And now we are at the last few pages, and this is the last piece that talks about a Chapter of LOTR. As I warned you in the beginning, there will be one more piece to pick up the trash after the parade. And I want to talk in this penultimate piece about Tolkien’s unique ending, a key reason why I think he is a Great Writer.
Let me start with a quote from my piece on Tolkien’s uniqueness in my blog (waynekernochanblog.blogspot.com), written seven years ago, slightly modified:
“I have seen some commentators touch on this, but it should be emphasized: Tolkien crafts neither a tragic (in the classic sense) nor a happy (for either of the main characters, Sam or Frodo) ending. This appears to spring out of a constant wrestling on Tolkien’s part with how God justifies death. Through twists and turns in his background notes published by Christopher, it appears that he conceives of Elves as the first answer to Death; they accept it because they are effectively ‘burned out’, passive shells of their passionate former selves. But Man (with Sam and Frodo as proxy Men) is the second and better answer to Death, because he or she is forced into Death prematurely, with no assurance of what happens after, but by conquering his or her fears he or she achieves preparation for the best ‘next’ existence, an existence in which he or she may become, as it were, a ‘child’ of God to be taught by God.
“Frodo’s realization that he cannot escape the effects of the Ring and that he has rendered himself unable to bear the Shire for which he thought he was killing himself becomes a tragedy that can’t be solved in Middle Earth; but it allows him to conquer his fear of Death as he leaves for the Blessed Lands, by seeing there is hope of healing and therefore of a real life after Death. Sam’s happy ending is tainted by the realization that the person for whom he sacrificed himself was not saved from pain and early death by the sacrifice; but it allows him to live a life that will enable him also to conquer his fear of Death. In either case, we are far from ‘happy ever after’, and just as far from ‘bad things happen to bad/flawed people, good things happen to good people’ tragedy or even ‘bad things happen for no reason’ tragedy.”
In what follows, I am not going to defend this quote, or analyze it, but merely leave it out there as a thought. Instead, I am going to talk about the details that Tolkien so loved, the fine grain of Sam’s and Frodo’s Endings. And I want to begin with Sam.
The argument for Sam’s Ending being valuable and unique seems self-starting, self-evident. His is the “Well, I’m back” that ends everything in LOTR, and begins the tale of his life and our lives beyond Lord of the Rings. A statement of the end of the Journey, of returning home, and the beginning of the Journey, being able to discover home’s potential for the first time, for the rest of his life. A feeling that what has just happened to him, to us, is merely one hell of a prologue.
Interestingly, Tolkien wrote an alternate Ending, an additional Chapter to follow this one. In it, iirc, we see Sam the father, having just read to his children as enumerated by Frodo from the Red Book, answering questions about what has happened since. And no, we do not find out if the Dwarves, as a final gift from Aule, from Eru, ever say “Well, I’m back” to Moria. Because, as I think Sam says in that Chapter, not all stories have a happy if sad ending.
Would that Ending have been as good? I don’t think so. Certainly it would not have been remembered with such memory, such fondness as evinces everyone I have talked to who have read LOTR all the way to the end. And yet, I don’t think it would be that much of a come-down. Because, like Aragorn a few Chapters back, we would see Sam, Sam the father, fulfilling the full meaning of his life.
And so, I turn to Frodo. I will end this discussion of Endings, this end of my pieces about the Chapters of LOTR, with Frodo. Because, as I warned you from the very beginning, more than any other character, my heart is with Frodo. As I began, as I went on, so will I end. With Frodo.
Not all the radio plays’ variance from the words of Tolkien have been disaster. If I recall correctly, one of them at the climax had Gollum demand of Frodo: “Give us the Ring!” And Frodo replies melodramatically, “Never!” And Gollum responds, grunting with the effort of trying to take the Ring off: “Hobbits – don’t – know – just – how – long – never – is!”
And I think that’s fair, at the time. No matter what their experiences before the Ring goes into the fire, neither Sam nor Frodo has had the experience of having the Ring, the sad experience of living with the effects of the Ring, for an Age. But for Frodo, I think, that will begin to change.
If I had to pick a story from literature that was closest to Frodo’s, I would pick Fitzgerald’s Tender Is The Night. In it, if I remember right, a young man falls in love with a young woman with a terrible psychological disorder. But it is curable. And so he sets himself, he sacrifices himself, to be part of that cure, to support her as she struggles against the disorder, to be the key reason why she is able to overcome it, and set sail, triumphant and independent, on the cresting waves of the ocean of the rest of her life. But what is left for him now, after that effort, is mediocrity, and sadness, and hollowness. The memory of tenderness is only one last thread of comfort in the night.
And this kind of experience, I believe, is what ultimately, leads Frodo to choose to go to the Havens rather than live the rest of his life in the Shire, or in Ithilien, or anywhere else. This sense of the mediocrity of failure, of the sadness of loss, of the hollowness within him without the Ring.
But more than that, the prospect of far more than a lifetime of this. Of intermittent and alternating physical torture from the memory of past torture, and mental torture from the unrequitable addict’s urge to partake of the Ring again. Of memories of the past savor of the Ring that make it impossible to savor the simple pleasures of the Shire, or anywhere. All is stale, dull, and unprofitable. And painful. Compared to the remembered bliss of the Ring. Day after day. Year after year. For 200 years, 300 years, when all the tenderness that has been one last thread of comfort in the night has left and gone away.
