Friday Memories of Books that Shook My World
I’ve often said that Lord of the Rings was my favorite book growing up, but I’ve never explored how it shaped me. I encountered The Hobbit first, reading it at the same time as the Narnia books (see last week’s post on my eight-year-old experiences with The Silver Chair)—and in some ways it was a more comfortable book: the characters in the Hobbit don’t experience the inner conflicts that Lewis’s child protagonists do. As a result, I liked the Hobbit better, even though Narnia led to more inner growth. With Lewis I couldn’t just enjoy and move on, which is what I thought I wanted.
I’ll explain in a moment how Lord of the Rings was different.
Lewis wrote portal fantasy whereas Tolkien wrote immersive fantasy, which is to say that there are no humans passing through portals to get to another world or other world creatures invading our own (invasive fantasy). When Tolkien engaged in what he called “world-building,” there was only the one world, complete with its own history and languages. That being noted, however, Bilbo and then Frodo do indeed pass through a kind of portal, leaving the safe and familiar environs of the Shire to engage with trolls, goblins, dragons, giant spiders, and other fabulous creatures. At the end of the series, there is even an element of invasive fantasy as the hobbits must deal with Saruman’s takeover of the Shire.
If portal fantasy gives us many of fantasy’s best-known works (Gulliver’s Travels, Alice in Wonderland, Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, Harry Potter), it may be in part because it captures the experience of the reader. The book becomes our portal, with the world around us fading away as the fantastical takes over. I still recall experiencing this fading when my father read us the first chapter of The Hobbit. Once the dwarfs start singing of “misty mountains grim” and “pale enchanted gold,” the prosaic Bilbo loses his bearings:
As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves. Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick. He looked out of the window. The stars were out in a dark sky above the trees. He thought of the jewels of the dwarves shining in dark caverns. Suddenly in the wood beyond The Water a flame leapt up—probably somebody lighting a wood-fire-and he thought of plundering dragons settling on his quiet Hill and kindling it all to flames. He shuddered; and very quickly he was plain Mr. Baggins of Bag-End,Under-Hill, again
There are few thorny ethical questions in the Hobbit, however, which is not the case with Lord of the Rings. Despite the clear delineations between good guys and bad guys, the ring of power exerts its corrosive power over all that it touches, corrupting Isildur, Gollum, and Boromir and threatening Frodo and Sam. I’ve written in the past how Gimli the dwarf was my favorite character but I may have liked him best because he is relatively uncomplicated. Looking back, I realize the character who most impacted my development was Frodo.
In both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, we see the child-sized hobbits being abandoned (or so they experience it) by the protector wizard figure. As a result, they must figure out life for themselves. Gandalf leaves the dwarfs upon their reaching Mirkwood and then, more traumatically, is seemingly killed by the Balrog upon exiting the Mines of Moria. (When I read Fellowship to my children, my oldest burst into loud sobs at this point and I grappled with whether to provide a spoiler before choosing not to.) As a child, I too felt the immensity of the separation.
Then, of course, Frodo decides on his own that he must take the whole weight of Middle Earth on his shoulders, and he leaves the Fellowship to strike out alone for Mordor. Fortunately, Sam insists on joining him, which I found deeply gratifying. I find is hard asking for help and too often have not turned to others when I should have.
Nor is that the only way I identified with Frodo. My life has been marked by feeling perpetually responsible for whatever is going on around me, which means that I have sometimes taken on tasks too large for my capacities. It’s as though I have had an inner Gandalf driving me on. I think of the moment when the wizard presents Frodo with his quest:
“I am not made for perilous quests. I wish I had never seen the Ring! Why did it come to me? Why was I chosen?’
“Such questions cannot be answered,’ said Gandalf. ‘You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or wisdom, at any rate. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.’
Once I take on a task, furthermore, I feel that I have made a sacred commitment that I cannot back out of. It’s as though the commitment is more important than the task itself. Once having said he will destroy the ring, Frodo speaks ambivalently about what it will accomplish:
I should like to save the Shire, if I could – though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them. But I don’t feel like that now. I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again.
With this passage, I imagine Tolkien thinking of England as he is hunkered down in the World War I trenches. Frodo suggests that we shouldn’t focus on whether people are worth our sacrifice and whether they will be grateful for what we do. For that matter, our own happiness is immaterial. Noble sacrifice, not our own narrow desires, is what is called for. Duty above all.
Throughout my life, while operating on this principle, I have channeled Frodo and Sam trudging up Mount Doom:
All this last day Frodo had not spoken,but had walked half-bowed, often stumbling, as if his eyes no longer saw the way before his feet. Sam guessed that among all their pains he bore the worst, the growing weight of the Ring, a burden on the body and a torment to his mind. Anxiously Sam had noted how his master’s left hand would often be raised as if to ward off a blow, or to screen his shrinking eyes from a dreadful Eye that sought to look in them. And sometimes his right hand would creep to his breast, clutching, and then slowly, as the will recovered mastery, it would be withdrawn.
When Frodo’s strength gives out, Sam carries him:
They had reached the Mountain’s foot on its northern side, and a little to the westward; there its long grey slopes, though broken, were not sheer. Frodo did not speak, and so Sam struggled on as best he could, having no guidance but the will to climb as high as might be before his strength gave out and his will broke. On he toiled, up and up, turning this way and that to lessen the slope, often stumbling forward, and at the last crawling like a snail with a heavy burden on its back. When his will could drive him no further, and his limbs gave way, he stopped and laid his master gently down.
And yet later:
The last stage of their journey to Orodruin came, and it was a torment greater than Sam had ever thought that he could bear. He was in pain, and so parched that he could no longer swallow even a mouthful of food. It remained dark, not only because of the smokes of the Mountain: there seemed to be a storm coming up, and away to the south-east there was a shimmer of lightnings under the black skies. Worst of all, the air was full of fumes; breathing was painful and difficult, and a dizziness came on them, so that they staggered and often fell. And yet their wills did not yield, and they struggled on.
When they finally accomplish their mission, more important than any official commendation is their quiet satisfaction at having accomplished their mission:
‘Well, this is the end, Sam Gamgee,’ said a voice by his side. And there was Frodo, pale and worn, and yet himself again; and in his eyes there was peace now, neither strain of will, nor madness, nor any fear. His burden was taken away.
I don’t mean to either elevate or denigrate myself when I talk of my Frodo drive. Sometimes I have served my community well and sometimes I have taken on too much, doing a half-assed job while sacrificing family and my own contentment in the process. There are times when it would have been best for everyone if I had pulled out of commitments I made. (To cite one example, I should have stepped down from the department chairship a year before I did.) With life experience, thankfully, I have come up with better balance.
In Frodo’s quest, however, I found a way to invest my life with meaning, even though I was only 10. I was so grateful to Tolkien for having given me this gift that I wrote him a letter and he wrote me back. Addressed to “Master Robin Bates” and signed with the author’s distinctive signature, the letter hangs on the wall of my study.
