria, we see evergreens on the road down the mountain valley; the imagery is not particularly hostile but merely, frankly, realistic – which is one of Tolkien’s strengths: he never bends a landscape description beyond reality to achieve a desired effect (well, almost never!).

Now I think the most telling quote here is the last one, wherein the highlands of Dol Guldur actually feature trees that have been personified into evil: “a forest of dark fir, where the trees strive against one another and their branches rot and wither.” And it’s true that in tundra or alpine settings, the firs and like trees are in intense competition for water, light, and shelter from the wind. The resulting bramble of shriveled, half-dead growth is unpleasant and disfigured to those who like their trees in the park-like settings of, say, England’s carefully-tended second-growth woods. But the real agent is Morgul, not the fir trees’ ecological struggle: we remember that, in The Hobbit’s Mirkwood, at the time independent of any outside Dark Lord and simply inherently evil, the deciduous trees are equally contorted and unpleasant:
The entrance to the path was like a sort of arch leading into a gloomy tunnel made by two great trees that leant together, too old and strangled with ivy and hung with lichen to bear more than a few blackened leaves. The path itself was narrow and wound in and out among the trunks… As their eyes became used to the dimness they could see a little way to either side in a sort of darkened green glimmer. Occasionally a slender beam of sun that had … luck in not being caught in the tangled boughs and matted twigs beneath. Hobbit, VIII

So fir trees are very often, I think, characteristic of unpleasant and potentially evil landscapes in Tolkien, but not unrealistically or allegorically so.

I love too that many of these descriptions are similar to fallen Ithilien.
K. I wonder if that is purposeful or habitual authorial voice...?
There are echoes here of his treatment of the Ithilien landscape, but there are echoes of many other highland treatments as well. “Heather and whin” in particular attract me, although in fact he doesn’t repeat the charming “whin” anywhere else in the books that he himself saw published (it shows up once more in Unfinished Tales!). But Ithilien’s distinguishing feature is its Mediterranean biome which comes as a (pleasant) shock to the hobbits, the reader, and of course, originally to Tolkien himself, who evidently intended it to be more grim and dark under the Morgul-shadow.

L. Any other images that strike you in this chapter - something that stays with you, or strikes you anew reading it this time?
A while ago I posed the question of how it could be that the falls of Nimrodel could sound like song (see the 9th question, letter I. with pictures of streams, in the linked discussion along with accompanying sound clips of three types of running water). It seems like Tolkien let poetic license get away with murder here.

Just to be snarky, I’ve always loved the accomplished Tolkien critic Brian Rosebury’s verdict on this same question, from a different angle than mine:
Tolkien, so skilled at evoking sensory experience, sometimes founders in attempting to praise the indescribable: of the stream Nimrodel in Lothlorien, he writes that ‘it seemed to [Frodo] that he would never again hear a running water so beautiful, for ever blending its innumerable notes in an endless changeful music.’ – which has a fair claim to be the most tired sentence in the whole work. – Rosebury. (2003). Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon. 78.




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 & 4th TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion and NOW the 1st BotR Discussion too! and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary


= Forum has no new posts. Forum needs no new posts.


SirDennisC
Half-elven


May 25 2015, 5:11am

Post #7 of 21 (8508 views)
Shortcut
Firs perhaps Yews [In reply to] Can't Post

Yew trees are conifers, often twisted and ancient, striving against each other. Their boughs and berries are poisonous. Yews symbolize sadness, mourning, and death. Associated as much with Pagan religions as with Christianity; apparently ancient yews and yew groves were used for Pagan (Celtic/Norse) gatherings, and sometimes, later, were co-opted by Christians for the same purpose. English church yards and cemetaries often contain yews.

And of course branches were harvested of yews to make staves for bows. What were elven bows made from?

Eta: yews make a good hedge as well. Perhaps the firs were a hedge against intruders? On the other hand, perhaps the firs themselves were encroaching, slowly choking The Golden Wood?

I like what you've done with this section Breth.



