LotR Re-Read
Dec. 22nd, 2011 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liptonrm_backupLord of the Rings
Fellowship of the Ring
Book I—Chapter I: A Long Expected Party
How about I just go ahead and quote this entire chapter. You’d think after my hobbit glee-splosion that my giddiness would be dampened, if only a little. But! Hobbits! Bilbo! After many, many years of introspection I think Bilbo is my favorite. I do still have a noted preference for Sam Gamgee and I love all of the hobbits something fierce (even Lobelia Sackville-Baggins) but Bilbo is the guy I’d most like to know. Or maybe it’s that he seems to be the one I’m the most like. If I were to ever have an adventure it would be something I stumbled into, completely unprepared. I love good friends, good food, and good books and if I had a magic ring that made me invisible I, too, would use it to hide from unwanted relatives.
There’s something so delightful and chatty about this introduction to the Shire. I know that the Shire is Tolkien’s romanticization of life in the English countryside and that its socio-politics and economy are unrealistic and blah blah blah I don’t care. I love it for its unreality. In this chapter the Shire we meet is relatively innocent, unconnected to the great perils of the wider world and it makes for an interesting contrast with what happens later, especially in the Scouring of the Shire. But we’re already well aware of how even the most ordinary of hobbits can be extraordinary, if the circumstances call for it.
OMG I still want to live in the Shire so badly. Let’s all put some serious thought into building a hobbit-inspired commune. It would be awesome.
See! Delightful! The above is quite possibly the epitome of hobbit-ish dialogue. There’s a recitation of family connections and scandalous gossip with a soupcon of matters of utmost importance: namely food.
However, the pertinent question is: why does the Gaffer call Frodo’s mother poor Miss Primula Brandybuck? Was it because she drowned? Or because she was married to Drogo? Maybe the fact that she was a Brandybuck? Since we all know what the denizens of the Green Dragon thought of them.
Is it wrong that I really want to go to the Green Dragon to hear the gaffers kibitzing? I mean, yeah, experiencing the “Merry and Pipping Sing Drinking Songs” Experience would be awesome but, yeah, eavesdropping on the gaffers would be awesome. What can I say, I’m clearly a big ol’ gossip at heart.
And we already know the Sandymans are no good. Even Ol’ Gaffer Gamgee doesn’t like them.
Gandalf!!!!!! Hello Gandalf! *waves* Gandalf’s Entrance in the movie version of Fellowship is one of the most book-perfect scenes that Jackson & Co. shot. Yes, PJ extrapolated but he perfectly captured the excitement and delight. PJ did a lot of great stuff in the movies (and a lot of middling stuff as well), but the way he depicted the hobbits and Gandalf was pretty much perfect.
The Old Wise Man is a pretty universal staple in most storytelling traditions but what Tolkien did with Gandalf really made him unique. For a maia Gandalf is delightfully human, he indulges in the good things in life (be they food, wine, or pipeweed) and he actively connects with the people around him, the ones looking up to him for guidance. He’s also delightfully bitchy. He doesn’t suffer fools and he has no patience for complainers or malcontents. He gets shit done and Valar help the one who gets in his way.
I’ve always found the humanization of the wizards to be so interesting: Saruman lost himself to pride, Radagast lost himself to curiosity and the natural world, but it was Gandalf, the ditherer who liked to make a nuisance of himself, who remained true through everything. He’s Captain Busybody and he helped save the world.
Plus, his fireworks are out of this world.
I am so utterly charmed by the definition of “sundry.” That’s another thing (I just keep racking them up) that I love about the hobbit chapters especially, there’s this dry wit and I can just see the sparkle in the Professor’s eye as he writes it.
I admit it, sir, you really are as clever as you think you are.
I can just see Bilbo standing in front of the white gate, green jacket and colorful waistcoat, handing out presents. And then the little rapscallions who circle around and come up to him again with their big, faux-innocent grins and the present they just got stickling out of their pockets. Bilbo would then hand them another gift with a wink.
There is nothing I don’t adore about Bilbo’s speech. And it’s one of those things that, in the movie, is set up exactly as done in the book and yet comes across in a very different way. The book’s presentation is all about showmanship, Bilbo is having his last laugh, getting his last hurrah at his stuffy neighbors’ and family members’ expense. In the book Frodo is in on the joke and reacts by laughing along with is vanished uncle. Even Gandalf gets in on it, though, as with so many of the things that Gandalf does, he has more than one reason for doing so.
