Were you a friend of Boromir? - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Bk 4 Ch 4

Hello and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding. Now we are doing a series reading our way through Lord of the Rings and we have reached chapter 5 in book 4 that's the latter half of the two towers and this chapter is called the Window on the West and I'm having a look at it from the point of view of the authorial tricks and of the trade in this story as opposed to the deep history of Middle Earth. Anyway so let's get on. This is an unusual chapter in many ways because basically it's one extended conversation held in three locations and that is a conversation between pharameer, Frodo and Sam and the excitement is not the excitement of set piece battles like in the previous chapter where we had the skirmish and the first glimpse of an Olyphal, nothing like that. Here the tension is in the battle of wits, who is going to make a mistake, who's going to slip up, who's going to make the wrong choice and it's really the chapter where pharameer bursts onto the scene in Middle Earth and becomes one of many people's favourite characters. Tolkien said he felt he was most like pharameer except he didn't have the courage of his characters. I'm not so sure I think Tolkien showed himself to be a man of courage but will allow him his own self, his own humanity in that case. So there is a lot of wisdom that is the kind of wisdom that Tolkien himself espoused. He feels he identifies with pharameer's worldview and I think we can see that as this chapter goes on. And in thinking about looking at this from the author's point of view, if you're writing a book it might be that there's a character in there which surprises you as being the one that is closest to you. In a way all your characters are you of course. But the Tolkien strategy of having not a major character but one of the important ones, sort of a second rank character we say, being closest to his worldview is an interesting strategy. It stops it being too didactic because you can get your worldview, your sort of thoughts across without it dominating is sort of the atmosphere of the novel I should say rather than a message carried by the novel that men like pharameer can exist in this world. So it starts with something like it's the closest we get to return to the council of Elrondor, maybe a little bit like the incident where Aragon, Gimli and Legolas are sort of first encounter the men of Rohan and Hermann and have to explain themselves. And note that we are in Sam's point of view and we're starting in the middle of the thing because Tolkien has used the strategy that many of us use that Sam has been asleep, he wakes up and he finds a lot of the boring introductory stuff is done so we can go straight into the heart of the matter. It's a good idea. Well here we get another description of pharameer, we've been briefly in the previous chapter but now he's unmasked and I was interested to see how Tolkien describes him. It's not to do with what he looks like, it's actually what he feels like, what impact he makes on people around him. His face it was stern and commanding and a keen wit lay behind his searching gaze and that's really the key to his character and what he's going to show us in this extended conversation. And we can see his wit as in not witty remarks, not that kind of wit but wit as in cleverness, intelligence, the grasp of a situation as he puzzles through what Isl-Dua's bane might be. If you go all the way back to the Council of Elrond he is mentioned so briefly in passing as Borameer says that the dream there's a song, the poem first came to his brother and then to Borameer. And so here we've got that long narrative thread being picked up again. And Frodo is really forced on the back foot and he's doing some careful defensive play here hitting back across the net or it's more like he's on defense in this sword match trying to give enough truthful information without betraying his real purpose for being there. And during the course of that he mentions that Aragon was in charge of the company and talks of his lineage and here we get a division in Faramia's company. We got some of them saying all these great tidings. Remember these are the southern Dunardine, a lot of these people for whom Aragon may have been a leader of the northern Dunardine as sort of a big ideal in many ways because they understand his power and where it comes from. But to someone like Faramia who is the son of the steward of Gondor who has been ruling in the place of the king obviously it's a threat and we can imagine that Faramia might turn out to be a good person in a way he reacts but still it's a threat to his future that after many many years centuries of there never being a king Aragon is coming. I think that talking those how Faramia is going to react but he holds it back this is one of those times where you hold back from telling your reader because he says here that Faramia's face was unmoved not Faramia himself but just his face he's got a good poker face to use that comparison and why does he do this? It's to keep the tension because if we get access at this point to Faramia's thoughts internal thoughts and we don't we're not inside Faramia's point of view we're only hearing what he says which gives us a clue to it but if he's really thinking I'm never going to challenge the real king when he comes that takes away all the tension don't do that leave things hidden so that Aragon's return to Ministerus has some tension they don't just open the doors and let