What ain't there and ought to be.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Lalwendë,

Thanks for that final reference on the funeral. I had totally forgotten it.

_________________

Also, the other day I was blithely reading a Tolkien interview from the NYTimes of January 1967 when my jaw dropped open. Some of the ideas expressed in these two paragraphs seemed to bear an odd resemblance to our discussion in this thread! (The italics are mine)

"Hobbits," Tolkien says, "have what you might call universal morals. I should say they are examples of natural philosophy and natural religion." They are certainly capable of extraordinary bravery and humaneness; living in burrows, their creator declares, doesn't amount to anything like an animal kink.

"People still love thatched houses; they pretend it's because they're cool in summer and warm in winter, and they'll even pay a bit of extra insurance. We found German trenches which were often very habitable indeed except that, when we reached them, they faced the wrong way about. And have you been to England's oldest pub, the Trip to Jerusalem? It is carved out of the solid rock of Nottingham Castle. I went to Nottingham once for a conference. I fear we went to the Trip to Jerusalem and let the conference get on with itself."

"Animal kink!" I love it. First, Littlemanpoet you're obviously going to have to duke it out with the Professor if you persist in your belief that living in burrows is further proof of the Hobbits' essential animal nature. Then again JRRT had a solid reputation for contradicting himself. If we searched more intensively on the web, I can probably find another interview where the author argued the exact opposite. I say that with considerable amusement and affection!

Secondly, who said that a German trench couldn't be the original prototype of Bag-end?

Seriously though, what leaps out at me from these brief consecutive paragraphs is how JRRT's mind leapt from one subject to the next, making these interesting connections that would never have been evident on the surface of things. I can see how this can be wonderfully creative, yet make it difficult for someone to finish anything they start. And, perhaps more importantly, it also means it's difficult for us or any other so-called critics to nail down the origin of many of the ideas and concepts he's used. They've just gone through too many permutations.

I confess that my own mind works similarly, but only in one exceedingly humble respect. When I try to do housework, my mind flashes from one task to the next and consequently nothing whatsoever actually gets done!

[davem]

His relatives and neighbours lost the chance of a funeral, and they had a good deal to say.

I wonder what this implies about Hobbit funerals. Were they 'wakes'? Were they highly organised events - like Birthday parties. If not, why were the hobbits annoyed at having missed Bilbo's? Of course, this tells us nothing about what happened to the body.

Of course, it could be that funerals were solemn events which were felt to be 'the proper thing'. It may have been another example of Bilbo 'letting the side down' - or rather Bingo letting the side down. These little asides are interesting because of what they reveal about Hobbit culture, & about Tolkien's heroes in particular. Clearly this aside was intended to convey something about the two hero's attitude to the mores of the Shire, & show how different they were. A funeral should have been held for Bilbo, but wasn't, & the other Hobbits didn't approve.

I suppose this is another thing that 'ain't there & ought to be' - not in the sense that Tolkien has missed something out, but in the sense that his heroes have a tendency to miss things out. Perhaps its an example of Tolkien's own 'Hobbitry'.

One could perhaps say that our esteemed LmP has lost his chance of graveyards in the Shire & has had a good deal to say about it

[Child of the 7th Age]

Clearly this aside was intended to convey something about the two hero's attitude to the mores of the Shire, & show how different they were. A funeral should have been held for Bilbo, but wasn't, & the other Hobbits didn't approve.

Davem -

It's interesting because my reaction to this quote was different than your own.

His relatives and neighbours lost the chance of a funeral, and they had a good deal to say.

What drew my attention in that quote were the final words: "and they had a good deal to say." It seems to me that what they were bemoaning was not that a "proper" funeral had not been held, but rather that they had not had a chance to discuss Bilbo behind his back, after he was dead and they were quite safe from his sharp wit.

Above all else, a funeral is a social gathering where you get to see people you haven't seen in ages. A great deal of time is spent discussing the attributes of the deceased. Some of this is open and shared with all. Other conversations are quietly held in the corners, since they may be too 'honest' for some. Yes, it's all said with a wistful smile and in good spirits, but people do remember the foibles of the deceased as well as the accomplishments. Bilbo had a great many foibles in the eyes of his neighbors. Without a funeral, his neighbors found they'd been denied a final opportunty to discuss their nonconformist neighbor.

To me, this brief quote is another example of the fact that, in the Shire, the emphasis is on the living and not the dead (as it was in Numenor). Even a side quip about a funeral focuses humorously on the needs of the mourners to gossip rather than viewing it as a solemn memorial to the deceased.

There is a social or communal aspect of mankind that is reflected in the Shire. I do agree with Littlemanpoet that the Hobbits have some natural and animal-like characteristics, but they also display certain social behaviors that operate on a different level. Such proclivities remind me less of rabbits and badgers, and more of what I see in my neighbors when folk attend funerals and weddings, spread rumors over the back fence or, heaven forbid, post here on the Downs!

