The Grey Havens

I've noticed several people complaining about not knowing where to post comments about past chapters, or knowing when new comments. Unfortunately there's no easy way for me to add this to the script. Feel free to use a new message board area I've set up calling Talking Tolkien. Allison invites everyone to send in ideas and suggestions about the Silmarillion reading group section she'll be setting up soon, or any other ideas for Tolkien-related forums. Please let her know (she's the co-Administrator). I'm looking forward to continuing discussions of other Tolkien stories and books here! :-)

Incidentally, my friend Reid has decided to give the Tolkien books another go. I told him how much the feedback helped me get through rough bits, so he's going to be posting his reports as well. He was going to post them in the chapter feedback boards, but I'm worried about those getting too huge to download (or missed), so I'm going to ask him to post his reports in the message board area as well.

Anyway...

WOW, last chapter.

I had -wondered- what had happened to Lobelia. Everyone despised and mocked her in the early chapters, but look at her now, poor thing. I do find it intriguing that Tolkien chose to portray most of his characters as having some good and bad, rather than have all evil and all good. The evil guys can be pitied; the good can be tempted. And I did feel sorry for Lobelia, especially since she was obviously devastated by the news of Lotho's murder.

I was *so* pleased that Sam did indeed get to use Galadriel's gift of Elven earth. And that the mysterious silver nut grew into such an unusual tree! Have we heard of the mallorn tree before in LOTR?

I wonder why blonde hair became more prevalent in hobbit children that year? I'm so glad to see the Shire being restored, and was amused by:


And no one was ill, and everyone was pleased, except those who had to mow the grass.


Tolkien did have a wonderful sense of humour, didn't he? I'm all curious to find out more about him now, what he was like in real life, and so on.

HA! HA! Sam got married!!! That's so GREAT!!!! I'm very happy for Sam. I was touched to see that he and Rosie wanted to name their child after Frodo, until they discovered their child was a daughter instead of a son.

And yes, I admit I was dead wrong when I said I was worried that Frodo would get all the glory and Sam would get none. Poor Frodo. :-( I had no idea that the wound would affect so much, and that he would be so easily overlooked by his own people. I'm so glad he finished the book.

I bawled at the end, of course. You all would have been highly amused to see me, tears rolling down my cheeks as I read those last few pages. I cried partly because I've reached the end of a fine story, and I know I'll never be able to read it for "the first time" again. Partly because it was bittersweet and moving to read about all the good-byes before Frodo sailed off with Gandalf and Bilbo. But also because I've had such a wonderful time with you all, and feel as if I've made some new friends along the way, and I don't want it to end. :-) Many, many thanks to Allison for inspiring me to try giving LOTR one last shot.

And I'm resolved that it -won't- be the end. You've inspired me to read some of Tolkien's other books (and actually want to try to keep up when Allison starts her Silmarillion reading group), and I am definitely going to post reports about the Appendices (I plan to read them all, even if there are spoilers about The Hobbit), the Prologue, the Council of Elrond chapters, catching up on reading all the posts.

So you're not rid of me yet. :-)

But thank you all *so much* for keeping me company along the way. The Tolkien fan community is definitely a special group of people, and I feel privileged to have "met" you. :-)

[Previous entry: "The Return of the King: BOOK VI - Chapter 8"] [Next entry: "Prologue Revisited (!)"]

Posted by Katarina @ 2001 Jun 24 03:42 PM EST

Debbie,

Remember, even at endings, as Gandalf says:

"I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil."

Posted by brian @ 2001 Jun 24 03:50 PM EST

Heck, I'm crying here, too. Because I've looked forward and dreaded this last post for a long time. I'm so glad you loved the ending and I'm so glad it moved you so. I'm so glad you loved LOTR. I'm so glad you started this journal.

Maybe I'll come back and post something halfway intelligent sometime later :).

To everyone: I plan to set up the Silmarillion forum tonight, though I don't want to actually start our reading group until the week after this, so I can finish end of the year school stuff and so we can enjoy and relish the discussion of this last chapter and all of LOTR. But if you're interested in the Silmarillion reading group I will ask you to come over and indicate you'll be joining us and answer a few questions I'll be asking in my first post sometime this week.

Thanks! As Allison goes off in search of Kleenex...

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 24 03:50 PM EST

BTW the Mallorns are the golden trees of Lothlorien.

Posted by brian @ 2001 Jun 24 04:00 PM EST

First few notes:

The mallorn trees were growing all over Lothlorien. They're mentioned several times in those chapters.

Sam and Rose's little Frodo will arrive soon enough :). Go look at Sam's family tree in Appendix C for info on that and another rather astonishing fact about Sam and Rose's future family.

And Elanor is such a pretty name. I really like that Frodo suggests naming her after an Elven flower, so she ends up with a name that seems both hobbit and Elven. It just seems so appropriate what with her father's love of the Elves and all.

And there's the quote I needed to prove Sam had been in love with Rosie for a long time: "It seems she didn't like my going abroad at all, poor lass; but as I hadn't spoken, she couldn't say so. And I didn't speak, because I had a job to do first.". So Sam was on the verge of proposing to Rosie, but then the quest came along. More on this theme later.

More on lots of stuff later. I've really been looking forward to the discussion on this chapter :).

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 24 04:14 PM EST

Dear Debbie,

congratulations! That’s fantastic that you’ve finished the book and liked it. I’m just very happy because I’ve always been sad that some people didn’t like LOTR. You are a great satisfaction to me.
It’s typical that everybody is so moved at the end. Be sure that it won’t be “better” next time, probably even worse as you will feel it many chapters before the end. I can’t read the last chapter on public. I have to lock myself in my room because I am in tears - exactly the same way you describe it and because of the same reasons :o). I’m wondering if the male part of this board has the same problem… Will you tell us, gentlemen? :o))))

Posted by Katerina Str. @ 2001 Jun 24 04:28 PM EST

I'm so glad you reached the end (and so sad, too!). I LOVE Rosie and Sam and Elanor and all the rest of their kids. This chapter is so bittersweet. *Sigh* It's all over now. :-( Great quote about Sam and Rosie, Allison. I never realized that before-- how neat! Love those hobbits!!

I also liked Lobelia in this chapter. So neat how we all disliked her in the beginning but in the end she turns out all right after all.

'And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap. He drew a deep breath. "Well, I'm back," he said.'

Such a great, happy-sad ending. Thanks again, Debbie, for letting us come along on the journey!!!!!

Posted by E. Gamgee @ 2001 Jun 24 04:37 PM EST

Hi Debbie,

Welcome back! This has been a fantastic journey, thank you so much for sharing it with us...

I've read the book about six or seven times now I think, and I still get tears in my eyes when I read that last line. "'Well, I'm back,' he said." Somehow I find it the single most moving line in the entire book. It's so simple but contains so much emotion. Anyone else here feel the same?

I know what you mean about never being able to read it for the fist time again, I feel the same. However, watching someone else read it for the first time like we've been doing is almost as good and I promise you you'll have lots of fun doing that!

Posted by Pepijn Schmitz @ 2001 Jun 24 04:45 PM EST

Pepijn: I agree. That last line does contain so much emotion!!

Allison: I've gotta read that epilogue! I'm so intrigued!!

Posted by E. Gamgee @ 2001 Jun 24 04:53 PM EST

So yes, Katerina, at least part of the male population here has the same 'problem' as you... :-)

Posted by Pepijn Schmitz @ 2001 Jun 24 04:58 PM EST

And the other line that will always get to me, always, always...

"But to Sam the evening deepened to darkness as he stood at the Haven; and as he looked at the grey sea he saw only a shadow on the waters that was soon lost in the West. There still he stood far into the night, hearing only the sigh and murmur of the waves on the shores of Middle-Earth, and the sound of them sank deep into his heart."

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 24 05:04 PM EST

Wawing at Pepijn! :o)))

BTW, to me the most emotional paragraph of the entire book is probably the following one:
"But to Sam the evening deepened to darkness as he stood at the Haven; and as he looked at the grey sea he saw only a shadow on the waters that was soon lost in the West. There still he stood far into the night, hearing only the sigh and murmur of the waves on the shores of Middle-earth, and the sound of them sank deep into his heart."
IAMTT

Posted by Katerina Str. @ 2001 Jun 24 05:06 PM EST

Oh, Allison, the same feelings! :o)

Posted by Katerina Str. @ 2001 Jun 24 05:08 PM EST

These are the lines that has me falling apart (you know by now how very sad Frodo's sufferings make me...): "I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them."

Posted by Katarina @ 2001 Jun 24 05:10 PM EST

Exactly, Katerina :). It's a perfect emotional moment.

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 24 05:14 PM EST

oh no, it's finished!!!!

i'm so pissed off everytime i reach this part and know there's nothing more except for the Appendices which i have read at least a gazzilion time each! I am finally tempted to charge into the nearest bookstore and swipe everything remotely associated with the good Professor off the shelves! :D

but i trust Debbie when she says she'll be back with more. Wow! More discussion! And i can't wait for the Silmarillion reading, never having read it in english... i'll love to do so with you people! I'll try to keep up anyway, even though i'm going into the army in a week or two [no war afoot!- it's just here in Cyprus all guys have to do two years military service *sigh*].

Katerina Str: i know what you mean- the tension of the ending is unberable- and you can't help feeling misty-eyed when the veil rises and Frodo passes into the blessed lands. Of course, when i first read LotR, i had no idea where the hell they were all going, even though i did get this impression of the Paradise in the West. After reading the Sil of course, it all changes...

But again, i mostly remember being touched and on the verge of tears when Frodo yells at Sam near Mount Doom, Faramir and Eowyn kissing on the walls of Minas Tirith as the Eagle brings news of victory, Denethor going bonkers and burning himself on his pyre [people don't like him but i can't help feeling sorry for him], Gollum falling into the Cracks of Doom [pure tragedy]... The feeling here at the end of it all is perhaps the melancholy of adventures that are over, and even of the sense that things are never to be as pure as they once were. It is the melancholy of the Elves probably- the feeling that the world is corruptible, and even when Good prevails Evil cannot be completely healed. If i remember correctly, Tolkien speaks in the Silmarillion of the "tainting of Arda" [i cannot be sure what it is in English] which Melkor brought about with the darkening of Valinor.

In short, the ending, and the departure of the Elves brings to my mind King Lear, [which is fresh in my mind only because we did it in English Literature at my school this year!] Frodo, Gandalf and the others seeked to restore natural order which had been breached by Sauron's lust for power, but at the end found that nothing could be mended, even though evil finally destroyed itself. Ok, so the association is not =really= exact, and Tolkien didn't like Shakespeare anyway, but my mind can't help going that way! :]

Posted by yiorgos @ 2001 Jun 24 05:17 PM EST

The emotion that most characterizes the end of LotR for me is loss. So many wonderful things are slipping away: Gandalf, the Elves, Lothlorien... Even the Hobbits are on the decline, in a way, as Men gain the ascendency.

Sigh...

Posted by Jonathan @ 2001 Jun 24 05:20 PM EST

Katerina, thou speakest in riddles...

What is 'wawing', and what is 'IAMTT'?

IAMTT probably means 'I Am Much Too T...', but what's that last word? Trusting? Tanned? :-)

Posted by Pepijn Schmitz @ 2001 Jun 24 05:21 PM EST

geez what a ranting! Especially after seeing how all of you said so much in so few words.. *sigh*

Posted by yiorgos @ 2001 Jun 24 05:21 PM EST

BTW, Allison you can count me in for the Sil(at least until the middle of August or so).

Posted by E. Gamgee @ 2001 Jun 24 05:29 PM EST

I totally agree with you, Jonathan. Yeah, Katerina, what is 'IAMTT"? 'I am much too Tolkien'??

Posted by E. Gamgee @ 2001 Jun 24 05:32 PM EST

IAMTT: much too touchy? tear-induced? tapioca?

Posted by yiorgos @ 2001 Jun 24 05:39 PM EST

tired?

Posted by Phil @ 2001 Jun 24 05:41 PM EST

Debbie, so much emotion, I haven't had the chance yet... I just want to say *thank you* for letting us travel on this journey with you! I can't describe in words how wonderful it has been. "Meeting" you, and "meeting" all the other companions of this Fellowship... I have loved it! You gave me the opportunity to share my long lasting love for LotR and ME with others, just as "crazy" as myself. I don't know too many like this in my surroundings...

And it's not over yet! First, there's the appendices (you are going to post about them too, aren't you??). And then we go on to other Tolkien works. I'm very happy that you now show an interest in reading The Silmarillion with us! That will make that journey even greater!

(Allison, can't we wait a little bit with the Silmarillion project until Debbie has finished the appendices, if she's going to post about them too? :) )

By the way Deb, I think the golden hair on the little hobbitses heads might be an influence from Galadriel's gift. She had deep golden hair, remember? :)

Posted by Katarina @ 2001 Jun 24 05:42 PM EST

How about "I Am Moved To Tears"?

