Sidecast - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Book 3 Chapter 1

Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creators brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. Now after a summer break I am returning to our sidecast where we read our way through the Lord of the Rings and it's very appropriate that this autumn we're setting off with the two towers which is obviously as you all know the middle segment but in terms of how Tolkien thought about it we're talking about Book 3 because he wrote it as six books. Now I've not sort of thought about this as deliberately before so this time I made sure I noticed everything that was happening before we started reading the two towers. I tend to just immediately turn to chapter 1 but I thought well how do they make the bridge between the Fellowship of the Ring and the two towers and I noticed that there is a very masterful previously on section and it also tells you where we're going to end the star and the end and so it says this now tells how each of the members of the Fellowship of the Ring fared after the breaking of their Fellowship if the coming of the Great Darkness and the outbreak of the War of the Ring so that says better than I can the land in which the two towers occupies. So chapter 1 is the departure of Boromir. Now let's think about that first the choice that Tolkien made here is to hold back on the main members of the quest who are of course Frodo and Sam and decided to go with the others. That is a good lesson on suspense. If we went straight to Frodo I think the effect would be we would find all these stories being much less important. Film versions of this interlace they chop it up so you see the stories happening concurrently. This this version of it is Tolkien tells it in chunks as you as you know don't know. Anyway so this particular chapter is notable for being incredibly short. Thinking back to the Fellowship of the Ring we were he sapped through enormously long chapters like the Council of Elren for example this one is only seven pages and stylistically it's also quite different. It's in three very brief sections. The first is Aragorn searching for Frodo which intersects with the Ork attack. Then we have the middle section which is the death of Boromir and the funeral rights and then the third part of it is the decision about what to do next. They all are also on the heels of each other as I said this is a very very quick chapter and really what this chapter is about is the movement within Aragorn's psyche his decision making process where he goes from hesitation to resolve. In fitting with the fact that it's only seven pages long it also stylistically is snappier. There's lots of dialogue and there's lots of let's get on with it and there's lots of short sentences so when you're thinking about starting a new book it's obviously quite good to up the pace a bit. It might be a Victorian thing to feel like you've got a whole canvas in which you can do a long sort of Dickensian introduction to a theme. Here we are right into the action we're into a battle and we're into Aragorn running very action packed but notice the short sentences Aragorn sped up the hill he stiffened as two word sentence Aragorn hesitated another two word sentence. There is a kind of interlacing happening here which I can't help but see now in film terms because of having watched the films but you've got Boramir his presence is made felt by the horn which Aragorn hears when he's standing up on the top of the hill at the place which was visited by Frodo at the end of the friendship with the ring and there's another connection here which you probably might you could miss quite easily which is to the eagle he sees a bird flying in the sky we don't know yet who is sending the eagle so there's actually suggestion later on that it could be Saruman is spying on them. It's one of those misdirects which is disguising the fact that Gandalf later says that he had word brought of them by the wrought of them by the eagle. One thing which I've always puzzled about here which is that Aragorn is oddly negligent he runs up the hill knowing this is a dangerous situation tell Sam follow me but makes their allowances for hobbit legs doesn't seem to notice Sam isn't with him for a very long time it could be that he's just not a regular leader at this point but I was thinking that this feels to me as though Tolkien is imagining the panic coming out of this crisis point and I don't think it's a panic generated by the ring which could be one explanation for it it seems to me it's one of those fortuitous accidents that the presiding fate of this world needs to have them scatter at this point because they all got vital roles to play it's that sense there is a greater plan beneath it and it could be why Aragorn is acting in an un-Aragorn like way of not noticing that he's left Sam behind. I suppose that gives you the sense that something fate is driving them at this point they're not quite in control of their choices and also Aragorn is shown to be I suppose a little bit unheroic in that he jumps in shouting a lendil a lendil but he's missed the battle so there's a lot of misfiring misdirection misunderstandings all part of this frenetic activity but of course the blade may be empty of enemies but it's not empty of everybody because he comes upon Boromir lying on his deathbed the language around Boromir begins to change a bit we are moving into the Aragorn register of heroic deeds and kings and queens that kind of world as opposed to the Hobbit every day sense they have a moving exchange and that exchange masks some suspense that Tolkien is slipping in there the suspense about which Hobbits have been taken if we remember the end of the Fellowship of the Ring we know but the Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas don't know so it makes their decision even harder after Boromir has allowed his sort of grandeur of passing in that he makes his confession he sort of puts things as right as he can at that point so he ends up as a hero rather than a villain Aragorn is given a brief cililiquity it does feel like something from a stage convention where he's lamenting he's the fault that he has