Beyond This Be Elves! Sam and Story (II)

Sam Gamgee at the borders of Story

At about 44:00 minutes into Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring (Special Extended Edition), Frodo and Sam are crossing a cornfield.  Sam suddenly slows down, and starts to fall behind. He stops, looking thoughtfully at the earth before his feet. 

'This is it,' he says. 

'This is what?' Frodo stops to ask. 

'If I take one more step, it'll be the farthest away from home I've ever been.' 

Frodo walks back to him. 

'Come on, Sam,' he says, encouraging him. 

Sam looks down, and, with some trepidation, takes the step.  Frodo smiles and lays a hand upon his shoulder.  They go forward together.

'Remember what Bilbo used to say,' says Frodo, who pauses and then begins again, and as he does the voice of Bilbo quickly speaks over his: ' "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.  You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." '

Let's take a look now at the original scene in the book:

...They were looking across the Woody End towards the Brandywine River.  The road wound before them like a piece of string.

'The road goes on for ever,' said Pippin; 'but I can't without a rest.  It is high time for lunch.'  He sat down on the bank at the side of the road and looked away east into the haze, beyond which lay the River, and the end of the Shire in which he had spent all his life.  Sam stood by him. His round eyes were wide open -- for he was looking across lands he had never seen to a new horizon.

'Do Elves live in those woods?' he asked.

'Not that I ever heard,' said Pippin.  Frodo was silent. He too was gazing eastward along the road, as if he had never seen it before. Suddenly he spoke, aloud but as if to himself, saying slowly:

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with weary feet,

Until it joins some larger way,

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

'That sounds like a bit of old Bilbo's rhyming,' said Pippin. 'Or is it one of your imitations?  It does not sound altogether encouraging.' 

'I don't know,' said Frodo. 'It came to me then, as if I was making it up; but I may have heard it long ago.  Certainly it reminds me of Bilbo in the last years, before he went away. He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say.  "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.  Do you realize that this is the very path that goes through Mirkwood, and that if you let it, it might take you to the Lonely Mountain or even further and to worse places?"  He used to say that on the path outside the front door of Bag End, especially after he had been out for a long walk.'

'Well, the Road won't sweep me anywhere for an hour at least,' said Pippin, unslinging his pack.  The others followed his example, putting their packs against the bank and their legs out into the road.  After a rest they had a good lunch, and then more rest.

(FR 1.iii.73-74)

The purpose of setting these two scenes side by side is not to afford myself or anyone else an opportunity to bash the film for not being the book, but rather to allow us to see this scene in the book with eyes refreshed, perhaps, by the contrast. For myself, even though I am a mindful reader who has read the book many times, reading the one after watching the other was illuminating.  It gave me a better understanding of how the scene in the book fits into the larger Tale.

How is that so?  It's not just that there's so much more information conveyed, which of course there is.  It's the nature and emphasis of that information.  The film opts for the streamlined, and, with a gentle humor that we can share with his more worldly master, emphasizes the rustic parochialism of Sam as he takes his first step into a larger world.  It is a sweet scene, bolstered by the soundtrack and the avuncular voice-over of Bilbo.

In the book we have three hobbits looking at the country that lies ahead, but they do not all see it in the same way.  Pippin begins with a note that catches our attention, with what seems to the reader like an allusion to the song Bilbo sang right before he left the Shire seventeen years earlier (FR 1.i.35-36).¹ Yet Pippin is more concerned with lunch and rest, and when he looks down the road eastward all he sees is haze.  He knows that beyond that haze is the River and the boundaries of the Shire where 'he had spent all his life,' but does not seem to think beyond that fact.  As we've seen before, most hobbits give little thought to the world out there, to what lands and people wait in the empty white spaces that surround the Shire on hobbit maps.  So far, Pippin seems rather stolid for a Took.²  After all, they're supposed to be the adventurous ones.³

Yet beside him is Sam, who has an altogether different prospect in view.  As in the film he has reached the limits of his experience, but the book has already dealt with the question of how far from home Sam has been before.  In a scene on the previous night Sam had demonstrated how well he knew the land near Hobbiton, to which the narrator adds that 'twenty miles...was the limit of his geography' (FR 1.iii.71-72).  And while readers will surely remember this detail a page and a half later, and put it together with what we are reading now, the emphasis here is not on how far he has come, but on how far he is going.  Sam is not thinking of where one more step will take him in terms of geography.  That threshold he has already crossed in his mind.  For Sam is going with Mr. Frodo to see the Elves. This is his heart's desire, as he himself has already told us:

'Elves, sir! I would dearly love to see them. Couldn't you take me to see the Elves, sir, when you go?'....' Me, sir!' cried Sam, springing up like a dog invited for a walk. 'Me go and see Elves and all! Hooray!' he shouted, and then burst into tears.

(FR 1.ii.63-64; cf. ii.45)

What Sam is really asking now, with 'his round eyes wide open,' is whether he is standing at the borders of Faerie.  It is not merely a wider world, but another world entirely, the one for which he has yearned ever since Bilbo filled his head with 'stories of the old days' (FR 1.i.24), where Elves walk beneath the stars and dragons rise up on wings of wrath.  The world of Story.  And Sam's words here -- the only words he utters in the scene -- are central.  Not only do they occur very close to the middle of this passage, but they focus it on something more than geography and lunch (as important as such things no doubt remain). Indeed the entire scene can be said to pivot on them.

For while Pippin's reply is matter of fact and almost dismissive, Sam's question strikes a very deep chord with Frodo, who at first remains silent.  Not only does he see the road differently than either of his companions.  He also sees it differently than he himself would have done in the past: 'he too was gazing eastward along the road as if he had never seen it before;' when he breaks his silence, he speaks 'aloud but as if to himself;' and then he recites lines of poetry he doesn't know he knew, that 'just came to [him] then, as if [he] was making it up' (all italics mine). As with Sam, Frodo's past is relevant here. In the years after Bilbo left:

Frodo often went tramping over the Shire with [Merry and Pippin]; but more often he wandered by himself, and to the amazement of sensible folk he was sometimes seen far from home walking in the hills and woods under starlight.  Merry and Pippin suspected that he visited the Elves at times, as Bilbo had done.

(FR 1.ii.42-43)

But as he grew older, 'the regret that he had not gone with Bilbo was steadily growing,' and he told himself that one day he, too, would cross the river (FR 1.ii.43).  And as he came closer to the age at which 'adventure had suddenly befallen Bilbo' (FR 1.ii.43), 'Frodo began to feel restless, and the old paths seemed too well-trodden' (ii.43).  His friends became concerned that he would go off by himself (ii.43; v.103-04).  But with the revelation of the Ring, all that changes. Crossing the river becomes a darker and more complex proposition:

'I imagined [going away] as a kind of holiday, a series of adventures like Bilbo's or better, ending in peace.  But this would mean exile, a flight from danger into danger, drawing it after me.  And I suppose I must go alone, if I am to do that and save the Shire.  But I feel very small and very uprooted, and well -- desperate.  The Enemy is so strong and terrible.'

He did not tell Gandalf, but as he was speaking a great desire to follow Bilbo flamed up in his heart  -- to follow Bilbo, and even perhaps to find him again.  It was so strong that it overcame his fear: he could almost have run out there and then down the road without his hat, as Bilbo had done on a similar morning long ago. 

(FR 1.ii.62)

The desire to see Bilbo again gives Frodo the courage to face his fear and to try to save the Shire, but courage is not the same thing as hope.  He does not run out the door as Bilbo did, not now or anytime soon.  He discovers that leaving under these circumstances is harder than he thought.

'I have been so taken up with the thoughts of leaving Bag End, and of saying farewell, that I have never even considered the direction,' said Frodo. 'For where am I to go? And by what shall I steer?  What is to be my quest?  Bilbo went to find a treasure, there and back again; but I go to lose one, and not return, as far as I can see.'

(FR 1.iii.66)

Weeks of delay turn into months.  And, as we shall later learn from Merry, Frodo spends the spring and summer saying goodbye to the Shire, and has been 'constantly heard...muttering: "Shall I ever look down into that valley again, I wonder" ' (FR 1.v.103), almost the very words we heard him say the night before, in the scene where we also learned about Sam's geographical knowledge: 'I wonder if I shall ever look down into that valley again' (FR 1.iii.71-72).

Frodo's heart is looking backwards -- as Sam's is not, as Bilbo's was not -- at what he is leaving, at the Shire he feels sure he must lose.  Sam's question, now on the first morning of their journey, is as eager as Frodo's question of the night before was rueful.  Now, with this road of loss before his feet and Sam's words in his ears, it is no wonder that he feels disconnected from himself and his own words ('as if...as if...as if...'); and no wonder that the poem here seems to express Frodo's doubts and reluctance, but in Bilbo's mouth it had expressed his relief and happiness to be going.⁴ Seen in this way, Pippin's characterization of Frodo's recitation as 'not...altogether encouraging' is quite apt.  Not seen in this way -- that is, if we read it like Bilbo's -- Pippin's remark is harder to construe.

Yet we may also see that within Frodo's words -- the poem and the quotation of Bilbo -- lies an answer to the meaning of Sam's question. Having reached the limits of his own world of dull and incurious hobbits, Sam wants to know if this is where the world of Story begins.⁵  It begins, he is told, with the Road that begins at your doorstep.  Since the path leads to Mirkwood, and Erebor, and 'even further and to worse places,' the Road and the Story are inextricably linked.  Step into the one, and you step into the other.

