Anderson Rearick III’s Reviews > The Fellowship of the Ring > Status Update

The optimism of Sam in face of Frodo’s realistic assessment that they’d probably never see the rest of the Fellowship again is notable. He’s not being blind, but exemplifies the quality of Christianity that sees beyond the darkness.

The possession of Boromir is the saddest moment in the first book. And then there is the despairing vision of the ring. The willingness to go alone is do profound choice made by Christians

One aspect of Tom Bombadil’s appearance in his encounter with the Hobbits which interests me is the idea of direction unseen. Tom says that he hadn’t been looking for them but happy chance or something else had directed him towards Old Man Willow. In fact he wouldn’t have gone that way again for some time if he hadn’t been looking for water lilies for Goldberry. God moves unseen.

At the House of Tom Bombadil and Merryweather. As noted, I find Tom and his wife who seem a personification of forest snd water, strange figures. They do little to advance the plot except to dhow that there are powers who are indifferent to the ring. I’ve never seen a film rendition which satisfies.

Tom Bombadil who rescues the hobbits from Old Man Willow, is the strangest character for me in the novel. The Hobbits respond to him as a friendly familiar, and the Tolkien children knew him based on a Dutch doll among their toys. But for me him existing while all of middle earth seems to be in peril as in a different force of nature is most alien.

The films all bring Merry and Pippen into the story at the same time, but the book has Frodo and Sam traveling with Pippen when they first encounter the dark rider and it’s the three of them who are greeted at Farmer Maggot’s home who is on edge having felt with a black rider trespassing on his land. Some nice building of tension in the text.

Some profoundly insightful comments about pity and mercy. Smeagle’s sad story and the derp desire of Sam to be in contact with elves. Their existence ties in with a greater reality that too many hobbits ignore.

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

No film version really covers the amount of time between Bilbos disappearance and Frodo‘s growing discontent. The complacency of the hobbits is shown more and more to be willful blindness. Sam is introduced as a thoughtful fellow who loves fantastic narratives while others find this all as silly.

Moving into book one, chapter one “A Long Expected Party” I notice that the narrator is third person rather than the first person of “The Hobbit.” The huge party allows Tolkien to show both the pleasant happy part of Hobbit society as well as its provincial self satisfaction. The Gaffer and the Miller are two sides of this country folk.