LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 01 - A Long-Expected Party

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

...and of course we intentionally started on September 22nd, but apparently we were even more accurate than we thought we would be because Bilbo and Frodo's birthday was Thursday September 22nd, just like today. Nice!

I think that's amazing, even though (as it happens) completely unintended. But great! How often does one get such an opportunity, right? (Now, hands up, how many of you who are reading this started looking at calendars to see on which year will this be possible again...)

Originally Posted by Lommy

On this reread, the thing that caught my eye the most was the hobbits' conflicted relationship with literacy. It's said - elsewhere - that hobbits tended to learn how to cook before they learnt their letters and many never got so far as the latter. Here Gaffer Gamgee is very defensive about letting his son to learn reading and writing. Yet Bilbo sent written party invitations by a well established mail service and there's no mention of some people not understanding their mail. Furthermore, letter writing seems commonplace.

Interesting that you bring that up, because this time I have just noticed and paid attention to the persona of Mr. Hugo Bracegirdle, who seems to be quite a reader. It seems obvious that he must have read dozens of books, which is probably dozen times more than you would expect from a common hobbit.

On the general scale, I think there might be something about what you said regarding the "class division" - it should be noted however that for example Gaffer Gamgee is presented as really really the lowest of low classes, labeled as "poor" on more than one occassion. You are probably right about the "social commentary" - the whole Shire is a bit of "social commentary", or maybe not so much a commentary as just plain fun. And from the "inside the world" point of view, the poor hobbits who can't read can probably just figure out when they get a letter written in golden ink that it is an invitation to Bilbo Baggins' party.

Of course, there are other explanations possible - maybe there is some sort of dichotomy here in that there may actually be tons of books around in the Shire, but they are all family chronicles. Maybe people also don't mind Hugo Bracegirdle not returning books that much if they don't read so much themselves. (What else could these be if not belles-lettres? Books about herbs? Treatises on pipeweed? - I bet that exists! - Atlas of mushrooms. That kind of stuff...)

Anyway, Mr. Bracegirdle just became one of my favourite very minor characters. Must be an interesting fellow, in any case.

What else did I notice on this re-read? Well, among other things, I am going to name especially this one: I guess many people would have paid attention to it already on first reading, but somehow, I never did...

Originally Posted by A Long-Expected Party

"...I have thought of a nice ending for it: and he lived happily ever after to the end of his days."
Gandalf laughed. "I hope he will. But nobody will read the book, however it ends."

I guess always whenever reading this part I have been preoccupied by thinking about what Bilbo is saying: connecting it in my mind already to the future, thinking about how the story ends, about Frodo's wounds which never heal and so on. This time, really for the first time, I paid attention to what Gandalf is saying. He is so wrong, for one, and secondly, he is talking about us. About the people who are reading this book. I think that's brilliant, also from the writer's part. As we know, Tolkien was all about "living the story" and this makes us part of the story even more, because here we are being talked about. By Gandalf! And what more, by Gandalf who claims we don't exist! O he of little faith.