Transcript
Hello and welcome to a Mythmakers special series. This is called "Lord of the Rings, an Author's Journey." My name is Julia Golding and I'm going to be taking you through all of the chapters of Lord of the Rings, doing a deep dive into it from the point of view of an author, what I see in the writing and trying to unpack for you new treasures so that when you reread Lord of the Rings again, there's some fresh things for you to discover. Now, I'm going to start with the first chapter, a long expected party, but I just want to gesture to a couple of things that are in the preface and the prologue. The reason I'm not starting with them in full is that, of course, these were some of the last things that Tolkien wrote. He circled back to tell us what he thought we needed to know in order to appreciate his story. He would have written them towards the end of the process. There are a couple of things that are helpful to highlight before we get going. First of all, there's an account by Tolkien as to how long it took him to write Lord of the Rings and the problems he had in that process. He says it was written between 1936 and 1949. Obviously, there were years of revision as well, which we'll touch on later on. He says in his letters about some of the things he did as part of the revising process. Any author will tell you that your first draft is a big baggy article that you're just getting the story down. In the days before word processors, you probably didn't change it as much. Tolkien very poignantly writes that he didn't have the money to hire a typist so he did the further manuscript drafts by typing it out himself. It's ironic considering how much that's worth as a franchise and as a property today. Anyway, he still would have gone through that revising process and changing his mind about certain tonal qualities and what have you. What we're seeing is not the raw draft but things that he worked on much later. The other thing from the timeline he gives us is that he says that the first book of the Fellowship of the Rings, so this takes us up to the end where they reach the Fords and they reach Rivendell, that wasn't completed by the end of 1939, the outbreak of the war. So you can see that this first book is taking him quite a long time to get going on. I think you can see that in the writing and these clues that he gives us tell us why there is what I suppose is a relatively slow start to get going in this story. The other thing from the prefatory material, which I think will be of interest, is Tolkien's thoughts about allegory versus applicability. He makes the point this isn't an allegory of the invention of the nuclear weapons or anything like that, but he also says don't confuse that with applicability. So if you're reading Lord of the Rings and you find that behaviours of certain characters or situations remind you of problems that we see in society today or things that you've met in your life, that's absolutely intended by the author. He is basically allowing you the freedom of the reader to interpret it so it has meaning for your life today. That's nice to think that he has given us the nod that it's okay to do that. So here we are at chapter one, a long expected party. Now one of the reasons why people fail to get into Lord of the Rings is this first chapter. Tolkien, when he set out, thought he was writing a sequel to The Hobbit and referred to it as the new Hobbit when he was describing it to friends and to family. And that explains why there is a very distinctively childlike tone. It is a bridge from the world of The Hobbit into the darkest, more serious story and subject matter of Lord of the Rings. This is the chapter where that nursery tale tone is most apparent. Though to be honest, most of the chapters that still take place in the Shire have elements of a jocular tone which drops away as the story continues. So if you've got a friend who's failed to get into Lord of the Rings but does like fantasy, this might be one of the things they're coming up against. They may say, "I prefer the film because it doesn't do the same tone." So I'd suggest you say, "Persist, persist, keep going because it's after you get through that, the deeper tones, more complex situations come up." So let's first of all have a look at the chapter title. We can tell it is thinking it's still The Hobbit because if you'll remember that The Hobbit starts with a chapter called "An Expected Party" that's referring to Bilbo's nice quiet life being interrupted by the arrival of quite so many dwarves. Here Bilbo is planning a birthday party which is entirely expected. However, it doesn't actually start with that. What we start with is a framework of how Bilbo is perceived by the Hobbits, the society of Hobbiton and Bywater. And it's worth drawing attention to the shifting narratorial standpoints that you get in Lord of the Rings. Have you ever actually noticed how the narrator's viewpoint shifts? In this particular chapter, we're going to go from that narrator sitting alongside or sort of subsuming his view within the Hobbiton attitudes to a close focus on Bilbo and Gandalf back out to a larger scale view of how the Hobbits are enjoying the party. Then back to Gandalf and Bilbo where the narrator is sort of like the standing between them like a referee in a boxing match. You're not sort of party to the inner thoughts of either but you can tell what they're thinking from the way the argument they have is described. Then we're with Frodo and Gandalf and so on. So the narrator moves, gives himself the permission to be quite loose as to where they are in the