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I think that the most remarkable thing about this chapter - and, indeed about Book I in general - is the pacing. At least today, the conventional wisdom is that you must "open with a bang" as it were, immediately grabbing the reader's attention. Almost any book on writing will tell you never to begin with exposition, or with action only tangentially related to the main plot. But Tolkien begins thus - and, I think, with great effect. The Ring isn't even mentioned until fairly late in the chapter, and none of the ensuing plot is set up here.
That isn't to say that the conventional wisdom is wrong. I've encountered a fair number of people that find the first chapter boring. I certainly don't; but I will admit that it is not as riveting as later parts of the book. I think that this may be a minor defect.
However - that certainly doesn't mean that I think Tolkien should have skipped the party and started with a big action chapter. Whether or not there is a deficiency in the pace of the first chapter in itself, I think that this slow initial pace has a payoff later on that certainly outweighs any such deficiency. Namely, by beginning with a nothing more incredible than a Hobbit party and nothing more dangerous than the threat of rain, Tolkien ensures that when danger and suspense do appear in earnest, they will have a real impact. All too often a book or movie deprives its most important moments of dramatic effect by overcharging everything else with drama.
Of course, Tolkien probably did not think in such terms. I have always gotten the feeling that he was a storyteller of such skill that for him techniques of pacing and suspense all came quite naturally, and did not require all that much conscious analysis. And of course the reason he did not begin with the more important matter of the book was simply that, when he started writing it, he did not know what that important matter was going to be.
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06-21-2004, 12:04 PM
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