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An angry Ent is terrifying. Their fingers, and their toes, just freeze onto rock; and they tear it up like bread-crust. It was like watching the work of great tree-roots in a hundred years, all packed into a few moments.
"They pushed, pulled, tore, shook, and hammered; and clang-bang, crash-crack, in five minutes they had these huge gates just lying in ruin; and some were already beginning to eat into the walls, like rabbits in a sand-pit.
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I like how Tolkien has used some of the known effects of nature on the built environment, but depicted them 'speeded up', showing how the might of an organic structure can eventually destroy that which we have built and assumed to be solid and permanent. Anyone who has seen the effects of certain aggressive plant species (Virginia Creeper, Ground Elder, Bamboo etc.) which have mistakenly been brought into the urban environment will understand this. The description of the destruction also has echoes in how the effects of ice can erode and crumble rock. But it is the image of Ents
eating the walls which is most disturbing!
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Originally Posted by Child
Sadly, then, I do think Saruman is alive and kicking. When I read LotR it's not Sauron who sends chills up my back. It's Saruman. I have trouble imagining a Sauron taking over things completely in our modern world. I have absolutely no problem imagining a Saruman or two or even more....in government, business, education, and a dozen other situations.
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I don't have trouble imagining a Sauron, though thankfully I can only think of one leader whose heart was so blackened he resembled Sauron. I think his evil is more of an absolute, symbolic evil (yet very real in terms of Middle Earth), the like of which is thankfully rare to find in our own world, certainly coupled with the power to
realise that evil. The evil of Saruman is all around us however, in those who seek power within their own sphere of life, to 'empire build', to manipulate and take advantage. This is reflected in the text. We never physically 'meet' Sauron, but we do meet Saruman, as do many of the characters; he is very much 'real' and all the more frightening for it.
Is the ecological message of LotR still as strongly heard today as it was 30 years ago? Sometimes it seems that this message is not as important to readers as it once was, and I feel disappointed in that because it is more important then ever. So I feel encouraged when I read comments like this from Encaitare:
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Originally Posted by Encaitare
We feel like we, as the dominant race, ought to have full control over our environment. What we forget is that there are older things than us inhabiting our world, and greater forces at work, and this was Saruman's mistake too.
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Originally Posted by Kuruharan
Quote: Encaitare:
Then again, half of them were quite mad
And quite drunk too...
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And possibly taking large amounts of laudanum...