him in. One of the things in this chapter which I wanted to highlight is how Frodo is characterized here you need to delete your larger wood version of Frodo here we have a what is effectively Sam's commanding officer the head of his little squad who have gone out on this dangerous mission standing up for himself and his mission and his right to hold back information from another figuring command and we remember where in Sam's point of view initially Sam has pride in Frodo for the way Frodo stands up for himself and Frodo is actually a very good argument in this passage he says yet those who claim to pose the enemy would do well not to hinder it it being his mission so he's hinting and he's saying if you're a friend on the right side here you're not going to stand in my way but in this rally which is where the tension comes from and the excitement I love this chapter for that just the way this long conversation unfolds Faramia has an amazing drop shot were you a friend of Boramia and interestingly at this point Tolkien chooses to throw us very abruptly to being inside Frodo's point of view from having looked at him from the outside from Sam we're suddenly with Frodo and there's this phrase vividly before Frodo's mind came the memory of Boramia's assort upon him and for a moment he hesitated that abruptness I think is on purpose because it makes us feel a shadow of the the shock the trauma that Frodo is still experiencing there so that's an effective shift in our point of view to bring that home and this the rest the bottom half of page 272 if you're following in the um three volume version you get a really good sense of this the hidden agendas and the explicit agendas in the interplay between Frodo and Faramia there's Faramia sort of keep laying out bread crumbs for Frodo to sort of take and then Frodo sort of thinks I'll hang on there's a trap here so I'll read you a little bit it says then you would grieve to learn that Boramia is dead I would grieve indeed said Frodo then catching the look in Faramia's eyes he thought it dead you said you mean that he is dead and that you knew it that you've been trying to trap me in words playing with me are you now trying to scare me with faucets so there is this tussle going on at deeper levels in this conversation and you will see that Faramia catches Frodo out again he lays keeps laying these traps and what he would really reason he's doing this is because he is in command of this secret base and he has to know how much he needs to risk with this stranger who suddenly appeared which priority he should be following Frodo's mission priority or his own standing orders to defend this base at all cost anyway so we got this sword fight going on verbal sword fight between Faramia and Frodo and then Sam breaks in it's done as a line break to emphasize that we're in sort of phases of conversation and he sort of bursts in saying see here captain and goes on to sort of stand before him he brings the shire authority to what is actually gondor authority he gets slapped down for that gently because this is Faramia but it's still a lovely moment which many of us will remember where he's described as he planted himself squarely in front of Faramia his hands on his hips and look on his face as if he was addressing a young Hobbit who had offered him what he called sauce and questioned about visits to the orchard so with Sam we're always going back to the shire and to the homely world which gives this sense of the grounding of his character he actually makes an effective argument he's basically saying you'll be doing the work of the enemy if you stand in our way if you think we've murdered Boramia you've got another thing coming that's the sort of the burden of what he's saying he does get pushed back by Faramia because Faramia knows that the the sort of negotiation is really with Frodo and actually Faramia is a bit unfair saying that Sam Frodo has more wit than Sam but I suppose what he means by that is Frodo is more aware of the cross currents in this conversation than Sam is the other way that this chapter has a sort of tension and excitement is the well placed revelations so we've got the sort of the sense of Faramia getting closer and closer to what Isadro's being might be but we also have certain moments where he says things which change everybody's understanding of what's going on and the first of those here is Boramia was my brother so immediately Frodo who's been traumatized by his relationship with Boramia is thrown back so that what he thought he knew about this person he's just met he is now beginning to doubt and he's looking at Faramia trying to judge him just as this is a two-way judging process what he says he likes he judges Faramia has been less self-regarding but stern and wiser than Boramia but he still can't fully trust him and like any good spy in enemy territory he's not going to give up his secrets easily so this leads us on to Faramia's what I would call a poetic account of his vision of Boramia if you've watched the Peter Jackson films extended versions there is a kind of he tries to do this he does it in a kind of dream-like sequence where you see Faramia thinking back it's paying homage to this section but I would say that this is one which is really worth reading because it feels like a piece of translated Anglo-Saxon poetry and particularly there is a series of laments that break into it that feel like within that form a lament for a fallen warrior and it's got the most beautiful cadence so it starts with the after the sort of the telling of how