I will never understand those who say, “I'd like Tolkien's writing, but there's too much description.” That's what he's best at! It's like saying, “I'd like GGK's writing but it's too emotional” or “I'd like Sir Terry's writing but I don't like books that make me laugh and think.” Taking that away takes away what makes them great.
Morgul Vale is frightening. I love the way that Tolkien emphasizes how it should be beautiful, how it's almost beautiful, and is instead twisted and corrupt. The fields of white flowers, twisted into horrible shapes. The flowing stream, icy cold despite the steam rising from the surface. The road to the gate shining with a sickly corpse-light. Isildur's fair Tower of the Moon, that once shown with captured moonlight through the translucent marble, shining with that same corrupt light. It's nightmarish.
The eruption of Orodruin and the answering flare of light from Minas Morgul is another of those things that (when we get to RotK) serve as anchor points tying the two halves of the story together. The War of the Ring has begun in earnest.
Question for my fellow Tolkien buffs: did the Professor ever say where, exactly, the Stairs came from? Who built them and why? I'm guessing they must predate Gondor, because with the road from Minas Ithil to the high pass building those stairs seems rather a lot of work. If there’s anything about that buried in the Histories, I can't recall it.
(Aside: it took me a long time to realize that there's a main road from Minas Morgul to the pass, which the stairs and tunnel bypass.)
The real heart of the chapter comes at the end, and has two main parts. First there's Tolkien going meta and discussing the nature of stories, with Frodo and Sam imagining the stories that might eventually be told of the two of them. Much of this dialogue was adapted into the movies at the end of TTT, and it's a scene beloved by the fandom for good reason. It’s a very sweet moment between the two of them, and speaks to the power of storytelling in a way that the very best authors understand quite well. One passage in particular I want to draw attention to:
Beren now, he never thought he was going to get that Silmaril from the Iron Crown in Thangorodrim, and yet he did, and that was a worse place and a blacker danger than ours. But that’s a long tale, of course, and goes on past the happiness and into grief and beyond it – and the Silmaril went on and came to Eärendil. And why, sir, I never thought of that before! We’ve got – you’ve got some of the light of it in that star-glass that the Lady gave you! Why, to think of it, we’re in the same tale still! It’s going on. Don’t the great tales never end?’
Several things I want to say about this passage. First, I place 100% of the blame on Tolkien, and this passage in particular, for the development of the obsessiveness that ultimately led to me being able to tell you (at least at one point) the Ajah of every random Aes Sedai and the banner of random minor houses from the Riverlands or the Reach. This passage (as well as others scattered about, including mentions of Turin and Tuor soon to come, but this more than any other) drove me absolutely nuts. I needed to know these other stories! It was a hunger that would not be satisfied until I spotted a book I’d never heard of, but with an author I knew very well, on a family member’s bookshelf. (Shout-out to Aunt Lorri for letting me borrow that copy of The Silmarillion all those years ago.)
Next, this passage brings to mind a quote from Neil Gaiman, said (I think) in reference to the ending of Stardust (the book ending, that is): “if you keep [stories] going long enough, they always end in death.” It’s true even for the Elves and the Valar.
Lastly, I love the continuity this gives to the story. Knowing that their story ties back into the great events of the First Age (even more directly than Sam might realize here, because Sauron himself is an important figure in The Silmarillion) gives it a wonderful grounding. It’s something that many of the best works of fantasy have. A Song of Ice and Fire ties back to the Targaryen conquest, and the Andal invasion before that, and the First Men before that, and on back to the Children of the Forest. Harry Potter is as much about the First Wizarding War as it is about the second. The prologue of The Eye of the World starts in the Age of Legends for very good reason. (Aside for those who have finished WoT: go back and reread the EotW prologue if you haven’t ever done so. Thank me later.)
Lastly: this chapter ends with the battle between Sméagol and Gollum:
And so Gollum found them hours later, when he returned, crawling and creeping down the path out of the gloom ahead. Sam sat propped against the stone, his head dropping sideways and his breathing heavy. In his lap lay Frodo’s head, drowned deep in sleep; upon his white forehead lay one of Sam’s brown hands, and the other lay softly upon his master’s breast. Peace was in both their faces. Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo’s knee – but almost the touch was a caress. For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.
It’s a quiet moment, and appropriately so for the climax of what I will deliberately call one of the biggest struggles in The Lord of the Rings. It’s the closest that Sméagol ever came to redemption, and he ultimately falls short. For Sam responds with anger and suspicion, and Sméagol/Gollum retreats - and the moment is gone. I don’t mean to say that Sam did anything wrong here - given that Sméagol/Gollum literally just came back from making sure everything was in order to betray them to Shelob, his suspicion is justified. But what if Frodo had been the first to awake, and responded with pity and empathy for the sad creature he understands so well? It’s impossible to say how things might have gone. Sméagol did have a genuine, if slight, chance of redemption, and Frodo’s pity brought him closer to that redemption than even Gandalf probably would have thought could happen.
I had a lot to say about this chapter, evidently. Very curious to hear what you all have to say.
Next time, “Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Hobbits.