Latest / Mythmakers / Then I Will Declare My Doom - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Bk 4 Ch 6

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Then I Will Declare My Doom - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Bk 4 Ch 6 · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to Mythbakers. Mythbakers the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives
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  brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and today I'm
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  continuing our series, working our way on an author's journey through the Lord of the Rings.
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  When we have reached quite a long way into the two hours now, we are in chapter 6 of book 4.
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  It's a chapter called The Forbidden Pool and it comes just after the very long conversation
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  with Faramir which was the subject of our last episode. This by contrast is actually quite
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  short chapter and it's really devoted to one incident which is the arrival of Gollum as
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  he's fishing in the pool for his favourite thing which is fish. Being pulled out of that by
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  Frodo and then the questioning under Faramir and this all sets up the journey starting up again.
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  So we're coming to the end of this little respite that Tolkien has given us in the darker material
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  of this book. If you think about the two hours, the two parts of it like some kind of tapestry or
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  collection of colours, the first part is much more vibrant which is why it's easier to read. You've got
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  the the forest colours of fangorn, you've got the the white and the the green and the heraldic
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  colours of Rohan and the horses and the armour, any sort of grittiness like the battle of Helm's
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  D for the abductions by the Urokai of the two younger hobbits. Those are leavened with lighter
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  moments, a change of mood or cutting between characters. The second book book 4 which
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  concentrates on Frodo and Sam doesn't have the cutaway potential because they're together
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  but also it is a much darker place they're going through and the effort and the strain is also
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  dark and subject matter. So this episode of relaxation and respite in Athelian is really important
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  to make this readable otherwise it would feel unbearably heavy as a piece. That's one of the reasons
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  why I felt the film version of this actually doesn't live up to the book version. They did many
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  great choices in the film but I felt that the that feeling of just the able to take a deep breath
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  and enjoy meeting a new wise character and faramir didn't come across in the film treatment but
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  yeah they make choices because they've got to cram it all into a short few hours. Anyway let's
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  turn to what we're getting in this chapter. I would say that when I was reading it I kept getting
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  echoes of Shakespeare so I think there is an element of Shakespeare haunting this chapter which I
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  hadn't really thought of before but I'll point these out as we go along. So we get the sort of
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  beginning of this is faramir browsing Frodo from sleep. I just noticed there's lots of F's
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  isn't his first very opening sentence we got Frodo worked. See I'm already tripping up. Frodo
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  worked to find faramir bending over him. For a second old fears seized him and he sat up
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  and shrank away. It's almost like a literative verse or those F's and he's a little side by.
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  It doesn't matter with Frodo and faramir but on the whole if you've got a cast of characters it's
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  quite good to separate out characters don't have too many with the same starting initial. It's
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  difficult in a culture like Rohan Airwin where it's a family reason but just for ease of the eye
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  reading across the page it's a good idea to distinguish. So actually Tolkien has done this
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  in the in the company hasn't he so we've got Frodo, Mary, Pippin and Sam all clearly distinguished
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  by their names. So Fredigar couldn't come with them because his name's too much like Frodo anyway
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  I digress. So the details here of the moon over Ethylian and over Gondor is an interesting note
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  in the companion to the Lord of the Rings that Tolkien was using a 1942 moon chart to time all
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  of this. He has reference to the moon setting. It's only somebody who really observes his world very
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  well who actually does more than just plunk the moon in the sky. I confess that I've been a bit
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  lazy about that and this is making me rethink that actually appealing to reality is a very good
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  tip. So if it matters in your story I don't think I've written one where it matters but if it matters
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  in your story and you're in a earth type location looking at the real data on when a moon rise
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  rises and when it sets and using that to pace out your book is great also because it suggests
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  things which the real world suggests which your brain might not and here we get that in the effect
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  of the light on the waterfall which will come to in a second and then again when the moon is setting
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  which I can imagine Tolkien leaping through to the equivalent of early March I think he all that's
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  a nice detail to put in. It was interesting after our in literative f start when Frodo does rise up
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  from his sort of makeshift bed it's full of short stuttery sentences it seemed cold in the
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  fireless cave the noise of the water was loud in the stillness he put on his cloak and followed
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  uncharacteristic for Tolkien to have short sentences like that all in a run and it seems to me to
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  convey that sense of the slowness of waking up you're not quite fluent and fluid you're just
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  trying to get to grips and your impressions are fleeting so that I think that's what he's capturing
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  here. Sam follows and it's Sam who actually gives us the first bit of poetry in this chapter
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  because he is the one who notices the beauty of the curtain we're briefly in his point of view.