the the sort of chronology of when he heard the horn and all that kind of thing he then says this is Faramia I sat at night by the waters of Anduin in the grey dark under the young pale moon watching the ever-moving stream and the sad reads were rustling now that's in no way realistic dialogue we're not in the world of realism in that sense we're in the world of poetry poetic speech because if he was just having a conversation to get to the point he would say well I was by the river Anduin among the reads cut out all the poetic language but no this is about casting a literary spell I sort of atmosphere and the sense of the the majesty of this world and it goes on that night all the world slept at the midnight hour then I saw or it seemed that I saw a boat floating on the water glimmering grey a small boat of a strange fashion with a high prowl but there was none to row or steer it and he goes on and describes seeing Boramia in this boat including things which he could not have known in advance how he was dressed and the lorian belt and this is where you get the lament Boramia I cried where is thy horn with the goest thou oh Boramia but he was gone it reminds me of Lewis saying how he fell in love with northern stories by coming across the phrase the lament for Boulder oh Boulder is dead even though he didn't know who that character was there's an element of the echo here I think and the passage then concludes with this wonderful cadence which takes us out to sea and I do not doubt that he is dead and has passed down the river to the sea it's probably only somebody so steeped in that kind of literature could write something like that it feels like a song and it's noteworthy that he gives it to a faramid say this you would expect from an elf or something like that but this character is the most elven of men or as Sam says most wizardly of men and so he's been characterized through his speech here which is she is a something that Jane Austen does particularly brilliantly but not this kind of character and we get a line break after this what is a set piece in order to sort of say well that was that kind of register and now we're moving on we note here that when they go on to discuss that they've come out of lorien when Frodo explains where the belt comes from that faramia actually calls lorien by its old name lorielindorinan which those of you who are following along will remember that's tree beard who use that name and like tree beard faramia it's not going to make a hasty judgment so he's in that set of people who take their time fortunately not quite as long as an end there is an interesting little a several phrases that pop up out of this conversation which I think have wider interesting applications to the whole book one is a discussion about was that what he saw like a dream or an artist or a vision or something like that faramia says it wasn't evil for his works for saueron's works fill the heart with loathing but my heart was filled with grief and pity and I think this is something which both Tolkien and Lewis understood about works of art that they have a sort of imprint that they leave on the reader and one of the reasons why so many of us love dania middle earth is the imprint they leave is one that is of in the case of middle earth it's sort of longing and this grief and this pity sort of the greatness of the characters within it perhaps one of the reasons why subsequent fantasy works don't attach in the same way is they don't have quite that power there may be some that slip slip through and do leave that impression I mean Harry Potter for example does also have the idea of sort of as one of the winsy there's a sense of the greatness of sacrifice and a slightly sort of sauer understanding of the sacrifices that you have to make in order to defeat evil there's some interesting aftertaste left by Harry Potter but anyway going back to middle earth I think that this grief and pity is actually something that Tolkien meant his work to do so it's not it's not a work of saueron it's a work of the good actually obviously you already and he goes back as well to using the italics to sort of give his lament here is all duos bane is italicized and exclamations of sadness are also italicized yes he says borrow me oh borrow me what does she say to the lady that dies not I think that is a sort of express a sort of heightened speech not addressed to the people in the room with him it's a peculiar I think to this but this conversation but noteworthy because Tolkien is using it to set this conversation apart this is very different from the film version if you come at pharamea from the film version you find a much coarser weaker younger brother here but actually the pharamea here is already a man of mature judgments and learning so he doesn't do such a big character arc the film does that in order to give him a bigger character arc so that there is more drama in the decision they actually have it with pharamea taking Frodo and Sam to osgilia that doesn't happen here he's his decisions are all taken quite early on and his so he decides to trust Frodo and then he trying to work out well what do I now do with him what is best I've got to use my judgment I can't just accept what he's Frodo saying about himself so it doesn't have that cruelty there's no beating up of gold or anything like that in this in this story it's it's it's a softer version of pharamea I prefer this one because it seems as though he's a noble character in in the book then he is in the film he does get there in the film but it takes a takes a a