Tolkien Rewrites

Much of the following was inspired by a talk given by David Downing, one of the co-directors of the Wade Center at Wheaton College. It set me thinking.

Tolkien is known for the brilliance of his naming, but Gandalf was originally Bledorthin, Meriadoc was originally Marmaduke, Frodo was originally Bingo, and Aragorn was originally a sarcastic hobbit named Trotter. Tollers renamed his characters a fair bit throughout the writing, and we should be grateful that they got better each time. I'm still not all that impressed with the first names of hobbits in general. They stem from the original creation of the children's story, which I shrugged off on first reading because I was enchanted by something in the story anyway, I knew not what.  In retrospect, I wonder what I saw in it, with its dwarves with associated colors of hoods and musical instruments, being fed rustic 19th C English food, whose king says seriously to Gandalf that his small band should "give a thought to the Necromancer," which no dwarf in LOTR would dream of saying. The individual adventures are disconnected and merely episodic. Trolls with talking purses, a cave-creature who likes Anglo-Saxon riddles, goblins who ride wolves, a bear-man with trained animals. It is a parade of mythological Germanic creatures, and could come in any order. (Until Tolkien has put them in an order of course, for then the adventures connect at least in retrospect.) The riddle game had to be completely rewritten and an explanation wedged the larger story of the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien is marvelously inventive at reworking plot elements plausibly once he is stuck with them. In the 1960s he wished he could rewrite the entire first book. 

The problem is that the hobbits were not really part of Middle-earth at first. The author had already subcreated a great deal of what would become the Silmarillion, clearly had some comfort there, as evidenced by the historical and mythological references he drops in seemingly effortlessly. Well, it is effortless at first when there is no one to contradict you, but it gets more complicated when you start to see that you are about to contradict yourself and have to backfill. There is a history of the Shire and of hobbits in general right in the prologue, but it is spotty and has few significant events and no development in 1600 years. They came from somewhere east and get dumped in. Sorry. We learn later that even the Ents have never heard of them, the kingdoms of Gondor and Rohan only barely, and even some wizards, those powerful beings entrusted with the care of various aspects of Middle-Earth have only the dimmest idea who or where the halflings are.

Smith of Wootton Major (conceived of much earlier than it's 60s publication date), Farmer Giles of Ham, and Leaf By Niggle all take place in Faerie, not Middle-Earth, and the Hobbit rather straddles the two worlds at first, despite the homely details. When Tolkien's publishers begged him for a hobbit sequel he quickly despaired. Perhaps Bilbo had run out of treasure, or still had a lust for adventure, and resolved to go to Rivendell in another set of disconnected episodes. Tolkien had some in mind. By the time we read LOTR there is already knowledge of what the Ring really is, and who the Black Riders are, both by history and current importance.  But those were not present at first. It was just more episodes, already half designed.

Farmer Maggott, the Old Forest, Old Man Willow, Tom Bombadil, barrow-wights. These are drawn from the mild adventures of his children's everyday lives, but made more dangerous. Old Man Willow was a nearby great tree they would hide in. Tom Bombadil was a Dutch doll, and the addition of Goldberry accidental.  The doll went face down in the water by accident, and Tolkien rescued the "frightening" situation that was destabilising Michael by spinning a tale that he was seeking a wife, and found one at the bottom of the river. There was a barrow thirty miles west they would visit on excursions, and the children would make up small tales of their own. The dismembered hand that still crawls toward Frodo was a nightmare of one of the children. 

This is not to belittle the events and adventures but to praise Tolkien's amazing ability to imbue everyday events with high adventure. CS Lewis speaks of the use of fairy stories in enchanting the everyday trees, and meals, and storms around us. We return to our everyday lives and a road that disappears around a bend is suddenly a path to anywhere.

The Black Riders hover at the edges, but their importance was understood by Tolkien only gradually. They break through at Bree, but somehow more as a fear than a real enemy.  Despite Aragorn's explanation that their main power is through fear, it doesn't ring true in terms of what happens later. Even at Weathertop he takes them very seriously - he doesn't suggest that if the hobbits were only less fearful they would find it easier. At the river it takes Glorfindel, not just Aragorn, to hold them off, and the very physical river plus some protective magic - presumably not a river that is affected by fear - does a great deal of the work. The Nazgul have more than just fear on their side.

This is also true of the Ring. The slow dawning on Gandalf of what it must be is a stand-in for Tolkien's own discovery.  When it was just a magic token that made you invisible, it didn't need a backstory. It was just one more marvel in Faerie, only nominally connected to Middle-Earth. And then...who is Gollum? How did the ring come to him? How could the previous owner have let it go? Yet Tollers told Lewis he didn't think there was much more to say about hobbits and didn't think he could get much story out of the journey to Rivendell. Only as the hobbit adventure gradually connected to Middle-Earth as a whole did the whole series of connections cascade upon him. Diana Glyer suggests that the turning point was a conversation with Lewis about how pedestrian it was that he had the four halflings launched to just outside the Shire and Gandlaf was about to ride up and join them. Even though there were "adventures" sketched out, these were not deadly, and the most exciting thing at the moment was that they were going to pop out of the bushes and scare Gandalf.  What fun, eh? Lewis said "Hobbits are only interesting when they are doing non-hobbitish things" and by nightfall Tolkien had decided it must be a Black Rider, not a white one. The reality of Sauron's ring and the Nazgul began to assert themselves into the story.

Except the story already had the episodic adventures noted above. These remained intact, but they started to weave themselves into the dire events in the world. The crawling dismembered hand remained there for effect, but Merry's dream now became about Carn Dum, a very serious battle from 1600 years ago. To Tolkien, Carn Dum was already there; Merry and the hobbits were now woven in to Middle-Earth with one more strand. 

Adventures in Faerie are more like the Wood Between the Worlds in Lewis's The Magician's Nephew. It isn't Narnia. But once you are in Middle-Earth then Sauron is always in the background. The history of Numenor still affects events around you.

Book One is transitional. It is not quite so far from the serious events to the South and East as The Hobbit, and it does not have children's book language. (Tolkien's children had gradually grown older and the tone of the book goes with them.) Readers notice immediately that they are in far deeper waters. There are no dwarves singing about breaking plates here. Frodo wants an adventure like Bilbo's but sees that none is available any longer. Bree is a breakpoint, and this is not surprising. Tolkien got the hobbits as far as Bree and had no idea how to go further.  The book lay fallow for months, with sarcastic Trotter left throwing apples at lesser enemies. He is not quite adult, however skillful he is. 

Trotter rubs off on Aragorn. The future king loses his regal temper once - at Barliman Butterbur, to whom he is insulting and sarcastic. He is a little pouty about being lonely and wanting to be accepted for himself. He looms over Sam and says he could kill him if he wished when young Gamgee doubts him.  All these are very human and we understand them.  Yet they are not kingly. The Aragorn who addresses the captains of the West in The Return of the King would not speak like this at all. It would be hard to attribute this to character development, as the son of Arathorn is a hundred years old and has been to Mordor, been in several battles, and has been awaiting his chance to be king for decades. To be that different a few months later does not add up.  No, the explanation is that Tolkien did not quite know who he was at first, and still saw him as mostly a ranger, even if the Chief or the Dunedain.

We see the kingly Aragorn almost immediately after Bree. It was originally he who threw the apple at Bill ferny, but Tolkien saw that it was more appropriate coming from Sam even before they had left. The transition is almost complete.