The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post - LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 03

Marlowe221 · 06-12-2018, 12:12 PM

Last November I had the chance to go on a long hike through one of our National Forests in Mississippi. Two friends and I covered a distance of 42 miles over the course of 3 and a half days. While there were plenty of rolling hills, they were mostly wooded and there were no surprise meetings with a company of Elves to feed us a late dinner.

Throughout the course of our hike, I thought often about this chapter and the following one. Some of it is definitely because I was travelling with two other companions. Some of it was because of the pretty, green (though fading) evnironment.

But mostly, I think it was because when you are travelling on foot, you have the chance to appreciate your environment and surroundings in a way that faster, mechanized modes of transportation rob you of entirely. You really get to know a landscape when you walk through it. There is an intimacy you just don't get through a car or train window.

Walking is also a great way to remind ourselves how big the world actually is. Airplanes, cars, and trains have made us forget this fact. They fool us into not seeing the world around us. We think of the world as being composed of effectively empty space between our starting point and destination because it all passes by so quickly. Mechanized transportation is a wonderful thing in many ways, but it also decieves us, makes us think of the world on a different scale than the reality we are missing all around.

To me, this chapter embodies this idea. In The Hobbit, we have no real concept of the Shire. We don't get much description of it at all actually. Bilbo lives in a village of some kind and all the place names are rather vague. Once the journey begins we are told, almost in passing, that at first Thorin's company travels through Hobbit lands. Otherwise, everything is glossed over until we get to the Trolls! (I understand why, it's a children's book after all).

But in The Lord of the Rings, things are quite different. Here, Tolkien firmly establishes the Shire as a PLACE. There is an entire forward devoted largely to its history, geography and people. Essentially the entirety of the first four chapters are spent within its borders. While the Hobbits are walking through the Shire to Crickhollow, the reader is also going at a walking pace, in a literary sense. Here, we have the chance to explore the Shire as we get to know it through its people, some of its history, and through the land itself.

That's what the early parts of Fellowship are about to me - getting to know the Hobbits and the land they come from.

06-12-2018, 12:12 PM	#71
Marlowe221 Pile O'Bones Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 18	Last November I had the chance to go on a long hike through one of our National Forests in Mississippi. Two friends and I covered a distance of 42 miles over the course of 3 and a half days. While there were plenty of rolling hills, they were mostly wooded and there were no surprise meetings with a company of Elves to feed us a late dinner. Throughout the course of our hike, I thought often about this chapter and the following one. Some of it is definitely because I was travelling with two other companions. Some of it was because of the pretty, green (though fading) evnironment. But mostly, I think it was because when you are travelling on foot, you have the chance to appreciate your environment and surroundings in a way that faster, mechanized modes of transportation rob you of entirely. You really get to know a landscape when you walk through it. There is an intimacy you just don't get through a car or train window. Walking is also a great way to remind ourselves how big the world actually is. Airplanes, cars, and trains have made us forget this fact. They fool us into not seeing the world around us. We think of the world as being composed of effectively empty space between our starting point and destination because it all passes by so quickly. Mechanized transportation is a wonderful thing in many ways, but it also decieves us, makes us think of the world on a different scale than the reality we are missing all around. To me, this chapter embodies this idea. In The Hobbit, we have no real concept of the Shire. We don't get much description of it at all actually. Bilbo lives in a village of some kind and all the place names are rather vague. Once the journey begins we are told, almost in passing, that at first Thorin's company travels through Hobbit lands. Otherwise, everything is glossed over until we get to the Trolls! (I understand why, it's a children's book after all). But in The Lord of the Rings, things are quite different. Here, Tolkien firmly establishes the Shire as a PLACE. There is an entire forward devoted largely to its history, geography and people. Essentially the entirety of the first four chapters are spent within its borders. While the Hobbits are walking through the Shire to Crickhollow, the reader is also going at a walking pace, in a literary sense. Here, we have the chance to explore the Shire as we get to know it through its people, some of its history, and through the land itself. That's what the early parts of Fellowship are about to me - getting to know the Hobbits and the land they come from.