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  I love this description the this waterfall has provided us with a beautiful image in the
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  last chapter and it comes back again here because it's now a dazzling veil of silk and pearls
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  and silver thread melting icicles of moonlight that last bit going from a more literal what do I
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  see the melting icicles of moonlight launches us into a Sam's poetic grasp of what he's seeing which
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  is absolutely beautiful so we follow pharomir outside up this up to this platform where you've got
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  a view down into the pool this is one of those areas if you're following in the book it's
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  page 292 in the three volume version it's very hard to describe things surprisingly how much
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  information do you give well when is when is it too much here I think one of the things I noticed
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  is that he does describe this small scene not an important scene in the book in many ways the
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  place that they're standing he uses something like what a landscape painter would do and of
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  course talking himself was a fine painter amateur painter you use the foreground to background or
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  background to foreground or left to right you organize your description and that's what he's doing
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  here and he even does what a landscape painter traditionally did in the 18th century he provides
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  the point at accent point very often it was like a twisted oak or something here it ends up with a
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  man stood there near the brink silent gazing down so here's the last place where I rest so if
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  you're struggling with how to describe things it might be worth just looking at this very short
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  little passage and see what is being done how to control because you can see it perhaps in your
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  mind's eye if that's how your brain works but you need to help the reader not feel overwhelmed by
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  the detail so you organize it for them this leads us on to another of those characteristic
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  talkinian moments the high place moment where it's Frodo now who's looking out across the
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  landscape in front of him I think this is doing three things it's beautiful it keeps that idea of
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  the beauty of middle earth in the forefront of our mind even though we're in the shadow of
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  border it's grounding because we are there with Frodo we feel present in the landscape but also
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  it's connecting so if I read you just a little bit of that far off in the west the full moon was
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  sinking round and white there's that detail drawn from the lists pale mist shimmered in the great
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  veil below a wide gulf of silver fume beneath which rolled the cool night waters of the anduin
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  a black darkness loomed beyond and in it glinted here and there cold sharp remote white as the
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  teeth of ghosts the peaks of erred nimorice the white mountains or the realm of gondor
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  tipped with everlasting snow for a while Frodo stood there on the high stone and a shiver ran
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  through him wondering if anywhere in the vastness of the nightlands his old companions walked
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  or slept or laid dead shrouded in mist so that's the connecting connecting back to the story we know
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  more than he does we know that yes all but Boramir are still alive and they are indeed in that
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  area that he's looking out on but there's also some thematic connections being made did you notice
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  that there's that odd description of the peaks being like the teeth of ghosts never really
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  sort of ghosts having teeth that seems to be the more of a skull thing but we know what he's
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  getting at this ghostly pallor but of course pretty much around this time we have
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  arrogant legolas and gimli and the grey company actually going on the paths of the dead
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  so there's a nice connection there in the language being used and again we're talking about the
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  this being a well woven tapestry this book that's another of these little threads that you may have
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  missed which is connecting the stories and Faramir is the one who comes up and actually sort of
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  speaks about the landscape he talks about fair ifl he uses that word the old word for the moon
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  which sets up the explanation which he later gives about minus ifl minus smorgal as he says it is
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  named so that little note has already been planted i really enjoyed reading this chapter because
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  it is full of moments where i really enjoyed the language the funny thing is i don't think i've
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  ever really given this chapter much thought before because i know we're about to start the journey
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  again but i was struck by for example how Tolkien spends a very he makes his language really count
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  even on something as small as watching golem dive into the poor beneath he calls it from up
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  up the top where amborn who's the ranger we've already met and Faramir Frodo and Sam are watching
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  a small dark thing dived and vanished just beyond the boil and bubble of the fall
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  cleaving the black water as neatly as an arrow or an edge-wise stone
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  now this is where i got my first little bit of Shakespeare boil and bubble you can't help but hear
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  mcbeth double double toilet trouble fire burn and cauldron bubble you've got the language of the
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  witches the idea of a cauldron boiling and bubbling in here we know that Macbeth was one of the
