A Long-expected Parenthesis -- Part 1

When I first got the idea for this post, my idea was to write it up quickly. The more I looked at the evidence I had gathered (with the welcome support and feedback of Joe Hoffman⸶), the clearer it became that a longer post was in order. Or a series of shorter ones. So let it be written. So let it be done.

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For some years now I have been inclined to believe that Bilbo is the narrator of the early chapters of The Lord of the Rings. But how far he carried on with the story remains hard to say. I had also heard that Michael Drout had a similar opinion, which he was kind enough to confirm for me, but we didn't have the chance to discuss details. Recently, however, I noticed something about the text that looks very much like it might be a clue. First let's look at what we know.

Bilbo's conversation with Frodo and Sam in Rivendell in Many Partings makes clear that he didn't get very far.

The evening deepened in the room, and the firelight burned brighter; and they looked at Bilbo as he slept and saw that his face was smiling. For some time they sat in silence; and then Sam looking round at the room and the shadows flickering on the walls, said softly:

'I don't think, Mr. Frodo, that he's done much writing while we've been away. He won't ever write our story now.' 

At that Bilbo opened an eye, almost as if he had heard. Then he roused himself. 'You see, I am getting so sleepy,' he said. 'And when I have time to write, I only really like writing poetry. I wonder, Frodo my dear fellow, if you would very much mind tidying things up a bit before you go? Collect all my notes and papers, and my diary too, and take them with you, if you will. You see, I haven't much time for the selection and the arrangement and all that. Get Sam to help, and when you've knocked things into shape, come back, and I'll run over it. I won't be too critical.'

        (RK 6.vi.988)

It has also been long observed that the narrator of the earliest chapters of The Lord of the Rings starts out sounding much like the narrator of The Hobbit, but that changes before too long. Further, we have Tolkien's remarks in letter 151 of September 1954.

Frodo is not intended to be another Bilbo. Though his opening style is not wholly un-kin. But he is rather a study of a hobbit broken by a burden of fear and horror — broken down, and in the end made into something quite different. None of the hobbits come out of it in pure Shire-fashion. They wouldn't. But you have got Samwise Gamwichy (or Gamgee).

In the Letters Tolkien uses 'style' many times, but almost invariably he is speaking of words -- of narrative, diction, and language -- when he does so. It's little likely then that his reference to Frodo's 'opening style' refers to anything but his writing style, a remark he offers as a concession of some regard in which they were a bit alike. We might expect Frodo, then, to begin in a style similar to Bilbo's, but to develop his own reasonably soon. But when does his portion of the narrative 'open'? And when does his style begin to diverge from Bilbo's?

I would suggest that the punctuation gives us a clue. During a recent reading of A Long-expected Party I noticed, not for the first time, that the narrator made an awful lot of parenthetical remarks. I found myself relishing the marvelous running social commentary the narrator was  offering on his fellow hobbits. 'For what do we live', we might almost hear him ask, 'but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?' That so much of this commentary is nested in and around parentheses made me wonder. On reflection I could not recall it as a conspicuous feature of the entire work. 

A quick search revealed my impression was correct. The entire Lord of the Rings (removing the appendices) contains 158 parenthetical remarks, 20 percent of which (32/158 = 20.25%) occur in A Long-expected Party. If we discount the 25 instances in the Prologue, which we know was written by a Man rather than a Hobbit, the portion in A Long-expected Party approaches a quarter (32/133 = 24%). Numbers aren't everything of course, but this compares rather well with An Unexpected Party, which contains 25 parenthetical remarks out The Hobbit's total of 120 (25/120 = 20.08%) in The Hobbit as a whole.*

Two thirds (22/32) of the parentheses in A Long-expected Party occur before or during the party up to the reactions of the guests to Bilbo's disappearance (FR 1.i.31: 'with a few exceptions'). Of these 22, 14 are funny per se or in their context, and eight simply add information (e.g., 1.i.22: 'the Old Took himself had only reached 130'). There is, however, not a single parenthesis in all of Bilbo's argument with Gandalf about the Ring or in Frodo's brief conversation with Gandalf after Bilbo has gone. The remarks resume again the following morning in very much the same generally humorous vein. Only two of these ten comments are strictly informational ('two Boffins and a Bolger' and 'old Odo Proudfoot's grandson', both at 1.i.39).

Surely it is noteworthy that a long (5+/21 pages), centrally located, and thematically crucial section of this chapter has none of the types of comments we find on almost every other page of it. True, the two scenes found in these pages (31-36) are much more dramatic, more dialogue than narrative, which leaves less scope for parenthetical remarks; but it is also true that there is nothing that either the characters in these scenes or their narrator found in the least amusing. It is a bitter, uneasy darkness at the heart of the chapter, bracketed, as it were, by the far brighter sections on either side (pp 21-31, 36-42).

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⸶I have found Joe's friendship, humor, and commentary invaluable for some years now. He is also my second if I am challenged to any duels. 