scene that's being described. And it sometimes also has knowledge of the future, which the characters doesn't have. There are times when it hints to that. This sort of loose narratorial point of view is something which is quite hard to pull off because it can at times feel like you're jumping between heads and can be a bit disorientating. So very often a piece of advice a young writer would get would be stick with your main character, you know, be quite close to them. That's the kind of thing they do in Harry Potter. But Tolkien's allowing himself that freedom to move between different characters, different situations, and it's done with a purpose. So what is the purpose of starting with the view of the ordinary folk of Hobbiton? Well, that's because he's establishing that the Shire is what everything else, all the values, the sense of home, it's all built on Shire wisdom. Shire wisdom can be very blinkered and we'll return to that at the end in the scouring of the Shire. But there's something about it which gives the Hobbits the deep seated qualities that they have which make them heroes in the larger world outside. And how it starts is also by giving a little bit of a backstory on Bilbo by telling it through the amusing perspective of those who find him outlandish and strange, his mad baggins to them who comes back up the hill with his treasure chest. So we get an economical way of hinting to the events of the Hobbit. It reminds me a little bit if I'm allowed the comparison, but how Jane Austen starts Pride and Prejudice. One of the most famous opening lines in English literature is hers which is, "It's a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." That's gesturing in the ironic tone of Jane Austen to universal wisdom. And I think there's a little bit of irony here because we know that Bilbo is a serious character. If we've come at this from the Hobbit, we know he's a hero. But there's everybody around him sort of sucking their teeth and wagging their fingers saying his good fortune must be paid for. It isn't natural and trouble will come of it. They're obviously right, but the reasons why they're condemning him are not ones that take in all the factors that we're aware of. So in that point, we as the reader who probably know the events of the Hobbit are more like the narrator in having superior knowledge to the characters who interact with Bilbo. Anyway, moving on. So we're going into a story with the grounding in the Shire and it's nice to note that this is where we're going to end too. It gives the there and back again to this story as well. Tolkien also spends time on some humorous world building details such as you don't get to be of age until you're 33. You can imagine giggles in the Tolkien household as that rather ridiculous fact is made about Hobbits. Though of course it's pointing out that their experience of life is of a more extended lifespan. So they aren't us. They kind of are. They're a version of us. Another part of the world building that happens here and it goes through the whole chapter is names. So let's do a little thinking stop about names. So the very first Hobbit surname other than Baggins we meet is Sackville Baggins. And these two names Baggins and Sackville Baggins sums up Tolkien's use of names very neatly and succinctly. So Baggins itself is a real surname and its origin is Anglo-Saxon. And obviously there's the word bag in there. So it has a connotation of perhaps a peddler or a traveler. But Sackville is also sack is the French sack which is also a bag. So it's a Norman invasion, Norman conquest name. People called things like Sackville. It denotes potentially a Norman ancestor. And so you've got the old Anglo-Saxon peasantry and the conquest aristocracy coming in with their Norman names. But in terms of the Shire, it's obviously not part of the Norman conquest world because it's a prehistory. But it suggests that the Sackville Baggins are aspiring to as above their station. They're Frenchified. Veal is the equivalent ending to Ton Hobbiton Sackville. It's like the place town. And so you've got the setup between aspirational wanting to live finer Sackville Baggins and Bilbo who's happy with his roots and looking back at the past. There's also a little nod here. I don't know if it's just a happy coincidence or intentional, but at the time, there was a very famous Sackville and that's the Sackville Wests. Vita Sackville West was a great friend of Virginia Woolf and key figure in the Bloomsbury set. And if you were thinking about the history of mid-century, 20th century English literature, the Bloomsbury group are the group who get far more critical attention. Whereas you could set them alongside the contemporaneous Inklings who are founded modern fantasy. So nice to see a little bit of potentially two literary groups talking to each other across the way there in just those names. Looking at other names, you've got Bilbo's home Bag End. Now may not be immediately apparent to you, but houses in England, which are named something end, suggest a sort of gentrified house, possibly because it means like the end of a drive or something like that. You might be familiar with Howard's End, which is the E.M. Foster novel. Bag End sounds like to an English ear, sounds like a posher house, certainly posher than Bagshot Row, which sounds like a row of cottages. Other name that you might want to pause and think about is the people down at the Ivy Bush, which is where we're going to go next in the story. And that's Gaffer Gamgee. So Gaffer is a commonly used term to mean an old guy, like a geezer or geezer. And it was