Charming Proprietor: Hi there, how can I help you?
Customer: I want a book.
Charming Proprietor: Um... yes?
Customer: Well, you see... I can't remember the name of it.
Charming Proprietor: Maybe the name of the author?
Customer: I can't remember who wrote it, either. Or what it's about.
Charming Proprietor: ...?
Customer: But I know it has a blue cover. And it's about this big. (Customer holds up hands to indicate the size of the book, which appears to be, oddly, rather book-sized)
Charming Proprietor: ...?
Earnest Customer: Do you have that book? I really want it.
Charming Proprietor: As it so happens, I have 8,000 copies of that book. Come right this way. Will you be paying by cash or by card?
Friday, July 31, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Got a Devil on the Right Shoulder and an Angel on the Left
I'm writing this because Mira told me to. And it's always wise to agree with Mira. Something terrible and hilarious will happen otherwise. And we can't have that.
So... what do you do when you have opposite critical advice from your readers? One critter (devil) says "You have to cut this whole section", and one critter (angel) says "You have to expand this whole section." It's not an entirely uncommon experience if you're in a critique group, and there's a tendency for the writer to react with paralysis. What to do? How to choose? I think the common wisdom (Stephen King, for one, seems to espouse this in On Writing) is that you do nothing. The house (writer) wins. In this little game of critical blackjack, the first option is to do nothing, as opposite views cancel each other out.
This is safe and easy, I guess, but not necessarily correct. Two people have latched on to the same element and commented on it - and not because it was working. Just because their solutions (being contradictory) may not be right, it does not erase the fact that there might be an underlying problem.
I think one of the difficulties is that writers want to group the critiques together. They want a consensus, as simple patterns are easy to interpret. So we group the crit comments together, whether it be two, three or four comments on a particular element. I don't feel this is the best approach, however, as it can be misleading. Each comment is its own and separate thing, and should be considered as such. The crit's not important... it's what you do with it. The best crit in the world is useless if you can't apply it and make your story better.
Each comment deserves to be evaluated separately. You have to take time and think, balancing the comment against your own internal vision of the story, of what you want it to accomplish. Evaluate the comment with your own aims in mind, rather than merely looking for crit consensus.
Even complete agreement within your critters can be misleading. If they all trip on the same thing, yes, there likely is a problem. But if they all suggest a cliched solution? Do you take it because there's consensus? It comes down to understanding. Try to understand the comments... and try to understand your story, what you want from it. Try to understand how you can achieve the effect you want. If A and B offer opposing comments, you may find that you want to take A's view, or maybe B's, or maybe a combination of A and B. Or maybe do as King suggests and do C (nothing). Or maybe the right answer is D, something you thought of all on your own, something that approaches the root problem rather than the surface ones.
The true advantage of getting critiques is not the advice you receive, but the opportunity to see your story in a new way, with new eyes. It allows you to step out of yourself and become the reader for a moment, and this in turn allows you to shape the words of the story to more closely achieve the effect you want. Yeah, we're manipulative. That's the job. To create something that is not there, an illusion that the reader willingly adopts - if you're convincing enough, if your manipulations are deft enough. And critiques can help us perfect that manipulation, each in their own turn.
So... what do you do when you have opposite critical advice from your readers? One critter (devil) says "You have to cut this whole section", and one critter (angel) says "You have to expand this whole section." It's not an entirely uncommon experience if you're in a critique group, and there's a tendency for the writer to react with paralysis. What to do? How to choose? I think the common wisdom (Stephen King, for one, seems to espouse this in On Writing) is that you do nothing. The house (writer) wins. In this little game of critical blackjack, the first option is to do nothing, as opposite views cancel each other out.
This is safe and easy, I guess, but not necessarily correct. Two people have latched on to the same element and commented on it - and not because it was working. Just because their solutions (being contradictory) may not be right, it does not erase the fact that there might be an underlying problem.
I think one of the difficulties is that writers want to group the critiques together. They want a consensus, as simple patterns are easy to interpret. So we group the crit comments together, whether it be two, three or four comments on a particular element. I don't feel this is the best approach, however, as it can be misleading. Each comment is its own and separate thing, and should be considered as such. The crit's not important... it's what you do with it. The best crit in the world is useless if you can't apply it and make your story better.
Each comment deserves to be evaluated separately. You have to take time and think, balancing the comment against your own internal vision of the story, of what you want it to accomplish. Evaluate the comment with your own aims in mind, rather than merely looking for crit consensus.
Even complete agreement within your critters can be misleading. If they all trip on the same thing, yes, there likely is a problem. But if they all suggest a cliched solution? Do you take it because there's consensus? It comes down to understanding. Try to understand the comments... and try to understand your story, what you want from it. Try to understand how you can achieve the effect you want. If A and B offer opposing comments, you may find that you want to take A's view, or maybe B's, or maybe a combination of A and B. Or maybe do as King suggests and do C (nothing). Or maybe the right answer is D, something you thought of all on your own, something that approaches the root problem rather than the surface ones.
The true advantage of getting critiques is not the advice you receive, but the opportunity to see your story in a new way, with new eyes. It allows you to step out of yourself and become the reader for a moment, and this in turn allows you to shape the words of the story to more closely achieve the effect you want. Yeah, we're manipulative. That's the job. To create something that is not there, an illusion that the reader willingly adopts - if you're convincing enough, if your manipulations are deft enough. And critiques can help us perfect that manipulation, each in their own turn.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Writer, reconstructed.
The process of being a struggling writer can be…well…a struggle, and in time one of two things happens: Either we crash and burn, overwhelmed and defeated by rejection and the daunting odds, or we stubbornly continue to wage the good fight and throw our bruised and bloodied egos back into the fray, over and over.
I've noticed that for myself this process takes the shape of a series of slow climbs, during which I learn a lot and believe I'm making progress, followed by a precipitous downward spiral of doubt that ends in an ego implosion/explosion of atomic bomb proportions.
