h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been re-reading LoTR while I scrape the cash together to take the family to see the last movie.

Hobbits and Habits: Tolkien implied that the reason the hobbits can be around the One Ring without being immediately corrupted is because they have no real worldly power. The Shire is an idealised southern England - largely untouched and unspoiled, agrarian and happy, and he Hobbits are that great mythical creation the Stout English Yeoman. How can the Ring corrupt those who already have what they want?

The habit they end up breaking is that very seclusion and unworldliness that allows them to be safe from the Ring. All of the hobbits are massively changed by the end of the story. They have put aside their comfort and are much more like the rest of the world.

Frodo in particular has to contend with The Ring itself and that's a whole other kind of habit. We know, by the time he gets to Mordor, that he sees in Gollum what he himself may one day become. While I don't think that Tolkien meant to liken the Ring to a drug, Gollum certainly has all the attributes of a junkie.

I have always felt, however, that Tolkien was writing about the change in Europe that happened around the '14-'18 war. He served in the Army during that time and therefore went to his own personal Black Gates, saw how desperate the situation was and saw how the wholetragic, awful experience changed an entire generation. People went to war and came back to their shires utterly and irrevocably different.

Shorn--

You don't expect habits to break themselves, or even to permit their own breaking if they can help it. It is a most unlikely piece of serendipity that Frodo and Gollum cancel each other's ring-lust out, in the end by "accident". Of course if there is a deity moving the course of events, there are no accidents.

Lepanto is a wonderful poem by G K Chesterton (1874-1936), published in 1915 in the collection called simply "Poems" whicha also includes
"O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry,
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die;
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide,
Take not thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride."

Chesterton became a Catholic in 1922, and whether he was specially on a wavelength with him, Tolkien would certainly have known his writings. Lepanto was on our school English course in the 1960s, and it's a rollicking good read: see it here --

http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Alley/5443/leppoem.htm

It starts:
"White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships."

and it celebrates the battle of Lepanto (1571), where the Turks were beaten for the first time, and their invincible image broken, though they remained a threat to Europe up to the end of the eighteenth century. Cervantes was in the Spanish fleet that took part, and went home to write "Don Quixote".

Chesterton also wrote novels (his best-known being "The Man Who Was Thursday" 1907. Thingites please note.

Tolkien wrote lord of the rings as a mythology for england. Theres numerous ways of proving it (including his own words)
The very language that tolkien uses is by its very style and language choice similar to chaucers or even shakespeares (to a lesser extent). Long complex sentance structure, heavily latinate word use for the elves, anglo-saxon word use for the people of Rohan. Go to the section in return of the king, where Eomer finds Eowyns body and you'll find no latinate words.
It very style is vastly different to modern writting, and you only have to read Jane Eyre or earlier books to realise Tolkien wasnt simply writting in the style of the time. He was doing it purposfully - to create that illusion of an ancient tomb or manuscript long forgotten. The reader can fall totally into lord of the rings through the amount of detail placed at his or her disposal. Through the entire series, the reader has everything fully explained to them, with each charecter having a detailed story, family and history, as well as there futures too. Not only that, but they also get there own language!

I have heard it said that the language of the orcs and of Mordor resembles Turkish . . .

Digging in G K Chesterton produces yet more Tolkienish imagery:

Read "The Towers of Time" here --

http://www.dur.ac.uk/martin.ward/gkc/books/towers-of-time.html

Bingo! (Chesterton again):
http://www.dur.ac.uk/martin.ward/gkc/books/white-horse2.html

Good grief Recumbentman! Your man Chesterton didn't write any nice short poems, did he? As I mentioned to you once, I have no ear for poetry. Even if it rhymes I'm not much good unless the meaning is absolutely obvious. Tolkien's poetry's fine because it's clear what he's on about from the story it's embedded in. Are you guessing that these poems had some influence on Tolkien and his building of Middle Earth or just that the general milieu of that time influenced both Tolkien and Chesterton in similar ways?

Hi Gradient. How nice to see you up this end of the edifice. Your point about the simple incorruptibility of hobbits seems exactly right. Also the change that came upon them: the shock of contact with the world and the loss of innocence (if that's the right way to put it). The addiction of Gollum and Frodo to the ring seems a better candidate for the label "habit" but that wasn't what Recumbentman meant (correct me if I'm wrong Recumbentman). I don't think the hobbits' "seclusion" or "unworldliness" were the "habits" he had in mind either. Could unworldliness be a habit? He was referring to "habits of an English gentleman" such as pipe smoking, drinking, eating (self indulgence). Have a look at his theory: F103872?thread=245889

Tolkien's war experiences must have had a huge influence on him, as you say. The world view of a generation altered, subtly or drastically.

Good points Asmodai. Can't find anything to disagree with in what you say - except for one typo that distorts your meaning (unless you really meant it): I think you meant "tome" rather than "tomb", didn't you?

Haven't got that far into the Tolkien linguistics, but I did read that The Prof wanted the Orcs to speak in a sort of cockney accent. I think he was aiming for their language to be distorted and altered but recognisable as having come from a root language, and given that Orcs are former Elves, that language would have been Elvish.

