Revisiting "The Hobbit", part 2

After a miserable Monday (aren't all Mondays miserable?) in which I struggled with a cold that had been gestating for several days, I was able to resume reading this classic. Unfortunately, I didn't make as much progress as I would have liked. Monday was a prep day for me, during which I grade materials and prepare lesson plans for my two classes. I wasn't feeling very alert as I normally do, given the throbbing in my head and my clogged nostrils that made it difficult to breathe, but I muddled through. I was hoping all the while that today would be a routine teaching day, with little of the feel of trying to restrain caged souls that are there against their wills, straining to leave with all their might, paying little head to what I am saying. Of course, why should things have been any different today?

I had a miserable afternoon session. This is my large class with over thirty college students, but they have been slacking off ever since the last midterm. Maybe they are tired as we near the end of the term and maybe they are feeling discouraged because this class hasn't been as easy as they were hoping it would be, but they were quite resistant to any participation today. It felt as if I was doing battle with them, and they were skillfully retreated and vanishing into the gloom each time I sought to engage them. Yes, that is what this is, a combat in which I dash forward here and there, perceiving their shadows huddling together fitfully, gathering momentarily before dissolving, and here I am in the meantime, standing foolishly in front of the chalk board, writing sentences and talking to them about rhetorical structures, facing a phantom army.

It is very dreary to see so many of them are sauntering in ten to twenty minutes late. A few creep out of the class surreptitiously as we near the end of the class, waiting until my back is turned before I head the pop of the student extricating him or herself form the seat and dashing to the door. I actually linger without turning, speaking to the chalk board, because I don’t want to catch them in midflight, like a startled deer on the road, frozen by the sight of Medusa.

Yes, I know that it is difficult for them to remain seated for an hour and forty minutes, and I wonder at times how it is that I can be expected to hold their attention for that long, but I used to be able to do it. It takes a combination of frenetic activity on my part, trying new tactics to engage them, but in the end, we have to talk about grammar, and I do have to talk about the errors I find in their homework.

There were many errors this last time. I know better, and so do they, but it seems as if they want to give me the impression that they are regressing in their skills. I know that most students remember very little of grammar when they enter college, and when you consider how a typical high school experience, which is more about maintaining control and creating the illusion of a structured environment rather than imparting conduct, it might seem miraculous that even that little was gained. I remember the desperation I felt in my last few years, sitting in classes with snickering teenagers who couldn’t concentrate on the material, could barely read, with students engaged in continual power plays and acts of defiance, wishing to draw attention to themselves because, yes, it is all about themselves when they are in high school. I was fortunate because I was able to escape this environment by being placed in a special program (GATE), but many others aren’t, and to tell the truth, giving our raging hormones, it is a miracle that we even bother to sit in our seats when in high school.

As I proceeded with my plans for today, I found myself despairing fully as much as the dwarves in Tolkien’s novel as they tried to cross Mirkwood forest, trying to reach the other side but having no glimmer of hope. It is very frustrating to be met with a solid wall of bored or indifferent faces, and some of the students actually rest their heads on their desks or else lean back with open mouths and closed eyes, like my nursing student. If I were malicious I would walk over to them and signal to the rest of the class that this was inappropriate, and then bark out a call to the student, asking them to give me the past perfect conjugation of the verb to sleep (dormir). But I don’t, of course. It is no use drawing attention to those who aren't paying attention because by doing so, you have lost the battle. It confers on the offenders celebrity status, like Charlie Sheen, the actor who has been gathering so much attention on the news of late, basking as details are revealed about his troubled personal life, of how he revels in his dysfunctional relationships with his ex-wives and insists on attacking the producers of his hit show, Two and a Half Men.

The end couldn't come soon enough, and I left to find a quiet refuge to clear the clouds of gloom that had gathered around me. It was a chilly and mostly-overcast today. The snow-capped San Gabriel Mountains loomed in the distance, entreating my spirit to take flight and escape, cover the dozen miles or so that separate us and lose myself in the soft and enveloping snow. During the summer there is so much haze in the air that these same mountains are frequently invisible, but on clear days, they make me dream of icy landscapes and of one day climbing up the Andes in South America and finding a hidden valley with untold wonders. I will have to bring my camera to take pictures the next time.

Without further ado, here are the next chapters, with my summaries and impressions.

Chapter Seven: "Queer Lodgings"

After having escaped the trap that had been laid by the wargs and goblins, the hobbits and Gandalf are transported east by their friends, the eagles. These eagles are no allies of the goblins, and while they little concern themselves with the affairs of the other races, they will at times disturb and impede the progress of the lesser, more savage races. And thus, yes, it must be recognized that there is a hierarchy of racial groups, a hierarchy that seems at time to resonate with the feel of the doctrines of scientific racism that had overtaken Europe in the nineteenth century.

