LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 03 - Three Is Company

[Thinlómien]

And the project continues! I feel like I should say at this point that Boro or anyone else out there willing to discuss the chapters can feel free to go on even if Legate and I are not posing anything yet - we'll catch up. But whenever I'm not to busy, I think I'll roughly aim to read a chapter a day, that's a nice pace.

So, Three Is Company. It's a nice chapter, further introducing our heroes, introducing the antagonists Black Riders that will shadow our heroes for several chapters to come, and it's of course also the beginning of a journey. A very important chapter then. It also has one of my favourite dialogues - that between Frodo and Gildor.

On this reread, however, there was hardly anything "new" I paid attention to - the chapter was to me as it ever was, no great moments of insight here. Do you guys feel the same? Like, sometimes when you reread LotR you discover hidden gems and catch great undercurrents and themes in between the lines, and sometimes the book just is. Maybe you know every paragraph and sentence, or maybe there are cool details and implicatons but you've already noticed them a thousand times, so you end up somehow just flying through the chapter, enjoying it but not very profoundly? That's what happened to me today.

Some notes, however -

When I was a kid, I always felt a bit bummed out that Merry is not part of the company because he was one of my favourites. As a teenager, I wondered why Tolkien left him out of this pivotal introduction of the hobbits. But of course, there's a reason why Merry - unlike Pippin - is already introduced in A Long-Expected Party, and then later he has a prominent role in A Conspiracy Unmasked. Now I also appreciated the dynamics of the Frodo - Pippin - Sam trio, and the space each of them gets in this combo.

I feel like I only became aware of the class distinctions in Tolkien's works a couple of years ago, and the relationship between Pippin and Sam is very interesting in that light. Pippin talks to Sam as to a servant - "is my bath ready?" - but there seems to be nothing strange about them doing chores together and in practice they're very equal. I also notice Pippin affectionately mocks Sam but Sam never returns the treatment. Subtle class division or a question of personality? Who knows. I can't help to think that Pippin - and later also Merry's - attitude towards Sam is a little patronizing.

Another thing I thought of were the Elves. They throw really weird parties. First they just sit around, then when their favourite stars appear starts singing and eating and drinking that goes on long into the night. I wonder if they always sleep in and travel late because of that. Like, I'm not complaining. Walking and looking at the stars and singing and good food sounds excellent to me but I somehow never considered High Elves to be so... laid-back? chill? in their activities.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Another thing I thought of were the Elves. They throw really weird parties. First they just sit around, then when their favourite stars appear starts singing and eating and drinking that goes on long into the night. I wonder if they always sleep in and travel late because of that. Like, I'm not complaining. Walking and looking at the stars and singing and good food sounds excellent to me but I somehow never considered High Elves to be so... laid-back? chill? in their activities.

I think you'll find in these instances (and in the Silvan Elves' feast that disappears a couple times in The Hobbit), Tolkien hearkening back to Faery and the folklore of Elvish races and their appearance under the moon to lonely travelers in desolate places. The mythology of the British Isles is full of such occurrences and chance meetings in the dead of night.

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

I think you'll find in these instances (and in the Silvan Elves' feast that disappears a couple times in The Hobbit), Tolkien hearkening back to Faery and the folklore of Elvish races and their appearance under the moon to lonely travelers in desolate places. The mythology of the British Isles is full of such occurrences and chance meetings in the dead of night.

That's actually an interesting notion - now that I think of it, this chance meeting is probably the closest Tolkien gets to the traditional Faery mythology, barring the Lay of Leithian of course. And time passing strangely in Lórien. I should probably look up separate threads about this.

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

They didn't sleep in - they were gone by the time Frodo awoke next morning. (Yes, I'm cheating, that's in the next chapter.) They may not have slept at all like we do. In LotR Book III, The Riders of Rohan it is said that

I'm sure Gildor & company did the same, at least while travelling.

And does it say what time Frodo awoke? Seriously though, silly me for forgetting the Elves' disturbing sleeping habits. That kind of explains why they stay up so late... I don't envy them though; I love sleeping.

[Pitchwife]

Just commenting, I can't commit to a full reread right now, but I may add my two farthings every now and then. (And I just almost wrote 'fartings'; blame narfforc and his book.)

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Another thing I thought of were the Elves. They throw really weird parties. First they just sit around, then when their favourite stars appear starts singing and eating and drinking that goes on long into the night. I wonder if they always sleep in and travel late because of that. Like, I'm not complaining. Walking and looking at the stars and singing and good food sounds excellent to me but I somehow never considered High Elves to be so... laid-back? chill? in their activities.