Oops, I missed something there Asmodai (reading, writing and rushing out - not helpful to careful concentration). How do you mean the language Tolkien uses is like Chaucer or Shakespeare? It's a very long time since anyone shoved a Chaucer book under my nose, but as far as I can remember, it was almost completely incomprehensible. Either I'm remembering all wrong or my comprehension abilities have developed wonderfully. Do you just mean his style of writing imitates much older styles of writing?

Perhaps Asmodai was saying that the language is fitted to the characters? Shakespeare and Chaucer were very adept at creating character with dialogue. In Two Towers, when Theoden meets Merry and Pippin at Isengard there are clear differences in their speech patterns and word choices. Shakespeare does the same with Fluellen in Henry V and in Midsummer Night's Dream the way that the various Rude Mechanicals speak is very different to the assorted nobles.

Yes, that's how I read it first time round when I was hurrying. Next time I looked, I wondered if I'd understood the whole sense of what he meant. Chaucer is hard to understand and I couldn't understand without the help of some tutor or study guide. LotR is written in a slightly old fashioned style but is still easy to understand. Some people find it hard work and can't enjoy the story because they can't get past their dislike of the writing style. Silmarillion is even more - how would you put it - biblical in style. The stories are good but a lot of people who might otherwise have enjoyed them, won't read the book because of the 'turgid' (not my description) writing style.

Jackson has given the orcs a bit of variety too. I'd always imagined them sounding like a rough criminal class from South East England because of the way Tolkien had written orc-talk. Some of Jackson's sound as I'd imagined but others are quite posh. The ones from Isengard. The film orcs must be made (manufactured) with fully formed language and the ability to speak. Presumably the Isengard Orcs receive their accent from their first chat with Saruman, when they leave their foetal sack thing.

You know, if the first thing you saw in your life was Christopher Lee staring down at you I imagine you'd want to develop a nice speaking voice PDQ no matter how big and nasty an Uruk Hai you are.

That first Uruk Hai birthing sequence reminded me of Jurassic Park.

I like Orcs. Always have. Peter Jackson and his creative team did an excellent job with them - they really do have a "former elf" quality to them. The books really bring them to life too - some of the dialogue between Orcs lacks a certain...profane element...but you can tell its implied.

I'm rather fond of Chaucer. He's almost impenetrable without some kind of explanation but once you get into the rhythm and sounds of the language, he's great. (And the movie Chaucer from "A Knight's Tale" did for him what Shakespeare in Love did for Bill).

It's true. Christopher Lee is a real scary geezer. I remember seeing him on one of those chat shows in the days of his Count Dracula fame. He was telling the host how he was driving along a road through wild countryside on a stormy night with his wife when his car broke down. They had to find a phone. They found an isolated farm house and hammered on the door. The farmer opened the door, saw Christopher Lee standing there, soaked and wind-swept, screamed and slammed the door in his face. There's no denying the guy's convincing as a fiend.

How can you like the orcs? Where have Tolkien and Peter Jackson gone wrong? We're not supposed to like them. There's nothing likeable about them, is there? You're saying both that Tolkien and Jackson did a good job (they mean them to be loathsome) and that you like the orcs (which means Tolkien and Jackson failed). Unconfuse me please.

I always thought Chaucer had something interesting and entertaining to say - if only I could understand what he was saying.

Recumbentman

I don't expect habits to break themselves but then I don't believe that a habit is a conscious being with a will of its own. And "if there's a deity moving the course of event" that's the way Tolkien wrote it - though he didn't make any clear references to divine interventions.

I've read Lepanto at last. I had to print it out first. It was so long my eyes started to water trying to focus on the screen. The good news: I liked it. The bad news: that probably means it's a candidate for a Vogon Poetry Award. It's certainly stirring, heroic stuff and I can see some parallels with Tolkien's heroic knights. But really, I can't be trusted to understand poetry. I have a dim view of the crusades - a view that the Muslims were a peaceful and erudite bunch until the Christians of Northern Europe started attacking them. Who started it?

That may be a problem understanding what Tolkien meant too. He was a Christian and a Catholic at that. I think of LotR as a tale of good and evil, which is easy for me as an atheist. When you take into account the author's religious beliefs, things become less clear - to me at least. Sauron and the orcs are evil. They're not just a bunch of foreigners with beliefs that don't coincide with yours. The Muslims weren't and aren't evil but they were treated and fought as though they were. Even though Tolkien was a Christian, his tale makes no reference to a One Jealous God that needs all the love and attention of all *good* people - who are by implication the enemy of anyone who doesn't love and worship the one true god. So is it right to read in anything of the sort? Or didn't you mean that?

Well I did mean it, and other people are more knowledgeable than I am about Middle-earth theology but not having read the Silmarillion I can only report from a quick delve into http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
The Encyclopedia of Arda that I do gather that a supreme power is invoked, who did create all at the beginning, and who does take a hand in pushing the story on.

Nor do I think that a habit is a conscious being with a will of its own. The hobbits are less than human; they represent (in origin at least) parts of a human personality: of the kind that Steven Pinker calls "daemons" after the web bots (not the denizens of hell). Of course in the course of the stories they gain in stature, just as Don Quixote grew on his creator Cervantes.