I've always felt that the distinct races are supposed to be suggestive of distinct ethnicities in the world of that time. The hobbits, is must be said, are distinctly British, with all the innocence and earnestness of a group that is living in what critics of an industrial society must have envisioned life being in a pre-industrial agrarian economy. I hate to assign ethnicities to the other groups, but I've felt that the elves are supposed to represent more rarified, northern races, while the dwarves are much more earthy and hardy, with a distinctly earthy and Germanic feel, at least to me. They strike me as well as kin to the ancient Greek god Hephaestus, the lame and stocky god who was always at his forge. And the orcs and trolls? No need to speculate there. They are violent, uncultured, depraved and ugly.

After having landed in this new place, they are taken by Gandalf to ask for lodgings from a being of whom he has knowledge but whom he has never met. This is Beorn, the Changeling. (Yes, the name sounds Scandinavian to me, and was undoubtedly consciously chosen by a philologist such as Tolkien with his knowledge of old Anglo-Saxon and other Germanic tongues.) He lives close to a massive rock outcropping called the Carrock, and is another solitary and powerful individual who lives in majestic isolation. Middle-Earth is filled with these beings, and some are distinctly threatening (like the Necromancer, whom I had not remembered), while others are merely gruff. I would imagine a figure like Dan Haggerty of "Gentle Ben", the series that was aired in the 1970s, except this figure is a vegetarian, and lives off the cream of his cattle, the honey from his bees, and the produce that he plants.

This Changeling keeps very comely and intelligent animals, chief among which are the horses with whom he communicates. Thus, I can't help but recall Jonathan Swift, with this seeming homage to the Houynhms, the intelligent horses of his famous satire. The only thing is that these intelligent horses are much less haughty and judgmental, and thus, much less eerie and, ultimately, intimidating. The horses seem to follow the directions of the Changeling, and they are polite with the travelers. They may have little to say to them, yet they render assistance and service, as directed by their master.

Beorn clapped his hands, and in trotted four beautiful white ponies and several large long-bodied grey dogs. Beorn said something to them in a queer language like animal noises turned into talk. They went out again and soon came back carrying torches in their mouths, which they lit at the fire and stuck in low brackets on the pillars of the hall about the central hearth. The dogs could stand on their hind-legs when they wished, and carry things with their fore-feet. Quickly they got out boards and trestles from the side walls and set them up near the fire.

As a child, I might have been enchanted with such a description of intelligent and serviceable animals. As an adult, after having read Animal Farm, I would be filled with dread at this unnatural parody, one that seems all the more offensive to me because it recalls novels such as H.G. Wells' "The Island of Dr. Moreau", an unsettling parable condemning the cruelty of vivisection and, by extension, of species parochialism and the dehumanizing and authoritarian nature of much science. Are men really that unconscious of the cruelty they actions?

Beorn offers the band of travelers shelter, and asks to hear their story. He then leaves mysteriously without telling them why (it turns out he wants to confirm the details of what he has been told).  He returns much impressed with the band of adventurers, admiring their daring. He is no fan, after all, of goblins or wargs or other savage creatures, and I can't help but wonder if he (it) is not an analogue to the Rangers that we will encounter in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, a watchful entity who patrols certain territories, trying to resist incursions by invading forces.  (Could he/it be a “Minuteman” of an alternate realm, to make reference to the vigilante group that arose about ten years ago to patrol the border and extra-officially arrest, with illegal and unconstitutional force, poor Mexican immigrants who only want a change to better their circumstances? I can’t help but see immigration everywhere in this sage of Middle Earth, and can hardly see it as an innocent story meant for children, especially when I myself am of Mexican heritage. I’ve seen this before, after all, and recognize the tactic of circling the wagons.)

 

Beorn decides to give them aid, sharing supplies as well as the use of some of his intelligent horses to convey these to their next stop, the entrance to Mirkwood forest. This place is an appallingly dreadful and mysterious abode, with a fame that fills them with dread. Gandalf accompanies them on this journey, and he reiterates the injunction given by the Changeling that they not leave the pathway, because somehow, they are given to understand, following this path will afford them some form of magical protection. (Fairy tales always have some form of injunction, as noted by the Formalist scholar Propp, who undertook an analysis of the constituent elements of these tales. An injunction is given – don’t do this, don’t forget that, remember to do this, etc., and the injunction is always broken, inviting danger and pointing out the way in which fairy tales always involve a form of transgression.) The path is their via segura, their safest way to cross this terrain, but it is an arduous one. One is left to wonder if the particular magic of this realm is somehow harmful to Gandalf, or if he himself fears awakening something. (Did we not see this once again in the Fellowship of the Ring, in the passage through the Mines of Moria, where they awaken the Balrog? Are all these elements to be recapitulated in the trilogy which follows?) Why can't Gandalf help them, and why does he have to remove himself? (Think Gandalf falling down into the chasm in the episode of the Fellowship of the Ring just referenced.)  Is this the moment in which the travellers will have to prove themselves without the help of protectors? Another defining moment in which Bilbo will prove that he is more than he appears to be, especially now that he is in possession of the Ring, that powerful talisman?