But the movie’s presentation turns Bilbo’s birthday speech into something fraught with tension. We see Bilbo hesitating, unsure of what he wants to do or why he wants to do it. Bilbo had flirted with leaving the Shire during his talk in the kitchen with Gandalf, but it’s here when he makes the decision. He’s going and he’s not coming back. It wasn’t exactly a joke anymore and Frodo definitely was not in on it.
That’s the thing about well-executed movie adaptations, they’ll show you interpretations that you may never have imagined for yourself. That’s also something that good fanfiction can provide, a new way to see something you thought you already knew.
Plus, Bilbo’s speech is just the greatest. He was the master of the backhanded compliment.
See! Totally the master (but not the Master, no evil monologue-ing and genocidal mania from this character, thank you very much). Bilbo clearly took such delight in planning out every detail of his party.
I didn’t quote this (because I’m an idiot) but a few paragraphs earlier Bilbo mentioned that the whole purpose for the party was to make it easier for him to give up the Ring. Of course, when it came down to it, all of his planning wouldn’t have done him any good without Gandalf’s “nudging.” That’s the thing about the Ring, it’s so important but it seems so inconsequential. You look at it and think, “What’s the problem? It’s just a simple gold ring.” But that’s how it tricks you. Good for Bilbo for starting to realize that the Ring was the problem and for his desire to get rid of it. The fact that he was able to let it go is really quiet extraordinary.
This all reminds me of something from Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s book Good Omens. In it Crowley, the original serpent in the Garden, excels at making people do mundanely evil things. He tempts people to get angry at other drivers or to yell at telemarketers. His theory was that the first hit was free, that once you start down that path it gets easier and easier to do even worse things. So just remember, my friends, once you start down the path to the Dark Side forever shall it dominate your destiny.
I totally thought about this when I was learning about wills in law school. Even though it’s not necessary in America, I think I’ll have seven witnesses sign my will in red ink just because it would be geekily awesome. But not in blood, that would make me evil and I have a hard enough time with one soul, I don’t need seven more.
See! Huge gossips! All those tales of “gold and jools” and evil wizards who conspire to get rid of bumbling uncles! I can’t help it, I’m charmed. I still want to sit around and gossip with the old gaffers and gammers (and Dora Baggins, I bet she has an opinion about everything).
Oh, hobbits. Of course, the downside to all of this behind-the-hand sniping is that it makes Gandalf’s job that much harder. Wizards, man, they’re always up to something.
Next Time: Fellowship of the Ring Book I—Chapter II: The Shadow of the Past. Revelations abound about the things creeping in the dark and cutting the grass has never been more dangerous.
ETA: Here’s a little something my fellow hobbits may enjoy, the first official trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Aawww yeah, that’s the stuff.
comments at http://liptonrm.dreamwidth.org/39916.html.
Fellowship of the Ring
Book I—Chapter I: A Long Expected Party
When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.
How about I just go ahead and quote this entire chapter. You’d think after my hobbit glee-splosion that my giddiness would be dampened, if only a little. But! Hobbits! Bilbo! After many, many years of introspection I think Bilbo is my favorite. I do still have a noted preference for Sam Gamgee and I love all of the hobbits something fierce (even Lobelia Sackville-Baggins) but Bilbo is the guy I’d most like to know. Or maybe it’s that he seems to be the one I’m the most like. If I were to ever have an adventure it would be something I stumbled into, completely unprepared. I love good friends, good food, and good books and if I had a magic ring that made me invisible I, too, would use it to hide from unwanted relatives.
There’s something so delightful and chatty about this introduction to the Shire. I know that the Shire is Tolkien’s romanticization of life in the English countryside and that its socio-politics and economy are unrealistic and blah blah blah I don’t care. I love it for its unreality. In this chapter the Shire we meet is relatively innocent, unconnected to the great perils of the wider world and it makes for an interesting contrast with what happens later, especially in the Scouring of the Shire. But we’re already well aware of how even the most ordinary of hobbits can be extraordinary, if the circumstances call for it.
OMG I still want to live in the Shire so badly. Let’s all put some serious thought into building a hobbit-inspired commune. It would be awesome.
‘Drownded?’ said several voices. They had heard this and other darker rumours before, of course; but hobbits have a passion for family history, and they were ready to hear it again.
‘Well, so they say,’ said the Gaffer. ‘You see: Mr. Drogo, he married poor Miss Primula Brandybuck. She was our Mr. Bilbo’s first cousin on the mother’s side (her mother being the youngest of the Old Took’s daughters); and Mr. Drogo was his second cousin. So Mr. Frodo is his first and second cousin, once removed either way, as the saying is, if you follow me. And Mr. Drogo was staying at Brandy Hall with his father-in-law, old Master Gorbadoc, as he often did after his marriage (him being partial to his vittles, and old Gorbadoc keeping a mighty generous table); and when he went out boating on the Brandywine River; and he and his wife were drownded, and poor Mr. Frodo only a child and all.’