How fully Sam may realize this now is impossible to say.  The text remains silent. He may still be staring across the valley at the woods, as he was when we last saw him, or he may have turned to look at Frodo when he began speaking, which is not an unreasonable inference.  But Sam is aware that the borders of the Shire are not impermeable, either to 'queer tales' or 'queer folk' (FR 1.ii.44-45), and that Elves, the very embodiment of Story, were moving westward to the Grey Havens and had been seen in the Shire, even by Sam himself, or so he believed (ii.45). And he of course knows that the world of Story showed up at Bilbo's front door. Very soon he will come to see that he is already inside a Tale.  For the hobbits will quickly find, once they enter those woods, that that other world, the world of Story, is no respecter of the attempts of the Shire-folk to fence it out.

But that all comes later, after a rest, and a good lunch, and more rest.  These are hobbits after all.

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¹ Pippin's later reaction to Frodo's reciting The Road Goes Ever On indicates that he is not here alluding to the poem. He doesn't seem to know it at all, which suggests that 'the road goes on for ever' was something of a proverbial expression upon which Bilbo built.
² It's not until Pippin finds himself a captive of the Orcs, who are soon to be attacked by the Rohirrim, that he begins to grasp the utility of knowing some geography (TT 3.iii.543):

He wondered very much what kind of folk [the Rohirrim] were.  He wished now that he had learned more in Rivendell, and looked at more maps and things, but in those days the plans for the journey seemed to be in more competent hands, and he had never reckoned with being cut off from Gandalf, or from Strider, and even from Frodo.  All that he could remember about Rohan was that Gandalf's horse, Shadowfax, had come from that land.  That sounded hopeful, as far as it went.

³ On Tookishness see Corey Olsen, Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, 17-26, and passim thereafter.
⁴ Compare Bilbo's words to Gandalf immediately before he sings the poem and leaves:

'Take care! I don't care.  Don't you worry about me!  I am as happy now as I have ever been, and that's saying a great deal.  But the time has come. I am being swept off my feet at last....'

(FR 1.i.35)

Verbally, the two instances of the poem differ in one word only. Where Bilbo says 'pursuing it with eager feet' (FR 1.i.35), Frodo says 'pursuing it with weary feet.' This is entirely consonant with the portrayals of Bilbo, who can't wait to leave and used his party as a stage for a grand and shocking exit, and Frodo, who is loath to go no matter how long he has dallied with the idea of following Bilbo. It will be worthwhile to study their departures from Bag End.  Tbe idea of 'pursuing' the road is an intriguing enough notion on its own, but the juxtaposition of this idea of intentional effort with Bilbo's statement that the Road can sweep you away to no one knows where also opens the door to what could prove an interesting examination of free will.

⁵ For Sam's experience of this, look here. Frodo, too, has also felt the rub of being surrounded by those with willfully narrow perspectives: "I should like to save the Shire, if I could -- though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them.' (FR 1.ii.62) One brief point here (yes, brief): an invasion of dragons would entail an invasion of the prosaic world of the Shire by the fantastic world of Story.

The Naming of Sméagol

In The Taming of Sméagol a newly captured Gollum asks the hobbits about their destination:

'And where are they going in these cold hard lands, we wonders, yes we wonders?' He looked up at them, and a faint light of cunning and eagerness flickered for a second in his pale blinking eyes.

 ....  

Frodo looked straight into Gollum's eyes which flinched and twisted away.  'You know that, or you guess well enough, Sméagol,' he said quietly and sternly. 'We are going to Mordor, of course.  And you know the way there, I believe.' 

'Ach! sss!' said Gollum, covering his ears with his hands, as if such frankness, and the open speaking of the names, hurt him.

(TT 4.i.616)

Those last words -- 'as if such frankness, and the open speaking of the names, hurt him' --  bear special notice.  The names -- plural and definite, including both Mordor and Sméagol  --  assert a sureness about the truth of this explanation that makes the words 'as if' seem a courtesy paid in passing.  In a legendarium born from a single name such an emphasis on names and their power is never to be ignored. And so, when I noticed not long ago that the narrator, while speaking in his own voice, rarely calls Gollum Sméagol, it led me to investigate the use of this name. Let's look at The Two Towers since that is where it occurs most often by far.

For starters, the name Sméagol is used there 145 times, all of them, unsurprisingly, in Book Four.  Of these instances ninety-five are Gollum referring to or addressing himself.  That's 65 percent of the total.  How fascinating that after being seemingly hurt by hearing his name openly spoken Gollum then proceeds to use it with such tiresome frequency (even more tiresome if you're counting).  It suggests that Frodo's calling Gollum by his true name has opened a door within him that had long been shut.  Now back in The Shadow of the Past Gandalf had said of Gollum that:

'There was a little corner of his mind that was still his own, and light came through it, as through a chink in the dark: a light out of the past. It was actually pleasant, I think, to hear a kindly voice again, bringing up memories of wind, and trees, and sun on the grass, and such forgotten things.'

(FR 1.ii.55)  

It was also in this very conversation with Gandalf that Frodo learned Gollum's real name, which Gandalf, there can be little doubt, had learned directly from Gollum.¹ It is further true that Gandalf calls him Sméagol only in telling the story of how he came by the Ring five hundred years earlier; in speaking of the 'present' he always calls him Gollum.  So even quite early in the Tale we can see a connection established in Frodo's presence between Sméagol and the other 'forgotten things' of Gollum's past. We also see, later in the same conversation, Gandalf express the admittedly wan hope that 'Gollum can be cured before he dies' (FR 1.ii.59).

Thus, by addressing Gollum as Sméagol, Frodo evokes (and perhaps seeks to evoke), the memory of these things, just as Gandalf implies Bilbo had done.  Yet the portrait of Gollum is too complex and cunning for evocation to lead simply to reformation, even if it opens the door to the hope of a cure. The signals from Gollum remain mixed throughout, just like Sméagol and Gollum themselves.  (I almost feel I should say 'himselves'.)

And how could it be otherwise when the first two times Gollum uses his own name he equates Sméagol with the Ring itself: 'Don't ask Sméagol.  Poor, poor Sméagol, he went away long ago.  They took his Precious, and he's lost now' (TT 4.i.616)?  No Precious, no Sméagol.  The implication of this is clear. Gollum also sees a distinction between himself and the lost Sméagol, though it is not the same distinction as Gandalf saw.  For in Gollum's mind Sméagol was lost not with the murder of Déagol centuries before, but with the loss of the Ring to Bilbo.

The complexity of this portrait is also clear in the first thing Gollum does after he is called Sméagol.  Once Sam and Frodo pretend to trust him and feign sleep, he tries to escape (4.i.617), making no attempt to recover the Ring he has sought since the desire of it drove him from the darkness beneath the Misty Mountains 75 years earlier (FR 1.ii.57; RK B 1089).  The hobbits  --  'The thieves, the thieves, the filthy little thieves.  Where are they with my Precious? Curse them. We hates them,' (TT 4.i.613)  --   seem to be asleep, all at his mercy now, and his Precious is right at hand.  And Gollum runs (TT 4.i.617).

Nor does the picture grow less complicated after Frodo compels him to swear by the Ring in the next scene and 'the new Gollum, the Sméagol' begins to emerge.  For this Gollum, too, is problematic and conflicted.  Despite 'the Sméagol's' usefulness and friendliness, Sam dislikes and mistrusts him even more 'if possible' than the old Gollum (TT 4.i.619), and Frodo trusts him only provisionally (TT 4.i.624, iii. 640, iv.649).

And there are few things that demonstrate Frodo's much underestimated caution towards Gollum more than the fact that Frodo calls him Sméagol only when addressing him directly. The sole exception is when Frodo, in a highly formal context, responds to Faramir's asking him whether he takes 'this creature, this Sméagol under [his] protection.' (TT 4.vi.690).  In addition to still addressing him as Gollum at times (TT 4.i.614, 615; iii.640), Frodo also still thinks of him as Gollum (4.i.615; iii.643; vi.686-87), which he continues to do in The Return of the King (RK 6.i.914; ii.929; iii.947).

This practice of Frodo the character is supported by the custom of Frodo the narrator, who refers to him as Gollum 251 times in Book Four, but calls him Sméagol a total of seven times in only three places.²  The first is in the title of the initial chapter of Book Four, The Taming of Sméagol, a title for which I believe the text suggests a 'tricksy' meaning  --  namely, that it is not Gollum, but Sméagol, who is tamed.  However that may be, it is nevertheless a chapter title, and so more of a comment upon the narrative from the editorial heights than a part of the narrative itself.  On the second occasion the narrator uses 'Sméagol' five times, in the famous scene, witnessed by Sam, in which the two different 'thoughts' that are Gollum argue with each other  (TT 4.ii.632-34). Here the narrator's use of Sméagol helps to differentiate clearly between these 'thoughts,' separating the more threatening Gollum from the less threatening Sméagol.³

In the third instance the narrator adopts a high mythic style to trace the history of 'Shelob the Great, last child of Ungoliant to trouble the unhappy world,' and explain Gollum's knowledge of her:

Already, years before, Gollum had beheld her, Sméagol who pried into all dark holes, and in past days he had bowed and worshipped her, and the darkness of her evil will walked through all the ways of his weariness beside him, cutting him off from light and from regret.  

