Book 1, Chap. 1: A Long-Expected Party

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Great post, Cerin! No, I can't think of anything that you have described that I interpret differently.

[Aravar]

I hadn't thought of his hand being jerked back by an outside influence. Rather I interpret it to mean that he still couldn't entirely let go: the hand jerking back is another symptom of his unwillingness to let go and set it on the mantlepiece. This time it falls on the floor and then Gandalf can intervene.

It could, I suppose even be the Ring trying to get to Gandalf. He does, after all have it in his hand in the envelope.

[WampusCat]

I can see it as the Ring's influence, but it could just as well be a sign of Bilbo's divided will on giving it up. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. The Ring is an addiction and has terrible power over Bilbo's will. The astounding thing is that he was able to let go at all, even after it was physically separated from him.


cross-posted with Aravar

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Ah, Aravar, you raise a very important point. Is the Ring truly an outside force that works its mischief on Bilbo (and later Gandalf, Galadriel, Boromir, Faramir, Sam, and Frodo, not to mention Sméagol). Or is it merely an "amplifier" that simply brings on the negative traits that already exist in the various individuals? To me, the answer is both. As Tom Shippey says in The Road to Middle-earth (such a great book!):

In Middle-earth, then both good and evil function as external powers and as inner impulses from the psyche. It is perhaps fair to say that while the balances are maintained, we are on the whole more conscious of evil as an objective power and of good as a subjective impulse; Mordor and 'the Shadow' are nearer and more visible than the Valar or 'luck'. This lack of symmetry is moreover part of a basic denial of security throughout The Lord of the Rings. Repeatedly we are told that if its characters fail to resist the Shadow, they will be taken over, but if they do resist they may get killed; similarly, if they reject the vagaries of chance (if Frodo for instance had refused to leave the Shire with the Ring), it's likely something highly unpleasant will happen, but if they accept and obey, things could grow even worse. The benevolent powers offer no guarantees.

But I am getting way ahead of myself here. I certainly plan to talk a lot more about this throughout this discussion. Particularly in the next chapter.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm going to give this another day or two, and if there is no more active discussion, I'll move on a start a new thread for the next chapter. But this thread will still be available for any late comers who have anything to add about this chapter.

[axordil]

I see the Ring as a funhouse mirror that distorts by design, because its maker sought to define his own distortions as the standard for all.

[Mrs.Underhill]

Jumping in late.

So, when did we first feel the dark in this chapter? It's such a great question!
I read LotR before Hobbit, and also I read a translation which didn't have the Prologue. So it was very disorienting at first - I had no idea who Bilbo was, who the hobbits were, why did they live for so long and what's up with their height and furry feet.

But after a few pages it didn't matter. I felt cold winds blowing over this cosy Shire world, the footsteps of Doom, so to say. And the first time my hair stood on end was when Bilbo's not aging was mentioned. And the second time which was even more frightening was when Bilbo was talking about being stretched thin, as butter over too much bread. The translation made his words even more vivid and eery, so that might explain my extreme reaction.
And another place where I felt this cold wind was when hobbits were talking about strangers and refugees going through the Shire.

So for me the darkest places in this chapter were related to hints that something is wrong with this nice world and with this nice hobbit, horribly wrong. And Bilbo getting angry over the Ring was just an icing on the cake, the logical conclusion.

And yet another great discussion is going on here: about the importance of being single.
I think it's very important that both Bilbo and Frodo are single, and also that Frodo is not Bilbo's son (this one for a different reason).

Bilbo and Frodo were the Ringbearers, and therefore they were already married: to the Ring, or with the Ring, if you will. I see them being unattached (or even detached), as the effect of the Ring.
Bilbo had it easy, and Frodo too, until Sauron started looking for it in earnest. Still, it must have an effect on its keeper, preventing other strong attachments. Also see Sméagol and Isildur for further evidence.