*The Hobbit is also far more densely packed with parentheses: 120 in 95356 vs 158 in 481,103. The Hobbit also raises its own questions about narrators, which we shall examine elsewhere in connection with the narrators of The Lord of the Rings. The interested reader should look to Paul Edmund Thomas' 'Some of Tolkien's Narrators' in Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth, edd. V. Flieger and C. Hostetter (2000).

When it stopped being fun

A couple of months ago a long-time friend and colleague of mine at work were talking, and we agreed that it was no longer fun to work there anymore. What started our conversation was my increasing dislike for the location I worked in and my sadness at how little I was coming to care about a job I greatly loved. 

That's a long story in itself, and one in which I must bear some of the blame for my unhappiness. But not all. No one can tell me, for example, that a coworker's disclosure of my medical information to customers while I was out on disability was not a grievous betrayal of my trust. Nor can anyone tell me that the failure of management to make any substantive effort to discover precisely who had violated my legal rights to privacy isn't even more egregious. When I asked about it, I was told 'we talked about it in meetings, to let the employees know they can't do that.' 

Does it sound like they even cared? It doesn't to me.

I didn't want anyone fired. I wasn't threatening to sue. I didn't file any complaints with government agencies. I just wanted an admission of wrongdoing by the guilty party, and an apology. That's all. I didn't think malice was involved, just ignorance or inattention. 

Eventually, after two years of listening carefully to what people said and asking enough indirect questions, I narrowed it down to one suspect. I brought it up casually in conversation one day with her -- 'Oh hey, you know what, I finally found out who gave my medical information to customers' -- and I watched her pupils dilate and her body stiffen up. I didn't say anything else. I just walked away.

But I digress. Perhaps. 

Today, however, I realized when it stopped being fun for me. Part of it was my fault. In February 2018 there was a day where the managers in every store received instructions to lay off about 1800 people at once by telling them their positions had been eliminated. There was no effort to reassign any of them or transfer them. They were all employees of supervisory rank, many of whom had been with the company a decade or more. It was a horrible, horrible day, without even the poor form of fairness that laying off the newest person first allows. I was not in that day. For three and a half years I have felt both glad of this and ashamed. The scum who ran our company at that time (since booted themselves, though not hard enough) then went on to boast to the shareholders that by economizing on payroll they had saved the company millions of dollars, which they were now free to spend on putting marble counters in the stores' cafes. They were so proud of themselves. They didn't claim that they fired those people to save the company. They didn't try to hide that they were 'saving' that money in order to spend it on countertops. Monsters.

Today I was thinking about a young woman named Jessica who worked with me for ten years at that point. She was unaffected by the layoff because she only worked a couple of shifts a week and wasn't paid half what she was worth. She quit that day because she knew that what was happening was wrong. On the spot. I have missed and admired her for the courage and principle she showed that day. She refused to be complicit. 

That was the day it stopped being fun. I deplored what was done of course. But I did nothing. I was afraid to lose my job. Because of my age, the thought that I might never get another, and the thought of having to go somewhere else and start over, led me to stand by though I knew without the least doubt that all those people were being wronged. So I became complicit because I was afraid. How many horrors has that kind of cowardice led to over the last hundred years alone?

If I had stood up, had said something -- even 'I won't be part of this. I quit.' -- I could have at least have told myself that I said 'no.' When you claim to have principles, when you say you believe in right and wrong, but don't stand up, you are lying to yourself and so of course to everyone else. It's easy to talk. That was the day to walk. It's easy to believe. It's hard to have faith.

I could have said no. One word would have been enough. It would have changed nothing, but it would have meant everything. I could have been the example of my principles I always wanted to be. Had I done so, perhaps the person who gave out my private information would not have done so, or, having done so by mistake, might have stood up. I failed this person because I was not who I should have been. I failed myself. I failed those I should have stood up for.

No wonder it stopped being fun.

Sméagol-Gollum and the Legacy of Pity, part 2

In my last post I pointed out that the author of 'The Tale of Years' 'sees the moment of final transition from Sméagol-Gollum to Gollum in his loss of the Ring to Bilbo'. What I did not note there, but will add now, is that Gollum would agree with this assessment. When Frodo addresses him as Sméagol, Gollum replies:

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)

From these words it would appear that for Gollum, Sméagol somehow continued to exist until he lost the Ring to Bilbo. Gollum seems to scorn him -- the verb describing how Gollum spoke the words in this paragraph is 'cackled'. So we should not mistake his tone in the words I've quoted. There's no sign that he has slipped back into the self-pity of earlier paragraphs, where he sobs and whimpers. The next exchange in the conversation confirms this. 

'Perhaps we'll find him again, if you come with us,' said Frodo.

'No, no, never! He's lost his Precious,' said Gollum.

Gollum is as firm here (and perhaps as judgmental) as Frodo was in The Shadow of the Past when Gandalf suggested that Frodo did not pity Gollum because he had not seen him:

‘I am sorry,’ said Frodo. ‘But I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for Gollum.’