Posted by Katarina @ 2001 Jun 24 05:47 PM EST

Same thought as Katarina about Galadriel/hobbit's golden hair.

yiorgos: tapioca??? :-D

Posted by E. Gamgee @ 2001 Jun 24 05:48 PM EST

Ah, what enchantment! There's nothing else quite like The Lord of The Rings, is there?

Posted by Fred @ 2001 Jun 24 05:51 PM EST

Fred: Nothing.

Posted by E. Gamgee @ 2001 Jun 24 05:55 PM EST

No, absolutely NOTHING.

Posted by Katarina @ 2001 Jun 24 05:57 PM EST

I am so sad! Why did you all have to go and quote the ending? (sniff) Those are heart-wrenching lines that I can never handle.

Well, congratulations Debbie!!!! It has been a wonderful pleasure :o)! Thank you so much for allowing us all to join you.

Oh yes, please can we read the Appendices (at least the end of A and B) before we start the Silmarillion? Ok, I have to go. I'm getting all choked up thinking about A&A.

Posted by Phil @ 2001 Jun 24 05:58 PM EST

E. Gamgee- Now here's a question I've wanted to ask for awhile. Is your nickname taken from Elanor Gamgee and did you initialize the "E" to keep it from being a spoiler from Debbie? I vaguely recall that you used two names when you first came into these boards, am I right? I've been too intimidated by all the past posts to go through and discover that answer for myself :).

By the way, if you -have- named yourself for Elanor Gamgee, you want to go and find and read that Epilogue right now, trust me :).

Also, once I set up the Silmarillion board, I'll post a link here so people can go over and leave a note on that board that they want to join the reading group. It'll be easier to organize that way.

OK, so here's one of the coolest observations I've read about LOTR in the last year or so and if I could remember where I read it or who said it I would gladly credit them, but I'm going to pass it on, anyway.

The person observed that the road Sam walks through LOTR very much parallels the road of Aragorn. They are both in love and want nothing more than to be with the woman they love. They both must leave the women they love behind being compelled to achieve accomplishments beyond their borders before they can return to their homeland and their heart. And both will achieve that in the closing pages of the story. It's a really nice comparison.

I'd also add that what makes the comparison even more profound to me is that Tolkien doesn't quite give Sam or Aragorn the standard "happily ever after" fairy tale ending once they return to their love, the triumph is bittersweet. We know that both Sam and Aragorn will have love, contentment and great respect from their peers in their lives. Still, while Sam gains Rosie when he returns to The Shire, he must lose Frodo. And though Aragorn and Arwen are together in the end, we know their story must be bittersweet, too (as Deb will discover in Appendix A).

No pure "happily ever after" for either Sam or Aragorn, just something a lot more real, something that feels a whole lot more like life.

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 24 05:59 PM EST

"No pure "happily ever after" for either Sam or Aragorn, just something a lot more real, something that feels a whole lot more like life."

That's beautiful Allison, and so very true!

Posted by Phil @ 2001 Jun 24 06:02 PM EST

Well, my trip is delayed a day so I get to read the post for the last chapter - yea!

So, quite a journey Debbie - from who are there strange people??? to tears at the end. Thanks again for sharing with all. I too like Lobelia - that is a nice touch of respect Tolkien has left us. And Sam, returned to the warmth of home and family, but with a big empty spot as well - a very real and poignant ending.

Katerina Str. - I don't remember moist eyes at my early readings (that could be just because I've forgotten), but I just finished reading LotR to my daughter and there were quite a few spots where I had great difficulty reading properly and she would say "Daddy, what's wrong?" before she realized what it was. By the end she was used to it. A place that surprised me was when Sam and Frodo are brought before Aragorn at the field of Cormallen and he kneels to them in honor in front of all the assembled hosts. I don't remember being so moved by that image before. Of course Gimli and Galadriel's interaction in Lothlorien, the parting with Galadriel and Celeborn with the elven world slipping away forever, Boromir's funeral, Eowyn and Faramir, Sam and Frodo at the end of the world - these are very moving.

Posted by Christopher B. @ 2001 Jun 24 06:09 PM EST

I sob through this chapter too. It's so sad and yet happy, but after reading it and knowing that I've reached the end of the best book (LOTR is really just one book) in the world, makes me sob even more for the horror of leaving it and Middle-earth behind for awhile(till next week!)

I'm really going to miss this board, but am looking forward to the Sil one. Thank you Debbie, for the great time!

Posted by Talierin @ 2001 Jun 24 06:10 PM EST

Nope. Afraid I'm not Elanor Gamgee. It was Eowyn Gamgee to begin with-- two of my favorite characters, you know. :-) Still gotta find that Epilogue!! BTW, in real life I share the first two initials of good old J.R.R. That's almost as good as having a birthday on Dec. 19! :-D

Allison, I love your comparison of Aragorn/Arwen and Sam/Rosie. "No pure "happily ever after" for either Sam or Aragorn, just something a lot more real, something that feels a whole lot more like life." I love how you put that!

Speaking of Sam, someone put a link up awhile back (don't remember exactly where) of an article about why the author thought Sam was the main character of LOTR that was pretty interesting. Debbie should check it out now!!

Posted by E. Gamgee @ 2001 Jun 24 06:11 PM EST

*sob*

I am *so* dreading seeing the end of LOTR in the movie theater because I know I'm going to be weeping uncontrollably. I am going to embarass my friends so much! I can just imagine my boyfriend (who is not a Tolkien geek) muttering "good grief!" and pulling his hat over his eyes so that no one will recognize him. I am such a sap. . .

Posted by Raych @ 2001 Jun 24 06:13 PM EST

Raych,

I suspect that by the time the third movie is over, you won't be alone crying in the theater.... ;-)

When "Saving Private Ryan" ended, it was the only time I can remember that the entire theater sat in silence for several minutes, and even as people were filing out, no one spoke. I wonder if it's too much to hope for a similar reaction to RotK in 2003.

Posted by Olorin @ 2001 Jun 24 06:21 PM EST

Raych - go for it! I hope there will be lots of cheering, gasping, laughing, and sobbing in all three movies!

Posted by Phil @ 2001 Jun 24 06:25 PM EST

Heya, Debbie! Concerning those Appendices - you should know that by far the most important one of them (in fact the one I'd advise you to read first because it *is* part of the story) is the one concerning Aragorn and Arwen...

<g> I think it's also the only part of the appendices which is included in the one-volume edition of LOTR; which shows its importance over the rest of them...

Posted by Aris Katsaris @ 2001 Jun 24 06:25 PM EST

Heya, Debbie! Concerning those Appendices - you should know that by far the most important one of them (in fact the one I'd advise you to read first because it *is* part of the story) is the one concerning Aragorn and Arwen...

<g> I think it's also the only part of the appendices which is included in the one-volume edition of LOTR; which shows its importance over the rest of them...

Posted by Aris Katsaris @ 2001 Jun 24 06:27 PM EST

Raych, I'll probably start crying before the first movie even starts on Dec. 19th (really should be a national holiday in honour of the Prof) because I will know just how beautiful these movies are going to be.

Posted by talierin @ 2001 Jun 24 06:27 PM EST

Phil: me, too! *Sigh* Six more months. . .

Posted by E. Gamgee @ 2001 Jun 24 06:32 PM EST

That's just what I was thinking, Talierin. I expect to be crying from the first time I see The Shire...

And I agree you'll be far from the only one in tears by the time the movies reach the Grey Havens, Raych :).

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 24 06:34 PM EST

No matter how many times I read it, Debbie, I cry just as hard. And not just at the end. Perhaps you'll discover that upon your second reading, you'll do the same. The story, at least to me, is quite complex and each time I read it, I discover something new. It may never be the like the first time, but each additional reading broadens my perspective.

As for the Silmarillion, that is something I've tried to read quite a few times and could never, ever do it. I remember when it came out, I bought a hard cover first edition. It looks as new as it did the day I got it. I am looking forward to reading it along with the group for the first time. This is an awesome idea.

Posted by Mary @ 2001 Jun 24 06:36 PM EST

RE: the Silmarillion. Pepijn has offered the first track of the audio for everyone in the last chapter. I've just listened to it and it would definitely be a good way to approach the book for anyone! I've never enjoyed the Ainulindale so much! ha!

ps. You probably all know this, but there's a great illustrated (by Ted Nasmith) edition of The Silmarillion!

Posted by Phil @ 2001 Jun 24 06:44 PM EST

I feel really hard-hearted after all your comments. I never cried but was happy that the hobbits meet again with Galadriel and Elrond and, most important, with Gandalf. After all that happened it would have been rather strange if Gandalf's: "I want to have a talk with Tom Bombadil" had been his last good-bye.

Allison: Greatly said: No "happily ever after" neither for Sam nor for Aragorn. It's one of the traits in LotR I like most. Tolkien cares to bring his heroes back home and lets us have a glimpse at their future life, which is, well human, not all happiness, not all unhappiness, and of course a lot of work to do after the war - normal work for human beings, not a mythical war.
It's just the right ending.

Posted by Susanna @ 2001 Jun 24 06:50 PM EST

-Eowyn- Gamgee. That's right :). I knew Elanor didn't seem quite right.

Let's talk Silmarillion again for a moment. As far as I'm concerned, everyone, we can start the Silmarillion talk as early or as late as you like :). I'm keen on reading Deb's reactions to the Appendices, too. And the Prologue and The Council of Elrond and the Epilogue and whatever else she chooses to read.

Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to open the forum tonight and link to it here. In the forum I will open two threads- one for people to sign in (and tell how much experience you have with "The Silmarillion") and one with a handful of questions on how you want to structure the talk, when you want to start the discussion, how long we should have between chapters, whether we're going to read the book chronologically, all that kind of stuff so I'll have it down before the discussion begins.

Hopefully, in that preliminary discussion, which people don't have to participate in if they just want to stick over here, we can set a date to start things going with the Sil.

And now I'm leaving this board to go make dinner. I'm leaving now. I really am. I know I can do it. Watch me go.

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 24 06:56 PM EST

Susanna: "and of course a lot of work to do after the war - normal work for human beings, not a mythical war" Yup! Precicely! Don;t you love it when at the end of the "Scouring of the Shire", after history has been made at Bywater by the Hobbits [i love the "Generals Meriadoc and Peregrin" reference!], Sam deflates the whole notion of heroism by simply stating that the whole place will need one hell of a cleaning up!

Posted by yiorgos @ 2001 Jun 24 07:01 PM EST

I have been lurking the whole time Debbie has been reading the great book, but for some reason did not feel like posting until now. The comments have all been fantastic, and I have looked forward to reading Debbie's reactions and all the comments every day (usually more than once a day!). I may have taken forever to post anything, but I have been involved all along.

I am currently reading Lord of the Rings for the 16th or 17th time (?) - I really haven't kept count. My 21-year-old daughter thinks I'm nuts, but then she had the pleasure of having the entire volume (save the Appendices) read aloud to her twice, so she may take some time before she gets to appreciate JRRT like the rest of us do. She finds it highly amusing that I get all choked up reading some of the passages: Gandalf's falling into the abyss with the Balrog, Galadriel refusing the ring, the dialogue about stories' never ending on the Stairs of Cirith Ungol,the end of all things, Faramir and Eowyn by the walls of the Houses of Healing, and of course, the end, which after all these times always makes me cry.

For those of you who have not read the Silmarilion, my advice is to wade through it once - you will find parts to be boring or confusing, but other passages very moving. If you persevere and read it again (I think I've been through it 7 times) you will eventually get all the characters and how they are related to each other straight, which helps tremendously. It is not a finished book, of course. But we owe Christopher Tolkien a debt of gratitude for editing his father's various manuscripts into something of a whole, despite the remaining inconsistencies. Some parts, especially the stories of Beren and Luthien, and of Turin Turambar, are incredibly good. I'll have to check out the recording sometime.

I'd like to be advised when the Silmarilion reading group starts - I can always read it again! However I guess I should finish LOTR first. I had just recently read it again (see above) but finally broke down and decided to replace my ancient three-volume hard cover set that was falling apart (all three volumes). Purchased the one-volume edition with the illustrations by Alan Lee. So of course I _have_ to start over. ;-)

Anyhow, thank you all for a wonderful experience that has enriched my life for the last several weeks!

David

PS: I have dozens of unread books sitting around the house. It is somewhat insane to keep reading the same book over and over, when all these unread books lie there gathering dust. One of them at least is undoubtedly wonderful.

PPS: Has anyone on the board read The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende? This is another wonderful book. It is full of whimsy, but also has some very moving passages. This is another volume that makes me cry at the end.