part of the kind of nicknaming that went on in Tolkien's circle. The most famous gaffer in Tolkien's world was the gaffer who set up Blackwell's. And indeed, Tolkien bought a house off the Blackwell family and they were his first publisher. And if you go to Blackwell's bookshop today, you'll find an office called the Gaffer's office is still there. But lots of people were called gaffer. And apparently the Tolkien family came across a gaffer Gamgee down in the Southwest and it was a sort of family name or joke they picked up. And that goes to show how as a writer, you go around collecting these things from all sorts of different sources. This is something Tolkien did in particular. He wrote stories about a lost toy for his children, the Rover Random story. But in the Lord of the Rings, you've got Tom Bombadil, who was a sort of puppet figurine that they had in the family. And Tolkien spun a whole world around this Tom Bombadil figure with the poetry and the stories. And of course, he makes an appearance in Lord of the Rings, but we're not there yet. So names are very important. And in fact, the whole Middle Earth project started with Tolkien thinking about names and languages. So it's not surprising to find how important they are here. So the first conversation with named characters is down at the Ivy Bush, not the Green Dragon, but the Ivy Bush, which is described as a small inn. It's worth noting if you're not familiar with English village life, that even a small village could have numerous inns. The one I live in at the moment had at least five pubs or inns in living memory. Lots of social practices have changed and so we're down to one and a restaurant these days. But it's a recognizable world where a village would have lots of different places to go and different groups of people would habitually meet in different ones. They'd have their own recognizable pub they go to. So the Ivy Bush is clearly where all the old geezers meet and set the world to rights. This is a very male world. I suppose the women were back home putting the baby hobbits to bed or whatever. But that is part of the period piece of Lord of the Rings. You have to think about it being a kind of 1920s world really, or even an Edwardian before that. So the social relationships are from that era, not from the present day. The first conversation we hear about Bilbo sets out the social structure of the shire. We hear that Bilbo is a Mr. Bilbo, a gentle hobbit. He's a gentleman in other words. It doesn't mean he's a gentle hobbit though, of course he is, but it's the term for a gentleman. And we hear the gaffer says that he gives him respect for his knowledge of vegetables. And here we've got this strange flat social structure of the shire. So we've got Bilbo who is clearly a form of gentry. And there are a few other hobbits that are in that kind of world, but the majority are laborers and working people, gardeners and so on. And they are each given respect for their trade. So we have skilled workers and leisured gentlemen like Bilbo, but we don't have any aristocracy. That's possibly because the aristocracy are technically the king and his followers. And the king, as we know, has not yet returned. And even when he does return, he doesn't impose an aristocracy upon the shire. So we have a very flat pyramid. And this is one of the answers to why Sam happily calls Frodo, Master Frodo, pretty much all the way through, even though they're clearly each other's best friend during the course of the story. And that's because there is no shame in being a servant in the shire. You're not being servile. And of course, Tolkien as a good Roman Catholic would have known to be a servant is to be the highest thing you could be. When you hear Sam deferring to Frodo, it's not meant to abase Sam at all. It's part of a respected role in his life. It's the mores and manners and mores of the early 20th century. It would play very differently if you were trying to put it in today's context, but I would encourage you to let it be a period piece and enjoy the master-servant relationship as is described here because it's drawing on the heroic batmans and valets that Tolkien knew from the First World War. People who went into the trenches with their officer and literally stayed at their side through death and ruination. It's not to be sneered at, but to be celebrated. So this conversation down the pub is another way of getting in backstory. One of the challenges as a writer is how do you tell, you don't want to do a lump of narration. Tolkien does do that from time to time when someone tells somebody else the history of the ring, for example, but you can't keep doing that. So how do you fill in some key details? Well, one way is to do what he does here and that is to have a conversation like this. Everybody in the pub already knows this story or part of the story, but it's become a favourite story to tell and in an oral culture of telltelling and poetry and so on, they all are happy to hear the same story again and that's what we get here. We get Frodo's backstory, how he became an orphan when his parents died in a boating accident. A couple of things here just to highlight for you. One is his mother's surname, which is Brandybuck. That's how he's related to Merry through his mum. Brandybuck, notice the name, Brandy is a spirit and a buck is, well, you get a bucking horse, of course, but it probably most likely refers to a deer, a male deer known for fighting with their antlers. So he gets double spirit, an alcoholic spirit and a spirited animal. So you know that anybody with the name Brandybuck is going