I finished reading The Fellowship of the Ring over the weekend. One can’t really review a work of this eminence. I can only write appreciations. One thing I noted was a detail I’d forgotten, one that was left out of the movies, and it’s no mystery why. It’s when Gandalf meets with Saruman at Orthanc, and learns his former master’s perfidy:
‘”For I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours!”
‘I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.
‘”I liked white better,” I said.
‘”White!” he sneered. “It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken.”
‘”In which case it is no longer white,” said I. “And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”’
This is an amazing passage. Saruman the White, whose white color had symbolized his supreme wisdom, has broken the white color down into its constituent prismatic hues.
He’s made it into a rainbow.
We see rainbows all the time today, in churches that believe they’ve “deconstructed” traditional morality and theology.
Was Tolkien an actual prophet? Did he foretell the future of the church?
‘Yes sir!’ said Sam. ‘Begging your pardon, sir! But I meant no wrong to you, Mr. Frodo, nor to Mr. Gandalf for that matter. He has some sense, mind you; and when you said go alone, he said no! take someone as you can trust.’
‘But it does not seem that I can trust anyone,’ said Frodo.
Sam looked at him unhappily. ‘It all depends on what you want’ put in Merry. ‘You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin – to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours – closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo. Anyway: there it is. We know most of what Gandalf has told you. We know a good deal about the Ring. We are horribly afraid – but we are coming with you; or following you like hounds.’
No major revelations from my reading of The Fellowship of the Ring tonight. Just a thought on a subject I’ve touched on before – The Lord of the Rings as veteran’s literature.
What struck me in the scene above – which takes place at Frodo’s new house in Crickhollow, before the adventure even properly begins – is how different the tone is from what we see of the hobbits in the films. Merry and Pippin are pure comic relief in the movies – up till the moments when they’re forced to grow up.
And there’s certainly an element of that in the books too. But in this scene we see them in a different light. Here they are Frodo’s comrades – his buddies in the military sense. They’re freemen and equals, under no illusions, and loyal to their officer. There’s a time for games and laughter, but when it comes to the point, we all know what we’re here for, and we’re in to the end. Whatever the cost.
If we were privileged to have access to Tolkien’s memories, I think we’d find that this scene echoes some moment (or moments) in his wartime career. He’s memorializing men he served with – most of whom would probably have never come home. Jack Lewis would have recognized it right off.
There on the hill-brow she stood beckoning to them: her hair was flying loose, and as it caught the sun it shone and shimmered. A light like the glint of water on dewy grass flashed from under her feet as she danced.
What are we to make of Tom Bombadil? He’s a riddle inside an enigma inside a mathom, which is probably just what the author intended. The narrative of the epic can endure without him, as the movies demonstrated. But every reader knows he belongs, somehow, in Tolkien’s world. Every reader will think of Tom in his own way. I’ve stated my view before on this blog, but I’ll repeat it here:
Tom seems to me to be a representation of Adam, or at least of unfallen Man. Adam tended the Garden, and he named the animals; whatever he called the beasts, that was their name. Tom Bombadil controls all nature within his domains, and when he names the hobbits’ ponies, those are the names they answer to ever after. Tom says of himself:
“Eldest, that’s what I am. Mark my words, my friends: Tom was here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn.”
Remember how important “subcreation” was in Tolkien’s artistic/religious vision. Man in fellowship with God becomes a kind of little god – he can’t create ex nihilo as God does, but he creates in a smaller way that brings glory to his Master. In the same way, I think, unfallen Tom Bombadil glorifies his Creator by ruling the Garden that’s been set under his stewardship.
Tom Bombadil, incidentally, began as a toy, a Dutch doll owned by Tolkien’s daughter Priscilla. She lost it down a sewer, and was distraught. Her father comforted her with tales of how Tom floated along the river and had numerous adventures, overcoming all kinds of dangers through his magical powers. Eventually he even overcomes the powerful River-woman, and marries her daughter, Goldberry (herself a rather sinister figure until Tom tames her).
Which brings us to Goldberry. Goldberry has a very special place in this reader’s heart.
The year must have been 1973; I was in college, and my roommate was an even bigger Tolkien geek than I was. We agreed that I would read the Hobbit and the Trilogy to him, one chapter a night (I love to read aloud). And we did that – straight through. It took a while.
During that same period I went out on my first date, with a girl who was very Goldberry-esque. I fell hard for that girl, and have never quite gotten over her. She’s a grandmother today, and lives far away, but to me she’ll be forever young and slender and graceful.
Whenever Tolkien tells us of a woman dancing, and how her feet tinkle on the grass (as in the case of Luthien), I’m pretty sure he’s harkening back to Edith Bratt and how she danced for him in the woods the day he fell in love with her. For my own part, I always look forward to seeing Goldberry again.
He thought he had come to the end of his adventure, and a terrible end, but the thought hardened him. He found himself stiffening, as if for a final spring; he no longer felt limp like a helpless prey.
