Journeys in Middle-earth - Part 1

First Steps

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

I was ten when I first came to “The Hobbit”. It was not a well-known book among my school-friends bar one, and from time to time we would discuss aspects of the book, where Gollum came from, what was it about the Elves that made them seem so febrile when there was a hint of something deeper and greater and who was the mysterious Necromancer that dwelt in Dol Guldur on the skirts of Mirkwood.

There were a number of other questions raised by “The Hobbit” – where did hobbits come from – was Middle-earth part of our “earth” or somewhere else altogether – were the goblins just annoying goblins or were they minions of a greater evil and, of course, where did Smaug the dragon  come from.

These questions bounced around from time to time until the friend with whom I had these discussions advised me – and I still recall his words – “there’s a new hobbit book out. It is called “The Fellowship of the Ring” and it is the first of three.”

Now at last were the questions going to be answered. Off to the Remuera Public Library where the three books were found in the Children’s Section which probably says something about the thinking behind the cataloguing of the day. And I devoured the book.

It started off in the same vein as the Hobbit but as the story progressed it became deeper and deeper and at times darker. There were hints of a long-forgotten past – the men of Carn Dum mentioned in the Fog on Barrowdowns chapter – the Dark Riders who gradually became more and more malevolent as the hobbits, accompanied by Aragorn/Strider, travelled to Rivendell and a momentary look at the elf-lord Glorfindel – a shining figure of white light as seen by Frodo - later described by Gandalf

“you saw him for a moment as he is on the other side: one of the mighty of the First-born. He is an elf-lord of the house of princes.”

Gandalf also reveals to Frodo the true nature of Aragorn – one of a line of Kings – and it is at this stage that there are signs that the story is about to shift. In the long chapter The Council of Elrond the shift takes place and it takes place with a vengeance.

No more is this a “continuation” of the hobbit. The style becomes more serious, the story-telling more elegant. We realise in fact that everything that has gone before is part of a much, much deeper story and what was a “hobbit-story” movers into the realm of epic. The light-hearted moments are still there from time to time but that happen within a much greater and closely woven tapestry.

I was swept up by the “Fellowship”. The story captured my imagination in a way that had never happened before. Of course I was unaware, as was most of the literary world bar a few, of the fact that Tolkien had been writing about Middle-earth and his created realm since 1916. But all of this writing provided a depth for the “Lord of the Rings” that gives it a special quality. For example, the poem about Beren and Luthien recited by Aragorn is a tale that Tolkien had been working on for years. And the poem about Earendil links the story to a much deeper past and to the marvellous Silmarils and the fate of Feanor. Indeed, the Silmarils and Earendil’s star make an appearance when Galadriel gives Frodo the Star-glass at Lothlorien. Galadriel herself, like Glorfindel, has a deep past and is part of the ongoing history of Middle-earth of which the Ring and Sauron are a part – and an important part at that.

And so I came to the end of the Fellowship. The Fellowhip itself was broken. Merry and Pippin have been captured by Saruman’s Orcs. Legolas, Gimli and Aragorn chase after them. Gandalf is long gone – he fell to the Balrog in Khazad-dum. Frodo and Sam have surreptitiously departed across the Anduin River and are headed to Mordor.

“Then shouldering their burdens, they set off, seeking a path that would bring them over the grey hills of the Emyn Muil and down into the Land of Shadow.”

The next day, after reading these words, I returned to the book the to Library and sought out the second volume – “The Two Towers”. But it was not there! Someone else had borrowed it. What to do.

“The Return of the King” was on the shelf and I decided to take it out instead, filling in a summary of the plot detail from the synopsis in that book before enagaging with the main meal. But ever since my vision of “The Lord of the Rings” has been that narrative jump from the Breaking of the Fellowship to the first lines of “The Return of the King.”

“Pippin looked out from the shelter of Gandalf’s cloak. He wondered if he was awake or still sleeping, still in the swift-moving dream in which he had been wrapped so long since the great ride began.”

There was no way that the synopsis could answer the questions that arose from that passage alone but I read on and finished the narrative and then devoured the Appendices in which Tolkien sets out much of the background of Middle-earth. It was clear by this time that there was much more to Middle-earth than sate between the covers of three books.

But what to do about “The Two Towers”. Time passed and the next big event in the journey came in 1961.

There was a bookshop at the Victoria Ave shops called C.G. Swallow and Son. It was a branch of a similar shop situated in High Street in the city. The company was started in 1923 but has since gone out of business. But on the shelves for sale was a set of “The Lord of the Rings” for the price of £1.6.0 (26/-) each. Way beyond my means or my saved pocket money of 2/6 per week.

So I approached my father who wanted to be assured that this was going to be a worthwhile purchase and not a flash in the pan. Long discussions followed and without any commitment on a Friday night we went to the bookshop. My father studied the books and especially the reviews on the back of the dust-jacket, and was impressed by the recommendation of C.S. Lewis and so the books were purchased and I still have them.

Flash in the pan – I think not and now worth a lot more than the $7.80 paid for them.

But this was only the beginning. My next big encounter with “The Lord of the Rings” took place in San Francisco in 1965. But that is a tale for another time.