But then, as the mushroom cloud slowly dissipates, a curious thing happens. While I languish in the ashes of my writing dreams, deep within me I feel the mysterious urge to create—the irresistible drive to make something from nothing—quicken to life again. The writer within me is reborn and rises from the old husk, stronger and hopefully wiser from knowledge gained in failure. Each incarnation brings me closer to where I want to be, so there's profit from the pain, but it can be an excruciating process.
I'm in the throes of just such a rebirth now and as I've considered this odd metamorphosis I have been thinking of the way in which we choose names for ourselves on these internet sites, blogs and forums, etc. I call myself Bookworm, a name hastily chosen but which fits nevertheless. I love books. But as I contemplate this crazy thing called writing and how I personally deal with it, I wonder if another name might have been more appropriate. Phoenix, perhaps. A bit too brazen? Maybe, but then I have seen cheesier.
So my question is, if you picked a name for yourself that summed up your writing experience, what would it be?
I've noticed that for myself this process takes the shape of a series of slow climbs, during which I learn a lot and believe I'm making progress, followed by a precipitous downward spiral of doubt that ends in an ego implosion/explosion of atomic bomb proportions.
But then, as the mushroom cloud slowly dissipates, a curious thing happens. While I languish in the ashes of my writing dreams, deep within me I feel the mysterious urge to create—the irresistible drive to make something from nothing—quicken to life again. The writer within me is reborn and rises from the old husk, stronger and hopefully wiser from knowledge gained in failure. Each incarnation brings me closer to where I want to be, so there's profit from the pain, but it can be an excruciating process.
I'm in the throes of just such a rebirth now and as I've considered this odd metamorphosis I have been thinking of the way in which we choose names for ourselves on these internet sites, blogs and forums, etc. I call myself Bookworm, a name hastily chosen but which fits nevertheless. I love books. But as I contemplate this crazy thing called writing and how I personally deal with it, I wonder if another name might have been more appropriate. Phoenix, perhaps. A bit too brazen? Maybe, but then I have seen cheesier.
So my question is, if you picked a name for yourself that summed up your writing experience, what would it be?
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Found in Translation
In the story of the Tower of Babel a united humanity builds a vast tower to the heavens, but this tower is devised to proclaim the glory of Man rather than God, and so God scatters the people across the lands and waters of the Earth, dividing them with distance and the death of a unified language. Peoples are separated by their fractured voices, their inability to communicate, and so in their isolation they each evolve in their own way, each following their own cultural and linguistic path. A dozen, a hundred, a thousand… small islands of homogenous voices adrift in the vast sea of the world.
And yet those islands are now connected more closely than at any other point in history. Planes wing across the world in hours, and information flies far faster. Perhaps it's not so strange that we have a translation service called Babel Fish, as the deep waters between islands grow ever more shallow, ever more transparent.
Yet we all know things are lost in translation, that differences in culture, language and evolution breed confusion and divergence. A man travels to France and attempts to ask, in broken French, for the address of the Hilton in Paris… and unwittingly asks for personal access to Paris Hilton. Une erreur romantique terrible! Un embarras culturel! This is the difficulty of connection, of communication. We laugh at the hapless man's attempt to converse… yet how does one translate schadenfreude? How does one explain it? What is it we lose in translation?
A better question, though, might be this: what do we gain in translation? Literature, too, is opening to new vistas, new opportunities. Never before has the idea of a true World Literature been so possible, so close… and yet we often look no further than our own islands. Safe harbors, pleasant beaches… so familiar, so comfortable.
But just beyond, just over the last wave… there are whole countries of new voices, whole continents of new stories. There is much to be found, I think, in these stories, in finding something separate and strange. We seek newness, originality… where better to look than beyond our own borders?
Our stories are constructions of two related worlds: the reality of our little island (the world we see around us) and the fictions derived from it. That is, our stories come from the physical reality we face (the land, the city, the people…) and from the fictions others have built upon it. We are shaped by our stories, the stories of our islands. We draw from a common pool of myths and allegories. We draw from common stories and common tropes. Elements repeat, are transformed, and repeat again. The stories change, evolve, become new… a series of minor gradations, of small shifts and jumps.
Yet the babelfish can show us something new. Stories drawn out from other pools. Stories that draw on different myths, different metaphors, different dreams… they arise from a different evolutionary path. Something entirely new… and ripe for cross fertilization.
We have before us the possibility of a vast connected world of literature. We can find a writer like Haruki Murakami through a Russian like Gogol, or from South American magical realists like Marquez or Borges. Maybe we'll see some of ourselves, too, reflected in a line, an image. Yet Murakami comes, too, from his own island, from The Tales of Genji, from Musashi and Mishima, from Tanizaki and Endo and Oe. We can see that newness, that strangeness, in Murakami, and in Kobo Abe, and in…
And here we draw back to our islands. A world literature has started, one voice found in many, a voice that whispers to itself the words of new and strange stories… yet we do not often reach for it. We know a few names… but many great writers still lie undiscovered by us, or at least ignored. The waves look high and turbulent, and the beach so comfortable…
Chinua Achebe offered us the voice of a silent continent, an Africa that had been hidden beyond words. Or, rather, he showed us his Africa… and in so doing opened us to the voices, the possibility, of other Africas. And yet those Africas, those stories uniquely born from their own strange and wonderful evolutionary paths, will disappear if we make no effort to hear them, to listen to them. Those voices will be silenced, will be hidden by distance and a lack of curiosity, by those steep waves gorging themselves on our bright beaches.
Yet such wide opportunity exists beyond those waves… and it is an opportunity we could embrace. A chance to find something new in translation, a chance to transform our own stories. Why not let our own voices be shaped by the voices of Africa, the voices of Japan?