jaunt before he does and as they carry on with their sparring they move to a different phase which is when they're walking along together and pharamea returns to the subject of Boramir and he says you were not wholly frank with me Frodo and Frodo has a very good comeback which is I told no lies and of the truth all I could but pharamea can he's like a really great detective in fact he's like the Ercule Poirot of Middle Earth because he puts together what he knows about the character of his brother and the signs and what he's read in the archives and what he knows of Gandalf and and so on he says is all is all doers bay and laid between you such things do not breed peace among confederates not if alt may be learned from ancient tales here there is a sort of link to the Somarillion which is all about the Kinsdrive that happened as a result of heirlooms fianos jewels so remember Somarillion isn't published at this point when talking publishing Lord the Rings it's that sense of the depth of the story that you can then go on to learn about but pharamea has clearly been reading the right tales because he knows but pharamea is not only showing that he knows his history he's also getting answers by gently pushing Frodo to defend accuracy and Frodo says it wasn't the company that was a problem and pharamea is it is as I thought your trouble was with Boramea alone he knows his brother and he goes on to say that he thinks that Boramea died well achieving some good thing because of the way he appeared in death there is a mercy in this world you can redeem yourself Boramea redeems himself but we give pharamea a chance to set up what is going to be Pippin's meeting with Denathor so while we're getting some interesting material here I think I'm talking contemplated moving something into the appendices but still it really sets up what happens when Gandalf and Pippin arrive in Ministerus because pharamea goes into some detail about the line of stewards and how Boramea was frustrated by still being a steward and not a king and Frodo says well you know he seemed to accept Aragon and this is where pharamea shows he loved his brother but he knew him inside out he said the pinch have not yet come he anticipates that if Boramea was still alive he would actually end up fighting for the rule of Gondor she's a fate that was spared by him dying so early on in the narrative and another hell there's so much in this chapter to delight those of us who follow all these but highways and byways we get a sort of extended little bit about Gandalf because one of the reasons why pharamea knows all of this is he's been a pupil when he could of Mithrandia and here we get I'd actually forgotten who I read it here that it's pharamea the one who says this the one who remembers we get the names of Gandalf Mithrandia among the elves Tharkoon to the dwarves a lot in I was in my youth in the west I've forgotten in the south in Karnas in the north Gandalf to the east I go not the companion to the Lord of the Rings has some very interesting a little a little section about this you can also read about this if you want to get a sort of Tolkien version in the unfinished tales in the history section so do go digging because it's some delightful little facts and figures about what Gandalf exactly is but pharamea not only knows Gandalf's names he's astute because he says that Gandalf was more than a Lordmaster he was a great mover of the deeds done in our time and he's linking us back here one of the images I've used for Lord of the Rings and the way it sort of bears studies the way that different parts of the narrative sew their way back to an earlier section it's like this great weave that's going on and here we're back in the shadows of the past where we hear that Gandalf had gone to the archives ministerial and found the account of what is it'll do I did after the battle and we get the sort of ministerial end of it all pharamea watching Gandalf do that research so it sort of connects us to where we came from and so pharamea understands what a loss Gandalf is because he is one of the great movers of deeds done in our time and then we get the test the temptation it's it's sort of in in stages and here we get pharamea making us sort of foul because he he senses there's something an heirloom something like that he says but fear no more I would not take this thing if it lay by the highway so he knows it would be bad for ministerial if he took it and so he would resist the temptation lead us not into temptation and we get pharamea's vision of what the future restored looks like again it's another lovely passage on page 180 he says for myself I would see the white tree in flower again in the corpse of the kings and the silver crown returned and ministerial in peace minister Arnold again as a old full of light high and fair beautiful as a queen among other queens and he says in an echo of Galadriel that he doesn't want her to see Gandalf as a mistress of many slaves not even a kind mistress of willing slaves that was the language that Galadriel used that if she took the ring she would enslave the population even if it starts as a benign loving rule it would become an evil version of it I think that some of these lines and there's another one later on are transposed to Boromir in the film you have to watch this out because sometimes if you watch the film a few times you start to think oh that's Boromir line is a pharamea line because when Boromir is talking to Aragorn in lorian again I think it might be extended edition he talks about you know that he wants to