Then I Will Declare My Doom - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Bk 4 Ch 5

Hello and welcome to Mythbakers. Mythbakers the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and today I'm continuing our series, working our way on an author's journey through the Lord of the Rings. When we have reached quite a long way into the two hours now, we are in chapter 6 of book 4. It's a chapter called The Forbidden Pool and it comes just after the very long conversation with Faramir which was the subject of our last episode. This by contrast is actually quite short chapter and it's really devoted to one incident which is the arrival of Gollum as he's fishing in the pool for his favourite thing which is fish. Being pulled out of that by Frodo and then the questioning under Faramir and this all sets up the journey starting up again. So we're coming to the end of this little respite that Tolkien has given us in the darker material of this book. If you think about the two hours, the two parts of it like some kind of tapestry or collection of colours, the first part is much more vibrant which is why it's easier to read. You've got the the forest colours of fangorn, you've got the the white and the the green and the heraldic colours of Rohan and the horses and the armour, any sort of grittiness like the battle of Helm's D for the abductions by the Urokai of the two younger hobbits. Those are leavened with lighter moments, a change of mood or cutting between characters. The second book book 4 which concentrates on Frodo and Sam doesn't have the cutaway potential because they're together but also it is a much darker place they're going through and the effort and the strain is also dark and subject matter. So this episode of relaxation and respite in Athelian is really important to make this readable otherwise it would feel unbearably heavy as a piece. That's one of the reasons why I felt the film version of this actually doesn't live up to the book version. They did many great choices in the film but I felt that the that feeling of just the able to take a deep breath and enjoy meeting a new wise character and faramir didn't come across in the film treatment but yeah they make choices because they've got to cram it all into a short few hours. Anyway let's turn to what we're getting in this chapter. I would say that when I was reading it I kept getting echoes of Shakespeare so I think there is an element of Shakespeare haunting this chapter which I hadn't really thought of before but I'll point these out as we go along. So we get the sort of beginning of this is faramir browsing Frodo from sleep. I just noticed there's lots of F's isn't his first very opening sentence we got Frodo worked. See I'm already tripping up. Frodo worked to find faramir bending over him. For a second old fears seized him and he sat up and shrank away. It's almost like a literative verse or those F's and he's a little side by. It doesn't matter with Frodo and faramir but on the whole if you've got a cast of characters it's quite good to separate out characters don't have too many with the same starting initial. It's difficult in a culture like Rohan Airwin where it's a family reason but just for ease of the eye reading across the page it's a good idea to distinguish. So actually Tolkien has done this in the in the company hasn't he so we've got Frodo, Mary, Pippin and Sam all clearly distinguished by their names. So Fredigar couldn't come with them because his name's too much like Frodo anyway I digress. So the details here of the moon over Ethylian and over Gondor is an interesting note in the companion to the Lord of the Rings that Tolkien was using a 1942 moon chart to time all of this. He has reference to the moon setting. It's only somebody who really observes his world very well who actually does more than just plunk the moon in the sky. I confess that I've been a bit lazy about that and this is making me rethink that actually appealing to reality is a very good tip. So if it matters in your story I don't think I've written one where it matters but if it matters in your story and you're in a earth type location looking at the real data on when a moon rise rises and when it sets and using that to pace out your book is great also because it suggests things which the real world suggests which your brain might not and here we get that in the effect of the light on the waterfall which will come to in a second and then again when the moon is setting which I can imagine Tolkien leaping through to the equivalent of early March I think he all that's a nice detail to put in. It was interesting after our in literative f start when Frodo does rise up from his sort of makeshift bed it's full of short stuttery sentences it seemed cold in the fireless cave the noise of the water was loud in the stillness he put on his cloak and followed uncharacteristic for Tolkien to have short sentences like that all in a run and it seems to me to convey that sense of the slowness of waking up you're not quite fluent and fluid you're just trying to get to grips and your impressions are fleeting so that I think that's what he's capturing here. Sam follows and it's Sam who actually gives us the first bit of poetry in this chapter because he is the one who notices the beauty of the curtain we're briefly in his point of view. I love this description the this waterfall has provided us with a beautiful image in the last chapter and it comes back again here because it's now a dazzling veil of silk and pearls and silver thread melting icicles of moonlight that last bit going from a more literal what do I see the melting icicles of moonlight launches us into a Sam's poetic grasp of what he's seeing which is absolutely beautiful so we follow pharomir outside up this up to this platform where you've got a view down into the pool this is one of those areas if you're following in the book it's page 292 in the three volume version it's very hard to describe things surprisingly how much information do you give well when is when is it too much here I think one of the things I noticed is that he does describe this small scene not an important scene in the book in many ways the place that they're standing he uses something like what a landscape painter would do and of course talking himself was