Posted by David @ 2001 Jun 24 07:29 PM EST

I just wanted to confess that I usually cry at the end of LOTR. I know I cried the first 3-4 times I read it, and I don't think I did for a while after that. My kids got me a single volume LOTR for my birthday last year. The last two times I've read it to them, I did cry at the end, just like when I was younger. It's very embarrassing to cry in front of your kids, at least for me, but they were crying too.

I didn't find the Hobbit nearly as emotional, though at parts I feel a great pride in the strength of Men as opposed to Dwarves and Elves. :) I really love the animated Hobbit movie, but I know not everyone did.

I confess I have never completed the Silmarillion. I think you've gotten sufficient warning abot the dryness of most of it. I would definately read the appendixes and the Hobbit, not necessarily in that order before attempting the Silmarillion. You might want to read LOTR again first also, but you'll never have another first time (unless someone like you comes along to do it all again).

You'll notice the next time you read it, Frodo dreamed or had a vision of what he saw at the end when in the house of Tom Bombadil. In fact many of his dreams are like that, visions of future or far away events.

Posted by Arthur @ 2001 Jun 24 09:09 PM EST

Yes, I've read Neverending Story, at least half of it, never did finish it. It was okay.

Posted by Talierin @ 2001 Jun 24 09:10 PM EST

I have followed you all the way through, although I have only had one previous comment.
Thank you, thank you, Debbie, for taking us along on your 1st journey through LOTR. It has been so long since I read the books for the first time, but I feel like, through you, I have had a chance to do it again. It has been an incredible ride. Fortunately for me, I had just finished re-reading the books prior to the start of your postings, so it is all fresh in my mind.
Thanks again. I'm crying with you.

Greatest last line of a book ever written.

Posted by Andy from Minnesota @ 2001 Jun 24 09:16 PM EST

I've been pretty quiet in the posting of comments, but I thought I'd pipe up about the crying... I cry *every* time I read it. (I've read it about twenty-plus times so far). Most of the parts I cry for have already been mentioned by others, but other times it may be a happy moment; but my love for the characters well up at that moment and become overpowering to me. One instance, (not exactly a happy moment), is when Aragorn and Frodo are on the hill of Cerin Amroth in Lorien.

"'Here is the heart of Elvendom on earth,' he said, 'and here my heart dwells ever, unless there be a light beyond the dark roads that we still must tread, you and I. Come with me!' And taking Frodo's hand in his, he left the hill of Cerin Amroth and came there never again as living man."

Anyway, there are many, many places that cause tears for me. I guess that means I'm just not a 'manly' man... ^_^ (At least not according to the regional culture I live in)...

Actually, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I've cried more with every single reading. The first time I read it I didn't cry at all until the end, and then the pent up emotion from the entire experience came bursting out like a flood...
Now I take my bawling piece-meal... ;-)

Posted by Jeff Schaefer @ 2001 Jun 24 09:39 PM EST

This has quickly become one of my all time favorite Tolkien paintings:
http://fan.theonering.net/rolozo/images/howe/grayhavens.jpg
I think it captures exquisitely many of the emotions of this final chapter.
This is another good one:
http://fan.theonering.net/rolozo/images/nasmith/havens.jpg

Posted by Phil @ 2001 Jun 24 09:52 PM EST

Wow! Beautiful picture!

My family and I just finished reading the chapter "Mount Doom". Everybody loves good old Sam, and the parts where he mentions Rosie really stuck out to me since we'd been discussing that yesterday. . . Mom was a bit annoyed that Sam didn't skewer Gollum when he had the chance, and me ole gaffer :-) thought that Gollum met a fitting end. . . (though that's sort of off topic, I know).

Posted by E. Gamgee @ 2001 Jun 24 10:17 PM EST

First, thanks so much for doing this Debbie! I never thought anything could even come close to replicating the first time I read these books so long ago, but seeing your comments - and everyone else's - along the way, well, it was almost as wonderful as the first time and it really makes you appreciate this technological age!

I've been saving a link for you - you may have seen this. It's the cover art for Glass Hammer's new Middle Earth CD. I saw it a couple of weeks ago following a link on TORn and realized it's the Grey Havens with the boat sailing away! http://www.glasshammer.com/midearthcoverlarge.html

About the crying - yes I cried when the book was over, but this last time I found myself crying almost every time Gollum appeared in Mordor. It was like he represented every pitiable thing about humanity - just really got to me.

Anyway, thanks again! I may try to join the Sil group - just don't know if I can do it!

Posted by Jan @ 2001 Jun 24 10:17 PM EST

One or two things that disturb me about this last chapter:

There is every indication given that Frodo had the intention of leaving The Shire and Middle-Earth forever without saying good-bye to Merry and Pippin. I think this is terrible! If Gandalf had not interfered, Merry and Pippin would have only gotten word of Frodo's departure from Sam after the fact. Even despite pain and darkness and loss, what was Frodo thinking, setting up his friends for that kind of hurt? After the loyalty his friends had shown him beyond all measure they certainly deserved better than this. The small part of me that isn't weeping at the good-byes at the Havens almost wishes that Merry had gotten off his horse there and blasted Frodo but good for trying to take off on them unknowingly for the third time over the course of their adventures :). At least back in Book 1 he intended to -tell- them he was leaving (not knowing they already knew) and in Book 2 he leaves them to save their lives.

Sam fares a bit better, but not much- at least Frodo planned to say good-bye to him. He doesn't get much of a chance for closure either in accepting that Frodo has to leave, in saying what he might like to say to him. It's halfway through their journey before Sam even realizes what's happening and then once he does the rest of the time is spent travelling and in a crowd. I just think it would have been kinder if Frodo had explained things to him back at Bag End before the journey began, let Sam have time to deal with it. Was he afraid that Sam might have tried to talk him out of going? That he might have succeeded? That Sam couldn't handle the inevitability of Frodo's departure? Could Frodo just not deal with the pain of these good-byes? Is that a good enough excuse to leave his friends to deal with the emotional aftermath?

I'm not denying that it was inevitable that Frodo had to sacrifice his life in The Shire, "give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.". The writing is on the wall as early as the Scouring of The Shire- Frodo was already isolated in his own land and he was hurt beyond the powers of Middle-earth to heal, but I still wish he'd given greater consideration to Sam, Merry and Pippin when he decided it was time to go.

That's one of the things I liked about the Epilogue I read last night, though. Sam expresses some thoughts that made me feel somewhat better about all this, even if they aren't officially part of LOTR... Too bad I needed to wait 23 years to read them :).

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 24 10:17 PM EST

Yeah, I cried too. I especially also like when Aragorn kneels to Frodo and Sam. I even cry in Mulan where Disney copies this scene.

Posted by dave @ 2001 Jun 24 10:24 PM EST

Don't have time to post anything till tomorrow, but wanted to be a part of the goodbyes here. This last chapter is a killer, so sad, so very sad. That's why it's so great that it's just a book and you can revisit it again and again. Just imagine how heart-breaking it would be if it was real life. Debbie, thanks for the memories. Yes, I'll be back for other readings, but this was obviously the most special book out of Tolkein's collection, really. Can't wait for the movies.

One question, is there anyone out there that didn't cry at the end of the book? If there is, you're lying.

Posted by Roland @ 2001 Jun 24 10:37 PM EST

Allison, I look at Frodo as a very unassuming hobbit - a humble introvert that does not want to dampen others spirits with his pain and suffering. I think he really has lost all joy in ME as the Ring has been destroyed and his evil wounds have not healed and have taken him part way to the spirit world already. His friends have no idea what he has been through mentally (except Sam, a bit) and cannot comfort him - the reverse, I suspect. Only the Elves and Gandalf can understand his loss and pain I think, for they also have suffered evil, pain, and loss - and for long ages too. I suppose, really, it is the reverse - Frodo has a bit of a sense of the terrible pain the Elves have suffered, and their sorrow in leaving Middle Earth. The Silmarillion give some perspective on this. Frodo is more than a bit elvish, and his reward is to suffer for this trait.

Posted by Christopher B. @ 2001 Jun 24 10:48 PM EST

I sometimes wonder if, by the end, Frodo even really cared much? Or if his way of caring had changed so much as to seem lacking in compassion? Remember Gildor's lack of helpfulness to the Hobbits back in earlier years as they were leaving Rivendell - perhaps Frodo really -had- become "more than a bit elvish"

One more vote in for "guys that cry during LoTR". The scene at Cerin Amroth and the last pages of the last chapter are what get me. Oh, and a number of other places in the Appendices, but I won't say what for fear of spoilers. Just be sure of one thing, Deb - Tolkien's not letting you off the emotional roller-coaster yet!

There's really something about that last paragraph, and the last line in particular, that just kills me. You can almost feel that something infinitely precious and ancient has left Middle Earth, and all cares and loves (however occupying they may be) will inevitably seem a little less wonderful from now on. I guess its the idea of the timelessness of the elves, and their existence as a direct link to times of surpassing beauty, that makes that loss so bittersweet. The whole thing accumulates even more emotional weight after you've read the Silmarillion, and actually "see" the glory and the horror of the Elder Days.

Oh, the other part that kills me - Elrond's farewell to Arwen. To imagine losing one's daughter like that (to know that her fate, right up to the end of the world, is apart from your own) is agonizing. I try to imagine Elrond in his last years in Rivendell - makes me shudder...

Posted by Nathan @ 2001 Jun 25 01:08 AM EST

Oh, and one more thing! What do you guys think is the ultimate fate of Frodo and Bilbo? I used to think that they were sailing into the West as a reward, to live forever. Then I read Tolkien's letters and notes. But what does he know? ;-)> Any opinions?

Posted by Nathan @ 2001 Jun 25 01:10 AM EST

You will find "The Silmarillion- A Community Reading" forum up now over at http://electricpenguin.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum&f=34 .

Right now I just have a opening remark and a topic thread to sign up your name and some basic info if you plan to be part of the group read.

Tomorrow I hope to open up a second topic thread to get your opinions on when you want to start reading, how many days we should set for reading each chapter, etc. I'll let you know again when that thread is up.

There's other things I'd love to comment on here tonight, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow!

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 25 01:22 AM EST

Like much of the LotR I found the whole concept of the Grey Havens, the West and the role of Cirdan in the grand scheme of things to be very confusing until after reading the Sil and UF. Cirdan is actually quite a stud (being one of the oldest elves alive, although he never did experience the Light of the Trees, unlike Galadriel), despite his very minor role in LotR. Those folks joining the Sil reading are in for a whole new perspective on the LotR - I suspect that after reading it you'll find your next reading of LotR to be that much more fulfilling.

Posted by Lindo @ 2001 Jun 25 02:19 AM EST

Katarina, "I Am Moved To Tears", of course! It's so obvious, I can't believe I didn't pick up on that...

Posted by Pepijn Schmitz @ 2001 Jun 25 03:42 AM EST

About being emotional -- yes I am, but unfortunately I am very controlled and seem almost vulcan in comparison with other folk. It is NOT a man-thing causing me not to cry with any story... it is something else. But yes, I get choked at the end of LotR. Not as much as I do when Gollum shows his spark of compassion and almost love for Frodo. The deep sense of pity I have for him hurts SO much... and then Sam opens his mouth and Gollum resumes his "sneaking"...

Yes, there are many other emotional places I visit each time I read LotR, and the good thing is I get moved by new parts each time I re-read it. So it is not over yet Deb... there's a whole new experience awaiting you -- the re-reads. They're one in their own right... each and every time.

TTFN

Posted by The Mighty Celt @ 2001 Jun 25 04:16 AM EST

OK, Pepijn,
it was just a wrong spelling! Of course it should be WAVING, not wawing :o))).

Correct guess, Katarina. You are the winner of the Riddle Game, yesss my preciousss, the Ring goesss to Sssweden: IAMTT = I Am Moved To Tears :o) But "I Am Much Too Tolkien" is also a good idea..
But believe me, I didn't want to confuse you, I thought the abbreviation is quite frequent.

Raych, I'm just going to repeat what you wrote as it is exactly what I think about myself: "I am *so* dreading seeing the end of LOTR in the movie theater because I know I'm going to be weeping uncontrollably." I've never, never wept in cinema, but this time I will. I have to prepare myself somehow... :o] Most probably I start weeping in the very beginning of the FotR movie.

Allison: Can you e-mail me about that Epilogue I? (I think you wrote it is in HoME vol. 9 but it's not available in Czech and I'm not sure if I get it in English somewhere... THANKS!)

Nathan: I'm wondering what happened to Frodo and Bilbo too. I don't think their reward was to live forever but simply to finish their lives in peace.

Just a note: I have never finished Silmarillion but I'm looking forward to "give it one last shot" :o] I won't join your Sil. reading group as I'm going to be quite busy during summer and I don't have the English version anyway but I want to thank you all as you've encouraged me to read it!

