& c.

[huinare]

I am taken with a sort of semi-manic fatigue lately. The barrage of activities, classes, committees, and gatherings into which I’ve jumped the past couple years--esp. the past six months--might not daunt your average overachiever much, but I’m a lifelong underachiever recently converted. I’m starting to suspect my low energy level can’t handle this indefinitely, and/or that I’ve still not established sustainable methods of time management. The upside is that I barely have time to dwell on anxiety, my confidence has increased exponentially, and I perceive myself as an active and contributing member of my community rather than an unworthy alien. Yet more and more, I get some sense I’ll always be alien in some way, not a bad way per se, but not always in an easy way.

Things have been going somewhat decently on the writing front despite the fact (or, knowing how these things go, perhaps because of the fact) that I really have other things I should be attending to with greater devotion right now. Attempting drabble challenges since September has proven amusing and instructive. Brevity is not my strong suite, and being forced to count and chop words shows me that I can in fact convey a lot with a little if I really put my mind to it. I think I’ll always, left to my own devices, be annoyingly detailed and long-winded, but it’s good to know I can do otherwise under constraint.

I’ve been having more fun with the Draugluin story as I get more accustomed to his narrative voice. Draugluin doesn’t tend to use vocab words like I do, which at first made me rather uncomfortable trying to get a handle on his voice. Then I found he makes use of metaphor quite often where another narrator might have just used a barrage of four-syllable words to literally describe the situation. Once I realized that I can convey the character’s mind by way of his likening things to the natural world with which he has a deep affinity, he started to make more sense to me.

Interestingly, the Draugluin story is perhaps about to come to a grinding halt at the same chronological spot as the epic thingy that started this whole Tolkienverse fixation for me came grinding to a halt maybe a couple months ago. Apparently I don’t know what to do about the war of the Valar upon Melkor in general. The more interesting aspect of this (to me) is that the two narratives interrelate, and I’ve been editing both of them at this shortly-before-the-war spot for the past couple days. The one is starting to give me ideas for the other. So maybe in that manner, the war will eventually hash itself out, with two several quarters out of which inspiration for the both of them might arise simultaneously. This really is not going to work out in the favor of at least one character, who in the first thingy was going to remain basically unscathed, but whom the Draugluin thingy gives me reasonable grounds mess with. That in in turn must necessarily influence character development in the other story of which that individual is a part. I do believe I’m wandering into a literary hall of mirrors. =D

I also have this idea which graced me maybe a couple months back that I really want to start, but I don’t want to be working on ten billion things at once because then my brain will explode. I somehow developed an unenviable interest in the origins and history of Tom Bombadil. I have concluded that he needs to be the protagonist of a rather horrifying and sacrilegious satire, and I am the person for this task, when the time is had.

Why do I get the feeling my winter break is going to consist of a lot of writing, and a lot of reading metric verse aloud in my lair?

Comments

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Hehe, I'm not at all convinced he did. The way I understand it, Bombadil was originally one of his kid's toys, about which he began to make up poems and stories. Eventually, Bombadil found his way into LoTR: a decision which, as a writer myself, I have to view as far more sentimental than practical.

In fact, that's why I was a Bombadil hater for a very long time. I didn't see that he had any plot point or artistic merit. It was only when I attempted to consider his place within the larger mythos, which necessarily involved my own theories, that I started to see a certain merit in him.

Which is really the way a lot of Tolkien's work has gained so much appeal and significance to me, not taken by itself but as part of some grand whole. ^_^

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'd not heard the story about the children's toy before, thanks.

I actually really like Bombadil, though I can totally see why they left him out of the films, and he's definitely an acquired taste.

I like this quote about him though :

"I might put it this way. The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so on; but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, want a measure of control. But if you have, as it were, taken 'a vow of poverty', renounced control, and take your delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the questions of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless. It is a natural pacifist view"

Pacifism not a widely represented position in Middle Earth, but I quite like that Tolkien thought it was important enough to be represented somehow.

[huinare.livejournal.com]

I like that quote very much. It suggests what I concluded after much rumination about Tom and his possible origins--that he is enamored of experiencing the world around him, not of power, and that his own power ironically arises from this circumstance.

