Tolkien was a great lover of nature. You can see it in the idyllic countryside of the Shire, and in the Ents. And you can see it from the other side in this chapter, as Frodo and Sam (with Sméagol's invaluable guidance) cross first the corrupted Dead Marshes, then the even more horrible blasted hellscape that lies before the Black Gate:
Dreadful as the Dead Marshes had been, and the arid moors of the Noman-lands, more loathsome far was the country that the crawling day now slowly unveiled to his shrinking eyes. Even to the Mere of Dead Faces some haggard phantom of green spring would come; but here neither spring nor summer would ever come again. Here nothing lived, not even the leprous growths that feed on rottenness. The gasping pools were choked with ash and crawling muds, sickly white and grey, as if the mountains had vomited the filth of their entrails upon the lands about. High mounds of crushed and powdered rock, great cones of earth fire-blasted and poison-stained, stood like an obscene graveyard in endless rows, slowly revealed in the reluctant light. They had come to the desolation that lay before Mordor: the lasting monument to the dark labour of its slaves that should endure when all their purposes were made void; a land defiled, diseased beyond all healing – unless the Great Sea should enter in and wash it with oblivion. ‘I feel sick,’ said Sam. Frodo did not speak.
World War I plays its part here, once again. The dead Elves and Men and Orcs in the Marshes - killed during the War of the Last Alliance, in the months-long-fight that gave the Battle Plain its name - were inspired by the battlefields of France, where water would collect in shell craters and submerge the dead lying there. The blasted landscape between the Marshes and the Black Gate is, I've always assumed, inspired by what Tolkien saw during the War as well. The description I quoted above is, in my opinion, some of the most evocative writing in the trilogy, and I never really noticed or appreciated it before this reread. It’s pretty horrifying.
I know I said in “The Palantír” that Sauron hadn't been much of a presence in the books, but that's not true here either: Sam, and Sméagol, and even more so Frodo, are almost painfully aware of the malevolent will they are moving ever closer towards:
In fact with every step towards the gates of Mordor Frodo felt the Ring on its chain about his neck grow more burdensome. He was now beginning to feel it as an actual weight dragging him earthwards. But far more he was troubled by the Eye: so he called it to himself. It was that more than the drag of the Ring that made him cower and stoop as he walked. The Eye: that horrible growing sense of a hostile will that strove with great power to pierce all shadows of cloud, and earth, and flesh, and to see you: to pin you under its deadly gaze, naked, immovable. So thin, so frail and thin, the veils were become that still warded it off. Frodo knew just where the present habitation and heart of that will now was: as certainly as a man can tell the direction of the sun with his eyes shut. He was facing it, and its potency beat upon his brow.
I can forgive people for getting the mistaken notion that Sauron is just a disembodied Eye, though I maintain that Jackson & company should, like Wizards, know better.
We also have the near presence of the Nazgûl, whom the three sense or hear several times. Their power is much greater here, in the lonely corrupted wilderness, than it was in the comfortable Shire. And in another moment linking the two threads of the story, we get a glimpse of the one specific Nazgûl that so alarmed Gandalf at the end of Book I:
About an hour after midnight the fear fell on them a third time, but it now seemed more remote, as if it were passing far above the clouds, rushing with terrible speed into the West.
Lest we get too comfortable with poor Sméagol, this is the chapter where we get the argument between Sméagol and Gollum that Andy Serkis and Peter Jackson did such a masterful job of translating to the screen. There is a genuine conflict at work within Sméagol/Gollum. He is, after all, a Hobbit, and has a Hobbit's resiliency. As Gandalf pointed out so long ago, even after possessing the Ring for centuries - and not being a particularly nice guy to start with - Sméagol still wasn't wholly ruined. Frodo shows him empathy, and kindness, and understanding, and Sméagol responds to that. Sam, I am afraid it must be said, isn't helping here. Even as Frodo's kindness is strengthening Sméagol, Sam's suspicion is empowering Gollum - and the Sméagol-spark needs all the help it can get. But Sam isn't wrong either: the “argument” ends with Gollum having largely convinced Sméagol that they should retake the Ring, even if Sméagol argues forcefully that they mustn't hurt “Nice Master.” (Sam receives no such advocacy.) This is, unsurprisingly, a topic I'll have more to say on as the book continues.
Next post, the Black Gate is Closed, but it doesn't even occur to Frodo and Sam to try the handle and see if it's unlocked. Come on guys, it's worth a shot.