This quotation, concerning Frodo Baggins in the Barrow Downs, from The Fellowship of the Ring, seems to me a good epitome of what I’ve found in my current reading of the Lord of the Rings
Actually, the thought was mainly inspired (to my shame, I suppose) by watching the movies twice through recently. I’ve found them inspirational as I wrestle with my Work in Progress. It’s a remarkable thing, as I see it, that in spite of the movie industry’s well-earned notoriety for messing with original sources, the Peter Jackson movies managed – overall – to preserve the heart of the story. Even though most of the people involved must surely have been a thousand miles away from Tolkien’s beliefs.
Anyway, what struck me as I watched and read was this. It hardly needs saying that we’re in perilous times. I never thought I’d live to see a day when I worried about the breakdown of civil society and the loss of our republic, but such things don’t seem unthinkable now.
I’m not a man known for confidence and courage. I reserve heroism for my books. I know heroism when I see it, and I salute it from a safe distance. I’m pretty sure that if the day comes when I must raise my sword in defense of my rights, I’ll probably trip over the scabbard.
But it occurred to me that maybe this isn’t the end. That’s the thing about stories.
In every good story, there comes a moment when the main character thinks the tale is told – and that he’s lost. A moment when his strongest instinct is to lay his weapon down and surrender.
But that’s not really the end, in a good story. It’s only the Final Crisis. It’s the hero’s test. The climax is yet to come – and at the climax, the hero either triumphs or fails in a way that means something.
So this is my message. Not the message of a prophet, or the son of a prophet, but of a storyteller.
This isn’t the end. It’s the crisis. Hold on. Carry on doing your service, at the station where God has set you. As Sam Gamgee said:
“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.”
I have often wanted to read the Bible through again. They ask officer candidates in my church whether they have read the whole book. I think they leave it at that, not asking how many times they’ve read it through, just whether they have.
I have never read the Bible cover to cover in a systematic way. I can only say I’ve read all of it because I had to read through the Old Testament for a survey class in college. I’ve read the whole New Testament in the course of many studies, but I think if we could look at the data, I’d be surprised to see how little I’ve read of some books (I may have read 2 Corinthians only once).
This year I wanted to read all of it, and here at the end of August I’m probably far more behind than I realize. I’ve read from Genesis to 2 Samuel 1, most of Psalms, Matthew, half of Mark, Galatians, and Ephesians, I think. I don’t like skipping around as some reading schedules recommend, but after getting through the Pentateuch, I needed to change the pace.
Reading long passages of the Bible has always been a problem for me. I tend to read slowly, and when reading the Bible, I can barely stop reviewing what I just read prayerfully or studiously. A passage spelling out geographical details can get me thinking I need to remember what’s north and what’s east. And the weeds are just too deep most of the time.
My greatest reading aid has been listening to David Suchet read from the NIVUK on BibleGateway.com. He has a marvelous voice and delivers passages more smoothly than other readers I’ve listened to, but the main benefit is that he doesn’t stop. He reads one paragraph of land rights for a tribe and moves on to the next. When I read that paragraph and find that I starting thinking of something else, I go back to the beginning and read it again, and consequently do not get through a day’s reading. But because I take in so much by listening, I still hope to finish the book by the end of the year.
Listening to Suchet reading Judges in two sittings drove home the darkness of that history. Samson wasn’t a detailed story plucked out of context. It was a noir tale told in an alley with a hint in the air of burning homes. It may have been when Samson was praying for final vengeance against the Philistines that I thought, “This isn’t about to let up. It’s only getting darker.” Had I been reading, I may have stopped at that point, but I was listening and kept on to the end.
What ways have you found helpful for reading long passages of the Bible, or do you recommend it?
After a couple weeks with Rodney Riesel’s light – and short – Dan Coast books, I have plunged (with some relief, actually) into a little more challenging material. I’m reading Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings, by Neil Price. It’s a long book, and it will take me a while to get to the point where I can review it. I’m finding it a good object to wrestle with – I like parts very much, and I disagree now and then. Here’s a nice passage from near the beginning:
When properly recited in appropriate surroundings, Viking-Age poetry can taste like cold iron on the tongue, its complex rhyme schemes building upon one another like layers of frost—treacherous but beautiful. We gain something old and true in this language, even if only understood in translation, and for that reason I have included a selection here.
Tolkien would have liked bit that very much. Even if you disagree with a historian, prose like this can make reading his book worth your time.
Correctly handling the Word of God does not permit making the text say what we want. To understand the Bible accurately, we must discover (or “exegete”) the single, God-inspired meaning of every verse before us. The text of the Bible means what God inspired it to mean, not “what it means to me.”
When praying the Bible, our primary activity is prayer, not Bible intake. Bible reading is secondary in this process. Our focus is on God through prayer; our glance is at the Bible. And we turn Godward and pray about every matter that occurs to us as we read.
King Eystein I of Norway, carving in the Bergen Museum. Photo credit: Nina Aldin Thune, Creative Commons LIcense.
I’ve been doing a little translation lately (I’ll tell you more about it later) which reminded me of one of my favorite passages from Snorri Sturlusson’s Heimskringla.
This story involves King Eystein I, far from the most renowned of Norway’s kings, but very possibly the most likeable.
