Revisting the text - it's been so long!

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Elleth
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Revisting the text - it's been so long!

Post by Elleth »

Of late, I’ve wanted to clean my mind a bit from the PJ movies and renew my acquaintance with Middle-earth as written.. After some weeks of listening to the unabridged audiobooks most evenings, I’ve finally finished the trilogy. While the story is still fresh in mind, I thought I’d write down some impressions for those that haven’t read the books at all - or who like me, haven’t in many years.

First a note on the narrative voice: it’s perfect high English. It’s a bit archaic to modern ears, but makes so much difference. Tolkien’s prose breathes life into a living world quite different from our own: most every other fantasy novel I’ve read feels like a tarted-up rennaisance festival in comparison. That said, I confess I don’t miss the constant breaks into song of the books. (As an aside, I highly recommend the Rob Inglis narrated version - you could almost imagine Tolkien himself is reading to you, and the prose is I find much better on the ear than the eye. )






Fellowship of the Ring
The book starts much slower, of course - but the Shire is such a pleasant place I can’t begrudge it. This also reminds me of why I so strongly prefer Fellowship to the subsequent books- Middle earth itself is not only a character, but perhaps the character of the books. And while the journey to Mordor is the point of the story, it’s Eriador that’s “home.”

What really struck me most however is how alive Middle earth is. It’s most strongly felt in the Old Forest of course - but throughout the books, fox and trees and birds have eyes and their own will no less than man or orc. From a Ranger’s point of view, that’s a particularly interesting question I think.

How does the game of hunter and quarry change when a bird may report your little camp, or you find yourself in some forgotten remnant of the old woods, and the trees themselves take exception to your presence?

It’s a much richer - and stranger - world to live in than the generic “fantasy Robin Hood” I am sometimes too guilty of imagining.


The Two Towers
PJ’s innovation of elvish reinforcements at Helm’s Deep feels more out of place now, especially knowing they were only there because PJ wanted to turn Arwen into a warrior princess (thank God that got vetoed!) On its own it doesn’t wreck the movie for me - not a great change, but a largely harmless one in the end I think.

I do much prefer book Faramir to movie Faramir. I understand the film writing’s team objection that book-Faramir feels too goody-goody, but I think they’re missing his character's subtlety: of course a young man descended from high blood, bereft of loving family, would try his mightiest to live up to the best examples of former days.

Now that I think on it, I’d very much enjoy a retelling of the tale from Faramir’s point of view: there’s just so much there - the loss, the finding of solace in old tales of high deeds, deprivation and fear and responsibility so young in the wilds of Ithilien. And the sheer love shown him by his men and the people of Gondor for trying to embody what once was. There’s too much there perhaps to do more than allude to in the main narrative, but I’ve come away from the books with much more love for the man.




Return of the King
Oh dear. Lucas Disease struck PJ earlier - and much harder - than I’d remembered.

Even at the time, not having read the books in ages, PJ’s botching of the Paths of the Dead was cringeworthy. The cascade of skulls was just… ugh.

What I’d forgotten though was how much true dread is in the book. Whispers and wisps in the dark, the night march with the Dead behind through Gondor, terrified farmers fleeing before them - a good sound editor and minimal CGI could have made the Army of the Dead truly terrifying, not freakishly cartoonish.

(Also, turning Gimli into comic relief was repugnant from the start, but here totally sabotaged the scene. Such a loss. )

And the battle at Minas Tirith - it’s not so much that the film version was bad, just that it failed to be good. There was just so much dramatic tension left on the table: the evacuation of women and children, burning fields across the Pellinor, streams of refugees, relief at allied men arriving - despair at how small their numbers were. The night muster of unknown numbers of enemies about the gates - and the horrifying dawn seeing them arrayed against the walls.

So much was lost just using the same few dozen guys in uniform plate armor getting tossed this way and that by monsters.

It seems to me that while the main narrative of the film might have been aided by intercutting between Frodo’s journey and Minas Tirith, here at least there’s a price to be paid. In the books the coming siege occupies all of the mind… an unknownable, overwhelming malice creeps unstoppably forward by inches, shrouded in unnatural darkness. In the books’ narrative, that’s largely uninterrupted, and has a claustrophobic, oppressive feel that’s lost in the film.

The pacing after those climatic events is odd to modern minds, but I love the romance of Faramir and Eowyn, the finding of the tree, the leadup to the coronation. I appreciated the extra chapter or two in the Shire at the end more than I would have expected - and found it far more touching than I could have appreciated on first reading so many years ago. The wistullness of a scarred soldier returning to a home grown too small and sad is not a thing one can appreciate as a child, I think.



The text was so much more than I remembered... a love letter, a confessional, a remembrance. It is a hero's tale that can entrance the young, but I begin to grasp that it is a thing that cannot be truly appreciated except by those in their evening years. I must remember to come back to it again then. :)
Persona: Aerlinneth, Dúnedain of Amon Lendel c. TA 3010.
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Harper
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Re: Revisting the text - it's been so long!

Post by Harper »

I would really loved to have seen the Scouring of the Shire.

Hey! He could still make it! It could be sandwiched in. He would get even more of my money--the movie, theatrical release on Blu-Ray (that always pissed me off but I bought it anyway) and the Director's cut with extras six months later.
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Mirimaran
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Re: Revisting the text - it's been so long!

Post by Mirimaran »

Now that is a love letter if I have ever read one, Elleth :) and spot on. For me, I get different things from the books every time I read them, but yes, as we start to stray into the autumn and winter of our lives, one can truly appreciate them.

Ken
"Well, what are you waiting for? I am an old man, and have no time for your falter! Come at me, if you will, for I do not sing songs of dastards!"
Melthrist
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Re: Revisting the text - it's been so long!

Post by Melthrist »

Elleth wrote:I do much prefer book Faramir to movie Faramir.
I agree that he really is a much better character in the book. The reason why he doesn't want the ring is plausible enough, and it escapes me why they didn't keep him the same in the movies. I feel he isn't so much of a "cliche good" character, but rather someone who truthfully just doesn't want power. That in my view is why he rejects the ring, and not because he's too noble to be corrupted by it.

On a side note, loved the observations. You make some great points here, especially about Tolkien's descriptive ability.
A Elbereth Gilthoniel
silivren penna míriel
o menel aglar elenath!
Na-chaered palan-díriel
o galadhremmin ennorath,
Fanuilos, le linnathon
nef aear, sí nef aearon!
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Greg
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Re: Revisting the text - it's been so long!

Post by Greg »

This is why it's so important to just sit down and do a read-through without any goals or "reference-seeking" in mind. It's refreshing...and I daresay I'm overdue.
Now the sword shall come from under the cloak.
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