a fine painter amateur painter you use the foreground to background or background to foreground or left to right you organize your description and that's what he's doing here and he even does what a landscape painter traditionally did in the 18th century he provides the point at accent point very often it was like a twisted oak or something here it ends up with a man stood there near the brink silent gazing down so here's the last place where I rest so if you're struggling with how to describe things it might be worth just looking at this very short little passage and see what is being done how to control because you can see it perhaps in your mind's eye if that's how your brain works but you need to help the reader not feel overwhelmed by the detail so you organize it for them this leads us on to another of those characteristic talkinian moments the high place moment where it's Frodo now who's looking out across the landscape in front of him I think this is doing three things it's beautiful it keeps that idea of the beauty of middle earth in the forefront of our mind even though we're in the shadow of border it's grounding because we are there with Frodo we feel present in the landscape but also it's connecting so if I read you just a little bit of that far off in the west the full moon was sinking round and white there's that detail drawn from the lists pale mist shimmered in the great veil below a wide gulf of silver fume beneath which rolled the cool night waters of the anduin a black darkness loomed beyond and in it glinted here and there cold sharp remote white as the teeth of ghosts the peaks of erred nimorice the white mountains or the realm of gondor tipped with everlasting snow for a while Frodo stood there on the high stone and a shiver ran through him wondering if anywhere in the vastness of the nightlands his old companions walked or slept or laid dead shrouded in mist so that's the connecting connecting back to the story we know more than he does we know that yes all but Boramir are still alive and they are indeed in that area that he's looking out on but there's also some thematic connections being made did you notice that there's that odd description of the peaks being like the teeth of ghosts never really sort of ghosts having teeth that seems to be the more of a skull thing but we know what he's getting at this ghostly pallor but of course pretty much around this time we have arrogant legolas and gimli and the grey company actually going on the paths of the dead so there's a nice connection there in the language being used and again we're talking about the this being a well woven tapestry this book that's another of these little threads that you may have missed which is connecting the stories and Faramir is the one who comes up and actually sort of speaks about the landscape he talks about fair ifl he uses that word the old word for the moon which sets up the explanation which he later gives about minus ifl minus smorgal as he says it is named so that little note has already been planted i really enjoyed reading this chapter because it is full of moments where i really enjoyed the language the funny thing is i don't think i've ever really given this chapter much thought before because i know we're about to start the journey again but i was struck by for example how Tolkien spends a very he makes his language really count even on something as small as watching golem dive into the poor beneath he calls it from up up the top where amborn who's the ranger we've already met and Faramir Frodo and Sam are watching a small dark thing dived and vanished just beyond the boil and bubble of the fall cleaving the black water as neatly as an arrow or an edge-wise stone now this is where i got my first little bit of Shakespeare boil and bubble you can't help but hear mcbeth double double toilet trouble fire burn and cauldron bubble you've got the language of the witches the idea of a cauldron boiling and bubbling in here we know that Macbeth was one of the plays that Tolkien read and admired but also wanted to correct because it influenced his decision for the ends to march on um saramand so seeing a little touch of it here probably it's just because those two words boil and bubble have become in everyone's brains a kind of an eliterative moment but i like to hear a little bit of echo of Shakespeare at this point Faramir is carrying on being tricky we talked about how last chapter was all about this kind of duel of wits between Faramir and Frodo but he's doing it again he's staging a conversation with Ann Bourne knowing that Frodo and Sam are overhearing him saying oh could it be you know could it be a black kingfisher that kind of thing he's probably already decided what it is but he's waiting to see what Frodo is going to say and when he gets to the question shall we shoot it there's this moment where we get a no from Frodo adding silent yes from Sam and this marks the different stages they are in their pity journey Frodo has already decided that golem is someone he pitties he remembers the lesson of Gandalf Sam later on reaches the same point but at the moment he is not there and we get Faramir using the word of about golem which i only really ever seen in Tolkien about golem in fact which is it's your gangrel companion now gangrel is one of those words that seems to fit really well within middle earth but it's obviously not a common usage word but we get the idea of what that means it means golem that kind of lanky unpleasant creature Frodo is equally careful if Faramir is being tricksy Frodo is equally careful in his reply for me this is like they've got a set of cards which they're going to play and they're they're working out where this hand who wins the hand and it actually in this case it's Frodo who wins the hand because his trump card is actually what he's here for is fish because he lays that down as his last card and that changes what everybody is thinking about golem's motives for being in the pool and in our situation above this pool we then get an opportunity to see an almost completely happy golem it's one of them i think it might be almost the only time we see golem in his element doing what he loves most which is fishing and of course he will never be happy because he doesn't have the pressures but there is