For what free association is worth, my first thought on reading this topic was this wonderful scene:
“Gandalf, Gandalf! Good gracious me! Not the wandering wizard that gave Old Took a pair of magic diamond studs that fastened themselves and never came undone till ordered? Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties, about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesses and the unexpected luck of widows’ sons? Not the man that used to make such particularly excellent fireworks! I remember those! Old Took used to have them on Midsummer’s Eve. Splendid! They used to go up like great lilies and snapdragons and laburnums of fire and hang in the twilight all evening!” You will notice already that Mr. Baggins was not quite so prosy as he liked to believe, also that he was very fond of flowers.
I don't know that there's anything to it, but I enjoy thinking of Bilbo as being very much a stand-in for Tolkien here, both in his love for flowers, and imagination under the appearance of dull conformity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Inziladun
So, does the use of flowers add (or maybe subtract) from your enjoyment of Tolkien's books? Do they have any special emotional impact at a particular moment?
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The Minas Morgul instance is the most interesting to me, since despite its brevity, it's perhaps the most extreme example of the corruption of nature in the Legendarium. Mirkwood, the Old Forest, I still get the sense of nature struggling against being dominated by evil. In Mordor, nature has been largely (but not totally) obliterated. In Morgul Vale, the "noisome fields" are evil itself.
Also, like many things in Middle-earth, I'm sure it inspired Stephen Donaldson's
Chronicles, but in this case the writing feels ahead of its time: more like something Donaldson would have discovered himself in the Spoiled Plains if Tolkien hadn't beaten him to the punch by twenty years.