Tolkien's Funny Bone

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Oddwen

Art thou saying...that Frodo lost his sense of humor somewhere on the road to Mordor?

I think he lost something else. He still had his humour, as is shown with the encounters with Ruffians et al in the scoured Shire. But he lost his carefree-ness. Silliness, if you will. And he *did* take over some of the Elves' nostalgia and brooding.



Honestly, I can't see anything in the Sil and COH that would make people laugh. Most of the time, if it's humour, it's quite dark and makes you unable to decide whether to laugh or to cry, which makes me laugh at myself and the brilliance of the book (rather than the text itself). Even the funnier parts mentioned earlier in ths thread are not that funny; they lighten the mood somewhat but they are still not comedy. Personally, if I laugh while reading these two books it's probably some victory or great success (but again, nothing funny) and I just can't keep my emotions under control.


There was this passage in COH where Turin runs out of the woods making lots of noise, like he has an army behind him, to help the Halethrim, and all the orcs oanic and scatter. And then the halethrim ask where are Turin's men and he answers they all walk with him as one man. I've always smiled a bit at this passage, but I'm not sure if it's because of the victory or the small bit of humour.

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

But it seems to me that Tolkien had two more or less distinct modes of literary thought - the high and the comedic. And though he sometimes combined these (e.g. in TH and LotR), he never synthesised them.

Originally Posted by Eomer

The Silmarillion (and these are only my thoughts, mind you) is not meant to be life-affirming. It's meant to be awe-inspiring.

I entirely agree with the above statements.