see the city restored so watch out for those is a pharamea thought and then we sort of conclude this little section of their walking to the hideout with a wonderful piece of wisdom from Tolkien again wisdom given to pharamea and it's much quoted I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness nor the arrow for its swiftness nor the warrior for his glory I love only that which they defend the city of the men of Numenor and so on there are similar thoughts about being in the Second World War and why fight that Tolkien expresses in his letters at the time when he's writing this so just remember that going on underneath this Tolkien is in a way working through his reaction to a real world conflict why should people fight yes they should stand up for what is right but you fight for not because you like battle you fight because what of what you're defending then we shift back to a quick dip into Sam's point of view just to catch the reader up on golem and hint he's still with them when your plate spinning like this you've got sort of so many different plot threads to keep going a little hint of that golem still with them really helps because that will set up the next chapter then we get the approach to the hennaith annul air and their eyes abound again we've got another of these little threads weaving us back to earlier parts of the narrative some of these sort of picker-esque novels of earlier times are more like strings of beads where each individual adventure is its own thing and they move on to the next adventure whose own thing Tolkien doesn't write like that his travel is always connected both backwards and forwards so the echo of what happens when they approach lorian as they're led by the elves into lorian is recalled here he's just sort of saying remember that and it recalls of course the other characters who have dropped out a site for half of this book but the binding also gives us this amazing moment which is the most beautiful visual moment in this chapter it's very good to deprive us of one of our sort of senses to heighten the other senses it happens again in the Shilob's lair where they lose you know it's so dark they can't see here it's through having their eyes bound but they get this experience of just being able to listen and to feel feel the the floor descending and so on and then being spun round and then there's a moment of like the curtain opening and they see where they are they stood on the wet floor of polished stone the doorstep as it were of a rough hune gate of rock opening dark behind them but in front a thin veil of water was hung so near that Frodo could have put out an arm out stretched arm into it the face westward the level shafts of the setting sun behind beat upon it and the red light was broken into many flickering beams of ever changing colour it was as if they stood at the window of some elventower curtain with threaded jewels of silver and gold and ruby sapphire and emethyst all kindled with an unconsuming fire now it's all very subtle here but one of the images that Tolkien uses about creativity in the poem with the pier is this idea of the split light that we are fragments passed through like a stained glass window so the white light if that's the original origin of creativity it splits through us and the image of this window on the west which is like a natural version of a stained glass window asking references subtly that idea of creativity and beauty for me that's what I think of when I so we are taken by it into other imagined worlds an elventower and so on just a beautiful moment so before the third part of the conversation we're in a little intermission where the Robin Hood atmosphere of rough and ready hospitality is reasserted we get and born with the hint of golem being glimpsed the idea he might be a I think he calls it a black squirrel but possibly golem and you get the fact that Farmer looks at Frodo and Sam and he's thinking oh I think it's your companion but it's not stated you don't have to state everything it's actually fun for your reader to infer let your reader feel a bit clever and we've got Sam forcing himself to stay awake whilst the meal is being set up and this leads to that sort of light lighter moment in this chapter which is actually the whole of it is one of those reprieves in the darker material here where we get the contrast between the customs of Gondor and the Shire with a misunderstanding about why Sam stuck dunked his head in the water and we get that bit of Shire wisdom that doing so is like rain on a wilted lettuce that's an image totally out of Sam's world this is one of the things that you might want to consider if you're looking for ways to characterise look for the moments when you can refresh old ways of describing something within the language that that person would use so it's not like a dash of cold water to the face it's like rain on a wilted lettuce so it helps create character but also conveys exactly what that person means and then there's a moment which straddles page 284 and 285 which is much written about because it is a very rare religious moment again the companion of the rings goes into great detail about this but they have basically what is a grace before the meal where they all stand and they turn to the west and pharamir's example says the reason why they do it is we look towards Numenor that was because Numenor has sunk below the waves and beyond to Elven home that is and to that which is beyond Elven home and will ever be that is like a Trinitarin it's got a sort of prayer cadence hasn't it