 (TT 4.ix.723)

Note how the very syntax of 'Sméagol' here, in apposition and logically subordinate to the grammatical subject 'Gollum,' mirrors the reality it describes.  'Sméagol' is parallel but secondary, intimately linked yet adjectival, a rhetorical alternative to the repetition of the subject.  Sméagol modifies Gollum, and yet his role as the one 'who pried into all dark holes' must have been crucial to finding her.

This passage, moreover, is like a bookend or a counterbalance to the passage in The Shadow of the Past quoted above (FR 1.ii.55), in which Gandalf speaks of the pleasant memories Bilbo's kindly voice stirred in Gollum, and of the bit of light that still reached him out of the past.  Whatever slender hope that passage seemed to offer, this seems to take away, and conclusively so since it comes after Gollum's betrayal of the hobbits and the missed opportunity to repent upon the stairs (TT 4.viii.714).⁴ Indeed the grimness of that final coordinate clause ('and the darkness...regret.') makes Gollum's failure to repent, the necessary precursor to a cure, feel almost predictable, as if we should have known.⁵ That is not the case, as I believe the larger context of the Tale in Book Four demonstrates, but it adds further complexity. Gollum's being cut off from light and regret both makes repentance more difficult for him, and shows clearly how strong the urge to repent must have been for him to get as close to it as he does.

If we turn to Sam's uses of Sméagol, it is clear that he, too, becomes increasingly aware of the complications that the very notion of a Sméagol poses for dealing with Gollum.  Aside from trusting 'the new Gollum, the Sméagol' less than the old (4.i.619), he's at first fairly sure the distinction won't make a difference in practice: 'Sméagol or Gollum, he won't change his habits in a hurry, I'll warrant' (4.ii.622-23). But maintaining that attitude soon proves challenging:

Sam frowned.  If he could have bored holes in Gollum with his eyes, he would have done.  His mind was full of doubt.  To all appearances Gollum was genuinely distressed and anxious to help Frodo.  But Sam, remembering the overheard debate, found it hard to believe that the long submerged Sméagol had come out on top: that voice at any rate had not had the last word in the debate.  Sam's guess was that the Sméagol and Gollum halves (or what in his own mind he called Slinker and Stinker) had made a truce and a temporary alliance: neither wanted the Enemy to get the Ring; both wished to keep Frodo from capture, and under their eye, as long as possible  -- at any rate as long as Stinker still had a chance of laying hands on his 'Precious'.  Whether there really was another way into Mordor Sam doubted.

(TT 4.iii.638-39)

Yet alongside his doubts and suspicions Sam also arrives at moments here and there where he displays something I can only call 'not-unkindliness' towards Gollum.  In Ithilien, for example, when Gollum brings Sam the rabbits he requests, Sam offers to cook for Sméagol in some surprising future that no one could have expected Sam ever to envision:

'But be good Sméagol and fetch me the herbs, and I'll think better of you.  What's more, if you turn over a new leaf, and keep it turned, I'll cook you some taters one of these days. I will: fried fish and chips served by S. Gamgee.'

(TT 4.iv.654)

I want to emphasize here --  since I don't think I had ever noticed this before now, and had to consult six different editions dating back to the 1960s to be fairly sure there was no typo --  that the correct reading of the text clearly seems to be what I have reproduced above: 'But be good Sméagol and....' That is, while Sam is indeed addressing Gollum directly here, he is not calling him by name (which would be 'But be good, Sméagol, and....').  He is telling him to be 'good Sméagol' rather than 'bad Sméagol,' namely Gollum. It's a subtle difference, but it suggests an awareness on Sam's part that a real change in Gollum may be possible, even if not inevitable or, for that matter, at all likely.

This fits in both with the banter that goes on between Sam and Gollum in the passage, especially Sam's mockery of Gollum's manner of speech just two paragraphs above, and Sam's telling Frodo when he wakes up that the rabbits are 'a present from Sméagol...though I fancy Gollum's regretting them now' (TT 4.iv.655). But neither has Sam, in asking Sméagol to hunt for them and in speaking to him not unkindly, forgotten who they are dealing with.  For just that very morning Sam had come across in the woods the remnants of a 'dreadful feast and slaughter....he said nothing: the bones were best left in peace and not pawed and routed by Gollum' (TT 4.iv.651).

And not only that: as they are eating the stewed rabbit a little later Sam warns Frodo that they should not both fall asleep together: 'I don't feel too sure of [Gollum], There's a good deal of Stinker -- the bad Gollum, if you understand me -- in him still, and it's getting stronger again' (TT 4.iv.655-56).  Sam has not forgotten the overheard conversation between Slinker and Stinker, in which Gollum had had the last word, a word that had dismayed even Sméagol: 'She might help.  She might, yes' (TT 4.ii.633).

Sméagol/Gollum is a complex, tormented soul.  Gandalf felt that a cure for him was not beyond all hope, and Frodo thought that he was 'not altogether wicked' (TT 4.vi.691) but Faramir's assessment that 'malice eats [this creature] like a canker, and the evil is growing' (4.vi.691) is also correct.  Even Sam, as hostile and suspicious as he usually is of Sméagol/Gollum, is well aware of the straining, shifting currents of good and evil within him.  The one thing that this examination of the use of 'Sméagol' has told us is that there is no hard and fast, black and white, split between the two 'thoughts' or, as Sam sees it, 'halves' that are Sméagol and Gollum.  He is as trackless and treacherous as the Dead Marshes themselves.

The two characters who know him best, Frodo and Sam, are ambivalent about him in different degrees.  Frodo does not trust him, and is not fooled by him.  He knows he's dangerous, and that even the promise made on the Ring itself will only hold him for so long.  But Frodo's experience with the Ring since The Shadows of the Past has changed him.  (And not just what he has suffered himself, but what he has seen others suffer because of the Ring, specifically Boromir, who tried to take the Ring from him by force mere days before he meets Gollum and shows him mercy.) For him calling Gollum Sméagol is an attempt to reach the 'little corner of his mind that,' as Gandalf said 'was still his own,' Frodo does so out of Pity, not self-interest.  That he still calls him Gollum sometimes and thought and later wrote of him as Gollum probably reflects his understanding of how meager the hope of curing him was, and perhaps also the reality of how the Tale turned out.  In the end he proved to be Gollum, and so he was called, but it was a very near run thing.

Sam, ever protective and fearful for his Master, has not yet learned Pity.  His experience of the Ring and his seeming failure of Frodo lie before him yet.  He has also heard the Sméagol/Gollum debate and seen Gollum's hands grasping for a sleeping Frodo's throat.  So, while he can be not unkindly to Sméagol and can allow a glimmer of hope for him, he cannot forget the growing danger Gollum poses.  And it's true that Gollum merits his suspicions, even at the moment of his near repentance,⁶ but as Bilbo, Gandalf, and Frodo saw, and as Sam will see (RK 6.iii.944), Sméagol deserves his Pity.

In so narrow a view as I have taken here, it is all too easy to mistake, to misunderstand, to misrepesent, unwillingly, uniwttingly, the complex joint portrait of all three of the main characters of Book Four.  What is really needed is an in depth, page by page exploration at length of the rich web woven here.

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¹While it is nowhere explicitly stated that Gandalf learned the name Sméagol from Gollum himself, there really is no other possibility. Note how in telling Frodo the story of Sméagol and Déagol Gandalf witholds the information that Sméagol and Gollum are one until the very end. It may be that he's trying to set Frodo up to feel pity for Gollum when he reveals their identity.  If so, he fails, for the moment.  Later, when Faramir reaches Minas Tirith with the news that he had seen Frodo and Sam with Gollum, Gandalf says: '...my heart guessed that Frodo and Gollum would meet before the end' (RK 5.iv.815).  It is tempting to read this presentiment back into his conversation with Frodo at Bag End, but it may not be justified.

²'Gollum' occurs 305 times in Book Four. Fifty-four times it is used in direct address or direct speech by a character or in 'the gollum noise.' The other 251 times belong to the narrator.  Gollum actually never calls himself 'Gollum' as far as I have been able to find.  I am not counting the noise he makes in his throat as a form of self-address, even if others derived a name for him from it.  The text uses capitalization and italics to make clear the distinction between the 'gollum noise' and Gollum used as a name. Sam's 'Gollum! I'll give him gollum in his throat, if I ever get my hands on his neck' (TT 4.i.604) is the perfect illustration.  For further examples, see TT 3.iii.455-56; 4.i.613, 614, 615, 616.  Oddly enough, at least as far back as the 1960s American editions of The Lord of the Rings, but not of The Hobbit, were italicizing the 'gollum noise.'

³'Thought' is the word used in that scene to describe the two different aspects of Gollum that are speaking.  We would be quite naturally inclined to call them 'personalities,' but not Tolkien of course.  Aside from the fact that 'personality' as we mean it here is a coinage of only the late 18th century (OED s.v. 2), he probably would have disliked it for all of the freight of Psychology that it carried with it.  But in any event the word would have been ill suited stylistically for The Lord of the Rings.  On the other hand, however, 'thought' used in this sense seems unparalleled in recent centuries, though not entirely new.  The OED s.v. 1b shows an early meaning (two citations from the Lindisfarne Gospels, ca 950) which clearly appears to have the sense 'mind.'

⁴I am currently preparing a paper on the scene of Gollum's near repentance for presentation at Mythmoot III in January 2015. I will of course also post that paper here, but likely not for some time yet.

⁵This clause has always sounded to me like a dim and dark echo of the final verse of the 23rd psalm: 'Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.'

⁶A point I owe to Corey Olsen.  See The Two Towers, Class 08: Doom and Great Deeds from about 25:00 onwards.