He was part of a set, sharing a joint monarchy with his brother, Sigurd Magnusson. They were both the sons of King Magnus Bareleg, who never got the memo that the Viking Age was over, and died young and outnumbered in Ireland, declaring, “Kings were made for glory, not for long life.”
Eystein and Sigurd were very different men. Eystein, the older, was handsomer and friendlier, as well as more thoughtful. Sigurd was taller and stronger, and mercurial in his temperament. Some historians suspect, based on saga descriptions, that he may have suffered from bipolar disorder.
Sigurd was actually the first European king to go on a crusade, heading out in 1108 and returning in 1111. He fought in various places in the Mediterranean before helping King Baldwin of Jerusalem capture Sidon. He went home by way of Constantinople. Meanwhile, Eystein stayed home and watched the store.
One memorable scene in their saga has them together at one of Eystein’s estates in the Upplands. During the feasting they decide to amuse themselves by “mannjevning,” what we might call “ranking” today. A bragging competition.
Sigurd boasts about his prowess in war. He tells of his battles in the Holy Land, and all the honors he received from great princes.
This is how Eystein answers:
“I have heard that thou hast won many battles in foreign lands, but it might have been more useful for the land what I meantime did at home. North at Vagar I built booths for the fishing folks, so that poor people could get help, and earn their living. There I founded a priest’s garth and endowed the church. Before this the place was almost heathen. These men will remember that Eystein was King of Norway. The road from Trondheim went once over Dovre-fell, where people were lost in bad weather or had to sleep out of doors and suffer hardships. There I built a mountain inn and gave it an income; those people will know that Eystein has been King of Norway. At Agdenes there is a dangerous rocky coast and no harbour; and many ships were lost every year. There is now a harbour and a landing place for wintering ships, also a church. Afterwards I raised beacons on the high fells and this I hope will be useful for the country. I built at Bergen a king’s hall and the church of the Apostles, with an underground passage between the two. The kings that come after me will remember my name for that.
“I built St Michael’s Church and a monastery besides. I have also, my brother, shaped the laws so that the people can now obtain justice, and when the laws are kept the country will be better ruled. I have set a warping pole with iron rings in Sinholm sound. The Jämtland people are again under the Norse king’s rule, and this was brought about by blithe words and wise persuasion and not by force or fighting. Now these matters are of small importance, still I do not know, if the people in the land are not better served by them, than if thou hast killed black men in Serkland and sent them to hell…”
As good a “guns vs. butter” argument as I’ve ever read, I think.
But though that’s a memorable story, it’s not the best Eystein story. That comes earlier {and is not included in some translations). It represents one of those weird moments you occasionally experience in reading old books when time contracts and you encounter a historical character who seems like someone you might know, and would like to know, today.
There was an Icelandic poet in King Eystein’s court whose name was Ivor Ingemundson. Ivor was a witty conversationalist, and the king enjoyed his company. But a time came when Ivor’s mood changed. He grew quiet and sad, and the king noticed it.
The whole passage is quite long (in Monsen’s translation), but the essence of the story is that Eystein spoke to Ivor privately. Ivor was reluctant to talk at first, but the king asked a series of questions, finally working out through deduction that Ivor was lovesick. He had counted on marrying a particular girl back home, one he couldn’t help thinking about, but his father had arranged for his brother to marry the girl.
King Eystein then proposed a series of remedies – he offered to introduce him to suitable young women; he offered give him property; he offered money to enable him to travel. Ivor replied that none of those things appealed to him. So the king says this:
“I have suggested everything that comes to my mind. There is but one thing else that might help thee, although it is little compared to what I have offered thee. Every day when I am not taken up with important matters, thou shalt come to me and we will talk over this matter about the maid, for it often happens that sorrow shared is sorrow lessened, and every time I shall give thee something before thou goest away.”
The saga says that Ivor agreed to that. “He was thereby consoled in his sorrow and became glad again.”
I’m in haste tonight. Got a translation assignment, and I think I may have promised to deliver faster than I should have. So time’s wingéd chariot is tailgating me like a Ferrari on a blue highway.
In lieu of anything original, I’ll share this nice article from Atlas Obscura about the curses medieval scribes placed in books, so that people wouldn’t steal or mangle them.
“These curses were the only things that protected the books,” says Marc Drogin, author of Anathema! Medieval Scribes and the History of Book Curses. “Luckily, it was in a time where people believed in them. If you ripped out a page, you were going to die in agony. You didn’t want to take the chance.”
No Amazon link. I checked and Drogin’s book is very rare and copies are expensive. At those prices, they should have their own curses.
I wrote an essay on Sigrid Undset for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s web site:
Like one of her own characters, Sigrid Undset followed her heart, confronted the consequences, and learned. Enabled by a government grant to live abroad, she began an affair in Rome with a married Norwegian painter, Anders Castus Svarstad. They married in 1912, after his divorce, and divorced in turn in 1919. By that time, they’d moved back to Norway, where their third child was born. Their second child, a daughter, was mentally handicapped. When Sigrid learned to her horror that Svarstad’s ex-wife had placed her children by him in an orphanage, Sigrid adopted them. One of these was also mentally handicapped. (Years later, when she received her Nobel Prize, she would donate the entire sum to children’s charities.)
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