talking considered himself writing in an era that's pre-Christian so his his gondorians are like Egyptians you know they're that sort of ancient civilization pre Christianity but they have this intuition about sort of natural form of religion and this is the moment where you see it Elven home the Valar sort of the Archangels in this world live there and beyond that the ever will be is the world of Illuvitar the sort of what goes beyond middle earth the the eternity of this world and we get one of the most memorable meals that follow I I know was thinking about this as I was reading it again that what is emphasised here is the clean hands and clean knives and plates they've literally come out of the equivalent of trenches to some respite leave away from the front lines and that's what I wonder if that is taken directly from experience of what it was felt like to have a decent meal away from the trenches that's what I thought of as I was reading it and then we get the final section which is the return to this conversation and it starts a bit like the conversation at the in a pre where Pippin goes a bit too far but that role is split between Frodo and Sam in this case because Frodo is definitely turning aside tricky subjects sort of maximising Boromir's heroism avoiding things he doesn't want to say and Farmer is looking for the the cracks because he needs to make a decision about whether or not he should let them go he hasn't made his mind up he is not being hasty but it's interesting that he reveals his mindset here and the mindset of the people of Gondor facing what looks like an unwinnable battle he says it is long since we had any hope that's the other line I mentioned that is given to Boromir and Peter Jackson's version he calls this stage of Gondor's existence a springless autumn and we go into another very poetic passage Farmer is such a poet where he talks about the history of Gondor and I imagine this is a bit that he might have thought Tolkien might have been considering am I saying too much but he left it in and I enjoy it just because of the language because he has that wonderful image which sets up what arrogant does right at the end so again it does have its purpose I'm glad he didn't move it into the appendices he talks about how the sort of kingdom sort of almost committed a kind of suicide in a sense that it became fixated by the wrong things kings made tombs more splendid than houses of the living and counted old names in the roles of the descent dearer than the names of sons childless laws sat in aged halls musing on heraldry in secret chambers withered men compounded strong relexes or in high cold towers ask questions of the stars and the last king of the line of Anadion had no air again we're not in the world of natural speech we're in the world of heightened poetic speech and it's absolutely beautiful but it does also convey something important about gondor he also goes into the link to Rohan here and talks about how the once high people in the middle people are sort of becoming the same thing and he's loved for Rohan of course foreshadows the fact that it's airwin plot spoiler who he ends up with anyway he says how they're more like each other middlemen of the twilight that were twilight of course linked to anybody who sort of follows the kind of culture that Tolkien loved the sort of twilight of the gods theme the sort of valkyner end of you know the ragnarok feel that inspired Tolkien so much he ends up being the discussion of elves that leads to Sam's downfall here's the one who doth equivalent of the ring falling on his finger because pharmid he and pharmid discuss this idea that philadril is perilously fair and that leads him to drop his clanger about how Boramir realized when in lorien what he always wanted which was the enemy's ring and you get this moment which is what it's all been leading to where the conversations come to a head where we get the choice Sam states it now's a chance to show your quality and its attention of that moment that just hovers for a second and pharmid releases it by saying I am wise enough to know that there are some perils from which a man must flee and he also goes on to sort of offer some comfort to Sam saying that his stumble was fated to be because it's helpful it's meant that pharmid makes up his mind and seeing that pharmid has resisted taking the ring Frodo finally is able to say what the plan is and he collapses because it's been a very very tense time for him and he just you know he says he's got to go to Mordor but he doesn't know how to do it and so he is you know that's the moment when he releases the information that he's been holding on to so he got these moments of like turning points and this is one and so Sam and pharmid have a little code here where Sam says to pharmid that you took a chance and showed your quality the very highest he gives him the compliment that pharmid reminds him of wizards and here with the the section is wrapped up by pharmid saying maybe you descend from far away the air of Numenol goodnight goodnight is the end of the chapter a beautiful long conversation is that chapter quite a long chapter compared particularly to the one that comes after which is the forbidden pool where we get back on to the main road after our respite thank you very much for listening thanks for listening to MythMakers podcast brought to you by the Oxford Center for Fantasy visit Oxford Center for Fantasy.org to join in the fun find out about our online courses in person stays in 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