That's all for now, see you later!

Posted by Katerina Str. @ 2001 Jun 25 04:53 AM EST

I am always deeply saddened by this final chapter.
The story comes to its close, and with the ascendancy of Man, all that was magical in Middle Earth starts to fade to the West, or just fade, leaving so many questions unanswered.
Maybe I'll find some answers over at Allison's "The Silmarillion- A Community Reading" forum :)
Finally, my great thanks to Debbie, Allison and to all you good people for the wonderful journey here.
Regards
Gurnsy dûn Albion

Posted by Gurnsy @ 2001 Jun 25 05:26 AM EST

Round of applause to Debbie for finally finishing!

I have to say, I'm not sure LOTR has ever made me cry. I certainly find the end affecting, but when I first read the book I was only a kid so it won't have had the same kind of impact. Maybe if I ever manage to read the whole thing right through again...

I like that parallel between Sam and Aragorn - yet another thing I never noticed (sigh...).

So when can we expect some new Waiting for Frodo? I can't wait to find out what happens next!

Posted by Keith Fraser @ 2001 Jun 25 05:27 AM EST

Another vote for the 'guys who cry at the end of LOTR'!
And yes, the end of appendix B has me in floods too!
And the Silmarillion too, but I'll be joining you all in reading that one.
And just the opening credits for the movie, I just know I'm going to be crying - I'm going to have no self-respect!

Posted by OnCider @ 2001 Jun 25 05:37 AM EST

Keith Frazer:
It think there could be some "crying while reading the last LotR chapter" in the next Waiting for Frodo strip :o)

Posted by Katerina Str. @ 2001 Jun 25 05:54 AM EST

Raise your glass (or whatever) with me to toast JRRT. It is extraordinary that "one man should be the creative equivalent of a whole people". and that after a thousand pages you are left wanting more.

Posted by Alan C @ 2001 Jun 25 06:01 AM EST

I always make sure I have a big box of tissues by me when I read this chapter and ALWAYS make sure I never read it in public. I think that this chapter is the most moving part of the whole book. Frodo has won so much for them all and he has to lose it.

The other thing that always makes me cry is Sam & Frodo on Mt Doom with the volcano exploding around them, waiting for death hand in hand.

Allison, I am confused by your link. I am not very used to this sort of thing. In fact I have never been involved in any sort of interaction on the internet except for emails. Debbie's journey just made me want to add my bit. Can you help me? I would very much like to join in the Silmarillion reading group.

Posted by Silmarien @ 2001 Jun 25 06:10 AM EST

I was wondering if anyone has pointed out that Tolkien himself was something of a 'proto-filker.'Although some people have said that Tolkien as a professor gave boring lectures which were hard to understand, it's also been said that he knew how to turn a philology class into a mead-hall. When Tolkien worked as a teacher at the University of Leeds, he and another professor put together a song book for the philology students and faculty. There were songs by Tolkien in several different languages, set to pre-existing tunes. The students used to get together with the professors and sing! Almost all of the so-called poems in LOTR are in fact songs, and at least one of them, Sam's Troll Song, was originally in that song book for the philologists (although in an earlier form). Tolkien can be heard singing the song in good humor on one of the cassettes included in the 'JRR Tolkien Audio Collection' available from Harper Collins.

Posted by Tim Steiner @ 2001 Jun 25 07:08 AM EST

David: I've read the Neverending Story by Michael Ende when I was eleven. It's one of the books I couldn't put away until I had reached the end, and it became my favourite book until I read LotR at age fourteen.

Now that I've grown-up I prefer "Jim Knopf" by Michael Ende to the "Neverending Story". For my taste, the Neverending Story is too much allegory and has too much "message". "Jim Knopf" is just a great story, though written for younger children. If you happen to have children between 5 and 10, read it to them, they will like it.

Posted by Susanna @ 2001 Jun 25 07:21 AM EST

I must confess I just *love* men who are able to cry. Especially the ones that cry reading LotR... It's not unmanly at all! You guys (and some women) have got all that backwards! It's actually the other way around.

No offence, The Mighty Celt. I know tears don't come easily to some people. I, for one, dry up completely when something really bad happens. And crying in company is hard, I dont usually cry in cinemas. (But in december I will, I'm sure!!)
Also I can tell you that the scene with Gollum+Sam+Frodo you mentioned was the one that Tolkien himself found the most touching and painful in the whole book. :-)

KatErina/Primula, I'm sad to hear that you won't be joining the Silmarillion reading project. I will surely miss you and you interesting and intelligent and personal and funny comments!!

KatArina/Primula

Posted by Katarina @ 2001 Jun 25 07:46 AM EST

Congratulations, Debbie!
These lines near the end of the chapter are some of my favourites from the whole book:

"And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed on into the
West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and
heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in
his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and
was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a
swift sunrise."

Posted by Andrew @ 2001 Jun 25 08:55 AM EST

When I read the book to my wife a few years ago I found myself choking up several times toward the end. Deb, you must read the Appendices that fill in other parts of the narrative, and post your thoughts! Thanks so much for taking us with you on this trip.

Hang in there. :-) Ufthak.

Posted by Ufthak @ 2001 Jun 25 09:11 AM EST

Please, please, make your friend to create his own website and post his comments there instead of a webboard. Come on, it's worth it!!!!!!

PLEASE!!!!!

Posted by Mith @ 2001 Jun 25 09:39 AM EST

Katerina: I'm sorry too that you won't join the Silmarillion reading group. Is it necessary to read it in English?

Posted by Susanna @ 2001 Jun 25 10:05 AM EST

I don't cry! I never cry. Honest!

I may have trouble speaking and swallowing, accompanied with difficulty seeing due to something in my eye that requires wiping away. But then I am very good at covering up. I have to be as my wife is always trying to catch me out. She knows the truth.

I found myself having trouble swallowing a couple of times just reading some of the quotes and responses above. Once the tears began to well I had to fight for control, especially since I'm in the office as we speak.

Anyhow… Thank you all for company on this journey so far, it has been extremely enlightening and enjoyable. I now look forward to joining you all in rediscovering the Silmarillion, assuming I can find the time and a copy of the book. I dare not buy another Tolkien item for a while on pain of death.

That reminds me I just got my hands on the 2002 Tolkien calendar illustrated by Ted Nasmith. I’m ashamed to say I was rather disappointed. Too many character based pictures (which he is not the best at; maybe he’s practising by doing little else) and not enough moody landscapes at which he excels.

Posted by Annatar @ 2001 Jun 25 10:25 AM EST

...

Posted by The Fair @ 2001 Jun 25 10:27 AM EST

I've set up an "Organizational Talk" thread over on the new Sil board now, so please go over and give me some feedback on how you'd like to see the book chat run. I also plan to open a "Getting To Know You" thread today, because I think it would be fun to have a thread where we could just get to know each other better, since I feel I've made some new friends here.

Also, those people who have approached me here and in e-amil asking for help to get set up on the Sil board, you will hear from me tonight.

Speaking of friends, I'd like to add that I'm sorry you're not going on to "The Silmarillion", too, Katerina :). I'll miss you. But I'm quite sure that none of us will be straying very far from this board (where Deb still intends to post), so the discussions will go on. Susanna's question is a good one. Would it be possible for people reading The Sil in other languages to join in the discussion board, anyway?

And I will write to you tonight about the Epilogue.

As for the emotion of this last chapter, I'm discovering to my chagrin I'm going to have to hold my thoughts and further comments on The Grey Havens until I get home to my own office because even reading and writing these posts are making me emotional. My students will think I'm nuts coming back from lunch and recess and finding their teacher so sappy :). But more tonight, for sure.

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 25 10:52 AM EST

Thank you Debbie.

Wow, I go away for the weekend and I come back to 80+ comments on the last chapter. To put in my 2 cents, I feel that rush of emotion when Sam says "Well, I'm back". And Since reading The Sil. When Frodo reaches The shores of Valinor.

I wouldn't say that I cry when I read the end, but at the same time I wouldn't read that part in public or around my beer drinking buddies or hockey teammates etc. They might confuse that allergy induced eye liquid with real tears. ;)

Well, I've been at work for almost an hour and a half and I haven't even got to TORN yet. I have to get some work done. I want to comment more but maybe later.

PS. Thanks to everyone who has made this community a favorite place to visit. Some of you will not be joining the Sil. reading so I hope to catch you later, maybe for a pint at the Prancing Pony.

Posted by Big Mike @ 2001 Jun 25 11:27 AM EST

I want to say thanks to Deb, too, for allowing us to accompany her on her journey. I get all choked up at this powerful ending, too. I think Tolkien captures the bittersweet reality of our existence so precisely. It is Loss - the fact that sooner or later we all have to drop out of the story and say goodbye to all we love, and Hope, as well. "The Road goes ever on and on" and "its all the same story". We still have this idea that there's got to be more to the Story and we hate to be left out. Yet there's always this hint in Tolkien's work that, ultimately, we won't be. We will finally find ourselves in the Story at the End and discover ourselves on the threshold of a New Beginning. I hope I'm not trespassing onto the shores of the Sil and "Lead By Niggle" too much here.

On another note. The comments on "The Neverending Story" have made me think it would be interesting to hear if any of you have found any other "Fantasy" (for lack of a better term - and you can include other "genres" for all I care) that for you have approached >the experience< of reading LoTR. One that I have enjoyed immensely is the English translation of the a German book: "Stone and Flute" by Hans Bemmin/Bemmen (I believe that's the author's name. I'll have to check it out). It's highly original. Not "tolkienesque" at all. But, for me, it occasioned the "willing creation of belief" that Tolkien talks about in "On Faerie Stories."

Posted by Steve B @ 2001 Jun 25 11:34 AM EST

Debbie, thank you so much for taking us along! Both your comments and the discussions have been eye-opeing. The anticipation! The strenuous efforts to avoid revealing spoilers! The cheers when you noticed something I hoped you'd notice! The bad puns! (still chuckling over War of the Woses...)

I don't think I ever misted up reading LotR until I read it aloud to my daughter. There's just something about reading aloud that gets you more into the emotional life of the characters. But "Well, I'm home" -- what an ending! And not really an end, because the appendices are like a nice cool-down stretch after the emotional roller-coaster of the last few chapters.

I'm glad you caught that about Frodo not being honored as he should have been. I think as a war veteran Tolkien saw that happen to a lot of people after WWI -- the contributions of some veterans just weren't understood and honored. The ceremonies at Cormallen Field involved other veterans, for the most part -- people who had a better understanding of what Frodo and Sam went through or at least had been living in a war zone -- but back home, far from the war, the people didn't have any concept of post-traumatic stress syndrome or shell-shock. They expected returning warriors to be a bit more uncomplicated, like Merry or Pippin. (Every reading I see and follow a different thread -- this spring it was WWI -- who knows, next time?)

On to the Sil! OR back to the Hobbit! Either way, I'll be following your comments.

Posted by Janet Croft @ 2001 Jun 25 12:50 PM EST

Thanks again, Deb, for creating this wonderful fellowship and taking us along on your quest. I've gotten almost nothing done at work since you began.

I took Allison's suggestion in my out-of-order re-reading. After following Frodo and Sam all the way to the Field of Cormallen, I went back to Book 3 and followed Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli to Isengard, then went back to Merry and Pippin and brought them to Isengard. Then I followed Pippin up through the siege of Gondor. Now I'm ready to go back to Merry, or maybe Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli. It sure makes for a different experience. For one thing, things seem to happen much more quickly!

I was hiking this weekend and found myself in Fangorn...

The part that always, always makes me weep is the end of the siege of Gondor chapter, (again I don't have the book in front of me) that says something like 'a cock crowed, recking nothing of wizardry. As if in answer, ringing from the slopes of Mindollun, horns, horns, horns from the north, wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last.' (I'm teary-eyed just trying to re-create it.) In his 'Essay on Fairy Stories' Tolkien talks a lot about what he calls 'Eucatastrophe' (there's a word for yiorgos) which he translates as the 'sudden turn of joy' in a story that brings tears. He does it so well.

Hope I can get caught up with the end of the story before we start on the Silmarillion, because I'd like to read it again, and see if it goes down better this time.

Thanks again to all of you. Reading LoTR was always a solo experience before, and this has been wonderful.

Posted by Karen @ 2001 Jun 25 02:55 PM EST

I am a man (and as a sergeant I should be pretty tough, too), but when I read those last words I always cry. But I also laugh uncontrollably when I read how Pippin describes Theoden in few simple words...
Thank you.

Posted by sergeant @ 2001 Jun 25 03:16 PM EST

Talierin wrote: "Yes, I've read Neverending Story, at least half of it, never did finish it."

