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Chapter 7: In the House of Tom Bombadil

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In the House of Tom Bombadil  continues one of the strangest trilogy of chapters in all of the Lord of the Rings — in fact it heightens the strangeness. While ultimately, the black-hearted Old Man Willow, whose influence controls nearly all the Old Forest with malevolence fits into the Lord of the Rings as a whole, Tom Bombadil really does not. The theme of the natural world wanting to strike back at men (and the other human races of Middle earth) is something that Tolkien will revisit in  The Two Towers,  until it climaxes in the March of the Ents against Isengard. But the character of Tom Bombadil, with his’s bright, primary colors and not-wholly realistic, painterly imagery, his constant breaking out into song and his boisterous ridiculous persona just doesn’t. Tom Bombadil is not really a Hobbit…he is not really a Man…or an Elf…or a Dwarf. He is not a Maia like Gandalf or Melian the Wise (or Sauron, for that matter) from the Silmarillion and he is not one of the
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Chapter 6: The Old Forest

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In the last chapter I wrote that the crossing of the Brandywine seemed to be a symbolic point of no return for our four heroes, in particular Sam. The chapter very much starts with a similar motif: the Hobbits, riding through the thick fog of an autumn morning cross, via underground tunnel the thick Hedge that separates the Shire from the World Outside, especially the Old Forest, whose sinister-ness was foreshadowed in the last chapter with Fatty Bolger’s dire prediction that “come this time tomorrow, you’ll wish you were back in Crickhollow." The lock in the gate snicks, and the party of hobbits and ponies are squarely now in Fairy Tale land, or Faery, as Tolkien terms it. And no fairy tale is complete without a deep dark forest, of course. This Old Forest is different than the fairy tale forest of Mirkwood as seen in the Hobbit: Mirkwood was an enchanted forest, evil due to the dark influence of Sauron’s stronghold in Dol Guldur and filled with his creatures: evil spide
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Chapter 5: A Conspiracy Unmasked

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Not the most action packed of chapters, this chapter mainly serves to bridge the gap between the journey from Hobbiton to Frodo’s new house in Crickhollow, and the next set of adventures “short cut” through the Old Forest. It feels very much like the beginning of a new phase. Somewhat fittingly, the Four Hobbits (the three original travellers now joined by Frodo’s cousin Meriodoc “Pippin” Brandybuck) cross the Brandywine River. There is an eerie feeling as we slide with the Hobbits across the water and through the rising mists, leaving, as Sam later reflects, their old lives behind..with only dark adventure lying ahead. Of course Frodo, Merry and Sam are no strangers to Buckland, and it is technically a sort of annex of the Shire…still, it is with the crossing of the River that the adventure really begins — for all of them. They will spend a cosy night in Buckland…but they will soon encounter a world of magic. They have narrowly missed a Black
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Chapter 4: A Short Cut to Mushrooms

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A shorter chapter; one that serves to get the Hobbits out of the immediate danger posed by the mysterious Black Riders. After a short debate about which route to take; one in which Frodo is absolutely revealed as the leader of the expedition. Frodo listens to the objections of Pippin (whose character, in all its youthful exhuberance and humor is beginning to fill in) but ultimately, as the elder, it is Frodo who calls the shots. There is some lovely writing describing the woodlands of the Shire; and it brings to mind my child-hood journeys to “The Creek”, a nearby bit of woodland and wild-life in the midst of suburban St. Louis…A narrow band of trees and a creek with steep sides. I remember there was a stout rope hanging from one tree, and it was possible to sing on the rope over the creek…the water below was at most only a couple of feet deep and if one was to let go, it was a nasty drop that resulted in getting wet (or worse). I don’t recall anybody ever hurting themselves and
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Chapter 3: Three's Company

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Back again. It’s heating up at work and my Czech lessons are started; a teacher was ill and we’re taking on a new client which is going to be one of our biggest. So I’ve had to postpone my weekly escape to Middle-Earth and it is possible that posts may come a bit more sporadically as my hitherto work-free Monday mornings and Tuesday mornings are probably going to be filled with lessons. When I first read this chapter at 10, I don’t think I had ever heard the  “Two’s company, three’s a crowd ” adage. So the name of this chapter seemed a bit incongruous to me, recalling as it did the seventies sitcom, Three’s Company. In retrospect, I am amazed my parents allowed me to watch this show at all. Can you imagine such a risque TV show being shown now? Isn’t it interesting that, as social prohibitions on sexual practices deemed formerly taboo (homosexuality and fetishes, trans-genderism, et al) are relaxed, popular culture and its attitude towards sex seems to get more Puritani
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Chapter Two: The Shadow of the Past

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Chapter Two: The Shadow of the Past Lance LaSalle An aptly named chapter, as this one is nearly all exposition. In my experience this the chapter that really seperates the Tolkien readers from the non-Tolkien readers. I mean, this is the chapter where many people put the book down and stop reading. I was a born Tolkien reader, I guess, because I don’t recall having any difficulties reading this when I was ten. I loved the chapter. Though now, on my umpteenth reread, the transition from expository stuff and Sam’s inn segment to lengthy dialogue with Gandalf seems a bit abrupt. One thing I like about this chapter is that, though it is exposition, it’s mainly told through dialogue. It’s Gandalf telling Frodo (and the reader) the information Frodo needs to know about his ring and its dark nature; it’s also where Frodo, as hero, “hears the call”, and despite initially rejecting the burden of it, decides in the end to follow it:
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Chapter 1: A Long-Expected Party

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Chapter 1: A Long-Expected Party Lance LaSalle The title harkens back to the first chapter of the Hobbit,  An Unexpected Party , of course. But the chapters couldn’t be more different in tone. Still the style of this chapter does seem descended from the style that the Hobbit was written: there is the same comic tone (at least at first), with everything sort of framed in light-heartedness, as if it is all something that is not particularly to be taken seriously. The beginning of a story about those silly Hobbits who eat too much. The front end of this is a busy little chapter, filled with tertiary characters; and the language is fast-paced (though there is virtually no action whatsoever); in the general bustle we get a pretty good picture of the Hobbits as rural folk…and really their society is more complex than one might think. Though we can say that Hobbits are basically good, they have some grey characters mixed in too. The Sackville-Baggi
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