And these voices are out there, sometimes close at hand. If you are interested in such a search, the Dalkey Archive might be a good place to start. It is a press devoted to publishing, and preserving, great works of literature, both in our language (works both out of print and unknown) and in others. They publish interesting masterpieces from a variety of countries and a variety of languages, having faith in the possibilities of translation, in its regenerative and renewing power. In the words of Ezra Pound, "English literature lives on translation, it is fed by translations, every new exuberance, every new heave is stimulated by translations, every allegedly great age is an age of translations, beginning with Geoffrey Chaucer."
So what are your experiences with translation? The good, the bad, the ugly? The humorous? What do you think translations can offer readers and writers?
And yet those islands are now connected more closely than at any other point in history. Planes wing across the world in hours, and information flies far faster. Perhaps it's not so strange that we have a translation service called Babel Fish, as the deep waters between islands grow ever more shallow, ever more transparent.
Yet we all know things are lost in translation, that differences in culture, language and evolution breed confusion and divergence. A man travels to France and attempts to ask, in broken French, for the address of the Hilton in Paris… and unwittingly asks for personal access to Paris Hilton. Une erreur romantique terrible! Un embarras culturel! This is the difficulty of connection, of communication. We laugh at the hapless man's attempt to converse… yet how does one translate schadenfreude? How does one explain it? What is it we lose in translation?
A better question, though, might be this: what do we gain in translation? Literature, too, is opening to new vistas, new opportunities. Never before has the idea of a true World Literature been so possible, so close… and yet we often look no further than our own islands. Safe harbors, pleasant beaches… so familiar, so comfortable.
But just beyond, just over the last wave… there are whole countries of new voices, whole continents of new stories. There is much to be found, I think, in these stories, in finding something separate and strange. We seek newness, originality… where better to look than beyond our own borders?
Our stories are constructions of two related worlds: the reality of our little island (the world we see around us) and the fictions derived from it. That is, our stories come from the physical reality we face (the land, the city, the people…) and from the fictions others have built upon it. We are shaped by our stories, the stories of our islands. We draw from a common pool of myths and allegories. We draw from common stories and common tropes. Elements repeat, are transformed, and repeat again. The stories change, evolve, become new… a series of minor gradations, of small shifts and jumps.
Yet the babelfish can show us something new. Stories drawn out from other pools. Stories that draw on different myths, different metaphors, different dreams… they arise from a different evolutionary path. Something entirely new… and ripe for cross fertilization.
We have before us the possibility of a vast connected world of literature. We can find a writer like Haruki Murakami through a Russian like Gogol, or from South American magical realists like Marquez or Borges. Maybe we'll see some of ourselves, too, reflected in a line, an image. Yet Murakami comes, too, from his own island, from The Tales of Genji, from Musashi and Mishima, from Tanizaki and Endo and Oe. We can see that newness, that strangeness, in Murakami, and in Kobo Abe, and in…
And here we draw back to our islands. A world literature has started, one voice found in many, a voice that whispers to itself the words of new and strange stories… yet we do not often reach for it. We know a few names… but many great writers still lie undiscovered by us, or at least ignored. The waves look high and turbulent, and the beach so comfortable…
Chinua Achebe offered us the voice of a silent continent, an Africa that had been hidden beyond words. Or, rather, he showed us his Africa… and in so doing opened us to the voices, the possibility, of other Africas. And yet those Africas, those stories uniquely born from their own strange and wonderful evolutionary paths, will disappear if we make no effort to hear them, to listen to them. Those voices will be silenced, will be hidden by distance and a lack of curiosity, by those steep waves gorging themselves on our bright beaches.
Yet such wide opportunity exists beyond those waves… and it is an opportunity we could embrace. A chance to find something new in translation, a chance to transform our own stories. Why not let our own voices be shaped by the voices of Africa, the voices of Japan?
And these voices are out there, sometimes close at hand. If you are interested in such a search, the Dalkey Archive might be a good place to start. It is a press devoted to publishing, and preserving, great works of literature, both in our language (works both out of print and unknown) and in others. They publish interesting masterpieces from a variety of countries and a variety of languages, having faith in the possibilities of translation, in its regenerative and renewing power. In the words of Ezra Pound, "English literature lives on translation, it is fed by translations, every new exuberance, every new heave is stimulated by translations, every allegedly great age is an age of translations, beginning with Geoffrey Chaucer."
So what are your experiences with translation? The good, the bad, the ugly? The humorous? What do you think translations can offer readers and writers?
Friday, July 3, 2009
Blogging the Rings: Fellowship, Book 1, Chapter 10
We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of... Oops, wrong story.
Strider
I think the opening here is a little stronger than many of the other chapters so far. We're a little more in the thick of things. Strider speaks with the hobbits, and again it's a game of hints, of offers and questions. It's nicely played, I think, keeping the tension high. He could have just come in and announced himself, but I think it would have come off a little preachy and dull. And it keeps an air of mystery around Strider, and I think that mystery is one of the pleasurable aspects of the story, particularly as he's slowly transformed from this fey Ranger, Strider, into the King of the West, Aragorn. I think proclaiming himself here would have ruined much of that. I enjoy the fact that he's somewhat sly and shifty here, and it adds a level of tension to a scene that might otherwise be too much talk and too little action (or conflict).
Strider also brings home a little more of the danger of the Black Riders. "They are terrible!... You fear them, but you do not fear them enough, yet." The same, of course, might be said of the reader, on account of some of Tolkien's choices in portraying the Black Riders and their pursuit. Yet for the next section their danger and menace is necessarily important, and so the task now is to build up that sense of menace, and the reaction of Strider, this mysterious and seemingly powerful stranger, helps sway both the hobbits and the reader.
And when Strider is about to share his story... he's interrupted by the arrival of the inkeeper. A simple little trick, but I think it adds a little tension. We're now left with a bit of a cliffhanger, wondering what Strider will tell us... yet the innkeeper has important news, too. I think it keeps both balls in the air at once, allowing them to play off each other and shade meanings.
The innkeeper bears a letter from Gandalf... a letter that was supposed to have been delivered months ago. Another little bit that adds tension, I think, along with the delayed opening of the letter. It could have simply been left for Frodo if he arrived... but the fact that the delivery failed creates a tension that filters through the scene, playing on the already built up mystery of Gandalf's absence.