They didn't sleep in - they were gone by the time Frodo awoke next morning. (Yes, I'm cheating, that's in the next chapter.) They may not have slept at all like we do. In LotR Book III, The Riders of Rohan it is said that

[Legolas] could sleep, if sleep it could be called by Men, resting his mind in the strange paths of elvish dreams, even as he walked open-eyed in the light of this world.

I'm sure Gildor & company did the same, at least while travelling.

Singing and good food is also what we see Elrond's people in Rivendell spending a good part of their time on when they're not busy sitting in council about the fate of Middle-earth. Maybe there comes a time when you've studied and discussed all the ancient lore there is ever so often and it just gets boring (especially considering you may have written some of it yourself), but songs and good food just never get old.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

In this chapter, I really like sketching out of the relationship between the hobbits in question (including all the interesting "class dynamics" and other things Lommy mentioned - I really think in Sam's case, it's partly a question of personality, but that personality had been a little influenced by his status). And this time, I really enjoyed the first moment the Nazgul appeared - in the name of all, it is Khamul, you know, it is just super-creepy and supercool that he is so close to Frodo. In fact, being quite a bit conscious about the timing and everything, Frodo just missed being caught, the Riders are only hours (in the case of meeting Gaffer, minutes) off. Talk about narrow escapes.

This also brings in my mind a horror-scenario we once discussed with Lommy, sometime ages ago: of course the first thought, when one starts to imagine "what ifs", is "what if the Riders arrived a few hours earlier" and found Frodo still in Bag End - helpless, obviously. But what we thought about was what if the Riders arrived only a bit later - for example the day after. Imagine.

*knock knock* The new master of Bag End, Lotho Sackville-Baggins, opens the door. "Does Baggins live here?" "Y-yes, that is me..."

It would make for a brilliant and terrifying horror movie, when the family after years and years of waiting finally inherits the house they always desired, only instead of a happy ending, they get this...

Anyway: back to the merry hills of the Shire, what I actually love the most about this chapter are the descriptions of the landscape. They are all so vivid, so beautiful. One funny thing I noticed this time: I imagine the Shire landscape (the very same, specific places or scenes I have pictured in my mind many times over) differently when reading in different languages (obviously the first time I read LotR, it was in my native language, as well as many times after, but of course I have read it also in English, but I alternate between those a lot). Currently I am reading it in English, and it struck me that one specific scene - the first waking up when Frodo goes to look for water, or actually doesn't - is painted vividly red in my mind (the sunrise and mist Frodo sees), as opposed to when reading in Czech, I imagine it much more yellow and not as bloody red. The translation does not differ in any significant way, in fact, it is pretty much the same - but I guess it has to do with the sound of the words or maybe the syntax or something. A random observation.

But anyway, yes, this is mostly about the landscapes (and "skyscapes", too - I love the part about stars rising when the Hobbits meet the Elves), and that is actually why I like this chapter a lot - I would probably rank it about my favourites. Hard to say how high, but high.

[Boromir88]

And the project continues! I feel like I should say at this point that Boro or anyone else out there willing to discuss the chapters can feel free to go on even if Legate and I are not posing anything yet - we'll catch up. But whenever I'm not to busy, I think I'll roughly aim to read a chapter a day, that's a nice pace.~Lommy

The problem is, I started a week before you and you're already caught up to me. All summer I made sure to dedicate reading time every day. And while the stack of books to read keeps getting higher, I've knocked out more reading than I've done in a long time. I'm making sure I continue this in the fall, even if it turns out only being 20 mins of reading in the day, I feel great.

In the Chapter 2 thread H-I mentions how the first 3 chapters of Book I parallel the first 3 chapters of Book II. The tone and general plot line are the same.

Long Expected Party - Many Meetings, on the surface there is celebration and happiness, but underneath there is an unanswered question about the Ring. The Ring is in the background to Bilbo's party and then in Many Meetings when Frodo reunites with Bilbo.

Shadow of the Past - Council of Elrond. I think these are the 2 longest chapters of the entire book. Both long exposition and dialogue where the ring is now "the One Ring." It becomes the main character in each chapter, as The Ring and what to do with it gets debated.

Three is Company - The Ring Goes South. It's been decided what to do with the Ring and these are the actions taken with the Ring. The company was three, and then it's nine.