LOL! I realize you weren't intending to be funny, but wow! I imagine no-one has actually finished it! ;^)

Posted by Chipper @ 2001 Jun 25 03:59 PM EST

So many emotions here now. We talk about crying at the End of LotR, and saying thank you to Debbie, and talk about crying some more... I remember a comment many chapters ago, saying that there's always that terrible - what was it? - Tolkien void or vacuum when you finish the books. Well I feel about the same now - The Debbie's LotR-board vacuum. I think that much of the sadness I feel reading this final chapter right now, actually is caused by the fact that this unique message board experience has come to an end.

I always loved to share LotR with others, and there's been too few of them around. It's really been great travelling together with you all, fellow posters! I have learnt so much, in many different ways. Thank you all!! :)))

And I'll see many of you, I hope, on the Silmarillion board. :)

Christopher B: I loved the post you made about Frodo, the humble introvert, some way back here! That's very much the way I perceive Frodo now, too. Beautiful! :))

Posted by Katarina @ 2001 Jun 25 04:35 PM EST

Oh, and I forgot,the other great moment of Eucatastrophe also comes in the battle of Pelennor, when Eomer looks out and sees the ships coming up the river, and the flag unfurls, bearing the tokens of Elendil... Whew!

Posted by Karen @ 2001 Jun 25 04:40 PM EST

Interesting comment way up there Allison. (sorry, I've been at work and couldn't post.) I never even caught on to the fact that Frodo intended to leave Merry and Pippin without a word, but now that I think about it -- that IS terrible. Why would he do something like that -- so insensitive and cowardly? That seems so out of character for him! My only guess would be that Frodo knows that Merry and Pippin can't comprehend his pain and he has no idea how to explain it to them.

And what about Sam? I sort of get the impression that Frodo did intend to tell Sam in private while they were travelling together. They were riding slowly when Frodo sings his short song and they both halt. I think right -here- Frodo was working up his courage to break the news to Sam when they were interrupted by the arrival of the elves. When I first read the books I was hoping to see one last intimate conversation between these two characters before the end. oh well. . .

Christopher B: I definitely agree with your answer as well. Frodo is so sensitive -- whenever people talk with him he shares their hurt and fear as if it were his own. He knows what it feels like to be overburdened with sorrow and loss and is reluctant to inflict the same feeling on anyone else.

Did this get long? sorry :-)

Posted by Raych @ 2001 Jun 25 05:20 PM EST

We're all grateful to Debbie for sharing this wonderful journey, but let's not forget the thanks we all owe (even Debbie) to Allison.

Allison first brought Debbie's attention to the "Tolkien Virgin" articles over @ Tolkienonline.com. This inspired Deb to take up LotR again. Allison led the way, fought off the nasssty ssspoilerssss and (even though Deb is sailing for another shore) is now leading us back into the future with the Sil.

If Debbie is our Frodo, Allison is our Sam ... Let us praise them with great praise!

Sniff :-)

Posted by Bodo Hardbottle @ 2001 Jun 25 05:59 PM EST

Steve: I've read "stone and flute" with nineteen and could't put it away. But when I tried to read it again several years later, I couldn't get further than a few pages. I don't know why. Perhaps I just wasn't in the mood for such a long book.

By the way: The author's name is Hans Bemmann.

Posted by Susanna @ 2001 Jun 25 06:08 PM EST

Yes, Many thanks to Allison.

I think that Frodo may have not told Merry and Pippin on purpose and for good reason. He still felt the guilt of almost blowing it on Mt. Doom, he was still not fully recovered from the knife wound and the burrden of the ring. He felt as though he was gravly sick. He did not want to share that pain with his companions.

Like someone who is in the Hospital, very sick (like cancer), they do not want visitor because they don't want their friends to see them like that. Even though most friends don't care how sick they look, they just want to be there for them.

Maybe Frodo wanted Merry & Pippin to remember him more as the successfull deystroyer of the ring, not the unhealable sulking hobbit that he was at the end. Although we all know that Merry & Pippin would remember him in his glory and would have given anything to see Frodo as much as they could.

On a lighter note, here is a link to an Elf name generator. There is also another Hobbit name generator.
http://www.barrowdowns.com/ElfGen.asp?Size=

Posted by Big Mike @ 2001 Jun 25 06:17 PM EST

:D :D :D I can't tell you how hard I laughed, Bodo Hardbottle, when I read your post above.

I get to be Sam. Rock on.

And, yay, I'm glad to see more posts on Frodo and his friends and the quality of empathy in this chapter because I've been pondering this topic since last night and felt many of the posts above are very enlightening. I'm coming back to it as soon as I go off and have some dinner first.

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 25 06:54 PM EST

Steve B. The only things I read near as often repeatedly as LOTR are the "Time Enough for Love" series of stories, Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy, and Jean Auel's Earth's Children series - Clan of the Cave Bear. I've read the Deryni books by Kurtz, and liked them, as well as the Shanana, IllEarth, etc., but have not really enjoyed enough to want to return. I cycle thru LOTR every year, as well as Merlin, Ayla, and Lazarus.

Posted by dave @ 2001 Jun 25 07:17 PM EST

I only stumbled onto oyur sight today and have read the entire thing all the way through. I still remember the first time I read the books, years ago when I was 14 years old. Your postings rekindled all of those first gasps and joys and tears. Over the years I have re-read the trillogy over and over and always find some new jewel in the story. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. And read them again. You will enjoy them all over again.
"ellen silla lummen Omontiellvo!"

Posted by neil @ 2001 Jun 25 07:34 PM EST

The post goes ever on and on
-- Down from the page where it began
Now far ahead the post has gone
-- And I have followed when I can
Pursuing it with eager eyes
-- Until it joins some larger way
Where many friends have been well met
-- And whither then? The Sil someday!

Posted by brian @ 2001 Jun 25 11:02 PM EST

Thanks Debbie for a wonderful jouney.

"Well, I'm back." is certainly the best last line I have ever read in a novel. So ironic, and yet so utterly right. And the way it rounds-off the whole tale, starting with "The Hobbit, or There and Back Again." From Bilbo's first running out the door of Bag End to Sam's return to it from the Grey Havens; that's the tale.

I read The Silmarillion straight through for the first time recently, and it gives "The Grey Havens" even more resonance. Because one understands the stories of Elrond and Galadriel so much more, and realizes this is the end of their journeys as well. I find Galadriel particularly moving in this context. What a journey she makes! And how she grows!

What more can I say about this ending? It is unbearably sad, and unbearably beautiful at the same time. There isn't a word too much. Tolkien has set-up the scene so perfectly, he need do no more than describe the events. Masterful.

I always imagine that Frodo told Rose what was up before he left with Sam. You notice she doesn't say a word. She knows. And how wise of her to immediately put Elanor in his lap. Life goes on.

Does this man cry? Like a baby. Anyone who is capable of reading this story and not crying at the end is not someone I want to know!

Posted by Paul Mendenhall @ 2001 Jun 25 11:10 PM EST

Brian - that's great!!!

Posted by Olorin @ 2001 Jun 26 12:31 AM EST

I like your poem, brian :).

Getting back to Frodo and empathy for his friends in this chapter. This post is likely to get long and convoluted. Hope it makes sense.

Christopher B.: I find myself increasingly intrigued about reading "The Silmarillion" again since a few people have hinted here that I would have a better understanding of Frodo's actions at the end of the book here if I was more aware of the pain and sorrow of the Elves, a sorrow Frodo has come to inherit. I find it odd what messages I'm getting here- that Frodo may be feeling less empathy as he becomes more "Elvish", but that he can only seek empathy and healing with Gandalf and the Elves. I'll certainly be approaching the Sil keeping some of these things in mind.

Nathan puts it this way:

"I sometimes wonder if, by the end, Frodo even really cared much? Or if his way of caring had changed so much as to seem lacking in compassion?... perhaps Frodo really -had- become "more than a bit elvish""

Again, a couple of things strike me here. Is the caring and the empathy of the Elves so different than the other races of ME? Galadriel strikes me as very empathic- to Gimli, to Frodo, to Sam- is it just her greatness that allows her to empathize with other races? Are we talking about a transformation of the Elves through suffering that the other races of ME can't possibly understand, which is why Frodo can only find healing through them? Oo, you can see I'm certainly ready to discuss the Sil :).

And something so bitterly ironic struck me about this comment above, too. We spent all of Chapter 8 talking about how Frodo's experience and perception with the Ring gave him an extraordinary sense of empathy and mercy, an ability to show mercy for Gollum and Saruman that really was awesome. And yet the suggestion is that that same experience with the Ring will eventually leech from him the ability to feel empathy for those friends he loves the most. This is just such a sad thought to me, that a character as empathic as Frodo could even lose this ability to the Ring before the end, that it could separate him from his friends forever in ways that are more than physical, than he might no longer understand or "care" about their feelings. It's an even more disturbing thought to me than thinking that Frodo was just lacking in consideration while tied up in his own darkness. Though it makes me appreciate more that maybe the lack of consideration for Merry, Pippin and Sam is the fault of the Ring and not Frodo himself.

Janet, I was intrigued by your comments, too, paralleling the ending in The Shire to war veterans returning home after WWI. After everything Frodo has seen and gone through there is no going back and though I don't know a lot of the medical, social or psychological info of that war era, I can imagine that a lot of veterans did become isolated from their loved ones forever once they returned home because their experiences of horror could never be understood. That gives me some perspective on Frodo and those less effected by the War of the Ring, too, how that reality could create distance and how Tolkien might have woven that idea into his work.

Raych: I sometimes think my biggest problem with this ending is that life experience has caught up with me. This ending never bothered me in early readings, though it was terribly sad, but in those days I had much less experience with deep friendship and how friendship can become entwined with tragic circumstances. Now that I know something of those feelings they've impacted on my reading of LOTR, they've made -me- much more empathic towards Merry, Pippin and Sam and how much they love Frodo and the need they would have to do anything they could for him. It is very possible that Frodo was trying to protect them from his pain, but I'm always kind of haunted by how Sam, Merry and Pippin must deal with Frodo's loss with so little preparation, with so little insight into his pain. How much guilt do they deal with afterwards? Do they berate themselves for not seeing the state Frodo was reaching? Do they wonder if they could have done more? Or do they just feel helpless? At least that ellusive Epilogue seems to suggest that Sam makes peace with the issue, which I found somewhat comforting :).

And Big Mike says:

"Maybe Frodo wanted Merry & Pippin to remember him more as the successfull deystroyer of the ring, not the unhealable sulking hobbit that he was at the end. Although we all know that Merry & Pippin would remember him in his glory and would have given anything to see Frodo as much as they could."

To which I can only say, yes, and I empathize with Merry and Pippin's feelings a lot and still regret that Frodo either didn't or couldn't understand the strength of those feelings. And I still see Gandalf as a hero for knowing that Merry and Pippin had to be there at that departure. He said it was so Sam would have someone to ride home with, but I think we all know better.

Whew. Thank you for all your posts. I've found it incredible food for thought.

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 26 12:46 AM EST

So, regarding the blonde hair; I have a "crackpot theory" that I'm working on writing up that covers this, but in the mean time, I wanted to ask anyone if it reminded them of _Childhood's End_ by A.C.Clarke?

Posted by Olorin @ 2001 Jun 26 01:17 AM EST

Allison,

Thanks for your long post about Frodo's isolation. I've been thinking about that, too, and haven't really been able to come to a reasonable answer. I think there are some elements of all of this behind his actions, but what makes the most sense to me is that he's become so isolated from "normal" hobbit life that, as he sees everyone going about their lives and rebuilding the shire and laughing and singing (I'm sure there are "building songs" and "digging songs" to go with the bath and dinner songs), he just doesn't think that anyone, even Merry and Pippin, would want to be bothered with his pain. He probably sees himself as a "party-pooper" and doesn't want to "bring anyone down". I think Sam is the exception because he went through Mordor and stuck with him to the Cracks of Doom, but I don't know that Frodo ever really understood what Pippin and Merry went through after they separated. So, I think maybe Frodo just can't bring himself to realize that these happy, energetic hobbits (Merry and Pippin) really care about him the way that they do.

Posted by Olorin @ 2001 Jun 26 01:35 AM EST

What makes me maddest about the end of the book has to be that no one will go back to answer my don Quixote juxtaposition question, nor will I have the chance to weigh in on all the excellent threads that are now destined to hang loose.

Posted by Will the quixotic @ 2001 Jun 26 02:30 AM EST

The Elves had no shortage of empathy, but they had grown passive, almost paralysed by the memory of past tragedies.

In the Silmarillion they are much more active but in LotR their time has passsed.