The letter offers a vague explanation of that absence (more mystery), and also relates that they should have left the Shire long before they did. They are now late... and that lateness has greatly increased the danger. This ties in with that new menace of the Black Riders, setting up the conflicts to come, the increasing danger. It's a careful setting of mood and expectation.
We also see a hint of Aragorn in Strider, the majesty to be revealed: "He stood up, and seemed suddenly to grow taller. In his eyes gleamed a light, keen and commanding. Throwing back his cloak, he laid his hand on the hilt of a sword that had hung concealed by his side. They did not dare to move. Sam sat wide-mouthed staring at him dumbly." This deepens, I think, the mystery set about Strider, and also sets up an image of the tension that runs through the character of Aragorn: the hidden life of a Ranger, and the open life of Isildur's Heir, the open life of a King set to challenge Sauron. We see only a moment of the King, here, for now is still the time of the Ranger, the time of a guide. Aragorn can hold to this, in truth, until the breaking of the Fellowship.
Yet Strider is exceedingly worried about Gandalf's absence. What could keep him away? And there are hints, too, of Gandalf's hidden powers... and some foreshadowing hidden in the words of Strider: "But this business of ours will be his greatest task."
Merry returns, and with sudden news: Black Riders have come. He saw them, and then was overcome by some sort of spell... again falling into a sort of sleep. A bit of a motif growing here... the magical sleep of Old Man Willow, and then in the Barrow Downs, and in the tomb of the wight... and now here with the Black Breath of the Riders. Sleep as... what? Death? Capitulation? Loss of will and choice? The end of seduction (in the sense of sin)? Strider says that the Riders power is in terror... which holds throughout the novel, yet he also says they will not openly attack a house where there are lights and many people. Which seems odd... would they not do so even for the One Ring? What could stop them? Certainly their attitude has changed by the Return of the King, when they attack Minis Tirith. Is that a bit of deus ex machina? Their attributes and characteristics shift a little according to what is most convenient for the story? Or is it merely part of that finding out process, that sense of transformation and discovery that seems to accompany the story as Tolkien passes farther into it, as he delves more deeply into the heart of the story?
The chapter ends with a return to discussion about Frodo's silly song in the tavern... but in the end the humour is undercut by Strider, whose words are a return to reality, a warning of the dangers to come.
It's an interesting chapter... little action in the foreground, and yet a certain tension is carried through. A chapter of dialogue, of talk... and yet a number of techniques help keep the pace moving. Interesting choices... Tolkien does like having a lot happen offstage. Merry's run-in with the Black Riders could easily have been shown... but instead it's relayed to the reader in dialogue, in a chapter already heavy with such dialogue. There's a unity in that, I guess, and this format keeps the focus more tightly on Frodo. Yet it seems a fairly dramatic moment to happen off-stage. Interesting, really... and Tolkien does it a lot in the story to come, too. Anyone have thoughts on that?
Strider
I think the opening here is a little stronger than many of the other chapters so far. We're a little more in the thick of things. Strider speaks with the hobbits, and again it's a game of hints, of offers and questions. It's nicely played, I think, keeping the tension high. He could have just come in and announced himself, but I think it would have come off a little preachy and dull. And it keeps an air of mystery around Strider, and I think that mystery is one of the pleasurable aspects of the story, particularly as he's slowly transformed from this fey Ranger, Strider, into the King of the West, Aragorn. I think proclaiming himself here would have ruined much of that. I enjoy the fact that he's somewhat sly and shifty here, and it adds a level of tension to a scene that might otherwise be too much talk and too little action (or conflict).
Strider also brings home a little more of the danger of the Black Riders. "They are terrible!... You fear them, but you do not fear them enough, yet." The same, of course, might be said of the reader, on account of some of Tolkien's choices in portraying the Black Riders and their pursuit. Yet for the next section their danger and menace is necessarily important, and so the task now is to build up that sense of menace, and the reaction of Strider, this mysterious and seemingly powerful stranger, helps sway both the hobbits and the reader.
And when Strider is about to share his story... he's interrupted by the arrival of the inkeeper. A simple little trick, but I think it adds a little tension. We're now left with a bit of a cliffhanger, wondering what Strider will tell us... yet the innkeeper has important news, too. I think it keeps both balls in the air at once, allowing them to play off each other and shade meanings.
The innkeeper bears a letter from Gandalf... a letter that was supposed to have been delivered months ago. Another little bit that adds tension, I think, along with the delayed opening of the letter. It could have simply been left for Frodo if he arrived... but the fact that the delivery failed creates a tension that filters through the scene, playing on the already built up mystery of Gandalf's absence.
The letter offers a vague explanation of that absence (more mystery), and also relates that they should have left the Shire long before they did. They are now late... and that lateness has greatly increased the danger. This ties in with that new menace of the Black Riders, setting up the conflicts to come, the increasing danger. It's a careful setting of mood and expectation.
We also see a hint of Aragorn in Strider, the majesty to be revealed: "He stood up, and seemed suddenly to grow taller. In his eyes gleamed a light, keen and commanding. Throwing back his cloak, he laid his hand on the hilt of a sword that had hung concealed by his side. They did not dare to move. Sam sat wide-mouthed staring at him dumbly." This deepens, I think, the mystery set about Strider, and also sets up an image of the tension that runs through the character of Aragorn: the hidden life of a Ranger, and the open life of Isildur's Heir, the open life of a King set to challenge Sauron. We see only a moment of the King, here, for now is still the time of the Ranger, the time of a guide. Aragorn can hold to this, in truth, until the breaking of the Fellowship.
Yet Strider is exceedingly worried about Gandalf's absence. What could keep him away? And there are hints, too, of Gandalf's hidden powers... and some foreshadowing hidden in the words of Strider: "But this business of ours will be his greatest task."