‘You have not seen him,’ Gandalf broke in.

‘No, and I don’t want to,’ said Frodo. ‘I can’t understand you. Do you mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on after all those horrible deeds? Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death.’ 

No doubt it was Sméagol, the last of him, that remembered the sun on daisies, at which Gollum, the evil part, grew angry. 

Sméagol-Gollum and the legacy of Pity.

It was some years ago that I first noted differences in the use of the names Sméagol and Gollum. Gandalf only calls him Sméagol when he is trying to persuade Frodo that he is pitiable. Frodo addresses him as Sméagol, but refers to him as Gollum. The Tale of Years in Appendix B, moreover, cleverly signals the changes in him by referring to him differently at different times. He is Sméagol until he murders Déagol for the Ring; then Sméagol-Gollum until he loses the Ring to Bilbo; and always Gollum thereafter.

2463: About this time Déagol the Stoor finds the One Ring, and is murdered by Sméagol.

2470. About this time Sméagol-Gollum hides in the Misty Mountains.

2941: Bilbo meets Sméagol-Gollum and finds the Ring. 

2944: Gollum leaves the Mountains and begins his search for the 'thief' of the Ring

2951: Gollum turns towards Mordor. 

2980: About this time Gollum reaches the confines of Mordor and becomes acquainted with Shelob. 

3001. Bilbo's farewell feast. Gandalf suspects his ring to be the One Ring. The guard on the Shire is doubled. Gandalf seeks for news of Gollum and calls on the help of Aragorn.

3009: Gandalf and Aragorn renew their hunt for Gollum at intervals during the next eight years, searching in the vales of Anduin, Mirkwood, and Rhovanion to the confines of Mordor. At some time during these years Gollum himself ventured into Mordor, and was captured by Sauron. 

3017: Gollum is released from Mordor. He is taken by Aragorn in the Dead Marshes, and brought to Thranduil in Mirkwood. 

About 20 June 3018: Gollum escapes [captivity in Thranduil's realm]

August 3018: All trace of Gollum is lost. It is thought that at about this time, being hunted both by the Elves and Sauron's servants, he took refuge in Moria; but when he had at last discovered the way to the West-gate he could not get out

13 January 3019: Gollum begins to trail the Ring-bearer.

16 February 3019: Gollum in hiding on the west bank observes the departure.

29 February 3019: Frodo descends from the Emyn Muil and meets Gollum.

11 March 3019: Gollum visits Shelob, but seeing Frodo asleep nearly repents.

12 March 3019: Gollum leads Frodo into Shelob's lair.

25 March 3019: Gollum seizes the Ring and falls in the Cracks of Doom. 

Note that from the first his identity as a Hobbit, and in particular a Stoor, like Déagol, is suggested. Note also the reference to his near repentance. Details like these disclose the hand of an author who, so far from merely portraying him as a villain, recognized his humanity, his kinship as a Hobbit, and agreed with Gandalf that Gollum's was a sad story. As the use of the different terms indicates, this author gave some thought to the journey from Hobbit to monster; and sees  the moment of final transition from Sméagol-Gollum to Gollum in his loss of the Ring to Bilbo. Even if the Prologue (14) did not inform us that the appendices were added in Westmarch in the Shire, it would be easy to guess that the author was a Hobbit with some personal connection to the story, likely a Fairbairn and a descendant of Master Samwise, who awoke at the crucial moment on the Stairs of Cirith Ungol and 'blighted' (as Tolkien himself said) Gollum's last chance for repentance. Even in that instant Sam knew he had been wrong to be as harsh as he was to Gollum. 

What the presence of these various descriptions of Gollum in Appendix B tells us is quite moving. It tells us that the pity which Frodo and even Sam came to feel for Gollum was handed down as an enduring legacy to Sam's descendants, and that among them it continued to be thought meaningful. It speaks to the forgiveness Frodo told Sam they should show Gollum since the quest could not have been achieved without him. Even if Gollum remained the villain of the story, some would remember that the sad story of Sméagol lurked behind that of Gollum.

Fear, Desire, and 'The Ring is mine.'

 

The Ring plays on fear as much as desire. To be sure Boromir and Denethor desire to save Gondor, but both share a desperate fear that they cannot succeed. Even Faramir says of his people ‘What hope have we? …. It is long since we have had any hope’ (TT 4.v.677); and even Faramir sees the temptation the power of the Ring would hold, for his brother in particular (TT. 4.v.681). For it seems a gift that will allow Gondor to survive. Frodo sets out to destroy the Ring because he fears the Shire will not survive otherwise. For all three the desire to save their homeland and their fear that they cannot will merge without their knowing it into a desire for the one weapon that seems capable of defeating Sauron. The idea of victory in battle may not come to Frodo’s mind as readily as it does to Boromir’s (and Sam’s, don’t forget.), but 'the Ring is mine' is no less of a challenge because of that. The ‘Captain-General of Gondor’ and ‘the Mister Baggins of Bag End’ are far less different than bearing and size suggest.