Posted by Robert @ 2001 Jun 26 02:36 AM EST

Allison-

In Frodo's defence, he may have known Merry and Pippin (and/or Gandalf) well enough to know that they could hardly fail to notice his mood and expect something to happen the September 22nd that Bilbo would pass the Old Took. He also may have feared a recurrence of the breaking of the Fellowship dilemma: his friends would have a hard time watching him leave them behind, most likely forever, and might try to persuade him to tarry longer; he would have to make the right decision in the face of his friends' pain.
I guess deep down I just accept that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, Frodo was meant to bear it, and Frodo's friends were meant to bid him farewell, regardless of any decision on anyone's part.

Posted by Will @ 2001 Jun 26 02:43 AM EST

An index of Will's Tokien-induced tears:

Sam's final line

The minstrel of Gondor introduces his lay

'Well, this is the end, Sam Gamgee,' said a voice by his side. And there was Frodo, pale and worn, and yet himself again; and in his eyes there was peace now, neither strain of will, nor madness, nor any fear. His burden was taken away.... 'Master!' cried Sam.... In all that ruin of the world for the moment he felt only joy, great joy. The burden was gone. His master had been saved; he was himself again, he was free.

And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.

That last one is I think the manliest place to cry, and by far the weirdest. Scenes like that normally give me chills, but I also bless the Professor for including Sam's musings on the humanity of a dead Southron.

The theme of peace in wholeness as highlighted in the Frodo on Mount Doom passages is very important to me.

The minstrel of Gondor is my most recent literary peanut-chunk-in-the-throat experience. I was reading it to my wife in the car and was unable to start the minstrel's intro for a full 20 seconds, knowing what it would mean to Sam, whom I love most in this story.

I think that love for Sam is why his final line is so powerful to me. He is the character whose part I would most like to be able to play, and when he returns from the Havens, I see it as an end of his adventure and mine, and a return to what is more real and important than any adventure. With a blonde-haired daughter and a wife more beautiful than any rose, how can I not cry?

Posted by Will @ 2001 Jun 26 02:48 AM EST

Thank you, Katarina, Susanna, Allison and all, you’re really so kind! I’ll miss you too. Unfortunately I’m going to be quite busy, as I wrote before. I’ll see if I manage to read Sil. regularly and maybe I join you later but I can’t promise. And I think the English version would enable me putting the comments. I will be lost if I read it in Czech and comment it in English, believe me :o) I have never read Sil. before so I have to read it in Czech first.

Annatar, I like your comment about your cry (I mean none-cry) :o)

I know a film called “The Neverending Story” but I’ve never heard about the book. Do you know the film? Is it based on the story or is it something else?

BTW, I tried the elf name generator. Strange. If I put my name with all the accents, the generated name is Airekhelekien (or -iel, or -wen) but if I put it without those accents, its is Nefephelien. Quite a big difference. I’m wondering if there is a meaning in the names...

It’s all for now. See you later :o)

Airekhelekien Nefephel aka Primula S.-B.

Posted by Katerina Str. @ 2001 Jun 26 04:03 AM EST

Katerina: There is a film by Wolfgang Petersen and Bernd Eichinger called "The Neverending Story". It's based on the book, but only the first half of the book. There are sequels, but I do not know whether they are based on the book.

So many have said it already, but I want to say it too: Debbie and Allison, that was a great journey through LotR. Thank you both!

Posted by Susanna @ 2001 Jun 26 05:27 AM EST

The film of The Neverending Story isn't particularly good, except for a few special effects. It ends abruptly, halfway through the book, with a totally artificial ending that is contrary to the spirit of the book. The book is much better!

Having brought up this off-topic item in the first place, let me add that Lord of the Rings is a much greater book than The Never Ending Story. Ende does touch on some neat concepts, however, especially the relation between reality and the imagination and the need for fantasy in our lives. There's some relation here to JRRT's On Faerie Stories. The book also abounds in humor and has some very original characters. It's worth a read, if you like that sort of thing.

Posted by David @ 2001 Jun 26 08:03 AM EST

You really a deeper appreciation of the Grey Havens afer you've read the Silmarillion. You get a deeper appreciation of the rest of LOTR, too. At least three of the characters - Cirdan, Elrond and Galadriel - are in both books. Throughout LOTR there are references to people or places in the Sil. They are too numerous to list here, but just a couple of examples are the story of Beren and Luthien and Bilbo's song about Earendil.

As has been pointed out, the references to past events in LOTR help to give it the depth that it has. This is especially so in the case of Galadriel and Elrond, who actually remember from their own experience some of the crucial events of the Elder Days. However in LOTR we get only fragments of these stories and don't see the picture as a whole. In the Silmarillion we also get fragments, because the good professor never quite finished the book, and Christopher Tolkien had to do a major editiorial job putting it together for publication. But the fragments are much more extensive and their relations to one another are much clearer.

The beginning of Appendix A gives a very brief summary of the gist of the Silmarillion. There are actually so many interrelated stories in this epic! I will make a few comments as (I hope) an enticement to get others to read the book (and maybe join Allison's forthcoming discussion group).

*possible spoiler alerts for those wanting to read the Silmarillion for the first time*
First of all, do not expect the style of LOTR. There are no Hobbits in the Sil. There is very little humor in this book. In LOTR (and Bilbo in The Hobbit) Hobbits provide a modern, "common" viewpoint that counterbalances all the nobility of Elves and Dunadain. In the Silmarillion there is none of this. It's all high and noble, and also extremely sad. Think about about the end of LOTR, which is sad but bittersweet. The Silmarillion is one vast tragedy. If you don't like the Greek tragedies, the Sil may not be for you.

In tone, the Sil reads much like the Bible, or like Milton's Paradise Lost. I personally think of it as in some ways a hybrid of the Norse sagas (on which Tolkien was an expert and constant reader), the Iliad (in the sense that it relates to a very long siege) and Paradise Lost. That's just my opinion.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the Silmarillion is almost entirely concerned with Elves. There are some Dwarves and quite a few Men (particularly Beren, Hurin, Turin and Tuor) who are among the Edain and play important roles in the story, but mostly the story concerns Elves and is told from their viewpoint. (Whereas The Hobbit and LOTR are told from the viewpoint of Hobbits.) Therefore if you really want to understand Elves, read the Silmarillion.

You'll will especially get a better feel for the parting of Elrond from Arwen, and Galadriel's two songs near the end of "Farewell to Lorien" after reading the Sil. And the situation at the Grey Havens will be much clearer.

Lest I make the Sil sound too high-fallutin to be readable, let me add this: there are passages in this book that move me to tears. It is impossible for me to read the end of "Of Beren and Luthien" or of "Of Turin Turambar" without crying. Since this group collectively values tears, consider this a high recommendation!

Allison, if I'm giving too much away, feel free to edit this.

David

Posted by David @ 2001 Jun 26 08:37 AM EST

David: Well said, I agree absolutely.

Posted by Annatar The Fair @ 2001 Jun 26 08:50 AM EST

Allison -- that reminded me of a passage in Verlyn Flieger's _A Question of Time_. She compares the way a soldier can't communicate his experiences fully to someone who hasn't been through the same thing, to the way a traveller returning from Faerie can't tell everything about what he's seen. "In the way that extremes can sometimes met, War and Faerie have a certain resemblance to one another. Both are set beyond the reach of ordinary experience. Both are equally indifferent to the needs of ordinary humanity. Both can change those who return... Perhaps worst of all, both war and Faerie can change out of all recognition the wanderer's perception of the world to which he returns, so that never again can it be what it once was." (p.224) Tolkien's poem The Sea-Bell, also known as Frodo's Dreme (p.57 in _The Tolkien Reader_),is in part about this sense of isolation: "To myself I talk;/ for still they speak not, men that I meet."

I would guess that part of Frodo's problem was that there was no one to really talk to about his experiences. Sam would be likely to understand, but he's caught up in his young family, and Frodo doesn't want to burden him. I think Big Mike's comment about people who are in the hospital and don't want their friends to see them was spot on.

I tried the Elvish name generator, too, and I think it's totally random -- I tried my full name, firt and last name, and just first name, and got totally different answers each time!

Posted by Janet Croft @ 2001 Jun 26 09:22 AM EST

Allison,

Regarding Frodo not telling Merry and Pippin that he was leaving:

I think you're being too hard on Frodo. I've always felt that he didn't have any choice in the matter, just as Sam didn't have any choice at Cirith Ungol about going back to Frodo instead of going on and trying to destroy the ring. He was simply hurting too much (I suspect you're underestimating how much he's in pain. It's a slow and slumbering pain, but very great nonetheless) to even contemplate saying goodbye (permanently!) to his friends.

He may also have been afraid that he wouldn't be able to leave if they were there. Of course it turned out to be a good thing that Merry and Pippin where there, but I think Frodo's hurt and grief prohibited him from realizing that.

Posted by Pepijn Schmitz @ 2001 Jun 26 09:44 AM EST

Debbie,
Your last chapter and my first post! I've enjoyed your trek immensely.

If you ever want that "first time" feeling again in reading LOTR, read it ALOUD to someone who hasn't read it. I had read it several times myself, but reading it aloud was a totally new experience. And watching someone hear it for the first time is fantastic as well. I highly recommend it sometime!

Posted by Anthony @ 2001 Jun 26 10:35 AM EST

I wouldn't have invited 'em either.

Sam was Frodo's true companion throughout the journey. He too bore the Ring; he felt the awful privation and despair in Mordor; the two of them bonded in a way Frodo never did with Merry and Pippin. It was fitting that Frodo's last journey in Middle-Earth should be with Sam alone. Sam could understand his pain and provide comfort merely with his presence. The other two would have probably wanted to sing the whole way.

That being said, he could have said goodbye: maybe with a nice letter or something.

Posted by Greg @ 2001 Jun 26 10:36 AM EST

Thanks Allison & Janet,

When someone quotes me or mentions something I posted, it makes my day.

Posted by Big Mike @ 2001 Jun 26 10:37 AM EST

I once read, a long time ago, a description that I've always thought epitomizes our present world... (and I'm not remembering it exactly, but it's somrthing like this...)
"The elves have left our world, and we have not wept at their leaving."

Doesn't that just describe the problem with our modern world?
And it also explains why us lovers of LOTR feel the story so deeply... we do weep for the departure of the elves.

..."a far green country under a swift sunrise" haunts my dreams.

Posted by Tom @ 2001 Jun 26 11:10 AM EST

About the NES films, there's three of them that I have seen. My mom read the book before she saw the movies and she said the first one is the only one that remotly follows the plot for most of it. I thought the first one is the best, and the other two were just stupid.

Posted by Talierin @ 2001 Jun 26 11:26 AM EST

Everyone has already made so many great comments on the issue, but here’s my two cents anyway. :o) I never really thought about Frodo not telling anyone he was leaving until Allison brought it up (another great thing about his fellowship!). I have to admit that if I were Merry or Pippin or Sam I would be pretty teed off, but somehow I can’t bring myself to blame Frodo.

I think that he knew for a long time that he would have to leave the Shire and that he had to leave _soon_. He was too weary, too spent, too irreversibly harmed, too _changed_ to remain in Middle Earth, even if he wanted to. I don’t think he would have lasted much longer in the Shire anyway, at least not with any happiness. The poem “the Sea Bell” or Frodos Dreme, mentioned by Janet above (it is also in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil) not only conveys a sense of sorrow, but also of urgency:

Then I saw a boat silently float
on the night-tide, empty and grey.
‘It is later than late! Why do we wait?’
I leapt in and cried: ‘Bear me away!’
…
At last there came light in my long night,
and I saw my hair hanging grey.
‘Bent though I be, I must find the sea!
I have lost myself, and I know not the way,
but let me be gone!’ Then I stumbled on.

I believe that he probably did want to stay, but knew that the right thing to do was to go. I think he would have been the worse off had he remained in the Shire. Letting go is, I think, one of the biggest themes in LOTR (and in other works of JRRT). Nothing is permanent. Everything is in a constant state of change. It is often extremely hard to let things go, but is is better and more sane than trying to hold on to things too tightly. It is much better to give something away than to have it wrenched from you against your will.
~~AKALLABETH SPOILERS~~
The kings of Numernor started their lives with life of ~ 500 years. When they died they gave up their life willingly and peacefully. They just knew it was their time, went and lay down and passed away. However, when things began to ‘change’ the kings and the people, fearing death and desiring the immortality of those in valinor, began to fight their old age and death. It is said that one king, “lived to a great age, clingling to his life beyond the end of all joy… refusing to depart until he was witless and unmanned.” I think Frodo knew that if he tried to stay in the Shire a similar fate would await him.
~~END AKALLABETH SPOILERS~~

Also, I believe that Frodo did not belong in Middle Earth any longer. The third age was ending and everything intimately connected with that age was departing. The rings were gone or powerless, the elves were leaving, and Rivendell and Lothlorien would soon fade from their former glory. With the rings must go the ring bearers: Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, Bilbo, and Frodo. The comments about him becoming more Elvish are really insightful. There is a possibility for great joy in the elves, but also great sadness that mortals cannot fully comprehend. Imagine living for as long as Elrond and seeing everything change and pass away. Frodo seems to somehow understand this more since he must leave the Shire behind. It is very sad for him, since Frodo really just had the ring thrust on him. I think his departure was the only way he’d really be able to be happy again.