Merry returns, and with sudden news: Black Riders have come. He saw them, and then was overcome by some sort of spell... again falling into a sort of sleep. A bit of a motif growing here... the magical sleep of Old Man Willow, and then in the Barrow Downs, and in the tomb of the wight... and now here with the Black Breath of the Riders. Sleep as... what? Death? Capitulation? Loss of will and choice? The end of seduction (in the sense of sin)? Strider says that the Riders power is in terror... which holds throughout the novel, yet he also says they will not openly attack a house where there are lights and many people. Which seems odd... would they not do so even for the One Ring? What could stop them? Certainly their attitude has changed by the Return of the King, when they attack Minis Tirith. Is that a bit of deus ex machina? Their attributes and characteristics shift a little according to what is most convenient for the story? Or is it merely part of that finding out process, that sense of transformation and discovery that seems to accompany the story as Tolkien passes farther into it, as he delves more deeply into the heart of the story?
The chapter ends with a return to discussion about Frodo's silly song in the tavern... but in the end the humour is undercut by Strider, whose words are a return to reality, a warning of the dangers to come.
It's an interesting chapter... little action in the foreground, and yet a certain tension is carried through. A chapter of dialogue, of talk... and yet a number of techniques help keep the pace moving. Interesting choices... Tolkien does like having a lot happen offstage. Merry's run-in with the Black Riders could easily have been shown... but instead it's relayed to the reader in dialogue, in a chapter already heavy with such dialogue. There's a unity in that, I guess, and this format keeps the focus more tightly on Frodo. Yet it seems a fairly dramatic moment to happen off-stage. Interesting, really... and Tolkien does it a lot in the story to come, too. Anyone have thoughts on that?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Blogging the Rings: Fellowship, Book 1, Chapter 9
Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo!
I admit, it cheers me up on grey and rainy days...
At the Sign of the Prancing Pony
Today's chapter starts with... info dump! Mega infodump at that! If you have a hankering for exposition, well, this is the chapter opening for you. Over two solid pages of pure information about Bree, its history, its people... and without any attempt whatsoever of rooting it in the present action. Very much the omniscient voice, here, taking a break from the story to provide an insightful lecture. Some of it we don't really need, and the rest could be worked in much more fluidly, I believe.
It also makes me think again of the overall chapter structures. Tolkien typically seems to like the slow opening, a chapter that starts in quiet and then builds towards tension and resolution... and then he looks to do the same thing again in the next chapter. It gives a certain contained quality, I think, to each chapter, a sense of each chapter as a story in and of itself. There's a nice structure to it, I think, a feeling that each chapter has its own meanings and importance. The trouble arises, I think, with some of these transitions. Exposition here, and lots of others where they're waking up, or eating breakfast. Somewhat lacking in hook, and forward motion seems to stall a bit... though the reader might still be riding the high of the previous chapter's conclusion, and so be willing to read on through the slow openings. Makes me wonder, though, if this habit continues, if the chapter structure reoccurs even in the heart of the action later in the story? (And makes me want to go look at patterns in my own writing, too...)
Post infodump, the hobbits finally enter Bree, after the gateman warns them of "strange folk" about. The hobbits take lodging at the Inn of the Prancing Pony, and then three of them adjourn to the common room to drink and to meet the locals (both hobbit and human).
And here we meet Strider/Aragorn for the the first time: a worn and weathered traveller who watches Frodo with keen eyes. And his introduction is framed by the warnings of the innkeeper that he is a mysterious ranger, strange and possibly dangerous. I think this is one of the key moments in the development of the story. Originally, there was no Strider, but rather a wild and rangerish sort of hobbit called Trotter. The difference in those two options is vast, and it is in this character choice that much of the story is shaped. With Trotter you'd have a continued hobbit-centric story, a quaint adventure about how hobbits interact with the great wide world, a la The Hobbit. With Strider, however, you have the whole history and mythos of the Numenoreans brought in, the very history of Middle-Earth. Strider, I think, as the hidden and true King of the West, is the key connection between the story Tolkien had started here (that is, a sequel to The Hobbit) and the stories (the history of Middle Earth) that he had been working on for decades (as laid out in books like the Silmarillion). He brings in the rise of Man and the fall of the Elves, the great Decline. So many of the later plotlines grew out of this moment, this choice: a hobbit called Trotter or a ranger named Strider? The right choice, I think, was made.
It's an introduction that is handled quite well. A mysterious stranger... benevolent or dangerous? And he seems to know far more than he should, which Frodo tries to ignore. Where could he get such information? The hints are played well, and contribute to the tension of the scene. Not only is Pippin doing something foolish, telling a risky story to a crowd... but Strider seems to know where the story is going, and that this story is not one Frodo would want to share at this time.
Frodo, looking to distract everyone, starts to sing a silly song. Interestingly, though, Tolkien acknowledges the silliness here, calling it a "ridiculous song" (though he still happily shows us verse after verse). And the silliness is undercut further by the ending... Frodo slips on the Ring and vanishes. An accident? Or something more? "Perhaps it had tried to reveal itself in response to some wish or command that was felt in the room." The power of the Ring shapes the scene, darkens it. Silly songs do not end well, here... Danger is everywhere and imminent.
Strider speaks again with Frodo, and again displays disconcerting knowledge, hinting at some understanding of the Ring. He wishes to see Frodo privately, as does the innkeeper, who has remembered some important news...
Again, the chapter is neatly wrapped up, though at least here some of the tension is being carried over - what will Strider say (and do)? And what will the innkeeper say?
I admit, it cheers me up on grey and rainy days...
At the Sign of the Prancing Pony
Today's chapter starts with... info dump! Mega infodump at that! If you have a hankering for exposition, well, this is the chapter opening for you. Over two solid pages of pure information about Bree, its history, its people... and without any attempt whatsoever of rooting it in the present action. Very much the omniscient voice, here, taking a break from the story to provide an insightful lecture. Some of it we don't really need, and the rest could be worked in much more fluidly, I believe.
