This is a Notable Moment post, and what I mean by "notable moment" reaches back into my purpose(s?) for keeping up this blog (intermittently): to give an outlet to my instinct for analysis, to stay in touch with my academic side, to develop my theory of rhetorical reading, and to practice close reading on the web (or at least closer than your average book review!)
Notable moments are "rhetorical responses." They stem from the circumstances of reading--what readers might be looking for (like me with literacy), what their life experiences have been, what they have been reading, thinking or talking about reading. This is the value of rereading--each reading situation is different. The work itself hasn't changed, but we read it differently: bringing different things to the text and taking different things away.
Notable moments are a teaching and research methodology. They
- encourage reader engagement with the text
- provide a basis for class discussion
- stimulate connections (synthesis, to use a $0.10 pedagogical word) between what readers already know and what they are reading
- validate active reading
- collect ideas that might evolve into research paper/article ideas
They also work particularly well as blog posts.
Recently, I have been rereading
The Lord of the Rings. I have read it and listened to the unabridged audiobook numerous times at this point, so that it is almost
too familiar. It is slow going, because there isn't the compulsion to read, but at times, having read more contemporary writing lately, I am struck by how simply exquisite the language is--to say nothing of plot and character development, world building, mythos, and all that makes Tolkien fabulous. In the midst of my reading, I read
Darwin's response to George R. R. Martin's somewhat offhanded critique of Tolkien on war. I also find myself reading Tolkien with the American History Channel series
The Revolutionary War as background noise. And so, I come across this passage:
"The others go with him as free companions, to help him on his way. You may tarry, or come back or turn aside in other paths, as chance allows. The further you go, the less easy it will be to withdraw; yet no oath or bond is laid on you to go further than you will. For you do not yet know the strength of your hearts, and you cannot forsee what each may meet upon the road."
"Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens," said Gimli.
"Maybe," said Elrond, but let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall."
"Yet sworn word may strengthen quaking heart," said Gimli.
"Or break it," said Elrond. (FOTR 274)
I paused over this passage initially, thinking about war. Thinking about the British in particular, and the treatment of deserters in the Great War--the first "modern" war, a for which young British males volunteered enthusiastically, for which they were unprepared. It is also, famously and notably, the war Tolkien experienced first hand.
As Elrond commends the newly-formed fellowship to their journey, it is tempting to see this passage as a statement of sympathy, if not with deserters, than certainly with those who volunteered for a war they could not possibly understand. Whether or not the cause is the epic mythology of good and evil, Elrond's wisdom asserts that resolve alone can't necessarily drive one through fear. Later, in
Return of the King, Aragorn deals gently with men who were ill-equipped to march into Morder, setting them to tasks that were appropriate to their ability, and which preserved or restored their dignity.
And yet, even though Aragorn and Boromir intend to head to war, the situation of the fellowship is different. Two pages earlier, the narrative asserts that "[t]he Company took little gear of war, for their hope was in secrecy not in battle" (272). Perhaps, then, Elrond's conditions are not applicable to war. After all, what general can command men who are not bound to follow orders? Could Tolkien possibly mean that soldiers should only serve insofar as they were able? This seems doubtful, and yet, the association between oaths in war and the oaths of the fellowship is hard to avoid, and perhaps it is in Aragorn's generosity and skill with men that the question is resolved.
What is interesting is the exchange of proverbs--not quite platitudes--between Gimli and Elrond, which represent two seeminly opposed approaches to oath-taking, and perhaps to human nature more generally. The opposing views may also characterize the particular races of Middle Earth--the elves, who keep to themselves, who belong to families and kinds, but who are very individualized, and the dwarves, who seem to be of one kind, but who are more clanlike, joining together in common purposes. Elrond is for individual freedom; Gimli, for allegience and loyalty. Inevitably, both are right, but Elrond seems
more right.
It is not a theory; simply an observation, and a question. Is this about war? Politics? Individual freedom? Individual will? How
does being bound to another affect individual will?