So the only way I can account for Frodo’s actions is that he believed that if Merry and Pippin and Sam all together said “no! don’t go!” he would not have been able to leave. But he knew he must go, so he just tried to silently slip away. Well, sorry, it was more like three or four cents! :o)

Katerina – are you sure you can’t join us for the Sil? :o( It looks like we’ll be taking on only about one chapter a week. It was great to have you along for LOTR and I hope you’ll stick around at least for the appendices! :o)

Posted by Phil @ 2001 Jun 26 12:52 PM EST

Olorin- Very interesting comment about how Frodo may not be aware of how much Merry and Pippin grew and matured during their quest! Very insightful- that sheds new light on the ending, too.

Will- I liked your Don Quixote comment. Unfortunately, I know LOTR much better than "Don Quixote", so I didn't feel prepped to talk on the comparison. There's certainly the basis of an interesting discussion there.

Katerina- I'm sure we can all understand being busy! :) We'll all continue to see each other around Debbie's board here, I'm sure.

David- Thank you so much for your post on "The Silmarillion"! Sad, tragic stories about the Elves? Oh, yeah, I am so there :). I'll bring along my Kleenex. I am truly looking forward to the insight I will get into LOTR from being part of the Sil reading group.

Janet-

"In the way that extremes can sometimes met, War and Faerie have a certain resemblance to one another. Both are set beyond the reach of ordinary experience. Both are equally indifferent to the needs of ordinary humanity. Both can change those who return... Perhaps worst of all, both war and Faerie can change out of all recognition the wanderer's perception of the world to which he returns, so that never again can it be what it once was."

I love this quote. It's so provocative. It's exactly what I was sensing in your first post above. Katerina and I were just talking in e-mail about "The Sea-Bell", what it suggests for Frodo. This may be a theme I'll want to return to after Deb has read the Appendices.

Pepijn- Oh, I don't want to be hard on Frodo :). I love Frodo, always have, which is why I've been working to reconcile my feelings about this chapter with the Frodo I learned to love so well throughout the book. These comments here have been so insightful to me. I can accept that Frodo was in such a state of darkness, despair and pain that he could no longer deal with Merry and Pippin, but it is such a sad, sad thought. (imagine that, Allison deadpans, more sad thoughts in the Grey Havens chapter...)

Greg- Oh, I couldn't disagree with you more about what Frodo owes to Merry and Pippin at the end of this story. It's true that Frodo's friendship with them isn't as deep as it is with Sam, but it's awfully strong none-the-less. Merry and Pippin have showed absolute devotion to Frodo throughout LOTR- their whole journey through "Fellowship" is defying anyone in their path who tries to separate them from Frodo- Elrond, Aragorn and Frodo himself. The only reason they didn't go right to Mordor with Frodo is because Frodo gives them the slip and he mainly does that because of his intense feelings for them, refusing to put them in danger. And I'd never fault Merry and Pippin that while the quest will ultimately result in the sacrifice of Frodo that they come out of their (often insightful and painful) quest experience wiser and more confident, less scarred, still able to sing and be happy. Anyway, I'm just glad Gandalf arranged that last farewell.

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 26 01:00 PM EST

Thinking about it a little more, those of us who have been to Middle-Earth have a hard time explaining it to people who haven't, don't we? Just think of the blank stares you get when you say "This place reminds me of Rivendell!"

Posted by Janet Croft @ 2001 Jun 26 01:53 PM EST

Big Mike: "When someone quotes me or mentions something I posted, it makes my day."

Have a nice day. ;-)

Posted by Olorin @ 2001 Jun 26 02:15 PM EST

Allison: I suppose I did come off as somewhat churlish about Merry and Pippin singing; I didn't mean that there was anything wrong with their cheeriness in itself. After all, that's a defining characteristic of hobbits. What I meant was that I just don't think they "get" Frodo's pain.

More important, though, then whether they'd behave appropriately is the appropriateness of their being there in the first place. I like Big Mike's analogy of the person in the hospital, but I think it's less like a weak, sickly person than a person who knows he is about to die. Such a person may value his best friends and love them very much, but want to be alone with his wife to say goodbye. Merry and Pippin were very loyal, good friends to Frodo, but his relationship with Sam was qualitatively different. Sam shared the most significant part of Frodo's life and bore him on his own back when Frodo could no longer even crawl. It was appropriate that they take that last journey alone together.

Posted by Greg @ 2001 Jun 26 04:16 PM EST

Phil: I think your 'three or four cents' :-) really hit the nail on the head.

Posted by E. Gamgee @ 2001 Jun 26 05:06 PM EST

Greg- I agree with most everything you say above. It is undoubtably Sam's place alone to be with Frodo on that final journey. But to carry on your analogy of one wanting their wife by their side when dying, it is likely to be assumed that anyone else dear to that person has already had their chance to say good-bye before those late moments. And that's what I was arguing for for Merry and Pippin, that they would have had the right and even more the need to have said good-bye to Frodo, whether at the Grey Havens or Bag End or Crickhollow, before he left their lives forever. Merry and Pippin don't need to "get" Frodo's pain to need that moment.

And I'm starting to appreciate all the reasons and theories as to why maybe Frodo couldn't have provided that, sad as they are, everything we've gone through above, but it doesn't make me empathize any less with Merry and Pippin at the thought of them not getting to say good-bye to Frodo. Yay for Gandalf.

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 26 05:43 PM EST

About Frodo's lack of empathy with his hobbit friends: I'd like to try a psychological explanation to this - since I am psychology student, I can't help myself! (Probably not a perspective Tolkien would have prefered, though, since he tended to look at his characters from a more theological and existential viewpoint.)

As I mentioned in the discussion on the last chapter, you could think of Frodo as of a person suffering from PTSD - post traumatic stress syndrome. Some people who have endured terrible, life threatening traumas often develop this - if they don't talk about what happened and work it through thoroughly right after the incident. The symptoms could be frightening memory flashbacks of the traumatic events, inadequate self reproach, depression, a feeling of distance to other people - and sometimes an emotional withdrawal and a decrease in the ability for empathy.

You could look at Frodo after the scouring of the Shire with the eyes of a psychologist and see someone who is withdrawing into himself and, considering what he's been through, suspect PTSD. That could be one explanation for his seemingly unempathic behaviour to Sam, and especially to Merry and Pippin. And I agree with many posters above, Frodo in his depressed state probably doesn't want to burden the others with his pain, and also thinks that none of them would understand him, anyway. :(

That's one other way to try to understand Frodo. I don't mean to look at Frodo as a sick patient - even if I do hope that he gets *proper treatment* in the westen lands of the Elves... ;))) That is, someone to talk to...

Posted by Katarina @ 2001 Jun 26 06:01 PM EST

First, I'd like to weigh in on the question of men crying at the end of LOTR. I did. But only after re-reading LOTR as an adult and only after that most beautiful of last lines, "Well,I'm back." For me in those words all the emotion of everything that has happened is somehow touched upon.

Somebody mentioned above the point in JRRT's Letters about the ultimate fate of mortals who went oversea to the Undying Lands. I think this is a very interesting question. In the main body of the narrative the whole thing is left open, and as some have pointed out, it has the feeling of a sort of Arthurian Disappearnce, which also gives it a mysterious quality. For me this also helps explain Frodo's not telling Merry and Pippin: it's almost like a death. I can in a sense understand the disappointment of some in reading JRRT's explanations, since it does sort of take the mystery out of it a bit. But in the end, I like JRRT's fianl interpretion of it all.

As mortals, and in fact as a special branch of the human, the Hobbits were given by Iluvatar (God) the gift of passing beyond the circles of the world, a gift which is not given to the Elves, who in spite of being immortal (or rather because of it!) are limited to this world. Mortals have, in fact, a greater gift. So Frodo receives a wonderful privelage, because he literally gets "the best of both worlds."

Tolkien explains futher that what Frodo experienced in his sojourn in Eressea was a healing or easing of his wounds, and a purgation from his imperfection. Frodo deemed himself to have failed in his quest because he in fact had succumbed to the temptation of the Ring at the last. The evil of the Ring did infect Frodo somewhat. But Tolkien also explains that he believed there could be certain types of trial that on a practical level may be virtually impossible to pass. Even with his final "failure" Frodo accomplished all that was humanly possible, and more. No one ever blaims him for claiming the Ring. It is never mentioned by the others, but that does not mean that he ever ceased thinking about it as a failure. That was a big part of the wound that would not heal. And so Frodo gets both a reward and a purgation by dwelling in Erresea for a time. But he in the end passes to an even greater reward.

Posted by Timothy Steiner (Turumarth) @ 2001 Jun 26 06:53 PM EST

I think even this far into the game, the opening of Tim's post could still be considered a spoiler, assuming Deb hasn't gotten through the Appendices!

Posted by Nathan @ 2001 Jun 26 09:32 PM EST

I find it interesting that I never once thought about the insensitivity of Frodo's not having told Merry and Pippin of his plans to leave Middle-earth. I suspect that, if something feels dramatically right to me, I don't question it, and their last-minute arrival is great dramatic writing.

Gandalf clearly knew that Frodo would not tell them, or he wouldn't have done so himself. I think it comes down to Frodo's basic character, which is humble, introverted (as someone else rightly pointed out,) and sensitive to the point of finding farewells unbearable (see the end of FOTR.)

I am also struck by the fact that I have never "gotten into" any other fantasy novel. I hadn't quite realized that until the disussion on that topic began here.
The closest I can come is "The Once and Future King," which used to be my second-favorite novel after LOTR. But I re-read it recently and found it annoyingly adolescent this time around, whereas LOTR only gets better with age. (Mine, I mean!)

I find most fantasy shallow, trite and contived. Or, worse, moralistic and allegorical. I have never found the complexity of theme and characterization, the dramatic brilliance of the plotting, and the extraordinary beauty and power of the language that are there in Tolkien. And there is something more, something that you have all touched on so well in the discussion of the last chapter: a sense of the underlying sadness, the tragedy of life.

I am reminded of the Hindu god Krishna (someone correct me if I have that wrong) who plays a drum with his foot. The rythmn represents the passage of time, and each beat says: "Loss...loss...loss..." Tolkien conveys the aching pain of loss so well, and that is what makes this story so heart-breaking.

Posted by Paul Mendenhall @ 2001 Jun 26 09:37 PM EST

I agree, Nathan, and Deb has had company this week so she probably hasn't read that much, certainly not as far as the end of Appendix B.

Timothy: I edited out one comment from the first paragraph of your letter above because it's still a spoiler for Appendix B.

And just when I thought my days editing spoilers was done :).

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 26 09:42 PM EST

Wonderful comments from all and sundry about Frodo's giving Merry and Pippin "the slip", which of course Gandalf wisely prevents him from doing. I personally have never thought ill of Frodo for his actions at this point. Sam is the right friend to accompany him, in fact no one else would do. So I agree with just about everyone - he isn't to blame. It isn't as if his actions were a deliberate snub.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I've been meaning to tell Debbie for some time now: I have an orange tabby named Pippin! And just as Sam's Pippen adopted him, my Pippin adopted me. He kept coming up on my front porch and trying to invite himself into my house, so finally I let him, even though my two other cats were extremely hostile. He is very affectionate and actually seems to like it when I read Tolkien out loud. (He'd probably like it if I read the dictionary.) Of course it is very hard to read near a cat - they always try to lie down on your book!

David

Posted by David @ 2001 Jun 26 09:44 PM EST

Wonderful comments from everyone on the departure of Frodo. When first read LOTR I was deeply moved by this as by many other things (the death of Theoden, and Eowyn and Merry's desperate stand seem to move me most).

First of all, I had never considered the issue of Frodo failing to tell Merry and Pippin in quite the same light as Allison posed. I had always viewed the denoument in the final pages from a literary, as well as an emotional, perspective.

Had Tolkien written the end in such a way as to have Frodo "tell" everyone (instead of the reader having to come to the conclusion *with* Sam that Frodo's time on Middle Earth is ended) much of the dramatic impact would have been lost. This is partly so effective precisely because the significance of the Grey Haven is vague to someone who is not fully conversant with the sorrow of the Elves and the Tales of the Elder Days. The reader knows this is the end but grasps for the full meaning: is this like death? Is this merely an easing of pain? What does this mean? There are hints sprinkled throughout LOTR about the West, the Grey Havens, and the Sorrow of the Elves, but the reader is left on his or her own to attempt to fully appreciate their significance.