_______________________________

The tabulation below presents the uses of 'Sméagol' in the order in which they occur, separated by chapter (starting in The Two Towers, since the bulk of the uses occur there and since the story there is our focus), and annotated with  speaker and form of speech.  Having to count, over and over, the number of times Gollum calls himself 'Sméagol' gives one a new and better understanding of why Strider gagged Gollum while he marched him to the halls of Thranduil.


FrDA = Frodo, the Character, in Direct Address to Gollum
FrDS  = Frodo, the Character, in Direct Speech about Gollum
GS     = Gollum, addressing or referring to himself
FrN    = Frodo the Narrator.
SDA  = Sam, in Direct Address to Gollum
SDS   = Sam, in Direct Speech about Gollum
ST      = Sam's Thoughts as reported by the narrator.
FaDA = Faramir, in Direct Address to Gollum
FaDS  = Faramir, in Direct Speech about Gollum
GaDS = Gandalf, in Direct Speech about Gollum

Sméagol in The Two Towers:

The Taming of Sméagol:

01. 4.i.603 Title of Chapter = FrN
02. 4.i.616 FrDA
03. 4.i.616 FrDA
04. 4.i.616 GS
05. 4.i.616 GS
06. 4.i.618 GS
07. 4.i.618 GS
08. 4.i.618 FrDA
09. 4.i.618 GS
10. 4.i.618 GS
11. 4.i.618 FrDA
12. 4.i.618 GS
13. 4.i.619 ST
14. 4.i.619 GS
15. 4.i.619 GS
16. 4.i.619 GS

The Passage of the Marshes

17. 4.ii.620 GS
18. 4.ii.621 GS
19. 4.ii.621 GS
20. 4.ii.622 FrDA
21. 4.ii.622 GS
22. 4.ii.622 GS
23. 4.ii.622 GS
24. 4.ii.622 GS
25. 4.ii.622 GS
26  4.ii.622 SDS
27. 4.ii.623 GS
28. 4.ii.624 GS
29. 4.ii.625 FrDA
30. 4.ii.625 GS
31. 4.ii.625 GS
32. 4.ii.625 GS
33. 4.ii.625 GS
33. 4.ii.628 GS
35. 4.ii.628 GS
36. 4.ii.628 ST
37. 4.ii.628 GS
38. 4.ii.629 GS
39. 4.ii.629 GS
40. 4.ii.629 GS
41. 4.ii.632 FrN
42. 4.ii.632 GS
43. 4.ii.633 GS
44. 4.ii.633 GS
45. 4.ii.633 GS
46. 4.ii.633 FrN
47. 4.ii.633 GS
48. 4.ii.633 FrN
49. 4.ii.633 FrN
50. 4.ii.634 FrN
51. 4.ii.634 GS
52. 4.ii.634 GS

The Black Gate Is Closed

53. 4.iii.637 GS
54. 4.iii.637 GS
55. 4.iii.637 GS
56. 4.iii.637 GS
57. 4.iii.637 GS
58. 4.iii.637 GS (quoted back, inaccurately, at  # 73)
59. 4.iii.637 GS
60. 4.iii.638 GS
61. 4.iii.638 GS
62. 4.iii.638 GS
63. 4.iii.638 GS
64. 4.iii.638 GS
65. 4.iii.638 GS
66. 4.iii.638 GS
67. 4.iii.638 GS
68. 4.iii.638 GS
69. 4.iii.638 ST
70. 4.iii.638 ST
71. 4.iii.640 FrDA
72. 4.iii.640 FrDA
73. 4.iii.640 GS
74. 4.iii.640 FrDA (quoting, inaccurately, # 57)
75. 4.iii.640 FrDA
76. 4.iii.640 FrDA
77. 4.iii.640 FrDA
78. 4.iii.641 GS (as quoted by FrN)
79. 4.iii.641 GS
80. 4.iii.642 GS
81. 4.iii.643 GS
82. 4.iii.643 GS
83. 4.iii.643 GS
84. 4.iii.643 GS
85. 4.iii.643 FrDA
86. 4.iii.646 GS
87. 4.iii.646 GS
88. 4.iii.647 GS
89. 4.iii.647 GS
90. 4.iii.647 GS
91. 4.iii.647 GS
92. 4.iii.647 FrDA

Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit

93. 4.iv.648 GS
94. 4.iv.652 GS
95. 4.iv.653 GS
96. 4.iv.653 GS
97. 4.iv.653 GS
98. 4.iv.654 GS
99. 4.iv.654 GS
100. 4.iv.654 GS
101. 4.iv.654 GS
102. 4.iv.654 GS
103. 4.iv.654 SDA
104. 4.iv.654 GS
105. 4.iv.654 GS
106. 4.iv.654 SDA
107. 4.iv.655 SDS

The Window on the West

none

The Forbidden Pool

108. 4.vi.686 GS
109. 4.vi.687 FrDA
110. 4.vi.687 FrDA
111. 4.vi.687 FrDA
112. 4.vi.687 FrDA
113. 4.vi.687 FrDA
114. 4.vi.687 GS
115. 4.vi.687 GS
116. 4.vi.687 FrDA
117. 4.vi.687 GS
118. 4.vi.687 GS
119. 4.vi.688 FrDA
120. 4.vi.689 FrDA
121. 4.vi.690 GS
122. 4.vi.690 FaDS
123. 4.vi.690 FrDS
124. 4.vi.691 FaDA
125. 4.vi.693 FaDS
126. 4.vi.693 FaDS

Faramir uses 'Sméagol' three times when speaking of him to Frodo, each time with evident distrust and loathing; and once he addresses him directly.  But Faramir knows of no other name for him than Sméagol.  Neither Frodo nor Sam call him Gollum in front of Faramir. Neither Sam nor, it would appear, Frodo had any intention of mentioning him if they didn't need to do so (TT 4.v.672; vi.685).

Journey to the Crossroads

127. 4.vii.695 GS
128. 4.vii.696 FrDS
129. 4.vii.696 FrDS

The Stairs of Cirith Ungol

130. 4.viii.713 SDS
131  4.viii.715 GS
132. 4.viii.715 GS
133, 4.viii.715  FrDA
134. 4.viii.715 GS
135. 4.viii.715 FrDA
136. 4.viii.715 GS
137. 4.viii.716 FrDA
138. 4.viii.716 GS

Shelob's Lair

139. 4.ix.717 FrDA
140, 4.ix.717 GS
141. 4.ix.719 FrDA
142. 4.ix.719 FrDA
143. 4.ix.723 FrN
144. 4.ix.724 GS
145. 4.ix.726 GS

GS = 94/145 = 64.82%

FrDA/S = 31/145 = 21.37%

FrN = 7/145 = 4.82%

ST/SDS/SDA = 9/145 = 6.2%

FaDA/FaDS = 4/145 = 2.75%


Sméagol in The Fellowship of the Ring

The Shadow of the Past

01. 1.ii.53 GaDS
02. 1.ii.53 GaDS
03. 1.ii.53 GaDS
04. 1.ii.53 GaDS
05. 1.ii.53 GaDS
06. 1.ii.53 GaDS
07. 1.ii.53 GaDS
08. 1.ii.53 GaDS
09  1.ii.56 GaDS

The Council of Elrond

10. 2.ii.255 Legolas says: 'Sméagol, who is now called Gollum.'


Sméagol in The Return of the King

Mount Doom

01. 6.iii.943 GS
02. 6.iii.943 GS

Appendix B in The Return of the King shows a noteworthy progression in the uses of both names.  He is 'Sméagol' when he kills Déagol (1087, under the year 2463), 'Sméagol-Gollum' for as long as he is under the Misty Mountains (1087, under the year 2470; 1089, under the year 2941), and 'Gollum' alone once he leaves the mountains to hunt for the Ring (1089, under the year 2944).

Thunder Road

Cover photo by Eric Meola

The screen door slams
Mary's dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch
As the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey that's me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again
Don't run back inside
darling you know just what I'm here for
So you're scared and you're thinking
That maybe we ain't that young anymore
Show a little faith, there's magic in the night
You ain't a beauty but hey you're all right
Oh and that's all right with me

You can hide 'neath your covers
And study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers
Throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain
For a savior to rise from these streets
Well now I'm no hero
That's understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl
Is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey what else can we do now
Except roll down the window
And let the wind blow back your hair
Well the night's busting open
These two lanes will take us anywhere
We got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels
Climb in back, heaven's waiting on down the tracks
Oh come take my hand
We're riding out tonight to case the promised land
Oh Thunder Road, oh Thunder Road
oh Thunder Road
Lying out there like a killer in the sun
Hey I know it's late we can make it if we run
Oh Thunder Road, sit tight, take hold
Thunder Road

Well I got this guitar
And I learned how to make it talk
And my car's out back
If you're ready to take that long walk
From your front porch to my front seat
The door's open but the ride ain't free
And I know you're lonely
For words that I ain't spoken
But tonight we'll be free
All the promises'll be broken
There were ghosts in the eyes
Of all the boys you sent away
They haunt this dusty beach road
In the skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets

They scream your name at night in the street
Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet
And in the lonely cool before dawn
You hear their engines roaring on
But when you get to the porch they're gone on the wind
So Mary climb in
It's a town full of losers
And I'm pulling out of here to win.  

