Many good Returns

Standing on the platform with a copy of Return of the king in hand, I felt like such a posseur. I don't suppose it would've helped matters to explain to passersby that I was only re-reading the appendices.

Seeing the other LOTR movies did not motivate me to go back to the source literature--rather the opposite, since I want the depictions in the films to fade more before I reread what Tolkien originally penned. That's the only way I have a chance of reviving a bit of what I visualised when I read them for the first time twenty years ago this year. I'm not sure what's different this time. Perhaps the knowledge that this is the last installment. (At least for several years--after all, with Jackson's blockbuster success, can an adaption of The Silmarillion be far behind? Perhaps the general public will never be ready for that, but I'd be amazed if a new version of The Hobbit weren't already being storyboarded.) Any more answers to the puzzles on screen will have to be sought in interviews with the cast and crew or the original novels.

Top of the list is, What's the deal with Denegoth? As monshu asks, "Is he just mad with grief or what?" In the appendix, Tolkien calls him "more kingly than any man that had appeared in Gondor for many lives of men; and he was wise also, and far-sighted, and learned in lore." Is Jackson's depiction more character assassination à la what was supposedly done to Faramir in Two Towers? There do seem to be some mitigating circumstances: Like poor Faramir, Denegoth is neglected by his father in favour of another--who isn't even his other son, but some complete stranger who pops up to lead fantastically successful expeditions. This turns out to be none other than Aragorn, so it should be no surprise that Denegoth ends up resenting him and his right-hand man Gandalf. But did he really neglect preparations for war or are he and Gandalf just having a difference of opinion? After all, his premature aging is the result of a lot of palantir-gazing, so he's probably at least as well informed on the situation as the Grey Pilgrim.

Of all the novels, the third is probably the one that I remember least clearly. This was good when watching the film, since it meant many surprises, but it doesn't help when trying to comprehend Tolkien's œuvre. Now I'm reading parts that I know I never read before--I skipped right over the king lists to get to the linguistic notes--and have answered at least one nagging question: Why, if Aragorn is the heir, is there a steward in Gondor in the first place? Turns out that Isildur's sons divided the West into two realms; the Southern Line died out and was replaced by stewards, but Aragorn is the last scion of the Northern Line and claims the entire West as his inheritance. It's rather as if someone from the direct line of Charlemagne who'd been mucking about in Eastern Europe for 3,000 years showed up in Paris demanding the crown. No wonder Denegoth isn't happy to see him.

Mist and twilight, cloud and shade, away shall fade!

There's a wet fog over the city today. The branches of the trees are so heavy with condensation that it's dripping like rain in the wooded areas. A few minutes outside is more than enough time for my glasses to mist over almost completely. Combine that with the overall lack of activity--even if many offices are officially open, I think quite a few people chose to give themselves a five-day weekend--and it gives everything a very eerie, deserted feel.

This meshes extremely well with the delicate melancholy I get from pondering Tolkien's works. Reading various histories of the Men of the West, I was struck with how desolate Middle-Earth is. Vast stretches of good, productive land are simply deserted. As one commentator points out, there's not a single settlement of significant size anywhere within a hundred leagues of Bree. He's being conservative. Add in the town of Dale (with the neighbouring Dwarvish settlement under Erebor) and the laughable capitol of the Rohirrim, and you've ennumerated all significant Mannish settlements north of Gondor. In direct contradiction of the laws of Malthus and the example of our own world, the population of Men and Dwarves slowly dwindles over time to mere remnants.

Clearly, a lot the inspiration for Tolkien's unusual aesthetic comes from his love affair with the rustic English countryside. But that was hollowing out in the early 20th century because farming was becoming unprofitable and people were surging into the cities. There are no cities to go to in Eriador. Curiously, the prominent exception is the Shire, which--unlike the villages it's modeled on--is vigourous and expanding. (Under Samwise's daughter, a whole new chunk of territory--the Westmarch--is added to the Shire and settled by hobbits.) Of course, the English gentry were no strangers to the romanticism of decline and decay, as their passion for Victorian follies in the form of ruined chapels and crumbling forts shows.

It's all so opposed to the American aesthetic of progress, taming the wilderness, and Manifest Destiny that it's a wonder it has any resonance at all here. But I suppose every ideology inspires a reaction. Despite lhn's description of him as a "very modern antimodernist", J.R.R.T. was a reactionary, reacting against the industrialisation and urbanisation of the Midlands by seizing the mediaeval notion that the Golden Age is behind. Often enough, I find myself falling prey to the idea that these landscapes we've shaped would be wonderful if it weren't for all the damn people. Let all the farms go out of business! That way I'd see only picturesque weathered barns and forgotten churches on my rides through the country and none of these prefab quonset huts or utility poles. (But my food has to come from somewhere.) Let the patrons stay away for good and leave the Gothic buildings in silence. (But without them, I wouldn't have a job.)