Gandalf tries to reassure the despairing adventurers who plead with him and express their bitterness in ways that to me seem quite logical and, also, a little bit comical. The wizard seems prescient in his praise of Bilbo Baggins as he directs the following remarks to the dwarves who, somehow, haven't come to fully appreciate his abilities:

 ...and I am sending Mr. Baggins with you. I have told you before that he has more about him than you guess, and you will find that out before long. So cheer up Bilbo and don't look so glum. Cheer up Thorin and Company! This is your expedition after all. Think of the treasure at the end, and forget the forest and the dragon, at any rate until tomorrow morning!

Chapter Eight: Like Flies for Spiders

And here we encounter the details of their passage through Mirkwood forest, a passage that turns out to be as fully perilous as they had been warned it might be.

It is a long and dark passage, and the adventurous band seems to be suffocated by the gloom and the strangeness of this place. It is to be expected that they will be attacked at some point, and I remember faintly the episodes with the spiders. Apparently Tolkien would recapitulate the use of this same monstrous creature when he created the character of She-lob in his subsequent trilogy, pointing once again to the fact that the Hobbit, more than a prelude, seems to be a preliminary version of the subsequent trilogy.

After much tedium and a feeling of mounting desperation, they begin to feel overwhelmed. Their supplies have been consumed, and in addition one of their party, Bombur, the most corpulent of the dwarves, has fallen into the enchanted river and has fallen asleep. They had been told that those who drank of these waters would lose their memory, as they will after he wakes up.

They see lights far off in the distance and, against the many injunctions of Beorn and Gandalf, they stray from the pathway seeking aid. They are starving, thirsty and tired, and they come across a feast held by mysterious folk but, each time they approach, these folk disappear, leaving them in complete darkness. This is part of the ethereal nature of the elves, after all, and these are wood elves, who are said to be a little wilder and less refined than their western kin.

In the meantime they will be captured by spiders, and this is the moment for heroics. As Sam does when he frees Frodo from the orcs, Bilbo will discover a hidden reservoir of strength and courage and he will attack the spiders, malevolent creatures who nonetheless partake of the same deficiency that curses all villains: they talk too much and delay carrying out their plans. (This is, of course, a narrative technique to delay the turning point.)

Bilbo is quite ferocious as he lashes out and kills spiders, and quite clever at leading them astray so that he can backtrack and free the dwarves. He then leads an escape party that is harried and attacked by the returning spiders, and they manage to escape.

As they rest, they are later to find that Thorin is missing. He has been taken by the Wood-elves, who are described thus:

These are not wicked folk. If they have a fault it is distrust of strangers. Though their magic was strong, even in those days they were wary. They differed from the High Elves of the West, and were more dangerous and less wise. For most of them (together with their scattered relations in the hills and mountains) were descended from the ancient tribes that never went to Faierie in the West. There the Light-elves and the Deep-elves and the Sea-elves were and lived for ages, and grew fairer and wiser and more learned, and invented their magic and their cunning craft in the making of beautiful and marvelous things, before some came back into the Wide World. In the Wide World the Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon but loved best the stars; and they wandered in the great forests that grew tall in lands that are now lost.

It is a wonderful and deeply resonant description, and only underscores that this is a myth that shares in the narrative of the West, that narrative of an ascendant Europe battling against the powerful and tyrannical empires of the east, a touch of the Orientalism outlook, if we make reference to Edward Said’s famous study, or much longer ago, to the chronicles of Herodotus and Xenophon, back in Classical Greece. The West is highlighted above all else, and if we were to substitute "science" for magic, we might find a fair approximation. Yes, this mythology resonates with an element of disguised eurocentrism.

The king of the elves is examining Thorin, and wishes to obtain an explanation for their venture into Mirkwood. The leader of the dwarves, however, is very wary, and will tell him nothing of his true objective, which is the reclamation of the treasure guarded by Smaug in the lonely mountain. Thus, Thorin is kept in a dungeon, and here is where he will remain. It will be up to the rest of the dwarves, under the leadership of Bilbo, to rescue him so that they may resume their journey. Bilbo's star is in the ascendant, so to speak.