Bruce Springsteen

copyrightⒸ 1975

On August 25th 1975, the day the album Born To Run was released, I must have been at my family's summer home on the Jersey Shore, in that odd, wonderful, lovely beach town called Ocean Grove, which was as little as one footstep and as many as a million miles away from Asbury Park next door.  I wish I could say  -- it's silly, but I really do wish this -- that I can remember the first time Thunder Road was ever played on the radio.  I do remember the first time I heard it, however.  It was about a week later, back in our apartment in The Bronx, in the late afternoon just before supper.  It was hot and the windows were open, and I was in my bedroom listening to WNEW-FM.  The DJ, almost certainly Scott Muni (click this link, really do) with his definitive FM baritone, introduced the song.  In fact I think he introduced and played the whole album. (They did that all the time with new albums on WNEW.  If you were really into Rock in the 70s in the New York area, WNEW was the temple and Muni the high priest.)

The first thing that got my attention was the fact that this guy Springsteen was from the Jersey Shore, from Asbury Park in fact*, where I used to spend every evening walking the boardwalk with my friends and girlfriend or in the Casino playing pinball. So I was already listening closely.

Then came the languor of the opening bars of Thunder Road, which caught for me the laziness and the longing of the end of a summer day, only to quicken into that marvelous first image -- the bang shut of a wooden screen door, the swirl of a skirt, the swift grace of the girl, the specific song about loneliness on the radio as she crosses the porch towards you, towards me, with my yearning and fear of disappointment.  This wasn't like a vision.  It was a vision.

No doubt I looked around with a wild surmise.

I saw things that had always been there before, but that I had never seen.  Here were ordinary people trying to be the heroes of their own lives, but learning too late how hard it is even to be large enough for life in a world of tears.

It made me think of the books I read as a boy, in which the heroes would always overcome somehow.  Not so here.  You could fail.  The one you longed for could turn you away, could abandon you, could break you.

It made me think of The Bronx where I was growing up and where I saw one of my brothers living a life that -- minus the cars -- could have come out of this world.  It was a life I came to live, too.

It made me think of Asbury Park, where Ocean and Kingsley Avenues on summer nights -- the Circuit they called it -- were like some dark American Graffiti, and where only about five years earlier there had been race riots.  I was next door in Ocean Grove during those riots.  I suppose I was as aware of them as any ten year old white kid not from Asbury Park could have been.  Even then something told me that Asbury's best days were behind her.

But just as this song was about people whose hopes were frayed by sorrow and error, and probably hopeless, it was also about people who knew that that vision which came dancing across the porch towards them on a summer's evening was the only thing that was ever worth the risk of failure.  Hope plays on a dark stage.

Maybe that's why forty years on Thunder Road remains my favorite song.

_________________________

*Yes, I know he's really from Freehold, but I didn't know that then.

So Eden sank to grief

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower,
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

            Robert Frost -- 1923

The singsong brevity of the first four lines is brilliant.  It conveys the swift hour of gold in spring, but brings it near levity as well.  It's all too easy to read the trimeter and rhyme in an exaggerated and mocking way, as if it were bad poetry.

So far the setup.  Now comes the reversal.

Then 'subsides,' with its connotations of failure and falling off, pulls the ground from under our feet.  We weren't expecting that.  And as that leaf subsides, the meaning soars.  'So Eden sank to grief' raises the stakes, from woodland or garden to Garden. 'So dawn goes down to day' spells out a lesser aftermath for all our beginnings, and makes dawn seem more the beginning and ending of something better in itself. These two lines transfigure the poem.  What seemed about mere nature becomes about our nature, about our Fall in the spring of the world.  What's more, it was by Nature that we fell. It was only to be expected.  The gravity of Nature allows gold but a moment.  Then all 'subsides,' 'sinks,' 'goes down.'

Now Frost knew as well as any man that spring will come again for leaf and flower, but what about for us?

Not By Taters Alone: Sam and Story (I)

Did any reader ever guess -- could any reader ever have guessed -- when first reading the early chapters of Book One that Sam Gamgee would become the final narrator of The Lord of the Rings?  It hardly seems likely.   While it's true of course that the Prologue twice refers to a 'Samwise' in connection with The Red Book (FR 13 and 14), his surname is never given; nor in the Tale itself is Sam ever called Samwise until Frodo does so over six hundred pages later in The Passage of the Marshes (TT 3.ii.624).¹ And for most readers, even if they assumed that Sam and Samwise were the same, the identity of the third person narrator was probably not a question that arose.

And yet the seeds of this transition, of the moment when the telling of the Tale is handed over to Sam, are planted in the very first dramatic scene of the book, in which Sam's old father (the Gaffer) and several other hobbits meet over a pint at The Ivy Bush on a late summer evening.  The recent announcement of Bilbo's party has sparked conversation about 'the history and character of Mr. Bilbo Baggins,' and as the long time gardener at Bag End the Gaffer 'spoke with some authority' on the stories about him (1.i.22).  Towards the end of the conversation, however, the Gaffer also singles out his son Sam, who is not present, as one who has always taken a very special interest in stories.

But not for Sam are the gossipy stories with which these hobbits have busied themselves this evening: Bilbo's rumored secret hoard of 'gold and silver, and jools;' or the strangeness of Bucklanders who live 'on the wrong side of the Brandywine River, and right agin the Old Forest....a dark bad place, if half the tales be true;' or about the mysterious demise of Frodo's parents who were 'drownded' while out boating, of all things; or the just frustrations of Bilbo's relations, the hyphenated and universally detested Sackville-Bagginses (FR 1.i.22-23).  Even the hint of the foreign and the strange that comes into these tales -- the Old Forest, Bilbo's journey to a far land and return with (reputedly inexhaustible) wealth -- is nothing more than grist for the local gossip mill, and indirect proof that 'Bag End's a queer place, and its folk are queerer.' (1.i.24)  The Gaffer and his fellows shine a lurid light on every bit of it. Indeed the one ray of approval in the whole conversation is the statement that Old Gorbadoc Brandybuck kept 'a mighty generous table' (1.i.23)  And despite the Gaffer's denial of the tales about Bilbo's wealth and his stout defense of Bilbo's character, he, too, is clearly have a grand time 'holding forth' on these matters.

No, as the Gaffer makes inimitably clear, it is tales of an entirely different kind that interest his son:

'But my lad Sam will know more about [Bilbo's wealth]. He's in and out of Bag End. Crazy about stories of the old days, he is, and he listens to all Mr. Bilbo's tales.  Mr. Bilbo has learned him his letters  -- meaning no harm, mark you, and I hope no harm will come of it.

'Elves and Dragons! I says to him. Cabbages and potatoes are better for me and you. Don't go getting mixed up in the business of your betters, or you'll land in trouble too big for you, I says to him.'

(FR 1.i.24: the italics are Tolkien's)

Not that Sam is unique in knowing his letters of course.  The hobbit-children who see Gandalf arrive can recognize the G on his fireworks (1.i.25).  The sign on Bilbo's gate and the written invitations -- to which came written replies -- also strongly suggest a widespread basic literacy (1.i.26).  To this we may add the notes Bilbo left with his gifts, two of which refer to letter writing, and one to book borrowing (1.i.37-38). (The Gaffer, by contrast, receives 'two sacks of potatoes' (1.i.38) among other strictly useful gifts.)  And finally there is Bilbo's will, carefully read right through by Otho Sackville-Baggins and found to be 'very clear and correct (according to the legal customs of hobbits, which demand among other things seven signatures of witnesses in red ink).' (1.i.39)

So it is rather literacy of a certain kind -- one that allows or encourages reading books full of 'stories of the old days' and of 'Elves and Dragons' -- that makes hobbits uneasy, so much so that the Gaffer finds it necessary to defend Mr. Bilbo's intentions in teaching Sam and to express his own hopes for the best.  Part of the answer made to the Gaffer by Sandyman, the miller, 'voicing common opinion,' touches on the same concerns that the Gaffer voices himself.  For the miller refers to visits to Bag End by folk, like dwarves and Gandalf, whom he describes as 'outlandish,' which here we should probably take quite literally (1.i.24).  Those stories Sam is crazy for all involve things beyond the Shire and far older than it.  It is no accident that 'maps made in the Shire showed mostly white space beyond its borders' (1.ii.43).

And, at least when it comes to Sam, this level of literacy is clearly linked to the dangers of getting above oneself. In the Gaffer's mouth, more so than in any other's, 'cabbages and potatoes' is a quite pointed reproach.  After all he and Sam are both gardeners. 'Cabbages and potatoes' reminds Sam not only of his station but of his very identity.  Sam is not (to borrow a much later phrase) 'Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age' (RK 6.i.901).  'Stick to your taters, Sam, my lad,' the Gaffer might have said in a quieter mood (if he ever had one).

It is perhaps for this reason that Sam later appears to conceal how literate he actually is. We later learn that he can recite poetry about Gil-galad from memory (FR 1.xi.185-86).   Frodo is convinced that Sam has composed the troll song he performs, an assertion that Sam does not deny (1.xii.206-208). In Moria Sam expresses a desire to learn the poem Gimli recited (2.iv.315-16). And in Lórien Sam comes out with a (spontaneous?) quatrain on Gandalf's fireworks, to add to the lament Frodo has been composing; Sam immediately denigrates his own verses, but Frodo just as quickly flatters him by comparing his ability to Bilbo's (2.vii.359-60).

