Bethberry: Please accept my apology for stomping lightheartedly over a raw place for you. Please believe that I intended no offense. And thanks for your kind apology. I have indeed had my share of barriers in life, though obviously not the female in a man's world type; so I do sympathize. Since the barriers I face have absolutely nothing to do with this thread, I'll leave it alone. PM me if your curious.
In a very real sense, what you may consider a digression is not at all one, because Goldberry's exit from the scene does indeed render her archetypical effectiveness weaker than it might otherwise have been. I can imagine that Tolkien may have used his own family life as a kind of template for this scene in the House of Tom Bombadil, and Edith probably made herself scarce out of both choice and frustration (not to mention olfactory reasons) when "the men" sat down to puff on their pipes and bandy words about.
Nar: Actually, I've read a good deal biographically about Lewis and Davidman. Hardcastle may have been way deep down in my subconscious, but Davidman in her own right was known to "play the man" among men, in a skirt, using what was then considered man's language and indulging in what was at that time considered man's vices. Lewis' friends found her quite obnoxious, above and beyond being "insufferable" for being an educated woman who stood up to educated men and their stupid ideas about women. So say the biographers.
Tolkiengurl: You have it right about
Roverandum. But you did forget to mention the dragon on the moon....... The book was published only in the last couple years. Good libraries and bookstores should have it. Not my personal favorite; it was early and feels more like the Father Christmas writings than his more mature Niggle and Smith stories.
Nar: That's a wonderful insight into "mastery". It seems like a very deep well that very few have dropped their buckets down....
So Bombadil's a Harlequin with different kinds of funny clothes, eh?
Quote:
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'Tom has his house to mind, and Goldberry is waiting.' He is time and she is place and together they are a holdover from the fearless dark and the new earth.
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Wow! Simply profound. Is he time, though? I can see her as place...