See! Delightful! The above is quite possibly the epitome of hobbit-ish dialogue. There’s a recitation of family connections and scandalous gossip with a soupcon of matters of utmost importance: namely food.
However, the pertinent question is: why does the Gaffer call Frodo’s mother poor Miss Primula Brandybuck? Was it because she drowned? Or because she was married to Drogo? Maybe the fact that she was a Brandybuck? Since we all know what the denizens of the Green Dragon thought of them.
Is it wrong that I really want to go to the Green Dragon to hear the gaffers kibitzing? I mean, yeah, experiencing the “Merry and Pipping Sing Drinking Songs” Experience would be awesome but, yeah, eavesdropping on the gaffers would be awesome. What can I say, I’m clearly a big ol’ gossip at heart.
And we already know the Sandymans are no good. Even Ol’ Gaffer Gamgee doesn’t like them.
At the end of the second week of September a cart came in through Bywater from the direction of the Brandywine River in broad daylight. An old man was driving it all alone. He wore a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, and a silver scarf. He had a long white beard and busy eyebrows that stuck out beyond the brim of his hat. Small hobbit-children ran after the cart all through Hobbiton and right up the hill. It had a cargo of fireworks, as they rightly guessed.
That was Gandalf’s mark, of course, and the old man was Gandalf the Wizard, whose fame in the Shire was due mainly to his skill with fires, smokes, and lights. … To them he was just one of the ‘attractions’ at the Party. Hence the excitement of the hobbit-children. ‘G for Grand! they shouted, and the old man smiled.
Gandalf!!!!!! Hello Gandalf! *waves* Gandalf’s Entrance in the movie version of Fellowship is one of the most book-perfect scenes that Jackson & Co. shot. Yes, PJ extrapolated but he perfectly captured the excitement and delight. PJ did a lot of great stuff in the movies (and a lot of middling stuff as well), but the way he depicted the hobbits and Gandalf was pretty much perfect.
The Old Wise Man is a pretty universal staple in most storytelling traditions but what Tolkien did with Gandalf really made him unique. For a maia Gandalf is delightfully human, he indulges in the good things in life (be they food, wine, or pipeweed) and he actively connects with the people around him, the ones looking up to him for guidance. He’s also delightfully bitchy. He doesn’t suffer fools and he has no patience for complainers or malcontents. He gets shit done and Valar help the one who gets in his way.
I’ve always found the humanization of the wizards to be so interesting: Saruman lost himself to pride, Radagast lost himself to curiosity and the natural world, but it was Gandalf, the ditherer who liked to make a nuisance of himself, who remained true through everything. He’s Captain Busybody and he helped save the world.
Plus, his fireworks are out of this world.
Bilbo Baggins called it a party, but it was really a variety of entertainments rolled into one. Practically everybody living near was invited. A very few were overlooked by accident, but as they all turned up all the same, that did not matter. … Bilbo met the guests (and additions) at the new white gate in person. He gave away presents to all and sundry—the latter were those went out again by a back way and came in again by the gate.
I am so utterly charmed by the definition of “sundry.” That’s another thing (I just keep racking them up) that I love about the hobbit chapters especially, there’s this dry wit and I can just see the sparkle in the Professor’s eye as he writes it.
I admit it, sir, you really are as clever as you think you are.
I can just see Bilbo standing in front of the white gate, green jacket and colorful waistcoat, handing out presents. And then the little rapscallions who circle around and come up to him again with their big, faux-innocent grins and the present they just got stickling out of their pockets. Bilbo would then hand them another gift with a wink.
I hope you are all enjoying yourselves as much as I am. Deafening cheers. Cries of Yes (and No). Noises of trumpets and horns, pipes and flutes, and other musical instruments. There were, as has been said, many young hobbits present. … Indeed, in one corner some of the young Tooks and Brandybucks, supposing Uncle Bilbo to have finished (since he had plainly said all that was necessary), now got up an impromptu orchestra, and began a merry dance-tune.
I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. This was unexpected and rather difficult. There was some scattered clapping, but most of them were trying to work it out and see if it came to a compliment. …
It was generally agreed that the joke was in very bad taste, and more food and drink were needed to cure the guests of shock and annoyance. ‘He’s mad. I always said so.’ was probably the most popular comment. Even the Tooks (with a few exceptions) thought Bilbo’s behaviour was absurd. For the moment most of them took it for granted that his disappearance was nothing more than a ridiculous prank.