Most revealing, however, is the detail that emerges almost as soon as we actually meet Sam, one chapter and seventeen years later, in a scene parallel to the one with the Gaffer in chapter one.  Again we find ourselves in a pub, and with a similar cast. Yet the times have changed somewhat.  The world beyond the comfortably blank edges of Shire maps is in turmoil:

Little of this [news], of course, reached the ears of ordinary hobbits.  But even the deafest and most stay-at-home began to hear queer tales; and those whose business took them to the borders saw strange things. The conversation in The Green Dragon at Bywater, one evening in the spring of Frodo's fiftieth year, showed that even in the comfortable heart of the Shire rumours had been heard, though most hobbits still laughed at them.

Sam Gamgee was sitting in one corner near the fire, and opposite him was Ted Sandyman, the miller's son; and there were various other rustic hobbits listening to their talk.

'Queer things you do hear these days, to be sure,' said Sam.

'Ah,' said Ted, 'you do, if you listen.  But I can hear fireside-tales and children's stories at home, if I want to.'

'No doubt you can,' retorted Sam, 'and I daresay there's more truth in some of them than you reckon.  Who invented the stories anyway?  Take dragons now.'

'No thank'ee,' said Ted, 'I won't.  I heard tell of them when I was a youngster, but there's no call to believe in them now.  There's only one Dragon in Bywater, and that's Green,' he said, getting a general laugh.

'All right,' said Sam, laughing with the rest. 'But what about these Tree-men....?'

(1.ii.44)

Now that we finally meet Sam, we can quickly see that he is as different from 'most hobbits' as the last scene suggested he would be.  Though they are laughing for now (thus, 'still') at the 'queer things you do hear these days,' Sam does not find these matters funny.  While he can take Sandyman's joke at his expense and laugh along, he can also be stung (thus, 'retorted') by the miller's none too subtle hint that he has not left childish things behind him.  He is relentless in his belief that these queer tales have relevant information in them that the others should attend to.  Thus even before the laughter has died, Sam has pressed on to the next queer thing: 'But what about...?'  For which he will also be mocked and dismissed (1.ii.44-45), as for the thing after that (the Elves: 1.ii.45), and the thing after that (Frodo and Bilbo: 1.ii.45).  But his faith in the importance of tales of this kind is unshakeable.  This characterizes Sam and sets him apart.

But there is another detail that distinguishes him even more, here and throughout this Tale, and it's easily missed.  Beyond the importance of stories about dragons and Tree-men and the departing Elves, there is another question: 'Who invented the stories anyway?'  Sam is not just 'crazy about stories of the old days,' he is thinking about them in a critical way.  And his next words --  'Take dragons now' -- are also worth noting.  He doesn't say 'Take Smaug now' as you might expect him to do if he were only trying to disprove the miller's suggestion that all such tales are childish fabrications. He is thinking about dragons plural, about dragons in general, about Dragons in the context of where stories come from.

That's not to say that Sam has any answer, or was about to blurt out some homespun version of On Fairy-stories if the miller had not deflected the conversation with a joke.  But he is on a path that is important in a Tale in which the background and continuity of other older Tales are very significant.  He thinks about stories in a larger sense because his profound desire for dragons is about more than the dragons themselves.  It is about Story itself.  So it is no accident and no surprise that Frodo entrusts Sam with finishing the Tale (RK 6.ix.1027), or that this scene ends with Sam returning home in the evening, his head full of Story, and that this book ends with Sam returning home in the evening, to take up his life and take up the work Frodo has left him (RK 6.ix.1031).

So I am going to be following this idea of 'Sam and Story' from the beginning of The Lord of the Rings to the end.  I have no idea how many posts it is going to be, how long it will take me, or whether the posts will in fact appear in order from beginning to end (though that is the plan).  The  posts I've linked to here are in a sense part of this study, but I imagine that by the time I have worked my way through the Tale all the way to the end I'll have more to say than I have said there already. I guess we'll see.

____________________________

¹ Again it is true that Sam is called Samwise in the synopsis at the beginning of The Two Towers that appears in three volume editions. It is also true that he is referred to as Master Samwise in the Table of Contents: The Choices of Master Samwise. Even so, that would nevertheless place the first clear identification of the Samwise of the Prologue with the Sam Gamgee of the Tale at the beginning of The Two Towers. Nor does everyone read the Prologue, or pay close attention to it if they do. There was a long time when I did not.

Hitch on the Shelf

A couple of Christmas seasons ago a friend of mine and I were discussing the amazing popularity of Elf on the Shelf.  My friend, though not an evangelical atheist, was a big fan of Christopher Hitchens who had died the year before.  We joked that there should be a similar product, called Hitch on the Shelf, offered for the children of atheists.  A bit of satire also followed.

___________________________

Christmas in Heaven

With his eyes shut the warmth of the sun on his skin felt like a dream. The salt breeze, soft and irregular as a low-church vicar, came and went to the beat of the sea on the pebbled shore.  This was very close to heaven.  Amis was right.  Who would have guessed that lying on a beach could match sitting in the pub having an argument? Briefly contented, he sighed.

'Now all I need is a scotch and a Rothmans,' he said.

'Not bloody likely,' said the voice of Martin Amis, 'not in this place.'

Christopher Hitchens opened his eyes. On the chaise longue beside him lay Martin Amis, who didn’t look well these days even with a tan. And what were those bandages on his hands and feet all about?

‘Martin?’

‘Not really.’

‘What do you mean, “not really,” and by the way you look like hell.’

‘That’s an odd choice of words for a dead man.’

‘Don’t be absurd, and don’t change the subject.  What do you mean, “not really”?’

‘I’m not absurd.  And you are dead.  That is entirely the subject.’

‘Oh, balls. And if you’re not Amis, then who are you?’

Amis sat up suddenly and turned towards him.  He leaned forward, elbows on knees, and began unwrapping his right hand.  In a few seconds he was done, and he held  his hand out.

'Oh, I see,' Hitch said, staring at the large hole in the middle of the palm.

'At last,’ Amis said in mock revelation.

Hitch looked down at the pile of unwound bandage.  Here and there were drops of blood, dark and reddish brown, blood that was old but somehow not dry.  More was dripping down onto the pile as he watched.  He found himself unable to take his eyes off the blood, but he clamped his jaw shut, pursed his lips, and thought for a moment.  This was going to be a challenge, the argument of a lifetime, as it were. But when in doubt, always attack.

'If you think that I’m going to bow down and worship you now, then you don’t know the first thing about me.  And you, sir, since you do exist, you have a lot to answer for.’

‘But I’ve already answered for everything that matters, haven’t I?’

Oh, please,’ he said, dropping his head into his hands in exasperation.  Then he realized the voice had changed, though it was still somehow familiar.  He glanced up, and saw Richard Dawkins, sitting precisely where Amis had been, now unwrapping his other hand.

‘Are these charades really necessary?  I should have thought god would have a better sense of humor.  I mean, who’s next, Mother Teresa?’

‘As a matter of fact I do, but Bob Hope stole all my best jokes,’ said Mother Teresa.

‘Well, you’re hardly alone there,’ Hitch said, laughing in spite of himself.

The pile of bandages was saturated now and a pool had begun to spread.

'Listen, if it’s all the same to you, is there no possibility of getting a drink and a smoke around here? I mean, really, who could it hurt now?’
 
‘Sorry, smoking and drinking are just not permitted,’ Mother Teresa said, unwrapping her left foot. Orwell got used to it. So can you.’

‘ “Why this is hell, nor am I out of it”.’

‘Marlowe is always such a nice choice for a quote,’ Jesus said, unwrapping his right foot, ‘and that one’s always been my favorite.  Though most people never get beyond “is this the face….” and so on.  Of course, I knew you’d do better.’

‘Yes, of course you did.’

Hitch looked down again.

‘Would you mind not bleeding so much?  It’s getting on me.’

‘My blood has been on you all your life,’ said Jesus.

‘Yes, yes, yes.  Washed in the blood of the lamb and all that rot.  Please, stop talking like a bad biblical epic – and don’t turn into Charlton Heston, if you please – let’s just get this over with.  Can I just go to hell now?  At least I’ll be able to smoke there.’

‘But there is no hell, Christopher.  That’s what washed in the blood of the lamb means.’

‘No hell?’ he looked at Jesus sidelong with all the uncertainty of a man of reason by reason betrayed.  ‘I don’t know whether that’s a relief or not.’

The son of God spread his hands, as if to say, ‘you’ll have to decide that for yourself.’

'But there is Purgatory,' said Jesus, with a quick nod and a wink.

Everything went black.  The sun, the sea, that wonderful breeze were all gone.  He was confined in a dark and narrow place, where he could scarcely move or breathe.  What?  Where...was...he?

‘Don’t worry, Christopher,' Jesus said. ‘This won’t last as long as it seems.’

It was quiet after that for a long time, peaceful almost, until the muffled endless drone of Christmas carols seeped in. Not even the decent ones, but the others, the saccharine vomitus of diseased minds, songs like ‘Walking in a Winter Wonderland.’ And he called this Purgatory? A hubbub of voices also came through, but nothing he could distinguish. Then it was silent once more. This happened over and over again for what seemed like weeks.

Suddenly the place he was in started moving, and the nausea he felt without any point of reference on which to ground his senses brought back the memory of how awful his illness had been. Then it all stopped, and light flooded in on him.

But it was not the light of freedom or paradise or revelation. At least he hoped not. He was in a room painted a brilliant shade of yellow so sickly it reminded him of jaundice. Morning streamed in through open curtains, illuminating a four poster bed covered in American Girl® dolls and a Hello Kitty® comforter. A little girl’s room. After a moment Hitch noticed something strange about the dolls: none of them had arms. Elsewhere in the house he could hear a child screaming and breaking things. A cat snarled in torment. Bending over Hitch were two women, clearly a mother and daughter. They seemed like giants.

