The road goes ever on...

I was going to call this "Queer Lodgings," since I was reading that chapter in The Hobbit when I was staying in my daughter's hospital room. Happily, she has since been discharged, and I have since moved on all the way to "Concerning Hobbits" in The Fellowship of the Ring.

I have made several false starts on The Trilogy (note the allcaps) in the past decade or so, but I really believe I'm going to manage it this time. For a time, I believe I lost the ability to read. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but it really was quite hard for me to finish anything for a while there. It was demoralizing and depressing.

I don't know if it's the fact that I'm re-reading something I already know quite well, or if it's because I'm re-reading my favorite book of all time, but so far, reading The Trilogy been a delight. I savored every page of The Hobbit, and intend to do the same with Fellowship. It was about this time 32 years ago that I read the book for the first time, and the memories of that first reading are with me still. In fact, I was giving serious consideration to giving full vent to my nostalgia by listening to the same music I did then, and using my mint condition copies of the same Ballentine paperback set I read back then. Money to buy saidsame music made me chicken out on the former, and my hopelessly OCD personality made me chicken out on the latter (Eeek! Is that a crease in the cover?), but I'm remembering that time just the same.

In fact, I've already made a pact with myself to re-read the trilogy at this same time of the year prior to the release of the film version of The Hobbit. It's not quite Christopher Lee's "every year" discipline, but it's a start.

Stay tuned for another post on a completely different topic within a few days time — I'm simply too tired to manage it right now, and my bed is calling...

"Riddles in the Dark"

  Since I only have, at most, five readers, and since all of those readers have read The Lord of the Rings, I am going to feel free to post about my current attempt to re-read my absolute favorite book. Stranger, you are welcome here, but if you are a Tolkien neophyte, you have been warned.

  I have just finished "Riddles in the Dark," which has much to do with Bilbo, Gollum and The Ring. Although it comes early in the book, it is the chapter that has most to do with the larger story of The Lord of the Rings. What I did not realize was how at home the "Riddles in the Dark" chapter fits with LoTR. I had always thought Tolkien had added nuances of meaning to this chapter when he refered to it in LoTR that were not really present in The Hobbit. In other words, he was describing things that weren't really there. 

  For example, let us take the famous line from Gandalf to Frodo: "Pity? It was pity that stayed his hand." I had always imagined Tolkien was using Gandalf to add a shade of color that Tolkien hadn't foreseen when he wrote the original draft of The Hobbit, but that didn't conflict with what was on the page overmuch.

  I now see that I was wrong. Bilbo indeed had a chance to kill Gollum, but was stayed by exactly what Gandalf said: a surge of pity for Gollum's condition, and a reluctance to kill without need. Tolkien clearly writes:

"A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo's heart: a glimpse of endless, unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering."

  In this single sentence, Tolkien reveals Bilbo to have a depth of empathy that is surprising in one so dedicated to his own creature comforts — surprising to all but Gandalf, perhaps. In a lesser authors hands, or in the hands of one of our more violent modern-day scribes, Bilbo would have plunged Sting into Gollum's vitals — out of fear or revenge, perhaps — then skipped nimbly over the cooling corpse on his way to freedom. In this day and age, I daresay few would notice.

  It's certainly what James Bond would do.

  Instead, we see a "silly hobbit," who, in a flash of insight, sees beyond his opponent's attempts to thwart him, and is instead able to see his opponent's suffering. It is a moment of pure compassion, in the best traditions of the world's great religions. It is also a rarity in fiction, and in real life.

The Professor

  One hundred and seventeen years ago this day, John Ronald Ruel Tolkien was born to us in South Africa. Since I noted the great man's death a few months back, it is only fitting that I celebrate his birth here as well. Now if I can only remember to do the same for Jack when the time comes...

  The title today comes from a custom the Tolkien Society has of toasting the memory of Tolkien on his birthday. It is done in the tradition of British ceremonial toasting — one raises a glass of his or her preferred memorial beverage and says "The Professor" before taking a sip. I performed the ritual myself last night when it was about 4 a.m. in Oxford, and I will leave my choice of beverage to your imagination. For more information on the tradition, look to the Tolkien Society's Website here.

  Fittingly, I have (as most of you know) returned to reading Tolkien's classic, The Lord of the Rings, beginning with The Hobbit prequel. I tried The Hobbit about a year ago and found it unsatisfying for some reason. Happily, this time, it is a delight, and I am enjoying it very much. I am, at this writing, deep beneath the Misty Mountains with our hero, who is about to embark on a riddle game with a most unsavory creature.

  And now, if you'll excuse me, I hear my last day's cup of expresso calling me.

  The Professor!