[Durelin]

I wonder if Hobbits give gifts away at funerals... I know I could see Bilbo writing out invitations for his own funeral, and getting a good chuckle out of it.

[littlemanpoet]

Child, you misapprehend my meaning. Probably my fault.

you're obviously going to have to duke it out with the Professor if you persist in your belief that living in burrows is further proof of the Hobbits' essential animal nature

Essential? I want to protest, but then it ends up depending on how you mean 'essential'. Ah, what hey, right? Anyway, I bet that Tolkien was defending his hobbits against "nothing buttery". I certainly join him in that! Hobbits certainly are not nothing but animals disguised as humans! That would be silly, but that was what some critics were snidely saying, if my memory serves me correctly. I don't blame Tolkien at all for defending against that ridiculous blather!

All I am saying (in both this and that other thread ) is that we humans, as both animal and having fëar, are not often able to be at peace being both at once. Tolkien's supreme success with hobbits is that they are happy being both. Would that we were - but then we'd be hobbits, I suppose, and maybe that's not such a bad thing!

One could perhaps say that our esteemed LmP has lost his chance of graveyards in the Shire & has had a good deal to say about it

davem, are you actually equating me with the Sackville-Bagginses!? The nerve! I always thought there was a bit too much Took in you!

[Child of the 7th Age]

All I am saying (in both this and that other thread ) is that we humans, as both animal and having fëar, are not often able to be at peace being both at once. Tolkien's supreme success with hobbits is that they are happy being both.

Littlemanpoet -

Thanks for that clarification. Stated in those terms, I feel you are right in pointing out the Hobbits' singular ability to accept and appreciate both sides of their nature.

Yet there's one other question I can't help raising. I'm not quite sure how to phrase this, but I'll try. Littlemanpoet - Perhaps your statement about the ragged split in our nature and our inability to accept who we are does not apply equally to all human beings. Perhaps this is something that's more prone to strike so-called modern "educated" men and women, those who feel they've gone beyond man's "more primitive" side and rejected anything that can't be proven rationally.

Yes, I'm talking about folk like us who take pride in intellectual achievement and come to a website to spend endless hours analyzing a piece of literature. (Looks guiltily in the mirror....!) Or other folk who take such joy in being "professionals" that they define their worth in terms of a particular niche they fill in a community. Even more likely victims of the disease would be someone like Howard Bloom or Greer Germaine, who were such great admirers of Tolkien! (In fact I wonder if it's possible to be a 'serious' reader of Tolkien, and not have at least a grudging admiration for those furry-footed Hobbits and their unique dual nature.) Basically, I think that in any situation when one faculty is emphasized to such a degree, something else is in danger of being lost.

We lose touch with part of who we really are: that fellow with the big furry feet who finds delight in small family matters and home-cooked meals. I guess I am looking backward in my own life and remembering human beings who contradict what you've said concerning the great rift in the human soul. I think such people do exist. I grew up in what was a neighborhood where few people had any semblance of higher education. While this was not a rural community, the values that I saw were not too different than those Tolkien depicted in his Shire. There was no deep love of the earth, but there was a consistent joy in small things: family, gossip over the back fence, hearty tankards of ale and simple human interaction (without counting who'd scored a point and who did not). Somertimes I found these things missing in the academic world to which I'd managed to gain admittance.

I don't want to idealize that childhood community beyond the point of recognition. There were limitations in thinking, a narrowness and parochialism that Tolkien himself recognized in Hobbits, and which I wanted to flee. Yet, even today, there are things I glean when I go 'home' to that original community that seem harder to find elsewhere. My 94-year old mom, for example, knows who she is and accepts her place in life, which to me is an essential ingredient of any Hobbit. I wish I had a little more of that quality, and a little less of the great divide! (No wonder poor Frodo couldn't live in the Shire any more! I can't think of any character who had a greater divide than he did by the end of the book.)

I think Tolkien modelled Hobbits on real people he had encountered in his own childhood: simple but extraordinary people who had managed to bridge the two parts of the human soul. They were small and limited in many respects but they were also very real. What strikes me about Tolkien is that he was able to appreciate both sides of his own nature in an extraordinary way. He had an amazing mind, but he never stopped appreciating the simplest of joys. There are stories told how the old gentleman professor would stop and strike a conversation with the gardener or porter in the college and have an earnest discussion on one thing or another. Yes, I'm sure there were "class differences" but how many of us treat other people like people even to this degree.

We've come a long way from death and tombstones.....or have we? To understand why those tombstones aren't there in the Shire, we have to acknowledge that a large piece of Hobbit nature was focused on the simple task of living in the present. That meant history was minimized and forgotten. So too was the need to dwell on cosmic questions of mortality and immortality such as the Numenoreans had done. Since Hobbit life focused on the here and now, why erect fancy memorials to the deceased? Whatever came afterwards, you would simply accept....