‘So what is it?’ said the elder.

‘I got it at the mall, ma. It’s supposed to frighten children into behaving themselves.’

‘That was always my favorite thing about Christmas,’ the mother said, brimming with fond memory. ‘You have permission to scare your kids.'

Her daughter’s eyes narrowed at her for a moment, as if bitter with the ghost of Christmases past.

'So, what’s this thing called, honey?’

“Elf on the Shelf®, ma,’ she said. ‘It’s called Elf on the Shelf®.’

‘BALLS!’ shouted Hitch, but no one in the room was listening.

The Black Riders at Bree

In the hobbits' room at the Prancing Pony, Frodo and Strider are discussing the worrisome failure of Gandalf to appear as promised:

'Do you think the Black Riders have anything to do with it -- with Gandalf's absence, I mean?' asked Frodo.

'I don't know of anything else that could have hindered him, except the Enemy himself,' said Strider.  'But do not give up hope!  Gandalf is greater than you Shire-folk know -- as a rule you can only see his jokes and his toys.  But this business of ours will be his greatest task.'

(FR 1.x.172)

At this point Merry bursts into the room saying that he has just seen the Black Riders.  There follows a discussion of the Black Riders in which we receive our first clear and significant information about them.  But we are more than merely informed. The very structure of the narrative linking this scene, which ends the present chapter, Strider, and the first two scenes in the next chapter, A Knife in the Dark, not only confirms what Strider tells the hobbits, thereby helping to establish his character and that of the Black Riders, but it also affords us a glimpse of the early use of a technique which Tolkien will use with great success in The Two Towers and The Return of the King.

First I want to sound a note of caution, especially for those of us who have read the work more than once. We need to beware of hindsight here.  For while it is true that Gandalf mentions the Ringwraiths back in The Shadow of the Past (FR 1.ii.51), neither Frodo nor the first time reader will know that the Black Riders are the nine mortal men Sauron ensnared with rings of power until Gandalf explicitly tells Frodo this in Many Meetings (FR 2.i.220).  When the hobbits met the Elves in the Shire and asked Gildor who the Riders were, Gildor refused to answer, though he issues a stern and prophetic warning to flee them (FR 1.iii.80, 83-84).¹ Bombadil, too, seemed to know something about the Ringwraiths (FR 1.vii.132, viii.147), but told the hobbits nothing.  At this moment in this scene the hobbits, and the reader, know little more than that the Black Riders have come from Mordor in search of the Ring, and that there is something innately frightening about them.  And even in this scene Strider, who doubtless knows the identity of the black horsemen, withholds it from the hobbits.²  

Nor is it just the characters who are reticent.  The narrator, too, who is not averse to providing information about mysterious predatory evils in his own voice elsewhere, also holds his tongue throughout the first book of The Fellowship.³ So, while we might put the refusal of the characters to speak down to a reluctance to name an evil -- since naming calls -- we cannot do the same for the narrator.

This suggests that we need to pay close attention, because the text is telling us something more than their name alone could tell us.  For even if Strider had explained that the Black Riders were in fact the Ringwraiths of whom Gandalf had spoken, that would not tell the hobbits or the reader very much.  For Gandalf said little more than that they were Sauron's 'most terrible servants' before he, too, stopped talking: 'But come!  We will not speak of such things even in the morning of the Shire.' (FR 1.ii.51)

So what does the text say? The first thing we learn is that the Riders have a power great enough to hinder Gandalf, but what that power is we don't yet know. And, since we have not yet seen 'Gandalf the Grey uncloaked,' the assertion that the wizard is 'greater than you Shire-folk know' is suggestive but not very revealing.⁴ Strider means to inspire hope, but by increasing expectations of Gandalf's power, he necessarily does the same for the Riders.  The stronger Gandalf is, the stronger they must be to 'hinder' him.

With Merry's arrival, our information starts to become more definite.  Alone, outside, and in the dark, Merry had felt that 'something horrible was creeping near,' something he can at first perceive only as 'a sort of deeper shade among the shadows.' (FR 1.x.173) But the Rider withdraws at once, and Merry follows: 'I could hardly help myself.  I seemed to be drawn somehow.'  This sounds more like Merry's will is being influenced than mere hobbit curiosity, or the foolish stoutness of heart that Strider had believed it to be at first.⁵  As he draws near the Black Rider, he sees him talking to a man (almost certainly Bill Ferny passing on the word of Frodo's disappearance).  Then Merry is seized by terror and turns to go, but he is overwhelmed from behind by 'something' he has trouble describing:

 ...I fell over....I thought I had fallen into deep water...I had an ugly dream, which I can't remember.  I went to pieces.  I don't know what came over me.

(FR 1.x.173)

Strider identifies this without hesitation as The Black Breath, a power the Riders can evidently employ at will, since no one else we have seen them approach so far has been similarly affected.⁶ But now that the Black Riders know they have found the Ring, the next question becomes obvious, and its answering is revealing:

'What will happen?' said Merry. 'Will they attack the inn?'

'No, I think not,' said Strider. 'They are not all here yet.  And in any case that is not their way.  In dark and loneliness they are strongest; they will not openly attack a house where there are lights and many people -- not until they are desperate, not while all the long leagues of Eriador still lie before us.  But their power is in terror, and already some in Bree are in their clutch.  They will drive these wretches to some evil work: Ferny, and some of the strangers, and, maybe, the gatekeeper, too.  They had words with Harry at West-gate on Monday.  I was watching them.  He was white and shaking when they left him.'

(FR 1.x.174)

First Strider flatly rejects the likelihood of an attack because the Riders are not all present, and then, more importantly, he dismisses the very idea of one out of hand (thus, 'And in any case that is not their way.').  From such 'terrible servants' of the Enemy we might expect an approach both forceful and direct now that they have found the Ring, and, as Strider's statement also makes clear, such an assault is something of which they are entirely capable. But they prefer not to.  For 'their power is in terror;' and they like it that way.

To jump ahead just a little bit to illustrate this point, consider the Witch King's attack on Frodo on Weathertop a week later.  He is armed not only with a sword, but with an enchanted knife that reduces its victim to a wraith enslaved and tormented by Sauron.  It is this weapon the Witch King chooses to stab Frodo with when he could just as easily have killed him with his sword. (FR 1.xi.195-96; 2.i.222)  He chooses the application of terror over the application of force.  Because that is their way.

Nor is terror a power they use merely to subdue their opponents, as it is with Merry. It is a tool by which they 'drive' others to do evil, as happens with Bill Ferny, the southerners, and Harry the gatekeeper.  And again, since not everyone they approach is terrified, (or, like Merry, at least not terrified at once,) this power seems to be under their control, to be exerted when it suits them.⁷ It is precisely this use of their power of terror against which Strider is guarding the hobbits as chapter ten ends.

And the very next scenes, which open the chapter A Knife in the Dark, illustrate everything Strider has just said about the 'way' of the Black Riders. At Crickhollow (FR 1.xi,176-77) the night is dark, and the dwelling stands lonely, with 'the nearest house, more than a mile away.'  Inside are not many people but one, and he in terror. The Riders approach slowly but not too stealthily -- Fatty Bolger, a hobbit not a Ranger, sees them coming! -- allowing his fear to mount throughout the day until they finally attack in the dead of night, shattering the door with a single blow.  When they meet opposition because Fatty has fled and raised the alarm, they withdraw, openly and with clear contempt for the hobbits.  Back in Bree the following morning (FR 1.xi.177-179), the hobbits wake to find that their rooms, where Strider had urged them not to sleep, have been broken into through the windows and ransacked, as if by burglars and vandals.  This was Ferny and the other 'wretches,' driven by terror to 'some evil work,'  If Strider's words in the last chapter were not enough to make this clear, the contrast between the first two scenes in this chapter should be. When the Riders do attack, they do so openly.  They break down doors; they don't do windows.

Thus, as we see, these three scenes not only establish the character of the Black Riders in terms of their power and 'their way' of using it, but also confirm the capability and and trustworthiness of Strider, since events bear witness to his account of them.  We might even allow that these scenes plant a seed for our understanding of Gandalf and his power, given the implicit comparison of his with theirs.  For just as the power of the Ringwraiths consists in the terror they can inflict, whether as goad or weapon, so Gandalf's consists in his ability to inspire hearts to hope against the darkness.⁸

In switching the scene back to Crickhollow for a moment, we can also see Tolkien dividing the narrative into separate but related threads for the first time, as he will do later in The Two Towers and The Return of the King when he follows a number of interwoven strands that diverge and come together and diverge again in different ways before they finally all meet again in The Field of Cormallen: Merry and Pippin; Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli; Frodo and Sam; Gandalf and Pippin; and Merry and Éowyn.  These later instances differ significantly from this one, however.  They narrate large scale developments of significance to the Tale as whole, and continue at length, usually for at least a few chapters.  With Crickhollow, however, the narrator shifts the scene for a mere page and a half, and only, in a sense, to prove that Strider's description of the ways of the Black Riders is accurate,

To be sure the "incident at Crickhollow" is dramatic in itself, haunting and visual, taut with mystery and fear, brought off as masterfully as in the the best horror film. There is the 'brooding threat' that had been growing all day, the peeking of Fatty Bolger out the door, and the ghostly opening of the garden gate, seemingly by itself. There is the heroic blowing of the horn call of Buckland to rouse the hobbits to face a threat they cannot imagine.  There is the suitably epic allusion that whets our taste for events beyond our ken -- 'not since the white wolves came in the Fell Winter, when the Brandywine was frozen over' (note the famous capitals in Fell Winter, which tell us that this story is unknown only to us).  There is the "thin and menacing" voice of the Black Rider -- no longer whispering or hissing, but demanding the door be opened in the name of Mordor -- and then the heavy hand that breaks down the door with a single blow. And most remarkable of all there is the brief shift into the perspective of the Riders themselves --

Let the little people blow! Sauron would deal with them later.  Meanwhile they had another errand: they knew now that the house was empty and the Ring had gone.  They rode down the guards at the gate and vanished from the Shire.

