Precious
I've set up a system where I'm reading three books at a time. One at home and other places I go, an audiobook in the car, and The Hobbit during meals and breaks at work. Unfortunately, I haven't been making as much progress at work as I should. I was unfaithful a few days ago and took a lunch to finish a different book I was enjoying (The Burning Bridge by John Flanagan). And yesterday I was sick. So I've just finished up Chapter V.
The end of their argument was that they sent Fili and Kili to look for a better shelter. They had very sharp eyes, and being the youngest of the dwarves by some fifty years they usually got these sort of jobs.
I'm really glad I live in a day and age of spectacles and contacts instead of one in which it's simply accepted that your eyes get worse with age. The day I got glasses was one of the most amazing days of my life, walking outside and realizing that trees had individual leaves.
It is not unlikely that [goblins] invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help.
This reminds me of the descriptions of the trolls that cdl pointed out, assigning sins and uncivilized behaviors to monsters, except in this case he's talking about something a bit more malevolent. I also wonder if Tolkien isn't a bit of a pacifist.
After some time he felt for his pipe. It was not his broken, and that was something. Then he felt for his pouch, there was some tobacco in it, and that was something more.
So when he's lost in the dark when all hope seems lost, the one thing that can comfort him is a good smoke. I have to wonder just what the pipe represents for Tolkien. The comforts of home, conversation with good friends, and all that is safe and cultured?
He knew, of course, that the riddle-game was sacred and of immense antiquity, and even wicked creatures were afraid to cheat when they played at it.
Oh? Was this so in Tolkien's time or is it something he created for his fantasy world. I'm not familiar with the riddle game in my world. Is it actually an old tradition?
When I was looking at colleges my senior year in high school I almost decided to go to K-State to study Engineering. Eventually, though, I decided I was undecided, and stayed home to get my basic credits at the local juco instead of pouring money into directionless classes at a university. After two years I still didn't know what I wanted to do, so I took a semester off to work and think about it. I finally decided I wanted to major in Wildlife Biology at Emporia with the career goal of being a park ranger. After talking to the counselors there, I enrolled in Chemistry 2 for the spring semester at the juco so all my basic classes would be out of the way. After one class, though, I remembered how much I had hated Chemistry 1, decided the track wasn't for me, and dropped the class. I finished the semester with the other classes I'd enrolled in just for fun to have a full class schedule. Realizing that two of them were literature-based (Shakespeare and Oral Interpretation of Literature) and reading was what I really enjoyed, I resolved to go through with my plans to attend ESU but as an English major. And that's how I ended up getting my teaching degree in English (how I became a librarian is a tale for another day). Anyway, one of the pieces I chose to perform for Oral Interp was a section from "Riddles in the Dark." It's always been my favorite chapter of the book.
The end of their argument was that they sent Fili and Kili to look for a better shelter. They had very sharp eyes, and being the youngest of the dwarves by some fifty years they usually got these sort of jobs.
I'm really glad I live in a day and age of spectacles and contacts instead of one in which it's simply accepted that your eyes get worse with age. The day I got glasses was one of the most amazing days of my life, walking outside and realizing that trees had individual leaves.
It is not unlikely that [goblins] invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help.
This reminds me of the descriptions of the trolls that cdl pointed out, assigning sins and uncivilized behaviors to monsters, except in this case he's talking about something a bit more malevolent. I also wonder if Tolkien isn't a bit of a pacifist.
After some time he felt for his pipe. It was not his broken, and that was something. Then he felt for his pouch, there was some tobacco in it, and that was something more.
So when he's lost in the dark when all hope seems lost, the one thing that can comfort him is a good smoke. I have to wonder just what the pipe represents for Tolkien. The comforts of home, conversation with good friends, and all that is safe and cultured?
He knew, of course, that the riddle-game was sacred and of immense antiquity, and even wicked creatures were afraid to cheat when they played at it.
Oh? Was this so in Tolkien's time or is it something he created for his fantasy world. I'm not familiar with the riddle game in my world. Is it actually an old tradition?
When I was looking at colleges my senior year in high school I almost decided to go to K-State to study Engineering. Eventually, though, I decided I was undecided, and stayed home to get my basic credits at the local juco instead of pouring money into directionless classes at a university. After two years I still didn't know what I wanted to do, so I took a semester off to work and think about it. I finally decided I wanted to major in Wildlife Biology at Emporia with the career goal of being a park ranger. After talking to the counselors there, I enrolled in Chemistry 2 for the spring semester at the juco so all my basic classes would be out of the way. After one class, though, I remembered how much I had hated Chemistry 1, decided the track wasn't for me, and dropped the class. I finished the semester with the other classes I'd enrolled in just for fun to have a full class schedule. Realizing that two of them were literature-based (Shakespeare and Oral Interpretation of Literature) and reading was what I really enjoyed, I resolved to go through with my plans to attend ESU but as an English major. And that's how I ended up getting my teaching degree in English (how I became a librarian is a tale for another day). Anyway, one of the pieces I chose to perform for Oral Interp was a section from "Riddles in the Dark." It's always been my favorite chapter of the book.
posted by Degolar | 9:20 PM
6 Comments:
These are also sections I noticed, but, still being into the charm of the phrases he uses, noted other parts.
"There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly find something,if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after." So many times I have set off after some goal - personal, career, whatever - and ended up in an unexpected, but good, place.
And about the goblins - "They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones." It also surprised me how his views on the machines of war were so obvious in light of how everything else is written.
And, hehe, about getting the glasses. For me it was the amazement of seeing that the mountains, or more properly foothills, had actual, individual trees on them.
I've heard things about how when people used to get together in olden times, they'd trade stories. Before literacy flourished and people could write down stories and histories, the telling and retelling was all that the common people could do. I wouldn't be surprised if riddles were included in these storytellings.
Oral tradition.
Oh, definitely oral tradition; you're talking to a bard here. I was just wondering about the binding power of the riddle contest.
Oddly enough, Stephen King makes big fanfare of riddles in his Dark Tower series (and of course, his inspiration for a lot the DT series comes from LOTR and the Wizard of Oz). The fanfare there was over the largest goose of the season, and the entire town's 'knights of old' came to try to win it via riddles with strict judging and answers turned in ahead of schedule.
"Riddles in the Dark" has always been my favorite chapter too, right alongside "Flies and Spiders."
Post a Comment
<< Home