It also makes me think again of the overall chapter structures. Tolkien typically seems to like the slow opening, a chapter that starts in quiet and then builds towards tension and resolution... and then he looks to do the same thing again in the next chapter. It gives a certain contained quality, I think, to each chapter, a sense of each chapter as a story in and of itself. There's a nice structure to it, I think, a feeling that each chapter has its own meanings and importance. The trouble arises, I think, with some of these transitions. Exposition here, and lots of others where they're waking up, or eating breakfast. Somewhat lacking in hook, and forward motion seems to stall a bit... though the reader might still be riding the high of the previous chapter's conclusion, and so be willing to read on through the slow openings. Makes me wonder, though, if this habit continues, if the chapter structure reoccurs even in the heart of the action later in the story? (And makes me want to go look at patterns in my own writing, too...)
Post infodump, the hobbits finally enter Bree, after the gateman warns them of "strange folk" about. The hobbits take lodging at the Inn of the Prancing Pony, and then three of them adjourn to the common room to drink and to meet the locals (both hobbit and human).
And here we meet Strider/Aragorn for the the first time: a worn and weathered traveller who watches Frodo with keen eyes. And his introduction is framed by the warnings of the innkeeper that he is a mysterious ranger, strange and possibly dangerous. I think this is one of the key moments in the development of the story. Originally, there was no Strider, but rather a wild and rangerish sort of hobbit called Trotter. The difference in those two options is vast, and it is in this character choice that much of the story is shaped. With Trotter you'd have a continued hobbit-centric story, a quaint adventure about how hobbits interact with the great wide world, a la The Hobbit. With Strider, however, you have the whole history and mythos of the Numenoreans brought in, the very history of Middle-Earth. Strider, I think, as the hidden and true King of the West, is the key connection between the story Tolkien had started here (that is, a sequel to The Hobbit) and the stories (the history of Middle Earth) that he had been working on for decades (as laid out in books like the Silmarillion). He brings in the rise of Man and the fall of the Elves, the great Decline. So many of the later plotlines grew out of this moment, this choice: a hobbit called Trotter or a ranger named Strider? The right choice, I think, was made.
It's an introduction that is handled quite well. A mysterious stranger... benevolent or dangerous? And he seems to know far more than he should, which Frodo tries to ignore. Where could he get such information? The hints are played well, and contribute to the tension of the scene. Not only is Pippin doing something foolish, telling a risky story to a crowd... but Strider seems to know where the story is going, and that this story is not one Frodo would want to share at this time.
Frodo, looking to distract everyone, starts to sing a silly song. Interestingly, though, Tolkien acknowledges the silliness here, calling it a "ridiculous song" (though he still happily shows us verse after verse). And the silliness is undercut further by the ending... Frodo slips on the Ring and vanishes. An accident? Or something more? "Perhaps it had tried to reveal itself in response to some wish or command that was felt in the room." The power of the Ring shapes the scene, darkens it. Silly songs do not end well, here... Danger is everywhere and imminent.
Strider speaks again with Frodo, and again displays disconcerting knowledge, hinting at some understanding of the Ring. He wishes to see Frodo privately, as does the innkeeper, who has remembered some important news...
Again, the chapter is neatly wrapped up, though at least here some of the tension is being carried over - what will Strider say (and do)? And what will the innkeeper say?
Friday, June 26, 2009
Blogging the Rings: Fellowship, Book 1, Chapter 8
Back at it...
Fog on the Barrow-Downs
The chapter opens with a beautiful little bit, another strange sort of vision or dream, though perhaps it's real... Tolkien consciously casts doubt on how it is perceived.
"But either in his dreams or out of them, he could not tell which, Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind: a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise."
Again we have the long lines, poetic and rolling, images built and slowly layered. Not so glib, now, but more and more the evocative language takes precedent within the story. A vision here... of what? The afterlife? His final trip across the sea? Unclear, but it is a hopeful image, a bit of light to shine through the darkness and fear yet to come.
The hobbits head off, away from Tom's home, but realize they did not say goodbye to Goldberry. Frodo laments, and his dialogue is one of those bits that rings poorly in my ear. Tolkien often uses a formal sort of dialogue, but I usually find it reads well, and fairly human, for all that. But occasional bits of speech sound pretty unlikely, such as this one, where Frodo slips into a sort of false rhymey style (not unlike Tom Bombadil, really): "My fair lady, clad all in silver green! We have never said farewell to her, nor seen her since the evening!" The similar line structure and rhythm, topped with the almost-rhyme of "green" and "evening", makes this bit seem awkward to me. And "clad all in silver green" seems rather odd for spoken dialogue, particularly as something said to the other hobbits, who know Goldberry as well as he does. It seems strange to highlight that bit of information here.
And the barrow-downs themselves, evocatively described, and again with the long line, the rhythmic and poetic description: "Eastward the Barrow-downs rose, ridge behind ridge into the morning, and vanished out of eyesight into a guess: it was no more than a guess of blue and a remote white glimmer blending with the hem of the sky, but it spoke to them, out of memory and old tales, of the high and distant mountains." Imagery connected to history and the hobbits own knowledge, tied neatly together. And more of that imagery to create mood and danger: "and all those hills were crowned with green mounds, and on some were standing stones, pointing upwards like jagged teeth out of green gums." Not only is the imagery connected to a desired mood, but also to the action to come. The standing stones like jagged teeth in green gums... and the hobbits are about to be captured and swallowed by one of these barrows. The imagery, in a sense, prefigures the action.
The hobbits fall into an unnatural sleep, one they never meant to take (an echo of Old Man Willow, and a furtherance of the sleep=death metaphor, perhaps). Fog swallows the barrow-downs, making a mystery of the world, much like at the crossing of the Brandywine. Here, though, there is no happy ending: the hobbits are separated and become lost, and Frodo hear's only distantly the shouts of the others, shouts which seem to become cries for help.