a brief sense of him having a holiday a holiday from his cares which is about to turn salad on him and if you weren't pitying golem it may be something which would as a reader make you think about he is like a child in some ways a child who has been ruined so this is when he's at his sort of most childishly happy and when Faramir asks why they shouldn't shoot this interloper into her forbidden pool Frodo's answer is twofold it's an appeal to Gandalf Mithrandir who he has learnt taught Faramir as well but he also is beginning to get a sense of almost that prophetic knowledge having listened to what Gandalf told him of course he says but this creature is in some way bound up with my errand this this fate of this creature shouldn't be slipped off here because it's going to be going further of course which is correct then as Frodo goes down to try and rescue golem of course golem doesn't see it that way we get overhearing golem's own little monologue we have heard some of these before particularly Sam overheard an important one where golem is trying to make up his mind what to do but this one is golem just basically moaning to himself and you see how his mind works it's it's great if you listen to the audio version as read by Andy Circus as I have you are in for a treat because it's just very funny all four and sweet all those things together and his brain goes from fish to hobbits to precious to men to fish what's most interesting about this scene this little bit of the scene is Frodo's dilemma and I think it's a very relatable dilemma because he has a moral choice here he's he's thinking oh I wish I could get rid of I wish I could get rid of golem it wouldn't life be easier if we just got rid of him but he he reminds himself that a servant has a claim on the master that's more of an old fashioned idea now but I think we can understand what he means but but also he says Gandalf would not want it he remember at this stage he thinks Gandalf is dead but he's still using Gandalf as his guide to the decisions he makes which is a very good guide another thing we noticed in the earlier chapters not the last one but the one before with herbs and stewed rabbit is that Sam fell into talking a bit like golem Frodo is doing it here he's talking about himself in the third person master wouldn't like it master wouldn't do this it does seem as though golem's speech is always like an infection everyone starts speaking like that around him but also I think it gives a sense that Frodo is being his most inauthentic here he is unhappy that he is playing a role and so he has to fall into it to be the person that golem is expecting and will obey in order to save him and we get this insight into what he's going through Frodo his heart sank this was too much like trickery and then a bit further on what else could he do to keep faith as near as might be with both sides he's making a compromise life in the shower is relatively simple life out in the world is full of such compromises and I think I really feel for Frodo here because in a way it's one of these moments that golem uses to justify the betrayal in Sheila's Lair we do get a sort of check-in with a visual of golem when golem's been taken into the caves and is brought before baramear we get a little glimpse of what he looks like this reminded me that if you haven't described your characters for a very long time it's a good idea to check back in with them sometimes with a purpose and just to keep a sort of in in everybody's mind what they look like characters can sometimes kind of disappear particularly if it's a large castor character seeing which one was that not the beginning forget golem but I think it's just and it makes a point here about the contrast between this trivial little proto hobbit and a real noble man but anyway so we've got golem in front of baramear golem blinked hooding the malice of his eyes with their heavy pale lids and a very miserable creature he looked dripping and dank smelling of fish he still clutch one in his hand his sparse locks were hanging like rank weed over his bony brows his nose was sniveling so we got a very physical impression of what this creature now looks like baramear obviously asked us a question which is why you hear what you're doing here in fact baramear has a range of questions for him what is your name when it's do you come with the do you go what is your business he doesn't give his name he doesn't really answer the questions but he does give a truth which is more truth than he knows because he answers by saying we are lost lost yeah golem is one of the most lost creatures in literature he has lost himself he's lost his ring he's a drift hopeless I hope his creature in many ways but he's a hopeless creature with a bite in more ways than one because he hits back at the people who are holding him with sarcasm he sort of says oh you know you're also wise they are so just so very just he means the opposite but he's presenting that he's holding up a mirror to the people around him saying you think you're so just when you've got me here as a prisoner and of course that self-righteousness which he often tries he's tried it all the way along doesn't survive because baramear has worked out just how bad golem has been he has a way of reading golem's heart and there's an interesting sign of this we've heard about the greenish light and the the light of his eyes of golem which signals a switch between the two sides of his personality but when baramear confronts him we get this all light went out of them then being golem's eyes and they stared bleak and pale for a moment into the clear unwavering eyes of the man of gondor it's the moment when all pretence is stripped away to some ways golem plays both Frodo and he plays on the pity he plays on the the need for him when Sam obviously hates it but even Sam sort of doesn't have the power over him that a baramear does he couldn't bring him to this stripped damn version of himself and baramear has this very penetrating observation on him there are locked doors and closed windows in your mind and dark rooms behind them lovely description and indeed that gives a great sense of the the schema the deviousness of what is superficially a very pitiable creature so that's baramear's dilemma he's got Frodo and Sam on one point