I've said it before, but by Eru can Tolkien do atmosphere.
This isn't a very eventful chapter. Frodo, Sam, and Sméagol part ways with Faramir and head south towards Minas Morgul and Cirith Ungol. That's about it. No encounters with Orcs, no Nazgûl flying overhead, just walking south.
But man does this chapter just crackle with escalating tension. My heart was pounding by the end of it. Nothing happening is a key part of it: Ithilien is silent, and the Hobbits are feeling more and more uneasy as they go further south. Sméagol feels it too, constantly urging them towards more stealth and more speed, begrudging every necessary rest. About halfway through the sky goes dark, covered by dark clouds courtesy of Sauron as he prepares for war, which of course ratchets things up several degrees. This chapter is as much a deep breath before the plunge as anything Pippin will feel in Minas Tirith at the beginning of The Return of the King.
But aside from commentary on the feel of this chapter, I don’t really have much to say about it. I do love the final image: the Hobbits get a last glimpse of the Sun just as it sets far to the West, beyond the leading edge of Sauron’s clouds. It touches on the toppled head of the statue the Dúnedain had built at the Cross-roads, and reveals that flowers have grown over the fallen head so that the King has a crown again. There’s a similarly-themed passage in The Return of the King that’s always been my favorite bit of writing in anything, ever, but I don’t recall this one standing out to me before. Not really sure why not: it’s a beautiful moment of hope before the darkness falls, and worth quoting:
Suddenly, caught by the level beams, Frodo saw the old king’s head: it was lying rolled away by the roadside. ‘Look, Sam!’ he cried, startled into speech. ‘Look! The king has got a crown again!’ The eyes were hollow and the carven beard was broken, but about the high stern forehead there was a coronal of silver and gold. A trailing plant with flowers like small white stars had bound itself across the brows as if in reverence for the fallen king, and in the crevices of his stony hair yellow stonecrop gleamed. ‘They cannot conquer for ever!’ said Frodo. And then suddenly the brief glimpse was gone. The Sun dipped and vanished, and as if at the shuttering of a lamp, black night fell.
Next time, all the time Sam spent on the Stairmaster pays off as we climb the Stairs of Cirith Ungol.