![]() ![]() If a student of mine wrote that, I’d bitch-slap him ’til Tuesday. He was running on the green turf and singing. Only a literary badass could write this and get away with it: He didn’t invent epic fantasy fiction, but he’s the guy who single-handedly revived the genre, and that makes him an unalloyed literary badass. He gets away with it because he’s Tolkien. The third thing that occurred to me was this: Tolkien, as a writer, gets away with a lot of shit we wouldn’t tolerate in a modern writer. Maybe they should stick to bursting into song. I’m sure orcs would think that was a hoot, but we’re talking about High Elves here. The tidings were mostly sad and ominous: of gathering darkness, the wars of Men, and the flight of the Elves. What did Frodo and the Elves speak about? “Earlier was the time for walking in green woods! Then came the time for impromptu acapella singing! Now is the time for speech and merriment!”īut as you continue to read the scene, you realize there’s a great deal of speech, but not much merriment at all. But there’s something about the need to announce that it’s time to talk and have fun that sort of mutes the fun of talking. Second, speech and merriment? Okay, they’re Elves - you can’t expect them to say “Let’s hang out, talk, drink a bit, have some fun, whaddaya say?” I get that. Actually, when it’s a single Elf speaking it’s not so bad, but as a group they’re awfully exclamatory. But the tendency to speak in exclamation points is a tad over the top. I suppose you can excuse the fact that they just start singing en masse, without any warning because…well, Elves. First, Elves can be pretty fucking annoying. Several things occurred to me at that point. “Come! Now is the time for speech and merriment!” Suddenly under the trees a fire sprang up with a red light. The tranquility of the scene and the ethereal quality of the encounter was so utterly unlike barracks life. But I suspect I’ve liked this scene in part because when I first read it I was living in a barracks with forty other troops. ![]() In part, that’s because it’s Sam Gamgee’s very first experience with Elves, and so much is made of his desire to see them. I’d always remembered this scene with particular fondness. Then Frodo and Sam and Pippin, making their way through the woods, stumble upon a troupe of wandering Elves. I was reading comfortably along, enjoying the gradual increase in tension - the discovery that Bilbo’s ring was the One Ring, the unexplained tardiness of Gandalf, the sale of Bag End to the dreadful Sackville-Bagginses, the arrival of the wonderfully spooky Black Riders. I’ve no doubt an awful lot of modern readers would find the pacing off-putting, but I think it suits the story. That sort of pacing would, I suspect, be a hard sell for a publisher these day. Tolkien clearly wanted his readers to settle into the story, to get nestled down into his Middle Earth. I don’t think you could accurately describe it as slowly-paced, but the pacing is very deliberately moderated. The first thing I noticed was the deliberate pace of the writing. So I downloaded it (unlike the print versions, all three volumes and all six books are in one large file, which makes it easy. Who would've thought one so small could endure so much pain? And he did, Gandalf, he did.Īnd who is this? Isildur's heir? It takes more to make a King that a broken Elvish blade.I was surprised and delighted to discover LoTR was available as an e-book, and only for something like ten dollars. Know that he suffered greatly at the hands of his host. I have a token I was bidden to show thee. He is to depart these lands, never to return.Īhh, old Greybeard. Tell your master this: the armies of Mordor must disband. We do not come to treat with Sauron, faithless and accursed. Is there any in this rout with authority to treat with me? My master, Sauron the Great, bids thee welcome. Let the Lord of the Black Land come forth! Let justice be done upon him!
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