LotR -- Book 4 - Chapter 07 - Journey to the Cross-Roads

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

This chapter is probably my least favourite in the entire LotR. Nothing actually happens. There's no really memorable blocks of dialogue, there's no real peril, and by this point in the story, I'm pretty much full of "travelling" passages.

I must vehemently disagree with my former self! Whether it is because I am older and wiser (less in need of gaudy action than my teenaged self) or because my circumstances of reading are different, or because of some other factor, I cannot see why I would rate this chapter so low! It's an interesting demonstration of how taste can change.

Nor do I think this is a recent discovery. Though this thread has not been added to since 2005, the feeling that "wow, I actually really like 'Journey to the Crossroads'" is familiar--a discovery from some point in the intervening years. I think the key here is mood--this chapter is ripe with a sense of looming danger and brooding unease. The moment of lingering light on the head of the king is the crown jewel of this, but it has built since they parted ways with Faramir.

What strikes me now about this is the huge mystery of the darkening day. It's a fantastic image, both in the sense of been amazing and of belonging to Fantasy, and I don't think that I've ever fully appreciated it, as someone who first read the books young and just accepted what was there. It's a dramatic and powerful bit of psychological warfare on Sauron's part, showing his immense power and also daunting those who naturally thrive in sunlight. More so than in any past reading, I'm noting the connection in plotnhere between Frodo and Sam experiencing the darkness in Ithilien with everyone in Gondor experiencing the same darkness further west in Book V. It helps evoke the mental sense of Frodo and Sam sneaking in behind enemy lines, unnoticed in the war, but absolutely crucial.