I'm curious to see if the rest FOTR follows the same pattern when it comes the chapters getting paired up like the first three in each book. Now, Book I has 12 chapters and Book II has 10, so I don't think we'll get the same direct pairing. I have some vague ideas, but I'm just really curious to continue the reread with partnered chapters in mind. Does A Shortcut to Mushrooms follow the same pattern as A Journey in the Dark? A Conspiracy Unmasked to the Bridge of Khazad-dum? I guess we'll find out.

[skip spence]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

I feel like I only became aware of the class distinctions in Tolkien's works a couple of years ago, and the relationship between Pippin and Sam is very interesting in that light. Pippin talks to Sam as to a servant - "is my bath ready?" - but there seems to be nothing strange about them doing chores together and in practice they're very equal. I also notice Pippin affectionately mocks Sam but Sam never returns the treatment. Subtle class division or a question of personality? Who knows. I can't help to think that Pippin - and later also Merry's - attitude towards Sam is a little patronizing.

I agree. They are mocking him, in a humorous way sure, but knowing he'll never dare to return the favour makes the laughter stick in my throat. In contrast Frodo never makes fun of Sam in a demeaning way as far as I can recall, though he certainly smacks Merry and Pippin with as many few punch-lines as they do with him.

For the duration of the book, Sam does not for a second step away from his subservient role. Mr Frodo on the other hand never orders him to do anything either as far as I remember. It's a very idealized Master and Servant relationship, one based on mutual love and respect but still a vertical and not horizontal one.

Beth, Esty and others have some excellent points about these relationships earlier in thread by the way.

[Marlowe221]

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.

[Formendacil]

Rereading this old thread, not because I have anything that cropped up on my reread to say, though that is why I read it, but because I have something to say one the very old topic of Sam and Pippin and "sir."

Namely, two things:

First, it gets mentioned in the thread that Sam is younger than Frodo (contra what we see in the movies) and has probably always known him as "Mr. Frodo," which is a combination of therefore of deferential age and deferential status. What *didn't* get mentioned is that Pippin is even younger still: he's only 29, not yet even come of age. Granted, I don't know if we can say that makes him as fool as a teenager, but he's definitely more adolescent than the other hobbits we see up close.

I think this is relevant, not because it explains why Pippin gets "sir" and Sam doesn't--that is presumably adequately explained by Pippin being the only son and heir of the Took himself--but because it helps explain some of the cringiness of the interaction. And it *is* cringy, once you're listening for it. I don't personally think the cringiness lasts--maybe it goes as far as the House of Tom Bombadil? After that, though Sam certainly maintains a sense of what he would no doubt consider good hobbit decorum, Pippin (possibly being influenced by Merry as well) becomes rather more Frodo-esque.

True, we don't see the same Frodo-Sam-Pippin trio close-up after they make it Crickhollow, but I think it's also true that the initial response of the Hobbits as they venture out into the wide world in all its wonder is to have a sort of flattened egalitarianism. Next to the Bombadils and Striders and Glorfindels--to say nothing of the Elronds or Galadriels beyond, the distinctions between the Hobbits seem minor and they naturally band together a little more.

It's noted earlier in the thread that the "true" relationship of lords and thegns, masters and bondsmen is a theme of the book, but the direct relationship of this to Pippin wasn't quite sewn up, and I think it's important here: both Pippin and Merry end up declaring fealty to great lords, but it's noteworthy that Pippin gets the far more difficult master: Merry serving Théoden is almost as idyllic as Sam serving Frodo; Pippin serving Denethor is not.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

It's noted earlier in the thread that the "true" relationship of lords and thegns, masters and bondsmen is a theme of the book, but the direct relationship of this to Pippin wasn't quite sewn up, and I think it's important here: both Pippin and Merry end up declaring fealty to great lords, but it's noteworthy that Pippin gets the far more difficult master: Merry serving Théoden is almost as idyllic as Sam serving Frodo; Pippin serving Denethor is not.

If the War of the Ring does serve, as Gandalf intimates, to "train" the hobbits of the Fellowship, it makes sense that Pippin might need the more difficult "lesson".
Merry was eight years older, but seems to me as mature as Frodo himself. Certainly, he handles the preparations for the journey from the Shire pretty well, and performs solidly in the Old Forest, at least until the Willow incident.

I think Pippin being placed in Minas Tirith, in the very eye of the storm, basically alone, forced him to grow up very quickly.