(This post was edited by SirDennisC on May 25 2015, 5:24am)


CuriousG
Half-elven


May 25 2015, 11:34pm

Post #8 of 21 (8463 views)
Shortcut
This is such a terrific and elaborate observation, Wiz [In reply to] Can't Post

I wish I had more time to comment on it, but just posted my comments on the next chapter. I hope I can circle back to it.

I especially liked how you decoded the blindfolding. In all my reads, I took that as a symptom of the racial distrust (to the point of absurdity) in M-earth that was handily dividing Sauron's opponents for him, but you pointed out that it's really like a passage through a tunnel to say, "Ta da! Now you have crossed the magic threshold after traveling through Mysteryland, and here is the Fairy Realm set apart from the world you knew." So true!!! I wish I had spotted that years ago.


CuriousG
Half-elven


May 26 2015, 9:02pm

Post #9 of 21 (8429 views)
Shortcut
Speaking of Dol Guldur [In reply to] Can't Post

Why in the world would Sauron, while hiding out, set up a secret fortress in Dol Guldur right across from arch-enemy Galadriel? It would make sense as a forward assault base to keep her in check, but as a refuge, shouldn't he have picked some place not in line of sight and far away from Elves?


Otaku-sempai
Immortal


May 26 2015, 11:51pm

Post #10 of 21 (8422 views)
Shortcut
Dol Guldur [In reply to] Can't Post

This seems more like a comment for the Hobbit movie forum, but don't knock success. It would have worked if not for those meddling Wizards!

It worked better in Tolkien's canon, where Sauron remained undiscovered for eighteen hundred years (minus a four hundred year interruption).

"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." - Phantom F. Harlock


CuriousG
Half-elven


May 27 2015, 12:40am

Post #11 of 21 (8418 views)
Shortcut
I was speaking of the book canon, actually. [In reply to] Can't Post


Quote
c. 1100 The Wise (the Istari and the chief Eldar) discover that an evil power has made a stronghold at Dol Guldur. It is thought to be one of the Nazgûl.


Tolkien, J.R.R. (2012-02-15). The Lord of the Rings: One Volume (p. 1085). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.


Quote
2060 The power of Dol Guldur grows. The Wise fear that it may be Sauron taking shape again.
2063 Gandalf goes to Dol Guldur. Sauron retreats and hides in the East. The Watchful Peace begins. The Nazgûl remain quiet in Minas Morgul.


Tolkien, J.R.R. (2012-02-15). The Lord of the Rings: One Volume (p. 1087). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

So evil moves in within view of Lorien, and the Wise just let it sit there for about 1,000 years. That's another story. Why did Sauron move in there and not some forsaken place like Mt Gundabad or wherever? He was trying to stay quiet and rebuild his power in secret, but he was doing it in plain sight. That's what doesn't make sense. Unless he understood the Wise enough to know they'd give him a free pass for 1,000 years.


Otaku-sempai
Immortal


May 27 2015, 5:15am

Post #12 of 21 (8407 views)
Shortcut
Well... [In reply to] Can't Post

The fact is that Sauron was NOT operating out in the open. Dol Guldur was hidden within the confines of Mirkwood Forest, not constructed on the banks of the Anduin River. Sauron was probably in greater risk of discovery from Thranduil's folk than from the Galadrim.

Also, Dol Guldur's proximity to Lorien made it a good place from which to plan a strike at Galadriel and Celeborn. The Forest could conceal the mustering of a vast host.

"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." - Phantom F. Harlock


Brethil
Half-elven


May 29 2015, 2:02am

Post #13 of 21 (8341 views)
Shortcut
All in good tome! [In reply to] Can't Post


In Reply To
I think Lorien is a kind of faerieland within faerieland. Middle-earth is already a kind of faeieland (it has hobbits, wizards, magic, balrogs...) but in this chapter I think we enter into a faerieland within faerieland, where someone has been locally messing with reality. By the end of Frodo's visit, we have a good idea who that is and how she's doing it. But at the current point in the story we can only collect data - impressions very cleverly constructed by Tolkien that "normal" (for Middle-earth) reality is out of whack.

