Now, we move from the Emyn Muil and into a stronger Shadow, and we see the Dead Marshes, and we see a new Gollum, Smeagol, and the Nazgul becomes stronger, and the land more depressing, until we arrive at a place of utter desolation. And there we stop. But I am going to talk about none of it. Instead, I want to call your attention to a very small, seemingly very insignificant part of The Passage of the Marshes, where Sam says to Frodo in the shadow of the Emyn Muil, “[The lembas] doesn’t satisfy the innards proper, as you might say.”
And we know that’s part of the way Sam speaks to Frodo, part of his unique character. “If you catch my meaning, sir.” “If you get my drift.” “So to speak.” “As you might say.”
To start, I have a sordid long-ago secret I wish to confess. But then, as Stephen Donaldson noted, the heart cherishes secrets not worth the knowing.
Back in high school, I went to a summer music camp, where, as it turned out, some of the campers were also lovers of Tolkien, and so we began to gather in the afternoons after practice and read it from the beginning. And, having some acting experience, I was usually the one who read, and I enjoyed starting by making up silly Chapter headings, viz. for this Chapter: “Chapter 3, Book 4. In Which Frodo Discovers That He Has Left His Spare Underwear at Crickhollow And Resolves to Go Back and Get It.” But that is not the secret.
One of the things we all found memorable was those sayings of Sam. “If you catch my meaning.” “So to speak.” And so we boys, being boys, devised a silly game to play around the girls. Like the characters in James Branch Cabell’s Jurgen (“O now I do perceive your point”), we would say things which were really double entendres, and end with “So to speak.” For the prurient, I will provide an example in the comments.
I firmly believe that those girls in those more innocent days of the mid-60s never really understood what we were up to – it was just another inexplicable part of boy conversations. I really regret the teasing and innuendo aspects of it, though. But the point? Thrust? Aargh! Meaning of this – if there is one -- is the way these phrases play out in the relationship between Sam and Frodo now that Gollum has arrived. Because there is, I believe, another subtext in those phrases of Sam’s, a message to Frodo of sharing thoughts. “As you might say.” “If you catch my drift.” And my long-ago experience reveals that there is yet another potential aspect of the same phrases: Frodo, we are sharing secrets.
Many years ago, Joseph Conrad wrote a short story called The Secret Sharer. In it, the second-in-command of a ship suddenly and unexpectedly finds himself catapulted into the role of captain when the previous captain is abruptly removed from the scene. He doubts that he is ready for leadership. He dares not admit that to the crew. And then he finds out that there is a stowaway on the ship, that only he knows about. A stowaway who is safe to talk to, because the stowaway cannot reveal to the crew that he is there, but must wait for the first chance he gets to dive overboard and get to safety. And so, the new captain can keep him hidden, and talk to him about his doubts, keeping the doubts at bay until the captain has proven himself. That stowaway is a Secret Sharer in both senses of the word secret, noun and adjective. He is a hidden sharer of the lonely and secret burdens of leadership that cannot be confessed to the unreliable crew like Gollum.
And I would argue that, on some level, this is what is happening here, and that Tolkien is conveying to us, consciously or unconsciously, but in a surprisingly subtle way. Frodo is taking a leadership role over multiple people in an unambiguously vital undertaking for the first time – Sam and Gollum. And Sam, by his very nature, by his words, is placing their new relationship partly in the role of Sam being a Secret Sharer. A far more equal relationship. Given by the leader to someone utterly trustworthy. Someone to whom he can say privately without fear or condescension, “Perhaps you’re right, Sam.”
But there’s another aspect to being a Secret Sharer, or at least a Sharer that is not going away from the crew any time soon. The Secret Sharer is being trained for leadership herself, or himself. And so, Sam is from now on being trained to be a lonely leader as well. Trained for the horrible day, in the pass into Mordor, when he must take up the Ring and the Quest and decide, alone, how to fulfil the meaning of Frodo’s life. And then to lead Frodo, like a blind beggar on a string, to Mount Doom, with mutinous crew Gollum looming behind. With only Frodo, when he can, to act as Sam’s own Secret Sharer.
And so I ask you, as we read on into this Book that takes us irrevocably Into The deepest of Shadows, to remember this possible aspect of what is going on. The change in Frodo, and the change in his attitude toward Sam, and the change in Sam. Sam. Dear Sam. Our Secret Sharer.
Oh, by the way, if you think that it was easy to write the last half of this piece without using double entendres, then, as Sam might say, you’ve got another think coming, as you might say, so to speak. Oh, God, I did it again!
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
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