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  plays that Tolkien read and admired but also wanted to correct because it influenced his decision
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  for the ends to march on um saramand so seeing a little touch of it here probably it's just because
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  those two words boil and bubble have become in everyone's brains a kind of an eliterative moment
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  but i like to hear a little bit of echo of Shakespeare at this point
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  Faramir is carrying on being tricky we talked about how last chapter was all about this kind of
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  duel of wits between Faramir and Frodo but he's doing it again he's staging a conversation with
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  Ann Bourne knowing that Frodo and Sam are overhearing him saying oh could it be you know
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  could it be a black kingfisher that kind of thing he's probably already decided what it is
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  but he's waiting to see what Frodo is going to say and when he gets to the question shall we
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  shoot it there's this moment where we get a no from Frodo adding silent yes from Sam and this
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  marks the different stages they are in their pity journey Frodo has already decided that golem
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  is someone he pitties he remembers the lesson of Gandalf
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  Sam later on reaches the same point but at the moment he is not there
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  and we get Faramir using the word of about golem which i only really ever seen in Tolkien
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  about golem in fact which is it's your gangrel companion now gangrel is one of those words that
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  seems to fit really well within middle earth but it's obviously not a common usage word but we get
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  the idea of what that means it means golem that kind of lanky unpleasant creature Frodo is
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  equally careful if Faramir is being tricksy Frodo is equally careful in his reply for me this is
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  like they've got a set of cards which they're going to play and they're they're working out
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  where this hand who wins the hand and it actually in this case it's Frodo who wins the hand
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  because his trump card is actually what he's here for is fish because he lays that down as his last
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  card and that changes what everybody is thinking about golem's motives for being in the pool
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  and in our situation above this pool we then get an opportunity to see an almost
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  completely happy golem it's one of them i think it might be almost the only time we see golem
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  in his element doing what he loves most which is fishing and of course he will never be happy
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  because he doesn't have the pressures but there is a brief sense of him having a holiday a
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  holiday from his cares which is about to turn salad on him and if you weren't pitying golem it
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  may be something which would as a reader make you think about he is like a child in some ways a
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  child who has been ruined so this is when he's at his sort of most childishly happy and when
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  Faramir asks why they shouldn't shoot this interloper into her forbidden pool Frodo's answer
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  is twofold it's an appeal to Gandalf Mithrandir who he has learnt taught Faramir as well
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  but he also is beginning to get a sense of almost that prophetic knowledge
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  having listened to what Gandalf told him of course he says but this creature is in some way bound
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  up with my errand this this fate of this creature shouldn't be slipped off here because it's going
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  to be going further of course which is correct then as Frodo goes down to try and rescue
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  golem of course golem doesn't see it that way we get overhearing golem's own little monologue
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  we have heard some of these before particularly Sam overheard an important one
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  where golem is trying to make up his mind what to do but this one is golem just basically
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  moaning to himself and you see how his mind works it's it's great if you listen to the audio version
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  as read by Andy Circus as I have you are in for a treat because it's just very funny all four and
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  sweet all those things together and his brain goes from fish to hobbits to precious to men to fish
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  what's most interesting about this scene this little bit of the scene is Frodo's dilemma and I
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  think it's a very relatable dilemma because he has a moral choice here he's he's thinking oh I
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  wish I could get rid of I wish I could get rid of golem it wouldn't life be easier if we just got rid
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  of him but he he reminds himself that a servant has a claim on the master that's more of an old
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  fashioned idea now but I think we can understand what he means but but also he says Gandalf would not
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  want it he remember at this stage he thinks Gandalf is dead but he's still using Gandalf as his guide
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  to the decisions he makes which is a very good guide another thing we noticed in the earlier
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  chapters not the last one but the one before with herbs and stewed rabbit is that Sam fell into
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  talking a bit like golem Frodo is doing it here he's talking about himself in the third person
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  master wouldn't like it master wouldn't do this it does seem as though golem's speech is always
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  like an infection everyone starts speaking like that around him but also I think it gives a
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  sense that Frodo is being his most inauthentic here he is unhappy that he is playing a role and so