Lovely, just lovely. Cool



What happens next is sneaky. The company are blindfolded. This akes sense within the story, and leads to a lesson in multi-race solidarity, as we have discussed. It also has a big effect on how faerieland within faerieland is revealed. First, Frodo thinks his other senses are heightened by his loss of sight:


Quote
Being deprived of sight, Frodo found his hearing and other senses sharpened. He could smell the trees and the trodden grass. He could hear many different notes in the rustle of the leaves overhead, the river murmuring away on his right, and the thin clear voices of birds in the sky. He felt the sun upon his face and hands when they passed through an open glade.


But I think more than this has happened. When Frodo's eyes are unbound, 'ta-dah': we've gone down the rabbit-hole or through the wardrobe.



Yes. The luminal point: the point of vanishing, as it were, in the painting and the change from Middle-earth to something in Middle-earth but that isn't. A fascinating additional rabbit-hole is that Nenya does it...Nenya who was made by Celebrimor who, in the end and in I believe most of the Elfstone revisions, loved Galadriel. Talk about a perfect, (ring-like?) circle of events.




It also, of course gives Frodo and us a number of clues as to what is odd about this place (though we don't see it all fully answered for us until The Great River, where Sam can't work out how long they were in Lorien and this leads to a discussion on the nature of Time (which it's not Time to discuss right now, I expect Smile )

Terazed has brilliantly laid out the lineage of Time-thought as it relates to Tolkien and perhaps the Romantic influence. The idea that Lorien is a concept Outside of Time - not 100%, as the Divine is, but more so on the continuum than we are. But there is a price to be had - the 'embalming' of Middle-earth is not a fuzzy sounding way to keep things as you want them. A bit of a trespass on the prerogative of the Creator? Not a sin per se, but something that will cause pain when it is lost: a price to be paid.





(BTW: apologies for tardiness in reply! Heavy planting tasks have left my back quite incapable of sitting and typing this last week.)










(This post was edited by Brethil on May 29 2015, 2:03am)


Brethil
Half-elven


May 29 2015, 2:06am

Post #14 of 21 (8336 views)
Shortcut
Aragorn's lament [In reply to] Can't Post


In Reply To
The image of Aragorn, facing Caradharas, holding up his sword in goodbye to Gandalf. ... "Alas that I spoke true! What hope have we now without you?"
B. Topical use of the word [hope], or the almost subliminal reminder of Aragorn's lineage, and what he stands to gain or lose?


Yes, a nice catch that Aragorn seems here to disclaim his own ability (as a man named “Hope”) to replace the Hope that Gandalf represented to the Fellowship and the West. (Squire)



I like this point very much, Squire.Cool You put into words what I was feeling here.









(This post was edited by Brethil on May 29 2015, 2:07am)


Brethil
Half-elven


May 29 2015, 2:09am

Post #15 of 21 (8334 views)
Shortcut
Fabulous point. Well taken. [In reply to] Can't Post


In Reply To

Eta: yews make a good hedge as well. Perhaps the firs were a hedge against intruders? On the other hand, perhaps the firs themselves were encroaching, slowly choking The Golden Wood?


Love this as a metaphor for the encroaching changes to Lorien.




I like what you've done with this section Breth.


Thanks, m'dear. Heart Good to see you here.










Darkstone
Immortal


Jun 1 2015, 3:18pm

Post #16 of 21 (8283 views)
Shortcut
"...so make the beat keep time with little steps." [In reply to] Can't Post

Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the beat keep time with little steps.
-Hans Christian Andersen's instructions for his funeral music.


In this second post I wanted to discuss some powerful and moving images from the chapter. Its a chapter that makes me stop and savor the writing.

Beside the standing stone Gimli halted and looked up. It was cracked and weather-worn, and the faint runes upon its side could not be read.

Another symbolism here of Gimli and Legolas and their respective peoples, Dwarves and Elves, with both their kingdoms fading: the broken stone of Durin and the golden leaves - evocative here of the Two Trees but in our world of 'fall' and fading life?