Hey, thanks for those ideas, Littlemanpoet . You got me thinking, probably more for myself than anyone else's benefit. But it was interesting.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

It's occured to me that this discussion of 'essential nature' in relation to death and death rituals is something that we can follow to the other races of Middle-earth.

Elves, for example, don't have graveyards -- at least, there is no mention made anywhere. Arwen, of course, gets buried after her death, but she's mortal then so gets treated like a human. It makes sense that Elves don't have tombs or graves or anything, since they are immortal. Seems to me that they would be rather ill-equipped to deal with death, or even to understand it really. This has always struck me as a particularly limited aspect to Elvish nature: to go on for centuries never having to face death. I am sure that there was plenty of death in the First Age but the wars of the Second and Third Age were relatively sparse and the casualties among the Elves well below the numbers of those departing for the West. Besides, death in war is a special case: there simply is no part or place for 'natural' deaths in Elvish society. They're almost like children insofar as they never have to think about their mortality or face the loss of a loved one.

It's interesting, then, that like hobbits they live underground: at least some of them. While by the time of the War of the Ring, there's only (apparently) Thranduil who still has a large underground palace, there were a number of such places in the First Age. Given how out of touch Elves are with the natural cycle, what do we make of their desire to live in the earth? I can't help but see their underground palaces as very Elvish places in which they did not try to live 'in' nature, but in defiance of it: above ground, things change and grow and die. Below ground, things are a lot more stable and static.

Dwarves are, of course, also a people who live underground, but despite this they seem somehow -- and perhaps oddly -- more in touch with nature than the Elves. This is counter intuitive, I realise: I am not suggesting that Dwarves 'get' trees better than Elves (clearly ridiculous) but that they seem more in tune with, or accepting of, the natural cycle than Elves. Their tunnels and halls underground are mines: places of industry and change, where they acquire goods for trade and commerce with other peoples. Their acceptance of change and flux is marked by the fact that they have tombs (Thorin's and Balin's in the books). They apparently have a well-developed set of rituals around death and dying which allows them to incorporate these into their societies. In fact, so adept are they at 'accepting' and incorporating death that Thorin's tomb becomes the literal centre of Erebor.

These seems to be a 'better' way and approach than the Elves, but it leads toward a dangerous path, I think -- that charted by the Numenoreans, who quite famously became so obsessed with death and funerary rites, that their whole society became statically obsessed with these rites to its destruction. So is there some kind of a spectrum here? With Elves at one end, in death-denial, Men at the other in death-celebration (even the Rohirrim have the mounds right in front of their city; the Barrows are the creations of Men), and Dwarves are somewhere in the middle?

So where does this leave the hobbits? Might I suggest that they somehow synthesise these positions? They live in the ground and resist change, like Elves, but at the same time are engaged in the natural world of change and generation. Their holes are not retreats from the world but very much part of the word. Whereas the great Elven halls are "carved from the living rock" hobit holes are "delved in hill sides". In this they are perhaps a bit like Dwarves, insofar as their holes are places that get 'used' for the process of living, but they do not combine their homes with places of industry: they don't live in mines, the purpose of which are to remove the goods from the earth. They work with nature and in nature, without living off of nature or removing things from it. Like Dwarves and Men, then, they have a sense of the change of natural living and accept it, and make a place for it with funerary rites and funerals, but only where and when appropriate. They don't, like Men (and possibly Dwarves) go to the other extreme and place death and dying and remembering the dead at the centre of their culture and experience. They make room for the dead in the realm of the living.

The extensive genealogies might have something to do with this. Family trees are really little more than records of the dead -- commemorations of the dead: tombs in paper. But they are tombs that are expressed in the form of life: family trees which outline how the living are related to one another through the dead. It is a way of keeping the dead 'around' as part of the living society, while maintaining and emphasis upon the living and the act of living.

So here I go with what may be something of a flyer: why are there no graveyards mentioned in the Shire? Because the hobbits already live in tombs: their holes are living, natural tombs. They are holes in the ground where the memory of the dead, and even the 'presence' of the dead, are maintained and celebrated in and by the process of living and natural existence kept up by their descendants. By the end of LotR, I think we can see Bag End as Bilbo's and Frodo's tomb, kept alive and in joy by Sam, Rosie and their children. The Appendices even extend this by telling us of the death of Rosie and the passing of Sam -- so Bag End becomes their 'living tomb' as well.

One more thought that just occurs to me: Merry and Pippin are both buried in tombs with Men (both are buried in Gondor, are they not? With Aragorn?). Perhaps this is the final marker of their otherness, their separation from their essential hobbitish nature?