Prologue 1: Concerning Hobbits

It’s taken me awhile to get started on this.

Let me explain: it’s been a rough start to the school year, during which I’ve been under a lot of pressure. Facing a too-full schedule with the ten teachers I have working for me (two of which have been waiting on visas to be processed by the Czech bureaucracy), I made a last-minute addition to my staff from a long-time Internet acquaintance, which required last-minute scrambling for an apartment to house him in and furniture. We still haven’t finished furnishing the place, though he has moved in, mainly because of another problem I have been facing: temporary cash-flow problem.

The school did very little work in August; and more work in September. Come October, I shall have to pay the teachers who worked in September with the money that the school earned in August, which was very little.

Last week I scarcely slept more than four hours per night all week, worried about money, about paying teachers and, mostly, about paying the upcoming VAT bill in mid-October; which is always relatively small in the first quarter (our fiscal year starts in July) but which, at its smallest, is still likely to be anywhere between 50 000 and 100 000 kc. Furthemore, I was worried about the non-EU teachers even getting their visas approved ever…well, all this is to say that I really have been too stressed to write much of anything anywhere. Suffice it to say: the cash-flow problem has been solved, and I have taken steps to ensure that I never have it again, and one of the two missing teachers is booking her flight as we speak, which takes considerable pressure off me.

But then there was this other problem. I have been reading Moby Dick. Moby Dick is a brilliant work of genius, and I am glad that I finally tackled it and read it from start to finish: but it is slow-going. That is not actually a criticism: the slowness fits the pace of a 19th century whaling vessel sailing the boundless monotony of the deeps. But it is slow enough that I didn’t wish to interrupt the reading for something else: I was afraid that I would not go back to Melville’s tale of the Great White Whale if I set it down…but the workload meant that, outside of the weekend I was only reading ten or so pages per week — a hundred pages, perhaps in a weekend, but it took me six weeks to finish that book.

So here I am, ready to start with Prologue 1: concerning Hobbits. My three faithful followers of this blog will hopefully not be too disappointed. (At one point I think I had 5 followers. They must have dropped off, disgusted with my lack of progress. I don’t blame them. Of course, it is equally possible that they died of old age waiting. I wouldn’t blame them for that, either, if that was the case. We all have to go sometime.)

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When I first read this at the age of ten in October of 1981, I must confess that the Prologue bored me endlessly. I had just read the Hobbit and the tone and style of the Prologue was a totally different matter. Where was cute little Bilbo? Where was the humor? What the hell was this boring stuff I was reading? I think I struggled for days to get through it, then decided just to quickly skim it and get through it. In fact, the Prologue may have been the thing that taught me to skim-read effectively.

Upon rereading, later that (school)-year, I of course got it much better. Because it is pretty brilliant when you think about it.

First of all the Prologue subtly sets up the central conceit of the story: it is apparent that here we are not reading a novel: we are reading a history book that has been translated into English by a modern linguist. The original book, The Red Book of Westmarch is a historical account of things that happened a long time ago.

Hobbits still live inthe world of the nameless and gently academic linguist who is sharing with us this tale, in the same place: the North-West of the Old World, East of the Sea.

This is interesting. Because, of course, Hobbits do not actually exist. So we are not really reading a modern translation of an ancient real-world history; we are actually reading a modern translation, from an alternate, modern Earth; a translation of an ancient book from the same alternate modern earth…we are not only in the future of the story, but we are in another world altogether. A world that in many ways seems nearly completely analogous with our modern world(New World, Old World and all) except: these things happened. And Hobbits still dwell, if rather inobtrusively and furtively.

Of course most of the genre of fantasy rests on this or a similar premise. This is conventional form even for pre-LOTR fantasy; but Tolkien really kind of elevates it and makes it specific and explicit, if subtly put. He turns common convention into something artistic and deliberate. This is a step forward in fantasy literature I think.

The main purpose of the Prologue is, of course, to familiarize the newbie to the world of Middle Earth, and specifically, Hobbits. Tolkien reaquaints Hobbit-readers with some basics of Hobbit-lore: they are small, two-to-five feet tall; peaceful; lovers of comfort; rather staid and unimaginative; with a hidden core of toughness underneath the fat. He also drops in some history: indeed, here is where it gets interesting.