Also beware of confusing Lepanto (1571) with the Crusades (11th-13th centuries). Lepanto was a sort of crusade, but directed against the Ottoman Empire which was encroaching on Europe. The original crusades were indeed invasions of the Arabic culture, from which Europe learned a lot, in maths astronomy chemistry philosophy and general civilisation.

Gradient - I have a sort of admiration for the way Tolkien portrays the Orcs. I can't say I like them, because they have no redeming qualities at all: perhaps this is what I "like" about them. They are, in their awful way, as perfect as the elves are in theirs. And that underlying elvishness of them (certainly in the films, it doesn't come accross as well in the novel) highlights the differences between them very well.

Elves (sorry, I have to do this: ) and Orcs have a sort of superiority complex about them. They fascinate me.

Hobbits, however, with their sunny shire, pipeleaf and so on, irritate the pants off me. It's a view of England viewed through the same sort of specs that the Victorians plastered all over christmas.

If that makes any sense.

(off to read the books again, since I haven't read them this year and then I *will* get through Beowulf)

I am deeply disappointed to hear that Tolkien heard the orcs in Cockney. There is a dreadful dismissal involved. Every actor, even non-English ones, thinks they can do Cockney, and it becomes instant short-hand for "dodgy character". Turkish-talking orcs I can take, in the Lepanto "threat from the east" context.

OK Robert Redford doesn't think he can do Cockney but he doesn't do accents at all.

This kind of instant short-hand is exactly what I would haver expected Tolkien to rise above.

There is a one god in Middle Earth. It's called Eru (and Iluvatar). But nobody in LotR ever refers to it. They call on Elbereth occasionally, but Elbereth is one of a large number of lesser gods made by Eru. There's no suggestion that the people of Middle Earth should be worshipping these gods. They have no churches or organised religion. There are a few signs that the elves revere them but some of the elves in the time of the LotR story, the third age, used to live with these gods in the first age. Galadriel, for example. She's been around a long long time and she was one of the elves in The Silmarillion who lived with the Valar until Melkor (Morgoth) stole the silmarils and many of the Noldor elves pursued Morgoth back to Middle Earth, against the wishes of the Valar. If anyone was going to worship these gods, it would be the dwarves. Eru made the Valar, and elves and men are his children. The dwarves, on the other hand, were made by Aule, one of the Valar. If the dwarves in LotR even mention Aule or any deity, I've missed it. So it looks to me as though Tolkien's LotR gods are a modest lot and don't need to be grovelled to and they're not vengeful or jealous when it comes to elves, men and dwarves. If we were going to invent gods to make us feel better, these ones seem ideal - if we want them to keep us in order and frightened though, we might as well stick with the ones we've got.


>>The hobbits are less than human; they represent (in origin at least) parts of a human personality: of the kind that Steven Pinker calls "daemons"<<

You say that as though you know it to be a solid fact. What do you know? Please explain. I must be missing something.


>>Also beware of confusing Lepanto (1571) with the Crusades (11th-13th centuries). Lepanto was a sort of crusade, but directed against the Ottoman Empire which was encroaching on Europe.<<

That's what I meant when I asked who started it. By the time of Lepanto, the Ottoman Empire had a frightening reputation, but what got them all riled up in the first place? Not the nice, peaceful, innocent Christians to the north, surely?

Thanks for that link to the Encyclopedia of Arda. Haven't had time to have a proper look yet, but it looks interesting.

Did Tolkien have a cockney accent in mind for the orcs? That was certainly the way I read it but then I lived in the South East of England until my mid-teens, so that might be the reason I heard the orcs that way.

Even if he did, he had to think of them having some accent that English people could recognise and reproduce in their minds' ear. (whether he succeeded or not, it seems clear that he meant to cobble together something like a mythology for England.) Political correctness doesn't seem to have been a huge consideration at the time of writing.

>". . .they represent (in origin at least) parts of a human personality: of the kind that Steven Pinker calls "daemons" . . .

>You say that as though you know it to be a solid fact."

Sorry Shorn, I'm referring to my theoryas given at F103872?thread=245889. Purely a personal response, based on the coincidence that
a) "hobbit" can be seen as a portmanteau-word (hobby/habit)
b) Various names of hobbits can be seen as standing for a gentleman's hobbies/habits: Fatty Bolger is the greatest give-away, though he hardly appears in the story.
c) Aragorn and Gandalf, and others, protect the hobbits to an unusual degree, as a gentleman excuses and justifies his own hobbies/habits. Many of our habits and hobbies are hard to tell from vices, when looked at in cold rationality; but as Maharishi said "Logic favours my cup of tea".

My theory is that having started with a (possibly not explicit) premise similar to the above, Tolkien let the characters develop their own story.

When I say men and elves protect the hobbits to an unusual degree, I mean it is unusual in natural history for a species to protect another, except as food (cattle sheep and fowl), workers (horses and dogs), or pets.

And I only said the deity may have been implied to intervene in the action, not that any deity was worshipped.