to be a feisty person. You also get here very subtly some hints that not everything is perfect in the Shire. It's not a bucolic world where everybody loves each other. You've got some grit in the oyster. So you've got particularly Sandiman the Miller saying that he thinks or he has heard, he's not so bold to say he actually thinks that he blames it on other people unnamed. He heard that Primula Brandybuck pushed Drogo Baggins in. A nasty thing to say about somebody. So we see there are dark thoughts, people who have less than worthy motives in the Shire as well. And that is notable because the mill is one of the first places that kind of falls into the horrible ruined Shire that we come back to at the end. So you can see how the beginning is actually already thinking ahead to the very, very end three books later. This conversation does a lot of things. It introduces us to the sort of Hobbit-y dialect of the rural people. They speak more rural than Frodo and Bilbo do. That's the kind of language that Sam speaks. But we also get Sam introduced. We know that he's been learning his lessons from Bilbo. So a little bit of backstory for Sam thrown in here. And then we finish with the announcement that the party is about to happen. The party set up quite a lot of this chapter is devoted to the party, probably daringly too much in terms of getting people into the story. I love it because I'm just happy to carry on reading Tolkien, but looking at it as good storytelling, it does take a while to get going. So we've got the Gandalf arriving with his fireworks, which he doesn't let off. But maybe there is something to be said for delaying our gratification because the slow buildup means that when the party does come, it shines all the brighter. We don't get to see the fireworks until the party, unlike the little whiz-bangs in the Peter Jackson version of this. But I want to draw your attention to the first conversation between Bilbo and Gandalf. This is the first time that we're meeting the core characters, not mediated by the viewpoint from the Hobbits, the Hobbiton view. We're actually in the room eavesdropping almost on their conversation. And I just want to point out the brilliance of the scene setting and how economical Tolkien is with his descriptions, but we immediately were there. So it says, "Inside Bag End, Bilbo and Gandalf were sitting at the open window of a small room looking out west onto the garden. The late afternoon was bright and peaceful. The flowers glowed red and golden, snapdragons and sunflowers, and nasturtiums trailing all over the turf walls and peeping in at the round windows." It really helps if you know what those flowers are. So they're all common flowers found in a cottage garden. They're all in the orange, yellow and red end of the spectrum. I'm sure everybody knows what sunflowers are. Snapdragons, I remember, delighted me as a child. So here we've got the nursery feel still, because if you took a snapdragon bloom off a stalk, probably shouldn't have done that, but you can press it so that the flower opens and closes like a dragon's jaws, like little dragon's jaws. And we've got a hint here, of course, of the fiery adventure with Smaug. With the reds and the golds, we've got a hint of the earlier adventure that Bilbo went on with Gandalf. You've also got the sense that he is in the autumn of his life, that kind of atmosphere. And we've got a sense of the peace and the beauty, all done with those little details. Nasturtiums actually are edible, so that's a nice. I'm not sure that Tolkien would have eaten them, but he was a keen gardener, so he definitely knew his flowers. And then it does feel like a conversation we're eavesdropping on, because they're talking about a plan that they've already discussed. Bilbo says he's going to stick to it, but we don't hear what that is going to be. We're kept out of the full information. So it's a bit like a trailer. He's saying, "Pay attention to this party. Something important's going to happen, so keep reading." But it's not letting us into the secret as yet. We're booted out of the room again, and we have to look at the party being set up from a distance, and we're kept out of Bag End too. There's that famous sign on the door, "No admittance except on party business." So the closest we can get to the party preparations is standing watching the tents being erected and the cooks arriving and so on. And then there's quite a lot about presents. This shows us we're still in the world of a children's tale, because what child doesn't like birthdays and presents? Of course, it would also be delighting them that the rules are reversed here and that it's actually you giving the presents on your birthday. So again, another humorous tone that fits this child's tale. Emphasis on presents, emphasis on food, and then we get another of these wonderful bits of description, which are doing lots of jobs. It's bringing the magic of Gandalf's fireworks into our imagination, but also within the fireworks are messages about the past and messages about the future. We've got mentions of all the different cultures or some of the main cultures. We've got dwarf candles, elf fountains, and goblin barkers. Then amongst the beautiful descriptions of what the fireworks turn into, there are some that seem to nod to things that have happened or will happen. There's one that are like green trees with trunks of dark smoke and their leaves open like a whole spring unfolding in a moment, which feels very much like the wonderful trees that we see in Lothlorien. But there's other hints of the past and the future. We've