Frodo now understands, viscerally, I believe, just how long never is.
And what will the Undying Lands mean to Frodo, in his Ending? Not a hospital, where he may emerge from it cured, as well as may be, and on the other side of the Sundering Seas be able to savor the rest of his shortened life.
A hospice. A resting place where friends like Gandalf and Galadriel and Elrond gather to see you off, where the Light of Valinor streaming in through the windows eases your pain and aids your ever-shortening days. A place where the tears of past memory become the numbing wine of blessedness. For Tolkien has taught me this: that not all tears of regret express an evil. And so I will not say to myself, do not weep for Frodo.
And yet, I will not end here. For, once upon a time, thinking about it, it occurred to me that Frodo had never had a complete life in one respect. He never had the experience of being a father. Of bringing up children. Of telling stories to his children, and grandchildren, that would set their feet to wandering on the Road forever. Although Frodo will never, can never complete the full meaning of his life, that at least should be given to him. Because without it the experience of creating the Mirror of Frodo will only be vicarious, “book learning”, not a part of his completed soul.
And so, in my mind, I wrote a story.
In it the Valar, having eased his pain, send Frodo back to Middle Earth. To have that experience. And then to die to Middle-Earth.
And in the woods south of Bree, in the last years of the reign of Aragorn, in a small cot in the woods, appears a gruff old gentlehobbit. And the venturesome hobbit lads and lasses and Man boys and girls of Bree, in their explorations outside the narrow South Gate of Bree, discover this strange gentleman. And are cautious at first.
Until they discover that he tells the most amazing stories. Stories that fill them with wonder, with the urge to adventure onto the Road that merely passes through their town, far into the wide world beyond, stories filled with magic. Stories that will set them on the Great Journey forever.
And so they become a gang of friends, seeking out little adventures of their own in the safe environs of Bree and Archet and Combe, and reporting back to the gruff, elderly gentlehobbit. And loving the way that, in his stories, he weaves their adventures into the vast tapestry of greater tales.
And then, one day, one of them goes too far, into mundane, deadly peril. And the elderly gentleman is nearby, and with failing strength rescues him or her, and in the process suffers a heart attack. And is brought back to the cot, dying, with a healer from Bree to smooth the way to easeful death, and all the children gathered around him. And he lingers until sunset, for a breath he tarries.
And here is how I would end it, in my mind full of memories, with Frodo speaking the last words that he would say in Middle-Earth:
“And though they would in days to come venture forth far into the wide world, and find in the deeps of Earth the Worm that gnaws at the Heart of the World, and come at last to see the waking Sun at the Gates of Morning in the uttermost East, still one memory alone would ever lie with them from their waking until their last sigh at night, sliding into sleep, one memory would lie nestled in the beating heart that drove their wandering feet, forever and a day:
That the dying gentlehobbit turned suddenly to look into the red glare of sunset shafting through a window, his eyes blind in the light, aflame with tears.
That he then called out in a distant, clear, haunting voice, like the last horn in the hills heralding the end of day, “I’m coming, Sam!”
That he then turned to them, the fire in his eyes flickering, guttering, gone out.
That he looked at them, and smiled, and said to them the last words of his that they would ever hear, defying Dylan Thomas, the last words that I will ever hear on this our Middle-Earth:
Do not rage against the dying of the light …
I go gently into that good night.”
Go gently, gently, Frodo. I will miss you.
I love you.
Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Like You’ve Never Heard It:
- The First of a Series of Ramblings About JRR Tolkien
- Part II. Pre-Psychology Writing, Poetry, and a New Hero
- Part III. Torture, Enlightenment
- Part IV. Weather, Mushrooms, Leaders
- Part V. In the Moment, Sam the Obscure
- Part VI. Folk Songs, Master, First, Fair
- Part VII. Hiking, Curses, Noble Language
- Part VIII. The Hiker’s Extrasensory Writing
- Part IX. Torture, Elves, Endings
- Part X. Your Highness
- Part XI. Business Meetings, Dwarves
- Part XII. Horns of Wild Memory
- Part XIII. Ecstasies of the Dwarves
- Part XIV. Valaraukar, the Third Touch of God
- Part XV. Memory, Nature, Passion
- Part XVI. The Gift of Enchantment
- Part XVII. Frontier Maturity
- Part XVIII. Pity, Decisions, Endings
- Part XIX. Into the Shadow, Kings, Names, Winds
- Part XX. People of the Morning, Child Soldiers
- Part XXI. Herdsmen and High Trees
- Part XXII. The Faith of God
- Part XXIII. Theoden’s Law
- Part XXIV. Helm’s Deep, Zangra, and A Life Worthy of Song
- Part XXV. Book of Marvels, Book of Friendship
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/...
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/…
- www.dailykos.com/...
-
www.dailykos.com/…
-
www.dailykos.com/…
-
www.dailykos.com/…
-
www.dailykos.com/…
-
www.dailykos.com/...