A hundredth re-read of the LotR

[Nogrod]

Nice to see people discussing.. and sad to see that dying down that easily. But let's go forwards!

On Three is a Company the first thing that strikes my mind is the beauty of the way Tolkien describes the last days in Hobitton for Frodo, Sam and others. It really is something I really appreciate: the mood, the feeling, the detail; all serve to build for the more gloomier destiny that is about but it still fills the reader with the reminiscent feeling of the world there will be no more. It's plain genius.

There is another of my great favourites here in this chapter as well, meaning Bilbo's lore about paths and roads taking you where you don't know they might do. I remember when I was very young (like ten) and my father read the LotR to me as a bedtimestory that one thing made me wonder indeed. I spent hours and hours with the globe-ball (lighted inside) in my bedroom in the evenings when it was all dark around, looking for different ways the paths might bring one almost anywhere, and I was most disappointed with the seas!

But that really has been a thing that has followed me from that early childhood onwards. I'm still awed by the roads and paths... I mean be careful where you step into!

To make this even more interesting one might quote Gildor in the end of the chapter: "The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourself in, but you cannot forever fence it out". Talking about multiculturalism and the ways of the world today - Tolkien was just a prophet in this matter! These roads will make us meet "the other" before we make use of them ourselves to reach the other places (not counting the organised holiday trips that are more sham than real).


Also the elven attitudes to the hobbits is an interesting thing - how they kind of scorn and play them as fools before they actually notice it's Frodo (the heir of Bilbo) and how grave their quest is... But still they don't give them more help but a promise to send their "message throught the lands".

Is it only a literary question (they shouldn't have too great a help with their journey for the storyline's sake) or are the elves so disenchanted with the ME that they just don't bother to help more?