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  he has to fall into it to be the person that golem is expecting and will obey in order to save him
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  and we get this insight into what he's going through Frodo his heart sank this was too much like
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  trickery and then a bit further on what else could he do to keep faith as near as might be with both
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  sides he's making a compromise life in the shower is relatively simple life out in the world
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  is full of such compromises and I think I really feel for Frodo here because in a way it's one of
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  these moments that golem uses to justify the betrayal in Sheila's Lair we do get a sort of check-in
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  with a visual of golem when golem's been taken into the caves and is brought before
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  baramear we get a little glimpse of what he looks like this reminded me that if you haven't
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  described your characters for a very long time it's a good idea to check back in with them
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  sometimes with a purpose and just to keep a sort of in in everybody's mind what they look like
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  characters can sometimes kind of disappear particularly if it's a large castor character
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  seeing which one was that not the beginning forget golem but I think it's just and it makes a
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  point here about the contrast between this trivial little proto hobbit and a real noble man
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  but anyway so we've got golem in front of baramear golem blinked hooding the malice of his eyes
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  with their heavy pale lids and a very miserable creature he looked dripping and dank smelling of fish
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  he still clutch one in his hand his sparse locks were hanging like rank weed over his bony brows
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  his nose was sniveling so we got a very physical impression of what this creature now looks like
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  baramear obviously asked us a question which is why you hear what you're doing here
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  in fact baramear has a range of questions for him what is your name when it's do you come with
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  the do you go what is your business he doesn't give his name he doesn't really answer the questions
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  but he does give a truth which is more truth than he knows because he answers by saying we are lost
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  lost yeah golem is one of the most lost creatures in literature he has lost himself he's lost his ring
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  he's a drift hopeless I hope his creature in many ways but he's a hopeless creature with a bite in more
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  ways than one because he hits back at the people who are holding him with sarcasm he sort of says oh
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  you know you're also wise they are so just so very just he means the opposite but he's presenting
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  that he's holding up a mirror to the people around him saying you think you're so just when you've
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  got me here as a prisoner and of course that self-righteousness which he often tries he's tried it all
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  the way along doesn't survive because baramear has worked out just how bad golem has been he has a
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  way of reading golem's heart and there's an interesting sign of this we've heard about the greenish
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  light and the the light of his eyes of golem which signals a switch between the two sides of his
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  personality but when baramear confronts him we get this all light went out of them then being golem's
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  eyes and they stared bleak and pale for a moment into the clear unwavering eyes of the man of
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  gondor it's the moment when all pretence is stripped away to some ways golem plays both Frodo and
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  he plays on the pity he plays on the the need for him when Sam obviously hates it but even Sam
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  sort of doesn't have the power over him that a baramear does he couldn't bring him to this stripped
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  damn version of himself and baramear has this very penetrating observation on him
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  there are locked doors and closed windows in your mind and dark rooms behind them
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  lovely description and indeed that gives a great sense of the the schema the deviousness of
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  what is superficially a very pitiable creature so that's baramear's dilemma he's got Frodo and Sam
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  on one point on one hand to he has Frodo and Sam on one hand to need to carry on with their
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  mission to destroy the ring and he's got this unreliable guide who they're relying on and he has
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  to make a decision what to do with them it's a big decision because it decides the trajectory
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  of the next part of the book so it's given a line break to underline it faramir sat for a moment in
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  thought and then he says rather portentously then I will declare my doom doom here is an interesting
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  word because doom means judgment doomsday that idea but it isn't a way faramir's doom because he
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  knows that he could be blamed by his father for making the wrong decision so it cuts both ways
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  anyway his declaration is that to Frodo whomsoever you take under your protection shall be under my
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  protection and the shield of gondor I mean you've got to love faramir he goes way beyond just letting
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  these visitors go he is offering his protection it's a very sort of chivalric thing to do and the
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  next stage of that is to ask Frodo if he takes responsibility for smegel golem and Frodo agrees
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  in a sort of all before more saying I do take smegel under my protection but what's lovely
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  here is we've got a little dip into sam who represents the shah sam side audibly and not at the
