At 02:36 PM 2/18/2004 -0500, Beth Quitslund wrote:
> (Bill, I just
don't see it: have you
>tried picking up *The Two Towers* when you haven't read Tolkien in a while,
>and just starting there? It's like a bad translation!) OK, the elvish
>looked more regular and more comprehensible than it had before, and Pippin
>and Merry have aged better than R2D2 and C3PO. But has anyone written about
>the obvious similarities between Gandalf and Obi Wan Kenobe?
I'm rather fond of old Obi-Wan, myself. A couple of my favorite lines:
- Who is more foolish? The fool, or the fool who follows him?
- Mos Eisley Spaceport: you will never find a more wretched hive of scum
and villainy.
Gandalf, though, is far more quotable. For example, the next time a student
complains about a grade, try this, and don't hold back on the volume:
- You shall not pass!
That's the movie version -- a bit more emphatic than the book version,
which just says, "You cannot pass." If that doesn't work, remind him that
you are a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. Then
banish him to the Shadow. If he persists, then try this:
- The wise speak only of what they know, Grima son of Galmod. A witless
worm have you become. Therefore be silent, and keep your forked tongue
behind your teeth. I have not passed through fire and death* to bandy words
until the lightning falls.
* This is how it reads in the revised ed. In the early eds, it's "fire and
water," which has a better rhythm. Best of all, though, is the MS version,
which reads, "I have not passed through comps and thesis defense..."
In all seriousness, though, I don't think Tolkien has anything to apologize
for in the way of style. It is, admittedly, an artificial style. But this
is not, ipso facto, a demerit. Cf. what C. S. Lewis said about William
Morris: "It is, of course, perfectly true that Morris invented for his
poems and perfected in his prose-romances a language which has never at any
period been spoken in England...The question about Morris's style is not
whether it is an artificial language--all endurable language in longer
works must be that--but whether it is a good one...I cannot help suspecting
that most of the detractors when they talk of Morris's style are really
thinking of his printing: they expect the florid and the crowded, and
imagine something like Sidney's Arcadia In fact, however, this style
consistently departs from that of modern prose [by which I _think_ he means
the prose of James, Jones, and Conrad] in the direction of simplicity"
(Selected Lit. Essays, p. 220). The Lord of the Rings is not a novel, but
is more novelistic than anything that you will find in William Morris. For
instance Tolkien, unlike Morris, does sometimes number the streaks on the
tulip. But this is mainly in his descriptions of scenery, not in the
dialogue, which is modeled, in both authors, on the speeches in Old Norse
literature: ironical, sometimes, but always economical:
- "Consider well, but not too long," said the emissary from Mordor.
- "The time of my thought is my own to spend," answered the Dwarf king.
- "For the present," said he, and rode into the darkness.
A second defense of this style is given by Tolkien himself, in a letter
that he wrote to someone who objected to the book's "tushery":
"I do not naturally breathe an air of undiluted incense! It was not what
you said (last letter but one, not the one that I answered) or your right
to say it, that might have called for a reply, if I had the time for it;
but the pain that I always feel when anyone -- in an age when almost all
auctorial manhandling of English is permitted (especially if disruptive) in
the name of art or 'personal expression' -- immediately dismisses out of
court deliberate 'archaism.' The proper use of 'tushery' is to apply it to
the kind of bogus 'medieval' stff which attempts (without knowledge) to
give a supposed temporal colour with expletives, such as tush, pish,
zounds, marry, and the like. But a real archaic English is far more terse
than modern; also many of [the] things said could not be said in our slack
and often frivolous idiom. Of course, not being specially well read in
modern English, and far more familiar with works in the ancient and
'middle' idioms, my own ear is to some extent affected; so taht though I
could easily recollect how a modern would put this or that, what comes
easiest to mind or pen is not quite that. But take an example from the
chapter that you specially singled out (and called terrible): Book iii,
'The King of the Golden Hall.' 'Nay, Gandalf!' said the King. 'You do not
know your own skill in healing. It shall not be so. I myself will go to
war, to fall in the front of the battle, if it must be. Thus shall I sleep
better.'
"This is a fair sample -- moderated or watered archaism. Using only words
that still are used or known to the educated, the King would really have
said: 'Nay, thou (n')wost not thine own skill in healing. It shall not be
so. I myself will go to war, to fall...' etc. I know well enough what a
modern would say. 'Not at all my dear G. You don't know your own skill as a
doctor. Things aren't going to be like that. I shall go to the war in
person, even if I have to be one of the first casualties' -- and then what?
Theoden would certainly think, and probably say 'thus shall I sleep
better'! But people who think like that just do not talk a modern idiom.
You can have 'I shall lie easier in my grave,' or 'I should sleep sounder
in my grave like that rather than if I stayed at home' -- if you like. But
there would be an insincerity of thought, a disunion of word and meaning.
For a King who spoke in a modern style would not really think in such terms
at all, and any reference to sleeping quietly in the grave would be a
deliberate archaism of expression on his part (however worded) far more
bogus than the actual 'archaic' English that I have used." (Letters, pp.
225-26)
It occurs to me, now that I have read Colin Burrow's post, that what Lewis
and Tolkien are defending here applies primarily to the dialogue. Colin's
observations carry an extra weight here, because they are based on the
experience of reading the book aloud. I too have been reading the book
aloud, not to my children, of which I have none, nor to my cats, of which I
have too many. But for the last year or so I have been teaching the book in
a large lecture course, alongside of the Odyssey, the Aeneid, and Beowulf.
Being what I am -- histrionic and vain -- I like to read aloud. In general,
though, what I find myself reading is the dialogue -- the dialogue and the
poems, some of which I like very much, esp. this one:
Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West beihnd the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?
Yes, I know where he is getting it -- and enjoy the poem all the more for
knowing it. Also good are some of the purely alliterative verses that he
assigns to the Saxon warriors.
But I don't read (not in class, anyway) much of the narrator's own prose,
i.e., when Tolkien is speaking as the storyteller, in his own voice.
(Technically, I guess, it's Frodo's voice, but let's not qaibble). And I am
tempted to hypothesize that this -- the narrator's voice -- is what Colin
finds does _not_ read so well. I say this because, in my experience, the
speeches do work, or can be made to work, in the classroom. (I should have
a beard, of course, for the full effect, but you do what you can.
Conviction goes a long way.)
My daemon tells me to stop writing here. Unlike Socrates, though, I am not
very good at listening. I've tried to save Tolkien's writing by abandoning
the narrative and defending the dialogue. But that isn't quite right,
either. For there _are_ passages of great narrative prose in the Lord of
the Rings. I am thinking, in particular, of bk. 5, ch. 5 in which the men
of Rohan arrive, just in the nick of time, to relieve Gondor. The last
couple of pages are as good as anything in Homer.
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David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org [log in to unmask]
East Carolina University Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
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