There is nothing I don’t adore about Bilbo’s speech. And it’s one of those things that, in the movie, is set up exactly as done in the book and yet comes across in a very different way. The book’s presentation is all about showmanship, Bilbo is having his last laugh, getting his last hurrah at his stuffy neighbors’ and family members’ expense. In the book Frodo is in on the joke and reacts by laughing along with is vanished uncle. Even Gandalf gets in on it, though, as with so many of the things that Gandalf does, he has more than one reason for doing so.
But the movie’s presentation turns Bilbo’s birthday speech into something fraught with tension. We see Bilbo hesitating, unsure of what he wants to do or why he wants to do it. Bilbo had flirted with leaving the Shire during his talk in the kitchen with Gandalf, but it’s here when he makes the decision. He’s going and he’s not coming back. It wasn’t exactly a joke anymore and Frodo definitely was not in on it.
That’s the thing about well-executed movie adaptations, they’ll show you interpretations that you may never have imagined for yourself. That’s also something that good fanfiction can provide, a new way to see something you thought you already knew.
Plus, Bilbo’s speech is just the greatest. He was the master of the backhanded compliment.
For ADELARD TOOK, for his VERY OWN, from Bilbo; on an umbrella. Adelard had carried off many unlabelled ones.
For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love from Bilbo; on a large waste-paper basket. Dora was Drogo’s sister and the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century.
See! Totally the master (but not the Master, no evil monologue-ing and genocidal mania from this character, thank you very much). Bilbo clearly took such delight in planning out every detail of his party.
I didn’t quote this (because I’m an idiot) but a few paragraphs earlier Bilbo mentioned that the whole purpose for the party was to make it easier for him to give up the Ring. Of course, when it came down to it, all of his planning wouldn’t have done him any good without Gandalf’s “nudging.” That’s the thing about the Ring, it’s so important but it seems so inconsequential. You look at it and think, “What’s the problem? It’s just a simple gold ring.” But that’s how it tricks you. Good for Bilbo for starting to realize that the Ring was the problem and for his desire to get rid of it. The fact that he was able to let it go is really quiet extraordinary.
This all reminds me of something from Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s book Good Omens. In it Crowley, the original serpent in the Garden, excels at making people do mundanely evil things. He tempts people to get angry at other drivers or to yell at telemarketers. His theory was that the first hit was free, that once you start down that path it gets easier and easier to do even worse things. So just remember, my friends, once you start down the path to the Dark Side forever shall it dominate your destiny.
Otho would have been Bilbo’s heir, but for the adoption of Frodo. He read the will carefully and snorted. It was, unfortunately, very clear and correct (according to the legal customs of hobbits, which demand among other things seven signatures of witnesses in red ink).
I totally thought about this when I was learning about wills in law school. Even though it’s not necessary in America, I think I’ll have seven witnesses sign my will in red ink just because it would be geekily awesome. But not in blood, that would make me evil and I have a hard enough time with one soul, I don’t need seven more.
‘At once!’ cried Frodo. ‘Why, I thought you were staying on for at least a week. I was looking forward to your help.’
‘I did mean to—but I have had to change my mind. I may be away for a good while; but I’ll come and see you again, as soon as I can. Expect me when you see me! I shall slip in quietly. I shan’t often be visiting the Shire openly again. I find that I have become rather unpopular. They say I am a nuisance and a disturber of the peace. Some people are actually accusing me of spiriting Bilbo away, or worse. If you want to know, there is supposed to be a plot between you and me to get hold of his wealth.’
See! Huge gossips! All those tales of “gold and jools” and evil wizards who conspire to get rid of bumbling uncles! I can’t help it, I’m charmed. I still want to sit around and gossip with the old gaffers and gammers (and Dora Baggins, I bet she has an opinion about everything).
Oh, hobbits. Of course, the downside to all of this behind-the-hand sniping is that it makes Gandalf’s job that much harder. Wizards, man, they’re always up to something.
Next Time: Fellowship of the Ring Book I—Chapter II: The Shadow of the Past. Revelations abound about the things creeping in the dark and cutting the grass has never been more dangerous.
ETA: Here’s a little something my fellow hobbits may enjoy, the first official trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Aawww yeah, that’s the stuff.
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Date: 2011-12-23 12:36 am (UTC)Gandalf, of all the wizards, always seemed the most involved in "the real world". The most human, if you will. I always suspected that was what made him so invested in saving this world - he was the one who most enjoyed what it had to offer (and I don't just mean the pipeweed!)