Frodo collapses, and is captured by a barrow-wight, a "tall dark figure like a shadow against the stars." Its voice is "deep and cold", and its eyes too are "very cold". It has an "icy touch", and a "grip stronger and colder than iron". Four uses of "cold" description in two paragraphs... a hammer to drive home the point. There seems, to me, to be a very strong hint of the wraiths here: is the barrow-wight, perhaps, the key to the transition between the Black Riders and the Ringwraiths? The wight is cold and almost half-substantial here, a creature (or man) somewhere between life and death... much as the Nine Riders are (as we will soon learn). And the cold descriptions reinforce the idea of death, of this half-life.
Frodo awakes on a cold stone, and there is a cold glow, and his sleeping companions look "cold and unlovely". And then a cold murmur (a song), cold words, a cold curse which chills Frodo, and the first two lines of the song, the incantation, both have cold in them. And yet, oddly, it doesn't read too badly. The repetition works, I think, perhaps helped by the simpleness of the word. It's not a ten dollar word, doesn't protrude too much from the text. Certainly it helps create a little scenic motif here.
There's a few oddities, too, in this section. The other hobbits have been clad in white, and are surrounded by treasures, and adorned in circlets and gold chains and rings. The ring mention is interesting, and makes me think again of the ringwraiths, for it was the Nine Rings that made them into wraiths. Yet it still seems a little odd, too. We have to picture the fey wight undressing the hobbits... and then redressing them and placing these items upon them. It's an odd image, when taken practically, and hard to connect with the mood and mystery of the scene. A little silly, in a way, when you think of it. But Tolkien is careful (consciously?) of not mentioning the practical aspect of how this change must have occurred, but sticks simply to the ghostly image of how they now appear to Frodo.
Another oddity, the description of the wight coming for them: "Round the corner a long arm was groping, walking on its fingers towards Sam, who was lying nearest, and towards the hilt of the sword that lay upon him." An odd image, as nothing is given but the arm, and its movement, how it walks upon its fingers... a strangely disembodied image, as if the wight is nothing but the arm, a severed arm creeping toward them on its fingers.
And Frodo thinks about putting on his ring and disappearing, feels drawn to do so... another connection with the Ringwraiths, who create just such a pressure in Frodo - put on the ring, put on the ring, put on the ring...
"And the arm crept nearer"... not the wight, just the arm. Again the odd and disturbing image of the severed arm, bodiless and creeping. Frodo hews at the "crawling arm" (again disembodied, with no mention of the wight itself) and "the hand broke off". An interesting word choice, the use of "broke". It doesn't seem to fit with a sword, something cutting, but the use of that word helps reinforce the image of the cold, hard wight.
And then Frodo calls for Tom Bombadil, who seems almost magically to appear. Lightness returns, with Tom's songs and rhymes, and he dispels the wight and the darkness, light streaming in. Only the hand of the wight remains, truly severed now, yet still wriggling "like a wounded spider". An interesting use, again, of imagery foreshadowing action, with the seemingly disembodied arm coming before the actual severing of the hand.
Tom leads them free, and tells them to strip off the strange garb placed on them by the wight... and to run naked on the grass. Which the hobbits do. Really, Tolkien? Really? Is this quite the time to be frolicking naked in the grass? Quite the odd little moment, it seems to me. I suppose the intent is to highlight the return to innocence, to being fresh-born... but on the realist level it seems quite ludicrous. We barely escape a deathly wight... well, let us frolic naked in the grass! Because, you know, I always do that with my buddies after a tough day.
Tom brings them back their ponies... and brings them weapons, too, strong weapons that will be good for fighting agents of the Dark Lord. Yet this surprises the hobbits, as "Fighting had not before occurred to any of them as one of the adventures in which their flight would land them." This seems, on the face of it, a very odd statement. Yes, they're peaceable hobbit folk, but are they really all that naive? Even Bilbo, on his less serious adventure, had to fight. And they know the fate of the world hangs on their mission, and the Dark Lord hunts for them... and fighting never occurred to any of them? Seems a little strange, I think.
Finally they pass from the Barrow-mounds and reach the Road, and here a fear of the Black Riders returns, something they had almost forgotten. This strikes me in two ways: one, it's a good move on Tolkien's part, drawing the reader's attention back to the main plotline and the central conflict. And two, it helps show just how self-cointained these last chapters have been, and how little connection they have with the rest of the story. There's much that is wonderful in them... yet they have not been highly relevant, either.
And lastly they reach the town of Bree, and they recall the necessary subterfuge that must come: Frodo is to be Mr. Underhill, and no longer Mr. Baggins. This again focuses the story back on the main plot, the danger of the Ring - and those who hunt it. And the hobbits seek only "a door between them and the night."
Fog on the Barrow-Downs
The chapter opens with a beautiful little bit, another strange sort of vision or dream, though perhaps it's real... Tolkien consciously casts doubt on how it is perceived.
"But either in his dreams or out of them, he could not tell which, Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind: a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise."
Again we have the long lines, poetic and rolling, images built and slowly layered. Not so glib, now, but more and more the evocative language takes precedent within the story. A vision here... of what? The afterlife? His final trip across the sea? Unclear, but it is a hopeful image, a bit of light to shine through the darkness and fear yet to come.
The hobbits head off, away from Tom's home, but realize they did not say goodbye to Goldberry. Frodo laments, and his dialogue is one of those bits that rings poorly in my ear. Tolkien often uses a formal sort of dialogue, but I usually find it reads well, and fairly human, for all that. But occasional bits of speech sound pretty unlikely, such as this one, where Frodo slips into a sort of false rhymey style (not unlike Tom Bombadil, really): "My fair lady, clad all in silver green! We have never said farewell to her, nor seen her since the evening!" The similar line structure and rhythm, topped with the almost-rhyme of "green" and "evening", makes this bit seem awkward to me. And "clad all in silver green" seems rather odd for spoken dialogue, particularly as something said to the other hobbits, who know Goldberry as well as he does. It seems strange to highlight that bit of information here.