got sailing ships that could, of course, refer to the elves coming from the West, but it also could be hinting at the end. We've got eagles. Bilbo is saved by the eagles. Eagles come to save Frodo. So he's weaving into this passage, which is seemingly about fireworks, the world of his story. This is where you see his master craftsmanship at work. This very thick feel that you get to the world, which is one of the reasons why I love reading his book so much. The world is so convincing, so deep, embedded throughout all these little details that you really believe you can walk around inside it. And then there's, of course, the dragon, which is both funny because it makes all the hobbits panic, but also there's a neat visual recap of the events of the Hobbit. It shows us that we're connecting it to that story with the Lonely Mountain and the dragon. And I think one thing that's worth pointing out here is that we have two main wizards in this story. We've got Gandalf and we have Saruman. They both have the ability to manipulate forms of magical gunpowder. Gandalf chooses to make fireworks with his to entertain hobbits and Saruman chooses to use his as a weapon of war. Enough said. Going on to Bilbo's speech, I think there's a couple of things just to draw your attention to here. That is that we are still outside the secret. Gandalf knows what's going to happen. Bilbo knows what's going to happen, but we are still looking on to him as if we're one of the hobbits watching the speech. The other thing is the repetition of the names. It's actually quite extraordinary when you look at that passage. It's a long list of names. It's repeated three times. So first of all, we have the narrator's account. Then we have Bilbo reciting it with great pleasure and then it's recited a final time with the tempo picking up as a reaction to his disappearance. Looking at these names, we've learned to realize that names mean more than just the superficial sound of them. All of these names are chthonic. They're natural to the world of the shires in Middle England. So the area underneath Birmingham, stretching down to Oxford, including Stratford-upon-Avon and all that area, this is the world of the shire. If you come and visit today, you'll find villages that are not dissimilar to Hobbiton. The way the speech works when you read it for the first time is that it's delayed gratification. We are like the hobbits, kind of saying, "When are you going to get to the main point?" We don't particularly want to do this backstory into him having a cold when he was on the barrels. That's all on purpose to make us feel the abruptness of the moment when he disappears. Then look at how the next sentence is written. Bilbo says goodbye and then it's written, "He stepped down and vanished. There was a blinding flash of light and the guests all blinked." It's very subtle, but there's a delay between the flash of light and him vanishing. Bilbo, we find out, did the first thing. Gandalf did the second in order to cover his exit. It's very subtle, but it's there if you're looking for clues, perhaps on a reread. Then a very important thing happens in this next section, which is we meet Frodo for the first time. He's only been mentioned in the past and we've had some of his backstory. We now find that he is one of the other people who is in on the joke. In fact, he's the third person. There's Bilbo, there's Gandalf, and there's Frodo. That immediately sets him apart from all the other hobbits. A first entrance by any character is important. So what do we get here? Let's look at that really carefully. He's a little bit apart from everybody else. He is kind. He makes sure everybody gets another round of drinks and what have you, but he's also amused. Kindness and a sense of humor are core qualities of Frodo. But he also gets his reflection. He thinks deeply and his love for Bilbo is a moment when he realizes just how much he loves his uncle and he sets himself apart. So he leaves. It's almost like a little microcosm of his journey that he is a little bit apart and he leaves. I doubt that that was intentional, but I can see that in it. Now I have a look at this little section just now. He slips out of the pavilion. At the end, he slips away to the Grey Havens. And then we go back to Bilbo and we've got this wonderful, important scene. In fact, if this was a medieval manuscript, it would be illuminated with lots of, "Look at this" with stars and wild animals on the margin so that we would read it carefully. Because this confrontation between Gandalf and Bilbo is a key pivot moment in the history of Middle Earth. Why? Because Bilbo is the only person in history who willingly gives up the ring. Thematically, that's absolutely important. If this scene didn't go this way, the rest of the story would not happen. But it's still notable that he needs Gandalf to make him get the envelope and put it on the mantelpiece for Frodo. It's not an easy thing to do. But before he reaches that point, he has to be persuaded into it. And there are some little notes here which are showing just how urgent the situation is. It's a wonderful conversation. Do read it with care because I like the way the narrator is standing back. We're seeing both parts of this conversation equally. We can feel their reactions pretty equally as well. We've got Gandalf getting more and more mystified and Bilbo getting more and more angry until the point at which they have the moment when Gandalf unveils his power. And suddenly they see each other in a new relationship. But before they get that, we've got the terrible moment when Bilbo calls