committed by making mistakes I suppose here we are reminded of the sort of heraldic speeches of the Wathurian nights those kind of things so it is it is quite a stage scene with Boromir lying surrounded by hit the bodies of his foes it's a sort of end of hamlet feel to it so that could be going on somewhere in the back of Tolkien's mind. Legolas here is the one who has the idea because Aragorn is flawed flummoxed his hesitating and Legolas is the one with the plan he says that they must bury Boromir or do his funeral rights and then follow and he sums it up is as let us do first what we must do so very sensible. Note that it's by doing what they must do is where they start to get their answers they find two hobbit knives and no more so they're beginning to piece together what might have happened. It's also important this chapter brief though it is to establish how these three work together they do work very harmoniously together joining together in creating a funeral which they all agree on their decisions about which way to go are debated openly there isn't much rub between them there is obviously the rivalry between Elf and Wolf but they have created a little threesome band which is how they travel together going on from this even when more people join them. We also get here an explanation of the three kinds of Orcs that we have to put in our heads for this particular part of the story. We have the Misty Mountain Orcs who have already met who have come to revenge their leader. We have the new arrivals who are Saramans Orcs which are the ones of the White Hand and they are distinguished by the fact that they have managed qualities and one of the ways this is picked out by Tolkien is to talk about them having a Simiter like a short sword but also a long U-bow longbow which the sort of Robin of Sherwood longbow. So they obviously tall a stature to fire such a bow so there's somewhere between Orcan Man which is one of the things they debate about Saramans how we know that he has really gone to a very dark side by crossbreeding and then later in the next chapter we'll meet some Mordor Orcs who are the ones coming over the river the original flavour of Orcs. So they carry on puzzling out the signs and it is actually a shock to find that Saramans has Orcs when you think about it he was the leader of the White Council he was Saramans the White. It's quite extreme to go to using the servants of the enemy. And whilst they're puzzling out the signs preparing for Boramir's funeral, Gimli makes the statement which is in all of their minds which they're facing a decision but maybe there is no right choice. Tolkien is very good at these moments of crisis that you reach in life that sometimes there is no right choice you just have to pick one. Unfortunately in this case it turns to be the right one but they don't know that at this point in the story. The pace slows a little when we actually get to the funeral is beautifully described the way they lay out Boramir and of course it's one of the times when a poem is actually seemingly composed there and then but let's just dip into a little bit of the description of Boramir. Now they laid Boramir in the middle of the boat that was to bear him away. The grey hood and elven cloak they folded in place beneath his head. They combed his long dark hair and eroded upon his shoulders. The gold and belt of lorien gleamed about his waist. His helm they set beside him and across his lap they laid the clove and horn and hilt and shards of his sword. Beneath his feet they put the swords of his enemies. Then fasting the prowl to the stern of the other boat they drew him out into the water. They rode sadly along the shore and turning into the swift running channel they passed the green sword of path-gallon. The steep sides of tall brandy were glowing. It was now mid-afternoon. As they went south the fume of Rauros rose and shimmered before them a haze of gold. The rush and thunder of the falls shook the windless air and then they let go of the boat and he swept out to sea out into the great sea where they think he may have arrived at night under the stars. Beautiful description but it slows things down. They're going to take a breath to mark the passage of a problematic but important member of the fellowship. And then we get this poem which is three verses in couplets of ten lines each thinking of the different winds and they and Gimli mentions they don't sing the east wind because that's where Mordor is of course. Notice also it's in a question and answer format. So the first part of the verse is question the second is the answer. It's pretty polished for something on the hoof but one assumes they're all part of poetic cultures so the idea is they can create these things using the language of their traditional poetry. Okay so now we move into the last section and Argonne is basically saying quite everybody and now may I make the right choice and change the evil fate of this unhappy day and he digs deep and at that point he gets a revelation. All that hesitation the he's been driven to the point where he makes the right decision basically. My heart speaks clearly at last and he decides to follow the hobbits that that's his priority and the tempo picks up and they have their cry for the three hunters and I just want to point out the last paragraph talking has a wonderful way of exiting from his chapters like a deer he sprang away through the trees he sped still short sentences on and on he led them tireless and swift now that his mind was at last made up the woods about the lake they left behind long slopes they climbed dark hard edge against the sky already red with sunset dusk came they passed away gray shadows in a stony land so thematically they're also passing this is a chapter about passing people moving on and even though they're just going to be there in the next chapter there is a sense that it keeps with that feeling of energy the tone hasn't been wrenched in a new direction after sending Boromir over the falls of Rauros so an excellent little jewel of a chapter gets us going eager to find out what happens in the rest of the adventure so that's chapter one and we look forward to the writers of Rohan in chapter two in you