And the barrow-downs themselves, evocatively described, and again with the long line, the rhythmic and poetic description: "Eastward the Barrow-downs rose, ridge behind ridge into the morning, and vanished out of eyesight into a guess: it was no more than a guess of blue and a remote white glimmer blending with the hem of the sky, but it spoke to them, out of memory and old tales, of the high and distant mountains." Imagery connected to history and the hobbits own knowledge, tied neatly together. And more of that imagery to create mood and danger: "and all those hills were crowned with green mounds, and on some were standing stones, pointing upwards like jagged teeth out of green gums." Not only is the imagery connected to a desired mood, but also to the action to come. The standing stones like jagged teeth in green gums... and the hobbits are about to be captured and swallowed by one of these barrows. The imagery, in a sense, prefigures the action.
The hobbits fall into an unnatural sleep, one they never meant to take (an echo of Old Man Willow, and a furtherance of the sleep=death metaphor, perhaps). Fog swallows the barrow-downs, making a mystery of the world, much like at the crossing of the Brandywine. Here, though, there is no happy ending: the hobbits are separated and become lost, and Frodo hear's only distantly the shouts of the others, shouts which seem to become cries for help.
Frodo collapses, and is captured by a barrow-wight, a "tall dark figure like a shadow against the stars." Its voice is "deep and cold", and its eyes too are "very cold". It has an "icy touch", and a "grip stronger and colder than iron". Four uses of "cold" description in two paragraphs... a hammer to drive home the point. There seems, to me, to be a very strong hint of the wraiths here: is the barrow-wight, perhaps, the key to the transition between the Black Riders and the Ringwraiths? The wight is cold and almost half-substantial here, a creature (or man) somewhere between life and death... much as the Nine Riders are (as we will soon learn). And the cold descriptions reinforce the idea of death, of this half-life.
Frodo awakes on a cold stone, and there is a cold glow, and his sleeping companions look "cold and unlovely". And then a cold murmur (a song), cold words, a cold curse which chills Frodo, and the first two lines of the song, the incantation, both have cold in them. And yet, oddly, it doesn't read too badly. The repetition works, I think, perhaps helped by the simpleness of the word. It's not a ten dollar word, doesn't protrude too much from the text. Certainly it helps create a little scenic motif here.
There's a few oddities, too, in this section. The other hobbits have been clad in white, and are surrounded by treasures, and adorned in circlets and gold chains and rings. The ring mention is interesting, and makes me think again of the ringwraiths, for it was the Nine Rings that made them into wraiths. Yet it still seems a little odd, too. We have to picture the fey wight undressing the hobbits... and then redressing them and placing these items upon them. It's an odd image, when taken practically, and hard to connect with the mood and mystery of the scene. A little silly, in a way, when you think of it. But Tolkien is careful (consciously?) of not mentioning the practical aspect of how this change must have occurred, but sticks simply to the ghostly image of how they now appear to Frodo.
Another oddity, the description of the wight coming for them: "Round the corner a long arm was groping, walking on its fingers towards Sam, who was lying nearest, and towards the hilt of the sword that lay upon him." An odd image, as nothing is given but the arm, and its movement, how it walks upon its fingers... a strangely disembodied image, as if the wight is nothing but the arm, a severed arm creeping toward them on its fingers.
And Frodo thinks about putting on his ring and disappearing, feels drawn to do so... another connection with the Ringwraiths, who create just such a pressure in Frodo - put on the ring, put on the ring, put on the ring...
"And the arm crept nearer"... not the wight, just the arm. Again the odd and disturbing image of the severed arm, bodiless and creeping. Frodo hews at the "crawling arm" (again disembodied, with no mention of the wight itself) and "the hand broke off". An interesting word choice, the use of "broke". It doesn't seem to fit with a sword, something cutting, but the use of that word helps reinforce the image of the cold, hard wight.
And then Frodo calls for Tom Bombadil, who seems almost magically to appear. Lightness returns, with Tom's songs and rhymes, and he dispels the wight and the darkness, light streaming in. Only the hand of the wight remains, truly severed now, yet still wriggling "like a wounded spider". An interesting use, again, of imagery foreshadowing action, with the seemingly disembodied arm coming before the actual severing of the hand.
Tom leads them free, and tells them to strip off the strange garb placed on them by the wight... and to run naked on the grass. Which the hobbits do. Really, Tolkien? Really? Is this quite the time to be frolicking naked in the grass? Quite the odd little moment, it seems to me. I suppose the intent is to highlight the return to innocence, to being fresh-born... but on the realist level it seems quite ludicrous. We barely escape a deathly wight... well, let us frolic naked in the grass! Because, you know, I always do that with my buddies after a tough day.
Tom brings them back their ponies... and brings them weapons, too, strong weapons that will be good for fighting agents of the Dark Lord. Yet this surprises the hobbits, as "Fighting had not before occurred to any of them as one of the adventures in which their flight would land them." This seems, on the face of it, a very odd statement. Yes, they're peaceable hobbit folk, but are they really all that naive? Even Bilbo, on his less serious adventure, had to fight. And they know the fate of the world hangs on their mission, and the Dark Lord hunts for them... and fighting never occurred to any of them? Seems a little strange, I think.
Finally they pass from the Barrow-mounds and reach the Road, and here a fear of the Black Riders returns, something they had almost forgotten. This strikes me in two ways: one, it's a good move on Tolkien's part, drawing the reader's attention back to the main plotline and the central conflict. And two, it helps show just how self-cointained these last chapters have been, and how little connection they have with the rest of the story. There's much that is wonderful in them... yet they have not been highly relevant, either.
And lastly they reach the town of Bree, and they recall the necessary subterfuge that must come: Frodo is to be Mr. Underhill, and no longer Mr. Baggins. This again focuses the story back on the main plot, the danger of the Ring - and those who hunt it. And the hobbits seek only "a door between them and the night."
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