The Lord of The Rings By JRR Tolkien – with extended eagles digression.

Look if you haven’t read The Lord of the Rings then The Lord of the Rings probably isn’t for you. So I am not going to waste my time discussing the merits of this genre defining fantasy masterpiece. Instead I’d like to talk about the Eagles.

It’s a common and annoying argument, why didn’t they just fly to Mount Doom?

Say annoying people with no sense of joy.

Well for one thing that would be a very boring book. The point of The Lord of the Rings is not to save Middle Earth it’s to be a damn good book. That is how fiction works.

However this is not an argument that works with fantasy nerds or terrible literal minded people.

If you like here is one theory about how Gandalf meant to use the Eagles all along. !gasp! Insane but convincing fan theories

Personally I do not care for that theory. For one there has got to be a better way to say ‘take an eagle’. And for another I don’t actually think taking an eagle is a good plan. Elrond says that ‘your hope lies in speed and secrecy’. Or in other words ‘flying on a fleet of giant eagles into Mordor is stupid.’ I mean what deadly winged weapon does Sauron have? Anyone?

Of course, you might be thinking, if they had taken Eagles direct from Rivendell when the Nazgul were unhorsed they could have been in Mordor before second breakfast. Ok, Sauron is a wizard with dark and terrible powers but let’s assume his only chance against aerial assault is the Nazgul. How are the Eagles supposed to know to meet them at Rivendell? Gandalf met Gwaihir at Isengard, yes. But what did Gandalf know at that point? He had no idea what had happened to Frodo and the Ring. He they might already have been in Mordor for all he knew. Hence why he went to the Shire first to find out what was happening. And he went on horseback. Why?

Eagles do not make good beasts of burden. Quote,

‘”How far can you bear me?” I said to Gwaihir.
“Many leagues,” said he, “but not to the ends of the earth. I was sent to bear tidings not burdens.”
“The I must have a steed on land,” I said, “and a steed surpassingly swift, for I have never had such need of haste before.”‘

So Gandalf in his utmost need of speed can’t use eagles because they are not great at carrying people. Gwaihir is the Lord, and therefore presumably the biggest and strongest, of the Eagles and he still managed to carry Gandalf:

1. From Isengard to Edoras i.e. not very far

2. From the Misty Mountains to Lorien i.e. also not very far.

In short Eagles /= winged ponies.

Even if they did decide to use Eagles they would still have to get over the Misty Mountains to find the eagles and the eagles would still have to rest which would presumably not go well assuming that Sauron notices the dirty great birds headed in his direction with his all seeing eye. You couldn’t send Frodo on his own because the moment he touches down an orc will murder him and you can’t send a group because that will draw even more attention, warriors will tire the Eagles faster, you’re limited as to how many Eagles there actually are that would be up for a death mission etc.

Now that’s dealt with.

A note on reading The Lord of The Rings. A lot of people complain that the beginning is boring. It’s a little slow to get going ok, fine.

Watch the first film. Read the Two Towers, read the Return of the King. Now go back and read the Fellowship of the Ring.

This is how I read LOTR for the first time when I was 10 (because I could only afford 2 books and I’d seen the first film). If a 10 year old can do it so can you.

Sybil: Or the Two Nations by Benjamin Disraeli

Sybil has the dubious honour of being probably the best book by a British Prime Minister.

It definitely feels like a political novel. It’s an angry book. Disraeli is not happy about the conditions of the working classes. Which is – duh – a good thing. However, I didn’t feel entirely clear on what the rest of his politics were. Certainly not in favour of revolution. Hardly in favour of the working classes seeing as the ‘noble’ working class characters turn out to be actually noble. In fact the aristocracy generally tend to come off fairly well.

Still he comes out basically for universal suffrage and decent living conditions for the working classes. That’s pretty enlightened even by today’s standards.

Enough about the politics, is it a good book?

Hard to say. I would say the first chapter, a look at dissolute London life, is probably the strongest. It feels realest. The rest… The characters are pretty static. Sybil is your typical boring blonde, though, at least she has some strong opinions. Some strong feelings, in some ways her sense of the political situation is equal to or greater than her father’s. So maybe I’m wrong to write her off. But she’s so pretty and kind to children and childlike and innocent and all the other things Victorian heroines tend to be.

I wouldn’t say it was one of the top 100 books of all time, but in a top 1000? Maybe? If you feel you have to include a few Victorian novels. Even Dickens doesn’t do much for me so I guess this was never going to be a huge winner.