Another reason which was mentioned here is being chosen by fate. I agree with this too. They had a vocation, a calling, which singled them out. It was by some providence that they remained free to do their respective quests.

Also, Frodo wouldn't work as Bilbo's son because no way Bilbo could have left his own son like that, without contacting him for 17 years, and also leaving him with the artefact he already suspected was dangerous. It's not the behaviour of a parent, even of an eccentric one.
I see this dark, tragic aspect to the relationship of Frodo and Bilbo, which also may be due to the Ring's effect on Bilbo. I had this impression that Frodo wanted to see Bilbo as a father figure, and longed for this kind of a relationship, while Bilbo didn't see him as a son, was unable to. And Frodo was kinda used not to demand anything and be happy with what he's got, so it didn't diminish his love for Bilbo one bit.
And Bilbo couldn't feel this way even after the destruction of the Ring, because he went into senility and also was still damaged by the Ring. But maybe in the Undying lands they were healed and were able to relate as a father and a son - I'd like to think they could.

In short: the story wouldn't work, Bilbo's actions wouldn't be credible, if Frodo was his son. Hmm, on the other hand it could have been used as another hint of Ring's influence on Bilbo...

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Great post, Mrs. U. Can I ask what language the translation that you refer to was in?

[Primula Baggins]

Yes, a wonderful post. That is an especially good point, Mrs. U., about why Frodo can't be Bilbo's son for story reasons. If Bilbo vanished for seventeen years, leaving his adult child with an object he knew to be both dangerous and addictive, any parent reading would be outraged at his behavior. It would be too early and too strong a clue to the extremely dangerous nature of the Ring, if possessing it could have warped even Bilbo so badly. But a less powerful relationship—well, we've all heard of eccentric cousins, and there is no particular filial duty in that relationship.

[Mrs.Underhill]

Great post, Mrs. U. Can I ask what language the translation that you refer to was in?

It was the first Russian translation of FotR. It was done by two very talented translators who treated it like translating poetry: going for the feel and magic more than for accuracy. They also got carried away and translated some Elvish names. And also they abridged the book, with readers none the wiser.
Then one of them died, and TTT and RotK were never translated until 1989. So I waited 4 years to read the rest of the story. But as an introduction, something to hook you on this grand world, their FotR treatment was great. And their poetry translations were better than originals, with apologies to Tolkien.

[solicitr]

I see the Ring as a funhouse mirror that distorts by design, because its maker sought to define his own distortions as the standard for all.

You mean like Windows?

[Frelga]

It was the first Russian translation of FotR. It was done by two very talented translators who treated it like translating poetry: going for the feel and magic more than for accuracy. They also got carried away and translated some Elvish names. And also they abridged the book, with readers none the wiser.
Then one of them died, and TTT and RotK were never translated until 1989. So I waited 4 years to read the rest of the story. But as an introduction, something to hook you on this grand world, their FotR treatment was great. And their poetry translations were better than originals, with apologies to Tolkien.

I wonder if it's the same one I read! It was gorgeous, gorgeous translation that really did Tolkien justice. Even after reading the original many times over, there are some passages I still recall in Russian. I only got as far as the Council of Elrond, I think, but in my defense, it was in a single night.

And... that's all I have to add.

[Primula Baggins]

I see the Ring as a funhouse mirror that distorts by design, because its maker sought to define his own distortions as the standard for all.

You mean like Windows?

Why, soli, you and I have more in common than I thought.

<simper>

[Jnyusa]

[Note: This is one of several threads from which Jnyusa removed some or all of her posts. We regret that the integrity of these discussions has been disrupted in this way. While we support the right of our members to edit their posts if they have second thoughts about them, we believe this type of wholesale removal of posts goes beyond that, and is damaging to the community.

Voronwë_the_Faithful, Primula Baggins, Whistler, nerdanel]

[removed]

[Teremia]

Sorry to be coming to this so late, but I was climbing hills in Wales.