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  curses of which as any hobbit would he thoroughly approved indeed in the shah such a matter would have
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  required a great many more words and bows so little nod back to the shah at all times around sam
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  so when that that decision has been made the next one is about where Frodo is going and we get a
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  tense exchange between faramir and Frodo about the path that golem has suggested was taking them on
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  he mentions that the past has a name that he knows which is curious angle there's a little note
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  in the companions to the Lord the Ring saying why doesn't he mention that that means spider he
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  does say that a dark terror lives there and there's nothing certain in his knowledge about it
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  I don't know why he doesn't mention it he knows what Ethel meant earlier I think
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  probably the answer is Tolkien doesn't want to show his hand too early so just hint at it
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  keep it back I've never thought that before when reading it so I think it passes the reader by
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  but faramir is correct when he goes on to say to warn that malice eats it that's golem like a canker
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  which of course Frodo knows too but he hopes there's also goodness fighting back
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  little antibody to that but the discussion of the path gives faramir the chance to give a
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  potted history of Minus Ethel and he also connects it to the nine riders Frodo doesn't say oh
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  yeah I've met them I know all about them this is more it is necessary to have this in this place
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  because it means that the next time the next chapter when we reach the morgue or veil we have
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  already been told the story of this this city that fell into darkness and it also connects us
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  back to the nine riders of earlier times and of course they become the riders of the winged beasts
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  so it's just slotting them back to reminders who the external enemies the ones who leave
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  more or who they are that's what that all does it would it would have been a a real digression
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  if Frodo had said oh yeah I met them up and I thought them none of that is necessary here move on
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  so give the connections are necessary and move on and what is really true strikes me as really
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  true about this is the cleft stick that Frodo finds himself in so faramir is saying don't go that way
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  it's dangerous but he hasn't got another way for Frodo to go he said well we don't know all the
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  ways into the land but Frodo says yeah I don't have time to do find those and it's so good saying
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  what would Mithran do because he's not here and it ends up with this cry but where else will you
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  direct me and then he goes on to say this absolutely crushing thing would you send me to Gondor
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  with the thing that drove your brother mad with desire that by the way comes over extremely well
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  in the BBC audio version of this that cry where would you send me so yeah it's a very good
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  very well done this scene in that version of this so faramir has to bow to the fact that Frodo
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  hasn't really got a choice if he's going to try and do this thing you'll have to go away which
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  say all know is a bad choice but it's the not as if there was another good choice he could bake
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  and in this situation there's this lovely character note about faramir so while he thinks that
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  this is actually likely to end in disaster he holds out hope and this teaches you something about
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  optimism if if Tolkien is writing this in the dark days of the second world war he didn't know how
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  it was going to end remember that's the hindsight of history is great we can say oh yes of course
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  it's all going to be a fine but then he didn't know that so he had to hope that there was light at
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  the end of the tunnel and he's giving something to faramir here which seems to speak a lot about
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  the experience of the early forties so when faramir says goodnight he says if ever beyond hope you
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  return to the lands of the living and we retell our tales sitting by a wall in the sun laughing
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  at old grief you shall tell me then this is where I've got my other Shakespearean echo here
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  laughing at old grief sitting by telling our tales by a wall is is kind of sentiment you find
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  in Shakespearean plays and it just felt like we were dipping back into well in 12th night
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  viola talks about smiling at grief so there's this sort of little hint of 12th night there anyway I
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  maybe maybe that I'm just tuning in too much but I did feel that this had an element of Shakespearean
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  themes in it this chapter and faramir himself seems like a very he was almost Shakespearean character
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  too one of the most noble lords I'd have put him at and it's very fitting that he makes an
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  actively exit from this chapter he rose and bowed low to Frodo and drawing the curtain passed out
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  into the cave so there we are he leaves with a bow so that's the end of this chapter as I said it
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  was quite short and we are now going into really take the journey up again and do the onslaught
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  onto the getting over those mountains into Mordor in the next chapter which is called
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  Journey to the Crossroads so I hope you can join me for that thank you for listening
• 34:15
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