I agree there were sufficient reasons to leave him out of the films. I disliked him in the books for a long time until I really thought about him in light of the entire world in which he exists, and I don't believe that is a thing casual filmgoers are bound to do. Now I'm quite fond of him.

Rambling ahoy!
My first conception of his origins was that he was one of the Maiar who refused to retreat to Aman when Melkor spilled the lamps--that he remained in the land he'd made his home, loving it more than he feared the dark powers, and pretty much became an inextricable part of it. There were numerous things that informed my ideas, including his being referred to as "eldest;" my hypothesizing would allow him to exist in Middle Earth already when all the Ents and Elves etc came long.

That was my first idea, and one I would like to consider Tolkien might approve of. I think it's my best and soundest idea. That said, I have some really warped satirical ideas about Tom's origins which really don't portray the Valar in a good light...which will need exorcising eventually..

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I've heard the idea mooted before that Tom (and Goldberry) are minor Maiar - have also come across the idea that he's actually Eru (cos, who's older than Eru? :-D)

If he's actually Eru then Middle Earth is a quirkier place than it at first seems :-D

[huinare.livejournal.com]

I'm most fond of the Maia theory, but then Maiar are like my duct tape when it comes to problems of origin in Arda: they're powerful enough to assume a variety of forms, but, unlike the Valar, are more subject to external forces/influences. <3 Maiar.

I don't subscribe to the Eru theory, but there is something I like about it. I suppose it's that the alleged grand creator would take such a peculiar, unassuming manifestation.

The one theory I can't stand is that Tom and Goldberry are actually Aulë and Yavanna incarnate. Aulë is a bloody smith. He would NOT caper quaintly about a woodsy environ, singing merrily all day. x__x

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Oh that's just silly. YES to Aulë=smith & quite definitely not one for woodland caperings, and Goldberry is pretty clearly a water-spirit not a woodland one. And why would they be there anyway?

If Tom was Eru, it would raise a load of questions about Goldberry... Probably nothing that couldn't be filled in with sufficiently enigmatic capering though...

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Yes I agree that Goldberry has much more affinity to water...though I've wondered before about her name, because she doesn't strike me in any way as resembling nor as interested in berries. =P

OR! If Tom was Eru, Goldberry perhaps could be construed as Eru as well--Eru come down to Arda in a sort of "I'm here to witness myself! Myself, behold myself!" move. Two parallel manifestations of the same divinity interacting. (...oh this is fun.)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

She's not very berry-like! Maybe it's a hobbit-given name - ISTR that Bombadil is a name bestowed by Farmer Maggot or one of his ancestors. I get the impression that a lot of stuff looks like food to hobbits.

LOL at the Eru & Eru theory. That's *very* confusing. Quite like the idea of a sort of twin deity married to himself, not sure Tolkien would though :-D.

[huinare.livejournal.com]

I get the impression that a lot of stuff looks like food to hobbits.
*L* Good point.

Mm, doubt he would like it. I walk a fine line between not wanting to disrespect his ideas, and knowing that he did in some ways envision his universe as a sort of mythos that others might expand upon (I wish I could find the exact quote about it). I personally find Eru unpalatable because he is much like the deity of Christianity--or, one might argue, is literally the same deity--and that just does not mesh with me. So it amuses me to picture Eru in different lights that make more sense to me.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

It's a little difficult that isn't it? Tolkien's vision is fabulous and so one wants to respect it, but he's also very Christian and Catholic and I'm absolutely not either, so inevitably tend to interpret things differently. Plus! A double-deity, what's not to like?!

I take a bit of comfort from 'Tree and Leaf' where he more or less admits that his picture has got so big that he can't see it all and doesn't really know where it has come from - I think he talks about the expanding mythology idea in several places, but Tree and Leaf is the one I tend to remember.

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Hm, methinks I'll have to get my paws on 'Tree and Leaf' one of these days. Anywho, the sheer vastness and scope of his work is one of the reasons I do find fic related to Tolkien appealing and can't avoid writing it myself: it really does seem like there is plenty to expand upon, many fascinating characters and events that remain to be explored and fleshed out.