on one hand to he has Frodo and Sam on one hand to need to carry on with their mission to destroy the ring and he's got this unreliable guide who they're relying on and he has to make a decision what to do with them it's a big decision because it decides the trajectory of the next part of the book so it's given a line break to underline it faramir sat for a moment in thought and then he says rather portentously then I will declare my doom doom here is an interesting word because doom means judgment doomsday that idea but it isn't a way faramir's doom because he knows that he could be blamed by his father for making the wrong decision so it cuts both ways anyway his declaration is that to Frodo whomsoever you take under your protection shall be under my protection and the shield of gondor I mean you've got to love faramir he goes way beyond just letting these visitors go he is offering his protection it's a very sort of chivalric thing to do and the next stage of that is to ask Frodo if he takes responsibility for smegel golem and Frodo agrees in a sort of all before more saying I do take smegel under my protection but what's lovely here is we've got a little dip into sam who represents the shah sam side audibly and not at the curses of which as any hobbit would he thoroughly approved indeed in the shah such a matter would have required a great many more words and bows so little nod back to the shah at all times around sam so when that that decision has been made the next one is about where Frodo is going and we get a tense exchange between faramir and Frodo about the path that golem has suggested was taking them on he mentions that the past has a name that he knows which is curious angle there's a little note in the companions to the Lord the Ring saying why doesn't he mention that that means spider he does say that a dark terror lives there and there's nothing certain in his knowledge about it I don't know why he doesn't mention it he knows what Ethel meant earlier I think probably the answer is Tolkien doesn't want to show his hand too early so just hint at it keep it back I've never thought that before when reading it so I think it passes the reader by but faramir is correct when he goes on to say to warn that malice eats it that's golem like a canker which of course Frodo knows too but he hopes there's also goodness fighting back little antibody to that but the discussion of the path gives faramir the chance to give a potted history of Minus Ethel and he also connects it to the nine riders Frodo doesn't say oh yeah I've met them I know all about them this is more it is necessary to have this in this place because it means that the next time the next chapter when we reach the morgue or veil we have already been told the story of this this city that fell into darkness and it also connects us back to the nine riders of earlier times and of course they become the riders of the winged beasts so it's just slotting them back to reminders who the external enemies the ones who leave more or who they are that's what that all does it would it would have been a a real digression if Frodo had said oh yeah I met them up and I thought them none of that is necessary here move on so give the connections are necessary and move on and what is really true strikes me as really true about this is the cleft stick that Frodo finds himself in so faramir is saying don't go that way it's dangerous but he hasn't got another way for Frodo to go he said well we don't know all the ways into the land but Frodo says yeah I don't have time to do find those and it's so good saying what would Mithran do because he's not here and it ends up with this cry but where else will you direct me and then he goes on to say this absolutely crushing thing would you send me to Gondor with the thing that drove your brother mad with desire that by the way comes over extremely well in the BBC audio version of this that cry where would you send me so yeah it's a very good very well done this scene in that version of this so faramir has to bow to the fact that Frodo hasn't really got a choice if he's going to try and do this thing you'll have to go away which say all know is a bad choice but it's the not as if there was another good choice he could bake and in this situation there's this lovely character note about faramir so while he thinks that this is actually likely to end in disaster he holds out hope and this teaches you something about optimism if if Tolkien is writing this in the dark days of the second world war he didn't know how it was going to end remember that's the hindsight of history is great we can say oh yes of course it's all going to be a fine but then he didn't know that so he had to hope that there was light at the end of the tunnel and he's giving something to faramir here which seems to speak a lot about the experience of the early forties so when faramir says goodnight he says if ever beyond hope you return to the lands of the living and we retell our tales sitting by a wall in the sun laughing at old grief you shall tell me then this is where I've got my other Shakespearean echo here laughing at old grief sitting by telling our tales by a wall is is kind of sentiment you find in Shakespearean plays and it just felt like we were dipping back into well in 12th night viola talks about smiling at grief so there's this sort of little hint of 12th night there anyway I maybe maybe that I'm just tuning in too much but I did feel that this had an element of Shakespearean themes in it this chapter and faramir himself seems like a very he was almost Shakespearean character too one of the most noble lords I'd have put him at and it's very fitting that he makes an actively exit from this chapter he rose and bowed low to Frodo and drawing the curtain passed out into the cave so there we are he leaves with a bow so that's the end of this chapter as I said it was quite short and we are now going into really take the journey up again and do the onslaught onto the getting over those mountains into Mordor in the next chapter which is called Journey to the Crossroads so I hope you can join me for that thank you for listening thanks for listening to MythMakers podcast brought to you by the Oxford Center for Fantasy visit 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