I’m thinking of the three “Cleopatra’s Needles” transported from Heliopolis and Luxor to London, New York, and Paris. While their hieroglyphs were perfectly preserved over the centuries in the dry Egyptian air, once transported to modern cities the carvings quickly faded within decades in the polluted air of civilization.

This means something.


The image of Aragorn, facing Caradharas, holding up his sword in goodbye to Gandalf. He looked towards the mountains and held up his sword. "Farewell Gandalf!" he cried. "Did I not say to you: if you pass the doors of Moria, beware? Alas that I spoke true! What hope have we now without you?"


A line I (oddly) actually like better in Bakshi's LOTR, slightly changed from the text: 'We must do without hope. There is always vengeance.' But the feel is the same in the book; and I enjoy the iconic image of Aragorn, blade in hand, bidding Gandalf goodbye. And that use again, as JRRT does, of 'hope'. This time spoken by the would-be Elessar, the hope himself. Topical use of the word, or the almost subliminal reminder of Aragorn's lineage, and what he stands to gain or lose?


A vague intimation of a faint suspicion that I’ve always held that Aragorn’s kingly ambitions were driven more by Gandalf’s machinations than his own desires. I mean, after Gandalf is out of the picture Aragorn abandons his road to Minas Tirith and ends up in leagues away in Fangorn! Coincidence? I think not! Gandalf has to come back and set Aragorn back on the path to kingship.

“Then the prophecies of the old songs have turned out to be true, after a fashion!”
”Of course!” said Gandalf. “And why should not they prove true? Surely you don’t disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself? You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, King Elessar, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!”

-Barely Started Tales


At the head of the glen a torrent flowed like white lace over and endless ladder of short falls, and a mist of foam hung in the air about the mountains' feet.
Soon afterwards they came upon another steam that ran down from the west, and joined its bubbling water with the hurrying Silverlode.
The he looked eastward and saw all the land of Lorien running down to the pale gleam of the Anduin, the Great River. He lifted his eyes across the river and all the light went out, and he was back again in the world he knew.

Descriptions of water...its hard to say much analytical - I love the descriptions, and can read them over and over. Are these some of your favorites in Tolkien - particularly how he characterizes and animates the waters? A call back to the Silmarillion and Beleriand?


All things move and nothing remains still, and you cannot step twice into the same stream.
-Plato quoting Heraclitus in Cratylus

Rivers and streams symbolize time, which is running out for Dwarves, Elves, the Third Age, etc.


The use of the Anduin as the distant barrier: we don't tend to think of Anduin as 'dark' , yet in comparison to Lorien it falls into shadow. So an oblique characterization, or a subtle lead-in to The Great River, where the Fellowship will have to navigate this dividing line of good and evil that Frodo sees?

It is Frodo’s Rubicon:

…Caesar exclaimed, "Let us go where the omens of the Gods and the iniquity of our enemies call us. The die is now cast."
-Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, “Divus Julius”, De vita Caesarum

After crossing it, there is no turning back.


It was rough and broken, fading to a winding track between heather and whin that thrust amid the cracking stones. But it could still be seen that once long ago a great paved way had wound upwards from the the lowlands of the Dwarf-kingdom. In places there were ruined works of stone beside the path, and mounds of green topped with slender birches, or fir-trees sighing in the wind.
About it stood fir-trees, short and bent, and its sides were steep and clothed with harts-tongue and shrubs of whortle-berry.
While Gimli and the two younger hobbits kindles a fire of brush and fir-wood...
'It is clad in a forest of dark fir, where the trees strive against one another and their branches rot and wither.'


Lots of fir mentioned here...BlackFox had cited a passage from The Muster of Rohan a while back, and it also included a description of a fir-wood: Darkness had already crept beneath the murmuring fir-woods that clothed the steep mountain-sides. I wonder if, like Squire had mentioned a while back, there is a significance in the use of this particular tree (needles versus leaves? Heavy boughs? Twisted look? Christian holiday symbolism?) or if the auditory quality of the word itself was something JRRT used in crafting a certain feel?