IN describing the three breeds of Hobbit he also describes a bit of their native character; and neatly solves the mystery of the noted adventurousness of the Took-clan in the Hobbit and the source of much of Bilbo’s inner tension; some “breeds” of Hobbit are simply made for adventure and natural lovers of poetry, songs and hunting. Of course the fact that this “breed” of Hobbit (his word not mine: probably not so steeped in racist connotations back in the 1950s) constitute the ruling class of Hobbits: The had Took or the Thain is, effectively, the King of the Shire and only the Hobbits’ native brand of socialist anarchy keeps this from being a strange or evil thing in the post-Marxist world.

But really, I am digressing. You can apply Marxist standards to the Lord of the Rings all day long: it is a mistake,though. For the Lord of the Rings the product of a mind that developed before these principles became part and parcel of the modern political landscape.

Because Tolkien does have socialist tendencies, I think: but they are not Marxist. They are the socialist tendencies of a community that cares for itself and looks after its own as an inherent and obvious matter of course; , even common-sense solution to the hardships of the world: the ruling class in the Lord of the Rings is not the oppressive aristocracy of the French of Russian revolutions…but a naturally ocurring and ultimately good thing and, in this land of peace and plenty, inherently unoppressive.

What gets me is the glimpses of dark complexities beneath the main points about the Hobbits and their history, the subtle way in which Tolkien develops certin elements of his story even here; and of course the nearly air-tight and completely logical world-building.

Because Tolkien, writing under the guise of the nameless linguist of the alternate world never drops the conceit: he assumes that the Reader already knows about such things as the Důnedaín and the Elder Days; he drops dark hints of the ancient, defunct realm of Arthedain and King Arvedui II and the dark, now-ancient and tragic struggle between the North Kingdom and the Witch-King of Angmar as if these things are facts we learned about in history class long ago, such common knowledge that he need not go into them.

He establishes that the Hobbits have migrated in three great waves from East of the Misty Mountains (a fact with echoes the real-world migrations of various Eurasion peoples of real-Earth : the Turks, the Huns, the Mongols.) He also darkly and subtly, establishes that the Hobbits were fleeing the East due to a darkness that fell upon the mighty forest of Greenwood the Great, so that it became Mirkwood.

It’s easy to miss but here he shows that Mirkwood is something much more than the primal fairy-tale “dark forest" of the Hobbit: it is a sympton of a larger problem.

There is a darkness in the East of this world. (This probably touches on some basic prejudices of the Western European: but this is mythology and mythology’s purpose is not so much to moralize, but to describe, in symbolic terms, that which is common among us as humans.)

With further dark glimpses of history (the Dark Plague, the Days of Dearth, the Long Winter), one almost gets the impression that someone or something has it in for the Hobbits and here he also drops the darkest and subtlest hint of all: the Shire is being consciously guarded by mysterious Guardians, the existence of whom the Hobbits know nothing about. Of course the re-reader knows that these Guardians are no other than the Rangers of the North, the descendants of the Dunedain, the Kings of Men who came from over the Sea: a forgotten and wily people, in hiding but ever-guarding the Innocent and Ignorant from the forces of Evil that still hem them in.

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If the Hobbits have fled to Eriador from some ancient menace in the East, they seem equally fearful of the West: Elf-towers lie to the West of the land, visible in the moonlight, from the tops of which one can see the sea. But the Hobbits don’t go to the Sea; they don’t like water; they cannot swim. They fear the West and the unknown that it symbolizes as surely as they subconsciously fear the East.

The West of course is somewhat of a symbol for the afterlife, but I think the point is this: The Hobbits are exceedingly narrow-minded, stuck in their own world, afraid to look abroad and guarded by nameless Guardians that allow them this ignorance.

Tolkien was obviously modeling the Hobbits an idealized version of English country-folk; but really these common folk transcend nationality: they are basically not much different than the salt-of-the-earth that makes up all of our countries.

Are they not like all of us?

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A note about the prose. It is lovely. It moves along in an academic flow; gentle; long-winded; informative; yet never really boring. I read part of this part aloud and was amazed how the natural rhythm of the language gave me such a natural, easy-going and comfortable feeling as if the very ebb and pulse of the words was telling me: there are dark things to come: but you are at home on this rainy day; make yourself a cup of tea and read on: for you will be safe and warm.