Sam Gamgee/Sam Weller

[vison]

Does anyone else think that Sam Gamgee recalls Sam Weller very strongly?

[axordil]

The sensibility is quite unchanged from Dickens's time to Tolkien's, isn't it?

[Primula Baggins]

The clever comic servant and the unworldly though benevolent master. . . .

Yes, there are parallels, but I don't think Tolkien intended Sam Gamgee to be quite as sharp an article as Sam Weller. Hobbit Sam is more humble in his care of his master and is less worldly, whereas Frodo is I think wiser than Mr. Pickwick.

[yovargas]

I don't know who Sam Weller is, but I'm sure that Sam Gamgee is much cuter.

[Primula Baggins]

Don't make me get my salmon.

Sam Weller is pretty cute.

"I can't see any lady," replied Mr. Pickwick, whose mind was filled with visions of Mrs. Bardell.

"I vouldn't make too sure o' that, sir," urged Mr. Weller, shaking his head. "If you know'd who was near, sir, I rayther think you'd change your note. As the hawk remarked to himself with a cheerful laugh, ven he heerd the robin redbreast a singin' round the corner."

He's not as noble as Sam Gamgee, though.

[Whistler]

This might be a good time to mention that Tolkien hated the Pickwick Papers.

[Primula Baggins]

Didn't he just generally hate Dickens? (Though, if one hates Dickens, Pickwick probably has more of what one hates than anything else except perhaps the death of Little Nell.)

[axordil]

I don't think anyone thinks JRRT took the character or the master/caretaker servant relationship from PP--although if someone actively hates something, it is more likely to be bubbling in the back of their heads than if they are simply indifferent to it, no?

I think there is a parallel, as Prim put it, though, which has more to do with a certain unchanging archetype in British culture than anything else. Given that hobbit society is a reflection of certain aspects of British country society as JRRT remembered it from his youth, that shouldn't be a surprise.

But JRRT does something quite different and remarkable with it.

[Primula Baggins]

Yes. Sam Gamgee becomes much more than a comic archetype.

Knowing this helps me get past some of the awful early bits such as Sam frisking like a dog being taken for a walk.

[Whistler]

Tolkien mentions Pickwick specifically somewhere in his letters, though I think I overstated his opinion when I used the word "hate." As I recall, his exact words were that he had "never been able to enjoy" Pickwick.

I don't recall Tolkien having many positive words for any of the English classics, so there's no point in singling out Dickens.

C. S. Lewis liked Dickens but condemned the "depraved" illustrations, saying he liked Walt Disney better.

[vison]

See, I knew I didn't like C. S. Lewis for a reason!

Liked Disney better than Boz? What a heathen.

(Pickwick is full of Dickens' youthful exuberance. I am nearly done with my 1 millionth reading of it (a slight exaggeration) and had forgot, yet again, in the interval between the last reading and this latest, how much fun Dickens seemed to be having. (Hm. A lotta commas in that there sentence. . .) Since it is comic from beginning to end, there is none of that awful sentimentality that he was apt to inflict on the helpless reader. No Esther Summerson, for instance!! But sentimentality or no sentimentality, he was a brilliant writer when he was good and still a pretty good writer when he was awful. How many people can you say that about?)

Sam Weller was a Cockney, of course, and Sam Gamgee anything but. Still, I think if their positions could be exchanged, each would do fine in the other's place.

Yes, Whistler, it seems to me Tolkien didn't like much English literature. I get the feeling that anything after, say, Malory, was a no-no. That makes me sad, since I think he was being a snob. I don't like to say mean things about JRRT, but he was a dreadful snob. The other great writers in English didn't "tell" the English story the way Tolkien thought they should. Only, IMHO, he was wrong about the "story" and while I love LOTR, in it he didn't tell the English "story" any better. He made up his own version of England, which is not quite what he set out to do.

[Whistler]

Well, I adore C. S. Lewis and Disney both, thank you!

Tolkien was indeed a hopeless snob who hated almost everything that didn't fall within his immediate sphere of study.

Lewis was no snob, however: He wasn't ashamed to say that his favorite book was Huckleberry Finn.

[Primula Baggins]

The Boz illustrations are as stylized as anything Disney did—just in a different way.

Though not really that different. Look at the comic characters, stubby with faces like potatoes, and the romantic leads who are so impossibly slim with tiny feet and huge eyes.

I like them both.

[vison]

I don't sneer at Disney. Well, except maybe "Pocahontas". Drawing-wise.

But I can't love C. S. Lewis as I ought, I confess. This is a flaw in me that is no doubt beyond correction at my advanced age. You can't, you know, teach an old dog new tricks.

I haven't read much of or about Tolkien beyond LOTR, and the Silmarillion: and this has been on purpose. I haven't read his letters, or any biographies of him, or HOME, or much criticism, or anything. I find it is often disheartening to learn much about a writer whose work I admire. However, some Tolkien-lore has seeped in and I wish it hadn't. Still, he was a nicer man than, say, Tolstoy.

Tolkien might not have loved Dickens, but I still think of Gamgee when I meet Weller and vice versa. Now, what would Dickens have thought of JRRT?

A good fantasy tale in that thought, methinks.

[Whistler]

Oh, I'm with you on Pocahontas. As a man I confess I like the looks of her, but I don't really think she ought to resemble a Victoria's Secret model.

When I say I admire Disney, I'm talking about Walt, not necessarily the past forty years. People forget that in his day he was ranked with Picasso and Stravinski. He didn't become Mister Middle-Class Family Entertainment until the late fifties. He began as a real visionary, and a true genius. He even did some things that were considered quite shocking in their day.

Tolkien, of course, regarded him with "abject loathing."

[Primula Baggins]

My theory: Dickens would have found Tolkien dry. Dickens did like those big emotional payoffs. And he liked his evil personal. Wormtongue he would have appreciated. Sauron he might not have.

Keeping the romance offstage would have struck him as a miscalculation, I think.

Maybe Frodo's nobility, and Sam's—well, Sam's whole character, would have redeemed it for him.

[Whistler]

He'd have wanted the sentences to be longer.

[Primula Baggins]

He also had a plain style by the standards of his time, and I think Tolkien's archaisms might have annoyed him.

[vison]

Dickens could write with surprising economy at times. And, of course, that's when he was most effective.

*sigh*

I do love those Victorians. I am wandering in the lanes with Rachel Ray and her sweetie Luke right now. Delightful.

Some cloud of wholesomeness and white breadness fell over us all in the fifties. Thinking back.

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

When I say I admire Disney, I'm talking about Walt, not necessarily the past forty years. People forget that in his day he was ranked with Picasso and Stravinski. He didn't become Mister Middle-Class Family Entertainment until the late fifties. He began as a real visionary, and a true genius. He even did some things that were considered quite shocking in their day.

This is quite true. Salvador Dali considered him one of the surrealists, and an important artist. They even had a collaboration, which remained hidden for many years, but which was finally completed and unveiled a couple of years ago.

http://www.animationartconservation.com ... stino.html

BrianIs AtYou