I’m thinking the darkly fatalistic and deeply pessimistic fairy tale, “The Fir-Tree”, by Hans Christian Andersen:

And the tree saw all the fresh, bright flowers in the garden, and then looked at itself, and wished it had remained in the dark corner of the garret. It thought of its fresh youth in the forest, of the merry Christmas evening, and of the little mice who had listened to the story of Humpty-Dumpty.
"Past! past!" said the poor tree. "Oh, had I but enjoyed myself while I could have done so! but now it is too late."
Then a lad came and chopped the tree into small pieces, till a large bundle lay in a heap on the ground. The pieces were placed in the fire, and they blazed up brightly, while the tree sighed so deeply that each sigh was like a little pistol shot. Then the children, who were at play, came and seated themselves in front of the fire and looked at it, and cried, "Pop, pop." But at each "pop," which was a deep sigh, the tree was thinking of a summer day in the forest, or of some winter night there when the stars shone brightly, and of Christmas evening and of Humpty-Dumpty, the only story it had ever heard, or knew how to relate,—till at last it was consumed.
The boys still played in the garden, and the youngest wore the golden star on his breast with which the tree had been adorned during the happiest evening of its existence. Now all was past; the tree's life was past, and the story also past! for all stories must come to an end some time or other.


Seems to fit in nicely with the neurotic mentalities of the Dwarves and the Elves who fixate so much on past glories that they can’t appreciate the present.

******************************************

I met a Balrog on the stair.
He had some wings that weren't there.
They weren't there again today.
I wish he would just fly away.


Grand Bob
The Shire

Jun 2 2015, 6:51pm

Post #17 of 21 (8253 views)
Shortcut
My favorite part of the book [In reply to] Can't Post

Re: Descriptions of water...its hard to say much analytical - I love the descriptions, and can read them over and over. Are these some of your favorites in Tolkien - particularly how he characterizes and animates the waters? A call back to the Silmarillion and Beleriand?

Brethil, I have read The Lord of the Rings at least once a year since 1973, and Lothlorien is my favorite chapter. The descriptions of water you refer to, especially Tolkien's description of Nimrodel, are the finest and most memorable I have seen in any literature. Although the rivers of Beleriand and the fountains of Valinor are given adequate (if somewhat hasty) 'Tolkien treatment', the passages in Lothlorien represent the most creative and inspiring musings of the Professor, IMO. Actually, the chapters on Lothlorien and Bombadil are the greatest surprises in the book, as in my mind they appear to be more the work of a Zen master than a disciplined English philologist. Given a choice of being allowed to visit any place in the real or imagined Universe, standing in Nimrodel and allowing weariness to be washed away, or lazing away an afternoon on Cerin Amroth would be my first choices. I never tire of reading LotR, but there are certain chapters that stand out above the others - of which Lothlorien is the best. I would participate more in the discussions of this reading, but I just started The Silmarillion for my yearly Silmarillion/Hobbit/LotR marathon which I do every summer.


Grand Bob
The Shire

Jun 2 2015, 7:17pm

Post #18 of 21 (8246 views)
Shortcut
Could use more of this... [In reply to] Can't Post

...he laid his hand upon the tree beside the ladder; never before had he been so suddenly and so keenly aware of the feel and texture of a tree's skin and of the life within it. He felt a delight in wood and the touch of it, neither as forester nor as carpenter; it was the delight of the living tree itself.




I think the prose might become tiresome if it went on too long like this.


Yes, it could eventually become tiresome if it went on too long, but passages such as this separate LotR from all other literature. This is the ultimate reward for reading as a hobby - sentences crafted with such care and expertise, that they almost demand pauses for thoughtful pondering, and are relished long after the book is finished. LotR stands apart from other literature because Tolkien has filled the story with such phrases and musings. For decades I have tried to explain to my family and others why I read the book every year, but I can never put it in words and usually come up with something such as, "I just like Tolkien's choice of words and the way he puts them together."


CuriousG
Half-elven


Jun 2 2015, 8:05pm

Post #19 of 21 (8245 views)
Shortcut
Water descriptions [In reply to] Can't Post

I really enjoy them too! Given what Rosebury had to say, I suppose one person's gem (or Silmaril) is another person's tired line.