Allison later drew a comparison between this departure, and the Breaking of the Fellowship, when Sam and Frodo went off to Mordor alone, but did not explore this much further. But if you examine the two, they are quite similar. In both cases, Frodo bears a great burden: In one case the ring and in the other the pain of his wounds and the never-ending feeling of loss.

In both cases, he wished to bear the burden alone. Sam only went with him to Mordor because of his own stubbornness and refusal to leave Frodo. Perhaps, Frodo feared such a reaction at this final parting as well. That may be why he said so little to Sam until Sam had begun to realize, on his own, what was happening.

I have also tried to imagine some alternative scenarios: What if Frodo, like, Sam had had a sweetheart? Could she have eased his burden? Or would she, like Rosie, though sweet, be unable to fully grasp the significance of Frodo's (and Sam's) accomplishment?

Rosie's inability to full appreciate the Ringbearers' accomplishments is mitigated by Sam lesser burden. Please do not misunderstand me. I know Sam is admired much by those on this board, as he is by me, and he did accomplish much, but the burden of the Ring did not weigh so heavily on him as on Frodo. Also, Sam is able to subordinate his own burden to Frodo's, which makes it easier for him to make the transition to a normal life. (And Sam was not so wounded: by knife, sting and teeth.)

The only one who could truly appreciate Frodo's burden is Gollum (not Bilbo, Bilbo gave up the ring freely, and never bore it in the land of Mordor, or wore it so long as Gollum). I can imagine Frodo seeing himself in his worst nightmares as a shadow of Gollum. In some sense, Gollum still dogs his steps, as he did on that other journey.

Only Sam could accompany him on his final journey, as Sam had accompanied him over the Emyn Muil.

There is one other reason why Frodo might not have told Merry and Pippin. The earlier departures from the Shire of both Bilbo and Frodo coincided with their birthdays, and were occasioned by celebrations of a greater or lesser sort. But Frodo is past celebration, or joy. What is a birthday to him? Bilbo at least has the goal of beating the Old Took, but Frodo has...what? Pain. Loss. Unbearable loneliness, even when not alone?

I sometimes see this pain in my father's eyes, now; or hear it in his voice. He suffered a minor stroke some months ago, after beating colon cancer. And he seems so lost. It is a struggle to console him, or to bring him cheer.

He asked me to take over his and my mother's financial affairs since he no longer feels he can do this, and my parents have updated their Will. My father's mind is still clear. But he no longer has the will to do many things.

This is much like Frodo. He got his affairs in order, finished his book, handed over his keys. All very sensible and hobbit-like for one who is preparing to go. And as we fear for Frodo, I fear for my father. I feel like Sam. I do not want to feel that this could be a prelude to the end, even though endings are inevitable for those of mortal kind. I wish my father many more years of abundant living, that this shadow over his mind will pass, as Sam would wish for Frodo. But I cannot know. I can only hope that this story will end differently.

Posted by brian @ 2001 Jun 26 11:18 PM EST

I must admit that watching Debbie read through LOTR in this manner has been quite exciting and moving. It really made me recall my first reading of it in high school when I read it in a blind, breathless whirl, and then my first "mature" reading of it in college, when I took the time to pay attention to it more deeply. I still read it every few years, although not as often as some people here! And it has many new aspects every time I read it -- like all great literature -- because, of course, I am a different person every time I read it. There are a very small handful of other books like this for me: Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird come to mind.

I thank Debbie for being willing to share her self so deeply with all of us. What if she had hated it after the first few chapters? Would she have kept going and provoked angry debates?!! We're all delighted at how much your emotions matched our own, Debbie.

And I also want to thank the dozens of insightful people, especially posts on the last two chapters, who were able to have insights that I have never seen before. I have read at least 15 volumes of criticism on Tolkien, but there was new material here. I've re-read those last 3 chapters again this week and was amazed at all I had missed before. My heart beats faster just writing about it.

Thank you all.

Steve Bridge

Posted by Steve in Indiana @ 2001 Jun 26 11:54 PM EST

Your post really touched me deeply, brian. Thank you so much for sharing it. Because something I see reflected in your letter that I sense so strongly while I've been posting in this chapter is how much literature reflects life and life reflects literature. And if I've become troubled with parts of this chapter and have gone to some pains here to understand them, it's because of personal emotional experiences I've gone through myself in the last decade that have become entwined in the literature, too. Strange, I think you're getting your psychological sessions here, Katarina :), but it's not completely Frodo that's being reflected in the posts here, it's ourselves.

Wow, these discussions are so incredible.

To lighten things up slightly, I'll also say that, yes, like you, brian, I recognized that the way I -wanted- LOTR to end emotionally would not have worked dramatically within the narrative at all. It would have killed the pace, it would have removed that slowly dawning awareness of what was happening if we hadn't been experiencing it with Sam, it would have placed too much talking where it was time for emotion to take over and it would have spoiled the drama of the moment Merry and Pippin -do- arrive on the scene.

I do love the ending of LOTR just the way it is. I just have a bad habit of emotionally spinning out tales beyond the text :). Probably not the best trait for a literature critic, but, at least as far as LOTR is concerned, I fear I'm stuck with it :).

You also mentioned Bilbo, and I find that's something that occurred to me for the first time, too. Beyond the fact that Bilbo was able to freely give up the Ring is Bilbo partly healed or at least kept from getting worse because he is living in a Elven city all those years, even before the Ring is destroyed? Is Rivendell enough of a reflection of the Undying Lands to provide comfort for Bilbo? Is he, too, benefitting from the empathy of the Elves even before going across the sea?

I really must start reading "The Silmarillion".

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 27 12:06 AM EST

One last thought on Bilbo. Someone way, way back, it might even have been Deb, said they thought it was rather thoughtless of Bilbo that he settled into Rivendell for all those years and never sent word back to Frodo if he were alive or dead. In light of this chapter and Frodo's behavior to his friends, it makes me wonder if the Ring and being in the presence of the Elves was affecting Bilbo's empathy level in those early pages, too.

Geez, everytime I ask a question on this board, it makes me think of ten more... :)

Good night, all.

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 27 12:49 AM EST

Allison, thank you so much for your helpful email. I will go to the other site after this.

brian, you are so right. I have known several people who have died of cancer and as their lives were drawing to a close they seemed to loosen all ties with this world. I think Frodo was going through this process making his ties with this world less important. Maybe the Ring was a sort of cancer of the soul. It is remarked on several times how Frodo had become almost transparent, wasting away. I am sure he would not have intentionally hurt his friends by leaving without saying goodbye to them but his thoughts were on his journey and he just forgot.

Posted by Silmarien @ 2001 Jun 27 01:29 AM EST

Allison, thanks for bringing up the subject of Frodo's "abandonment" of Merry and Pippin. Like many others here, the aspect had never occurred to me.

I think that Frodo has simply never been capable of saying good-bye. He tried to slip out of the Shire, way back when, with no one but Sam; on their journey, after meeting Gildo, he considered going on alone (even without Sam if necessary); and, of course, he would have gone alone into Mordor if Sam hadn't thought fast on his feet and caught up with him when the Fellowship was broken. This quiet slipping away towards the Havens is all of a piece, I think.

And I agree that he probably hadn't considered it from their POV. Think of how surprised he is to realize that Merry and Pippin want to come with him on the Fellowship in Rivendell: they agree that it's a terrible journey, but they feel it would be worse to be parted from Frodo. Sam goes through the crucible with Frodo and his friendship grows so much deeper that it's impossible to compare with that of Merry and Pippin. But their friendship, or love if you will, most definitely exists - and Frodo is too modest to see it. :) If you recall from the opening chapters, Frodo didn't really have friends until Merry, Pippin, and Fatty grew old enough to be considered his peers. I don't think he realizes just how likeable he is.

Being the staunch Merryist that I am, I will only add that I disagree with the person who suggested that Merry wouldn't be able to understand Frodo's pain and torment. Like Faramir and Eowyn, both Frodo and Merry came under the Black Shadow and were brought back to the living by the same healing hand. Pippin, by contrast, was merely crushed by cave troll. :)

Ah, Debbie, I'm sorry that we've reached the end! It's been marvelous making the journey with you. Do let us know when you've read the appendices, particularly the one about Aragorn and Arwen! I look forward to seeing your opinion on the Gift - or is it the Curse? ;) And I would love, love, *love* it if you would go back and reread Lothlorien and see if you can come up with more than a two sentence comment. :)

Sandy

Posted by Sandy @ 2001 Jun 27 04:16 AM EST

brian: Thank you so very much for your last post. While reading it, I was in the beginning amazed at some of your insights and wise analysis of Frodo's actions and emotions. Like this : "I can imagine Frodo seeing himself in his worst nightmares as a shadow of Gollum. In some sense, Gollum still dogs his steps, as he did on that other journey." And "...Frodo has...what? Pain. Loss. Unbearable loneliness, even when not alone?" Your words brought tears to my eyes.

And when you in the end told us about your father, and compared his and your situation to Frodo's and Sam's, I was deeply moved, as I belived I understood the source of your sensitivity to Frodo. I, too, have stood by a beloved parent's - my mother's - sickbead and watched her slowly disembark from this world. It changed my perspective and my level of emotions forever. I think I recognise the sorrow in your words, and just want to tell you that you have my deep sympathy in your present situation. But have hope! Your father may recover some time after the stroke and come back to much his normal self again. :)

Allison: You're so true - again. Our comments reflect not only Frodo, but ourself...

Paul Mendenhall: The passage of time as a drum beating "loss-loss-loss"... That's a beautiful story. Thanks!

Posted by Katarina @ 2001 Jun 27 04:21 AM EST

* I think there‘s still a SPOILER in the third paragraph of Timothy‘s comment...

Janet Croft: „Thinking about it a little more, those of us who have been to Middle-Earth have a hard time explaining it to people who haven't, don't we? Just think of the blank stares you get when you say "This place reminds me of Rivendell!"“

Score!!! I had a theological discussion with my friends last Saturday. We were speaking about Earthly Paradise. I tried to liken it to the nature and relationships between certain people in ME but it was not possible. They’ve never “been to ME”.

Posted by Katerina Str. @ 2001 Jun 27 05:06 AM EST

Oh, Brian, I’ve almost wept while reading your comment. I wish your father is going to be well again.

Posted by Katerina Str. @ 2001 Jun 27 05:56 AM EST

Katerina- Yup, I agree with you about the second spoiler, too. In fact, I caught it last night and then got caught up in brian's letter and went off to bed without going back after the second spoiler. I did choose to take it out this morning.

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 27 06:47 AM EST

I finally got around to reading the first 3 Harry Potter books last week. I think probably, that in a few years these books will be like the Narnia books. Their world seems to be very well thought out and whole like Narnia and ME and I think Platform 9-3/4 will be just like that wardrobe.

Posted by Silmarien @ 2001 Jun 27 07:59 AM EST

Silmarien- Oh, I adore the Harry Potter books and I enjoy how, rather like "The Hobbit" and LOTR, they start out simple and are continuing to open out into a deeper and richer saga (you really see that in Book 3). Very much looking forward to reading the last three books in the series. Go read Book 4 right now- if you liked the first three books, you'll love it. And, hey, we get the first HP movie a month before the first LOTR movie, and it looks to be equally well-cast, so this fantasy fan is very happy.

Posted by Allison @ 2001 Jun 27 08:20 AM EST

Allison- I intend to do read HP4 this weekend - if I can just wrestle it away from my nephew!

Posted by Silmarien @ 2001 Jun 27 08:53 AM EST

Silmarien: I can understand that you want to read it immediately - I read Volume 1 in one day, Volume 2 the next day and Volume 3 the next day. Volume 4 wasn't out at that time.

I'm sure you will like it!

I'glad there are others here who like HP. I was afraid to admit this on a board of LotR-fans.

Posted by Susanna @ 2001 Jun 27 09:05 AM EST

Brian, my best wishes for your father. I'm glad you can draw strength from thinking about LotR and from your friends here.

Katrina Str., I recently read a mystery/romance by Elizabeth Peters (great fun, if you're not familiar with her!) in which the gentleman wasn't sure if he could continue falling in love with the young woman because she'd never read LotR, and he said if she read it and didn't like it he'd have to leave. She hadn't recognized a clue based on the Ring rhyme, and he was bitterly disappointed...

I think this was the first mention of the Harry Potter books so far on this site. I've been very impressed with their increasing depth, too. The author has said in several interviews that one of her deep recurring themes is loss, which gives them something very much in common with Tolkien, as we've been discussing above. When you look at them, there is a lot of death and sorrow hidden below the fun and magic of Hogwarts. They feel partly like Narnia and partly like Middl