Am now back, though!

This chapter (I'm cribbing from myself here, but also rethinking some things) takes a rather wandering path in towards the main characters. Everything is related through gossip, rumor and legend: "....there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton" is how the first sentence ends, and of course the title itself takes part in this trend (the party is "long-expected" chiefly, it seems, by the peripheral hobbits whose opinions make up the bulk of the chapter). (Bilbo, for instance, wouldn't so much "expect" his own party and departure as he would "anticipate" them, right?) A bit later on we have the Gaffer chatting with acquaintances (more gossip, more history of hobbit scandal).

And another thing: how many more dwarves we see than I remembered! True of this chapter and the next. Some of Bilbo's old dwarf friends come to see him off; dwarves seem to make regular stops in the Shire, bringing news and so on.

Third: not only the fireworks are grand, but the toys. I had forgotten the latter. "Made in Dale" or made by dwarves, and thus the highest quality: "There were toys the like of which they had never seen before, all beautiful and some obviously magical."

Fourth: Bilbo's classic "like less than half of you half as well as you deserve" is compounded in the book by all those beautifully snide notes accompanying his farewell gifts: For LOBELIA SACKVILLE-BAGGINS, as a PRESENT ("When she arrived later in the day, she took the point at once, but she also took the spoons."

The elaborate toys, the presents, the gossip -- all go toward creating a very mathom-oriented (and rather sly and sneaky) hobbit culture.

I've been reading with interest everybody's thoughts on Bilbo's attempts to pass the ring on to Frodo -- or Bilbo's attempts NOT to pass the ring on, hard to say -- and perhaps all the rest of the chapter's emphasis on Stuff, on Toys, on Presents, on the charm of such things and of their hold on us, puts Bilbo's Ring-greed in a certain context.

Boromir's lust for the Ring is based on his own human context, in which power seduces. Bilbo is seduced, hobbit-like, by the Ring-as-Mega-Mathom, and by the sneakiness of his acquisition of it, and so on.

Then again, we (well, if we're hobbits) can let go of mathoms, but we can't let go (sad but historical human truth) very easily of power. So the Ring's seduction of the hobbit has its loophole, too. It is incredible that Bilbo can let go of the Ring at all (we readers can't appreciate that achievement properly until we see later how thorough the control of the Ring is of others).

[solicitr]

The Arthurian knights are supposed to be virgins (riiiiiight) and those who are not (e.g. Pelleus) have been reduced to bit parts.

Not at all. Certainly Malory spends the most ink on and assigns pride of heroic place to those famous swivers Lancelot, Tristram and Lamorak. The virginity-thing only becomes significant in the Grail quest- and Galahad is the one to achieve it in part because he and Percival are the *only* virgins.

However, the broad point remains- Bilbo and esp. Frodo are in some way set apart for 'higher things' by their chastity. Hardly a surprising take for a Catholic of Tolkien's generation.

[axordil]

Bilbo is seduced, hobbit-like, by the Ring-as-Mega-Mathom, and by the sneakiness of his acquisition of it, and so on.

Good point. It implies that the fact that he is unhobbitlike to some extent is the only thing that allows him to let go of it at all...

eta: There is an interesting thesis regarding membership in society vs. living amongst those you only superficially resemble lurking here, and of living on the fringe of a culture providing insights that being a part of it couldn't.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I don't know about that, Ax. After all, Hobbits love to give gifts. Wasn't it that quality of hobbitness that helped allow Bilbo to successfully give the Ring up?

[axordil]

Hobbits love giving, but also having--not necessarily material objects, but security and stability. Having the Ring around, beyond its own addictive nature, was comforting for Bilbo. I would say that it's a combination of underlying "hobbitness" (lack of desire for power, the Ring's purest pull) and "Tookishness" (the never-quite-settled even when settled feeling) that provide complementary strengths few others could have had.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I can accept that.