In Reply To

Tolkien, so skilled at evoking sensory experience, sometimes founders in attempting to praise the indescribable: of the stream Nimrodel in Lothlorien, he writes that ‘it seemed to [Frodo] that he would never again hear a running water so beautiful, for ever blending its innumerable notes in an endless changeful music.’ – which has a fair claim to be the most tired sentence in the whole work. – Rosebury. (2003). Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon. 78.


When critics say that Tolkien is overly elaborate or whatever, I'm left wondering what they would prefer: "The water was okay." Is that what they want?


Darkstone
Immortal


Jun 2 2015, 8:25pm

Post #20 of 21 (8241 views)
Shortcut
Probably something like this... [In reply to] Can't Post


In Reply To
When critics say that Tolkien is overly elaborate or whatever, I'm left wondering what they would prefer: "The water was okay." Is that what they want?



Through the deepening water, Nick waded over to the hollow log. He took the sack off, over his head, the trout flopping as it came out of the water, and hung it so the trout was deep in the water. Then he pulled himself up on the log and sat, the water from his trouser and boots running down into the stream. He laid his rod down moved along to the shady end of the log and took the sandwiches out of his pocket. He dipped the sandwiches in the cold water. The current carried away the crumbs. He ate the sandwiches and dipped his hat full of water to drink, the water running out through his hat just ahead of his drinking.
-Ernest Hemingway, Big Two-Hearted River

Frankly after the fifth "water" I'm pretty tired of the whole paragraph.

(For the record, I love Hemingway.)

******************************************

I met a Balrog on the stair.
He had some wings that weren't there.
They weren't there again today.
I wish he would just fly away.


Brethil
Half-elven


Jun 8 2015, 3:45am

Post #21 of 21 (8152 views)
Shortcut
I loved reading all of this, Grand Bob! [In reply to] Can't Post


In Reply To
Re: Descriptions of water...its hard to say much analytical - I love the descriptions, and can read them over and over. Are these some of your favorites in Tolkien - particularly how he characterizes and animates the waters? A call back to the Silmarillion and Beleriand?

Brethil, I have read The Lord of the Rings at least once a year since 1973, and Lothlorien is my favorite chapter. The descriptions of water you refer to, especially Tolkien's description of Nimrodel, are the finest and most memorable I have seen in any literature. Although the rivers of Beleriand and the fountains of Valinor are given adequate (if somewhat hasty) 'Tolkien treatment', the passages in Lothlorien represent the most creative and inspiring musings of the Professor, IMO. Actually, the chapters on Lothlorien and Bombadil are the greatest surprises in the book, as in my mind they appear to be more the work of a Zen master than a disciplined English philologist. Given a choice of being allowed to visit any place in the real or imagined Universe, standing in Nimrodel and allowing weariness to be washed away, or lazing away an afternoon on Cerin Amroth would be my first choices. I never tire of reading LotR, but there are certain chapters that stand out above the others - of which Lothlorien is the best. I would participate more in the discussions of this reading, but I just started The Silmarillion for my yearly Silmarillion/Hobbit/LotR marathon which I do every summer.


Enjoy your yearly reading marathon! But do feel free to pop in anytime.Cool That connection that Tolkien creates, making Lorien - which is clearly fantasy - feel so 'real' I think says a lot about his own internal life, and what he perceived as a heaven on earth so to speak.








 
 

Search for (options) Powered by Gossamer Forum v.1.2.3

home | advertising | contact us | back to top | search news | join list | Content Rating

This site is maintained and updated by fans of The Lord of the Rings, and is in no way affiliated with Tolkien Enterprises or the Tolkien Estate. We in no way claim the artwork displayed to be our own. Copyrights and trademarks for the books, films, articles, and other promotional materials are held by their respective owners and their use is allowed under the fair use clause of the Copyright Law. Design and original photography however are copyright © 1999-2012 TheOneRing.net. Binary hosting provided by Nexcess.net

Do not follow this link, or your host will be blocked from this site. This is a spider trap.