(FR 1.x.177)

It is all quite breathtaking.  I can recall the thrill the first time I read it.  It's a wonderful scene and I love it.  The Tale would be far less rich without it.  But the plot would suffer little were it not there.

________________________________

All citations of The Lord of the Rings refer to the single volume fiftieth anniversary edition.  Thus, for example, RK 6.ix.1030 cites The Return of the King, book six, chapter nine ( = The Grey Havens), page 1030.

¹It is hardly surprising that it is in precisely this context that the famous line 'Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes' occurs.

²Strider ignores every opportunity to identify the Riders, even when telling the hobbits more about them (FR 1.xi.189, xii.197-98, 204).  On the way to Weathertop, Frodo had joked that he was getting so thin that he would become a wraith, and was rebuked by Strider 'with surprising earnestness.' (FR 1.xi.184) It is surprising only because of the hobbits' ignorance.  When Glorfindel arrives (FR 1.xii.210), he refers to the Riders as 'the Nine,' which is the first time their full number has been mentioned. (Strider twice indicates that he knows their number, but never gives it (FR 1.x.165, xii.197).)  Although Gandalf had spoken of the Nine to Frodo (FR 1.ii.50-51, Frodo does not make the connection.

³Shelob is a perfect example of this, whom the narrator pauses and intrudes into the narrative to identify  (TT 4.ix.723-24).  After an introduction in a high mythic register, detailing her evil, ancient and heedless even of Sauron, the narrator then turns back to say 'But nothing of this evil which they had stirred up against them did poor Sam know.' Cf. also TT 4.iii.644: 'Its name was Cirith Ungol....'

⁴Gandalf's threat -- 'Then you shall see Gandalf the Grey uncloaked' (FR 1.i.34) -- could suggest that not even Bilbo has seen this, and to be sure the Gandalf we see in The Hobbit does not show much 'power' of the kind displayed by him at times in The Lord of the Rings: at first offstage at Weathertop (1.x.183, 187, 2.ii.264), in Hollin against the wargs (2.iv,297-99; and, most famously, against the Balrog (2.326-27, 329-31; TT 3.v.501-02).

⁵Cf. FR 2.vii.366, where Galadriel speaks to Frodo about the use of the Ring and 'the domination of others,' an ability which she, herself the keeper of one of the three elven rings, demonstrates during the Company's stay in Lórien in the famous scene where she tests their hearts (FR 2.vii.356-58).  The power of terror wielded by the Ringwraiths is a different manifestation of this ability to dominate others that goes with using Rings of Power.  As the testing scene itself demonstrates, some are better than others at resisting domination.  For further discussion of this scene, go here.


⁶So far the Riders have been close to or spoken to the Gaffer (FR. 1.iii.69-70, 75-76), Farmer Maggot (1.iv.93-94), and Butterbur (1.x.167-68), all of whom were more 'put out' by them than anything else; but Harry the Gatekeeper (1.x.174) was frightened, as was Butterbur's servant Nob.  Frodo overhearing the Gaffer's conversation with the Rider finds himself annoyed. During their journey across the Shire in the chapter Three Is Company and A Short Cut to Mushrooms, Frodo, Sam, and Pippin have several near encounters with the Black Riders of course (1.iii.74-76, 78-79; iv.90-91),but they do not seem to grow seriously afraid until the third time, when they hear the Black Riders calling out to one another, cries which were 'chilling to the blood.'(1.iv.90) So, clearly, mere proximity to the Riders does not produce the effects of The Black Breath or induce panic and terror. Nor does the Rider attempt to intimidate the Gaffer, and he offers Maggot gold for information.  The openness of the Riders' dealings with all of these people is worth noting.

The Black Breath is identified in the index of persons, places, and things with The Black Shadow (RK 1145), and cites other passages (FR 2.ii.256; RK 5.860, 864, 865, 871), the most relevant of which is 5.viii.860.  Cf. especially the condition of Merry after striking the Witch King: RK 5.viii.858-59.

⁷See note 6.

⁸ Cf. Círdan's words to Gandalf as he gave him the Ring of Fire: 'with it you may rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill.' (RK 1085) See also the description of Gandalf (Olórin) in The Silmarillion (1977) 30-31 and The History of Middle-Earth x.147, 152, and especially 203, where Christopher Tolkien quotes a handwritten addition of his father's to the typescript of the Valaquenta, which he says was wrongly omitted from the published Silmarillion: '[Olórin] was humble in the Land of the Blessed; and in Middle-earth he sought no renown. His triumph was in the uprising of the fallen, and his joy was in the renewal of hope.'

One might object, not without reason, that this is 'retcon,' and so should be omitted from our consideration of The Lord of the Rings. If we were discussing Galadriel or Isildur, whose characters underwent substantial change and revision after the publication of The Lord of the Rings, I would entirely agree. But this characterization merely writes Gandalf and what we already can see in him in The Lord of the Rings into the 'older' text of The Silmarillion. There is no change in him as there is with the others. On Galadriel and Isildur see Unfinished Tales (1980) 228-267, 271-87 and listen to the discussions on Galadriel and  Isildur during The Mythgard Academy's free course on Unfinished Tales.

And the sound of them sank deep into his heart

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.

(RK 6.ix.1030)

I just wrote about this passage in a note on The Lord of the Rings, but right now this quote isn't about Tolkien.  It's about me, and life, and reading.  The day after I published that post I went down the Jersey Shore.  Once I lived there, close enough to the sea to hear it through my bedroom window, late at night when the town lay sleeping and every sound but the waves on the beach, and the summer breeze tousling the sycamores, had been stilled.  Nearly every summer of my life from the time I was eight until the time I was forty I spent beside the sea; and for years too short and too few I lived there year round.  The sounds and smells and movements of the sea, the way it looks in every kind of light, winter or summer, day and night, in the clear or the black storm or the gray day's rain -- all of this sank deep into my heart long ago, where it lives with every word I have ever devoured about the sea, from Homer to Melville to Tolkien to Patrick O'Brian, from Odysseus weeping by the shore for Ithaca to Jack and Stephen playing duets in the cabin as they sail down the Med.

For me, dwelling beside the sea was like living in some other, more sacred realm, some other Eden, upon the nearer shores of Faerie.  Every place I have ever lived since seems short a dimension, graceless, fallen.  And though I have liked some of these places betters than others, all are to some degree lonely, and not home -- never home -- because they are not the sea and the shore.  And at one point, sunk in a double sorrow, I so longed for home and an end to my unhappiness that, as I watched the final shot of the movie, The Perfect Storm, in which the last fisherman, soon to die, soars up the climbing slope of a gigantic wave, I thought it wouldn't be such a bad way to go.

But in a strange and literary and not entirely insane way that scene comforted me, because the solitude of the character reminded me of my own, and my longing for the sea drew me in, and the awareness that the author had to be able to imagine a scene and loneliness that no one ever witnessed.  And that scene led me to think on others, on the whole sequence in Persuasion, that incomparable joy of a book, in which Anne Eliot, who lives immersed in such loneliness, visits the seaside at Lyme Regis, and suffers from her misapprehensions of Captain Wenwtorth's feelings for her; and that in turn led to that letter of hope and anguish he writes to her later in Bath.

So it's not that Sam Gamgee stood by the sea listening to the waves, as I did a couple of weeks ago.  It's that someone who had this experience of one close enough to it that he could cast it into a form that I could recognize as something I felt and knew.  What I felt and imagined, others did too.  I could stand there on the shore, with the waves washing around my knees, and look at all the people I didn't know, and see their love of being there and the pleasure they took in it, and I could understand it entirely.  I could watch the children play in the waves, as I did.  Watch the children watched over by their fathers as mine watched over me.  Watch people swim and fish and sun themselves, just as I did.  I can look at these people and almost inhabit them because I have not forgotten what all these things are like, never will.  And there was the sound of the waves sinking in, and the long shadowed light of the evening sun, and the gin breeze, all heady and full of sleep.  And past and present, real and imagined, lived and read, were all pretty much one for a while there.

But for as long as they do last, books give us something else: Literature reminds us that we’re not alone on this planet. You’re not alone in this time. You’re not alone in this experience. And not only are you not alone in your city, your nation, your moment—you’re not alone in history. Sappho felt the way you feel. Or Shakespeare, or John Donne. We have this connection. And we are able to have a kind of conversation. The fragments we shore against our ruin—everything that we have read, whatever little fragments we retain, are part of our understanding of the world, the way we see the world, and our conversation that we have with ourselves and with the world. 

Claire Messud 

Just like the waves, the books sink deep into my heart.   For a long time I thought they allowed me to escape from this world.  But this is untrue. What they do instead is release me from bondage. I remain in the world, but they ransom me.