the ring his precious. And if your alarm bells weren't ringing already, that's when they would ring. This is what prompts Gandalf to take that big step to actually not be Gandalf, the magician who visits the Shire, but to show his other quality, the sense that he is one of the Maya. They're like archangels. The role of the wizards in Middle-earth is like helpers to the Valar who are like the demigods of this world. And you get a little sense of his power breaking into the ordinary world of the Shire. So this is where you get the big sense of magic and power in Bilbo's house. That contrast again is a bit like a tease for what's going to happen going on in that it's briefly exposed as a brief confrontation. And then Bilbo's strength of character wins and he's able to give up the ring. So imagine in my copy, all the trumpets and stars around that moment because it is absolutely vital. And then there's that nice moment where he's made the decision, but it's still in his pocket. So he has to be reminded to actually leave it. So it draws out that moment. Is he going to wander off with it in his pocket? No, Gandalf's there to stop that. And it's really important that when he's offered it, in a sense, Gandalf is wise enough not to touch it. He says, "No, don't give it to me. Put it on the mantelpiece." Again, another important decision made by Gandalf, though he may not know how important it is at this point, but he has an inkling that it's a very dangerous thing for anyone to touch. And then you get the, after all the drama of the party and whatever, and then the big decision, which is this moment, we get, "Now I'm off." And off Bilbo goes. And there's a lovely sort of image of him walking out with his dwarf companions and jumping over the fence. And off he goes. And he sings the first of the poems in Lord of the Rings. So of course, there is the big poem that's at the beginning of each of the books, the One Ring poem. This is the first embedded in the narrative. And it's very apt that this poem is all about roads and journeys going on and on, because both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is all about taking the journey. And then the switch to Frodo being the main focus of our attention in the world of The Hobbits comes at this point. He comes home and Gandalf quite brusquely hands it over, it being the ring, tells him to go to bed. You get the sense that Gandalf wants to have a think about things. And in that interim, we've got the tidying up of the party. And here we've got still this nursery tone because we've got the jokes on the gifts that Bilbo leaves behind for his various relatives, each with a little sting in their tail. And as part of the giving away, we discover just how generous Bilbo is to the poorer Hobbits. Again, this establishes his core characteristic as a kind and gentle Hobbit. And we get a brief scene with the Sackville Bagginses about disputing the will. Now, if you were an editor looking at this today, you might think, "Oh, that's holding us up. Let's get rid of that." But actually, if you think about it, this is one of the few times we actually meet and have a scene with the Sackville Bagginses who are important when it comes to the conclusion and the scouring of the Shire because it is the greed of Lotho and Otho and Lobelia Sackville Bagginses that is the doorway through which Saruman is able to walk and start trading with the Shire and basically end up taking it over. So if Bilbo's act of giving up the ring is like the good seed that flourishes, this greed on part of the Sackville Bagginses is showing the bad seed that will be left behind in the Shire and will unfortunately produce its thistles. Then we have Gandalf telling Frodo he doesn't know what's going on in the ring, but he's just beginning to wake up to the fact that it's a much more important artifact than he perceived and leaving Frodo in charge of it. We get one of the strange breaks that happens with Gandalf. He goes and comes back again over the years and his departure mimics that of Bilbo. So when Bilbo left we had Gandalf watching him leave, now we've got Frodo in that same place watching Gandalf leave. That's the end of this chapter and what is really going on here as a writer, I think, is that Tolkien is exploring what his story is going to be. So he has the big overarching world of Middle-earth that he's aware of the events. So he's probably by this time already sketched out in a fair detail the events of the first age and the second age, but he doesn't know all the moves in the third age. So it's genuinely unknown to him and he is searching for a story at this point. He once described Lord of the Rings as a story where a character goes to lose a magical artifact rather than gain it. It's possible that when he started off that was pretty much the intellectual furniture he had in his head for this. It probably had a sense that it was in a way going to be a quest achieved. So he had a sense of his ending, but the moves to get there he hadn't mapped out. So in this the writer is very much like Frodo standing at the threshold of this journey. Frodo is to find out that he's got a treasure that he has to get rid of, but he has no idea where he's going to go when he sets out from the Shire. All he really knows is he's leaving the Shire and it's Gandalf who will go on to suggest, well why not go to Rivendell? Not much of a plan. And I feel that the writer and his main character are pretty much in the same place at the start of this book. And that's rather a nice place to end with that thought.
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