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Have you heard it’s been 100 years since Metamorphosis was published? No? Lucky you. I have heard it just everywhere. So you know if you can’t beat them…

As it happens I read this article yesterday:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/may/16/you-think-im-mad-the-truth-about-psychosomatic-illness

It’s all about psychosomatic illnesses. That is illnesses whose cause it in the mind but in the unconscious mind. The patients aren’t faking they just aren’t physically damaged. It’s interesting stuff.

The people suffering from these kinds of illness are often suffering from some kind of pressure or conflict that their illness in some way resolves. One woman’s husband didn’t want her to work, tensions increased after an accident in which she got bleach in her eye and had to visit a hospital. The next morning she woke up unable to see.

The argument was moot, she could no longer work.

Another man was facing pressure at work, struggling to achieve the level of success he felt his brothers had achieved. He experienced debilitating symptoms that left him unable to work.

And it wasn’t his fault. He was ill.

I think this is relevant to Metamorphosis. Not because I don’t think Gregor was really transformed but because I think his transformation is in someways a reaction against his life. He is working himself to the bone to support his family. In particular his sister Greta whose dream of studying the violin he is trying to realise.

By his metamorphosis Gregor switches from provider to burden. He no longer has to be worried about being on time for work, or the poor performance which his clerk hints at. He no longer has to support his family because he is conveniently unable. Instead they must look after him, a task they quickly tire of.

Greta has to go out to work as a shop girl, his father comes out of retirement and they take in lodgers. His family now has to work. Greta also takes on responsibility for caring for Gregor but she becomes uncaring and unkind. Gregor is incredibly moved by Greta’s music and retains an affection for a picture in his apartment. He retains a sensitivity to art that is contrasted with the boorishness of the lodgers and goes unappreciated and unnoticed by his family.

It ends when Gregor crawls away and dies. Without his financial contribution he is worthless, without his limbs he is a brute.

The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre

The Age of Reason is also a book by Thomas Paine. Apparently it argues for critical thinking and God, maybe if I read that I would understand the other Age of Reason better.

Though actually I resent having to read other novels in order to understand novels. It’s elitist and pretentious and annoying.

Ain’t nobody got time for that.

So The Age of Reason is actually ok. It’s surprisingly compelling, enough to vaugely interest me in reading the rest of the Roads to Freedom trilogy but not enough to make me actually do it. Though I did look for an online summary because I wanted to know what happened to everyone. I’m not sure that was the point, but whatever.

It’s a bit insular? And philosophical? The women tend to be odd and flat and uninteresting. Marcelle is basically a womb within a womb. She’s always hot and pink and naked in a single room. And pregnant which is pretty much the plot.

Not that she does a thing about that. Very passive.

I guess that’s the idea? It’s a novel about people who can’t quite bring themselves to take any actions. Daniel wants to drown his cats and doesn’t, or kill himself and doesn’t. Mathieu wants something, to propose or run away or something. Ivitch and Boris don’t even seem to want to do anything, they’re ok to be young and actionless. When an action is necessary Boris gets Mathieu to do it.

It has a tendancy to stop when it gets most interesting. Mathieu’s about to sneak into a dead woman’s room and rob her and suddenly two page digression on…something. His state of mind? I skimmed it. Maybe that was a deliberate choice but no one is going to read those pages properly so why bother.

Anyway The Age of Reason. Read it or don’t.

Ringworld by Larry Nevin

Damn Ringworld is good.

I am not a sci fi fanatic but damn. It has great momentum. In the language of Misery it’s got the gotta.

The thing with Sci Fi is that the Wikipedia pages are written by Science people rather than Lit people. And the Lit people rather look down on it all.

Seriously there is a plot summery and a ‘concepts’ section listing all the future inventions but not a word on themes or character or anything I am interested in.

The problem with inventing an interesting world is that it can eat your story. Lord of the Rings solved this by having a big story to go with the big world.

Ringworld is slightly stuck in that it only has one accessible character. Everyone else is basically an alien and that one character is 200 years old so there’s not an awful lot in the way of emotional development. Or there is but it tends to happen off screen.

The interesting idea is that we are not in control of our own destinies. Everyone in the novel is being puppeted. Aptly by the Puppeteers, or by destructive luck. By their own genes. It’s a novel where no one ever manages a satisfying gesture of free will.

Which is nice because they are in a novel and the ultimate puppeteer is the novelist.

Also apparently if you can find a first edition where Wu travels East instead of West to extend his birthday (Which, incidentally, is a beautiful and poetic idea), it is worth cash.

Note. I assumed this novel was older than it was because of the whole ‘200 year old man meets hot 20 year old’ and ‘male and female human might seem like different species to an alien’ stuff. Also kniz and puppeteers have non sentient females…
There’s even a femme fatale semi-alien prostitute/goddess who falls for the hero. 1970. We have come a long way.