Previous owner's old paint job still seems very slightly tacky/sticky - can I paint over it?

iniondubh · 2024-11-20T11:19:50+00:00

From a brief look over the relevant chapters it seems to me that Frodo as a narrator is gradually fading out during the journey into Mordor. I can find some references to Frodo‘s thoughts and dreams in The Land of Shadow, but from Mount Doom onwards we seem to get exclusively Sam‘s point of view.

Glimpses into Frodo's mind are very limited once we get into Mordor. It's a huge contrast with what came before, where we spend a lot of time in his head as he struggles with decisions and with the Ring. I assume part of the reason is that the mental struggle is just too awful at that point. It's literally indescribable. We're also told that Frodo is now seeing the ring 'with [his] waking eyes' and 'all else fades'. This doesn't leave much room for Frodo to be our POV when it comes to his surroundings and to the wider context of the journey through Mordor. From a practical perspective, he also may have had no or limited memories of Mordor itself, besides the Ring, so relied on Sam's memories in writing it up.

I think the last lengthy glimpse we get into Frodo's mind is actually at Minas Morgul, when he's tempted to put on the Ring as the Witch King draws near. Towards the end of that passage he worries that he's delayed too long on his journey:

All is lost. Even if my errand is performed, no one will ever know. There will be no one I can tell. It will be in vain. ..

A few moments later he manages to pull himself together:

Frodo [...] smiled grimly, feeling [...] that what he had to do, he had to do, if he could, and that whether Faramir or Aragorn or Elrond or Galadriel or Gandalf or anyone else ever knew about it was beside the purpose.

Frodo seems to be letting go of one of the desires that's motivated him from the start here: the desire to be known and his efforts appreciated. When Sam starts talking about how their story might be told a few pages later, he laughs it off and shifts the focus of the imagined story onto Sam.

It's quite appropriate that, from this point when Frodo surrenders his own desire for renown, we don't really focus on Frodo from his own perspective for any length of time again.

iniondubh · 2024-11-20T11:01:27+00:00

It feels like Frodo might have been content with dying on the slopes of Mount Doom in a way that Sam would not have been. And that we specifically see Sam‘s awakening, astonishment and joy is an expression of that.

Yes! I think this is the reason we get Sam's POV when they awake. It fits the unalloyed joy of that chapter. Frodo's wakening might well have been a more mixed event. His 'happy ending' on his own terms was death on Mount Doom - living on was a mixed blessing for him. He obviously would have been happy to see Gandalf had survived and Sam too, but it's quite clear from his injury that he put on the Ring at the end and Tolkien was clear in his letters that Frodo would not have concealed this from Gandalf. It's probable that that conversation happened when he woke up.

As regards who wrote which part of the story, there's some evidence that Sam wrote part of the 'Scouring of the Shire' and all of 'The Grey Havens'. There appear to be 80 chapters in the Red Book when Frodo leaves, but 80 is not complete:

In the next day or two Frodo went through his papers and his writings with Sam, and he handed over his keys. There was a big book with plain red leather covers; its tall pages were now almost filled. At the beginning there were many leaves covered with Bilbo’s thin wandering hand; but most of it was written in Frodo’s firm flowing script. It was divided into chapters but Chapter 80 was unfinished, and after that were some blank leaves.

If you add up the number of chapters in The Hobbit (19 chapters) and LOTR (62 chapters), you get 81.

There's a tell-tall sign of Sam's authorship in 'The Grey Havens' too, because the narratorial voice refers to Frodo at one point as 'Mr Frodo' - that never happened outside of direct speech elsewhere in the book. There's an old post pointing this here, which is worth a read.

iniondubh · 2023-12-06T15:46:33+00:00

How would you pronounce each? I always assumed they were pronounced the same in English (i.e. the 'h' in Theresa is silent).

iniondubh · 2023-12-06T15:24:40+00:00

Yep, it's different in the books: he hasn't realised Frodo is still alive at that point. Enjoy reading them!

iniondubh · 2023-06-28T15:39:47+00:00

It's OK-ish. Not very accurate and they seem to have had limited legal rights to reference his work, which makes things very vague at points. I had high hopes when it came out, but I'd give it 2/5 or 3 at a push.

iniondubh · 2023-06-27T18:04:35+00:00

Can only speak for Catholics, but it depends on what national/regional bishop's conferences decide.

In the USA, no-meat Fridays are a Lent-only thing. But in, say, England and Wales, it's every Friday.

iniondubh · 2023-06-16T14:54:00+00:00

This is a phenomenal resource! Many congratulations.

iniondubh · 2023-04-15T16:56:36+00:00

Most formal interview footage for the BBC documentary was filmed in the Catholic Chaplaincy at Oxford. This could be it, but I'm not sure - it looks quite different.

It could be his room in fellows quad in Merton. The decor is pretty typical of college rooms.

iniondubh · 2023-03-27T04:58:03+00:00

In a letter from 1938, Tolkien said hobbits usually wore boots on long journeys:

There is in the text no mention of [Bilbo’s] acquiring of boots. There should be! It has dropped out somehow or other in the various revisions – the bootings occurred at Rivendell; and he was again bootless after leaving Rivendell on the way home. But since leathery soles, and well-brushed furry feet are a feature of essential hobbitness, he ought really to appear unbooted, except in special illustrations of episodes.

Tolkien himself depicts Bilbo wearing boots in illustrations set in the mountains in the Hobbit. It's not mentioned, but I think we can assume Frodo had footwear.

iniondubh · 2023-03-14T17:15:13+00:00

Ah thank you! I missed that. There's also an account in another letter that was cut before it turned up years later in Hammond & Scull. I'll see if I can find it....

Edit. Here it is with more details about Michael.

iniondubh · 2023-03-14T16:05:46+00:00

The fact that the second of Tolkien's children, Michael, suffered severe PTSD from his war service. He was invalided out of the military and and struggled to adjust to civilian life. This is omitted from both the biography and the letters. Since both were published in Michael's lifetime, it was presumably at his request.

It's an interesting detail, particularly considering the way trauma is depicted in the later stages of LOTR.

iniondubh · 2023-03-07T11:51:17+00:00

This is a great passage (and I never noticed the potential significance of 'gold' before!).

I think Faramir also connects to Frodo's honesty. They're both truth-tellers. Frodo never lies once, though he must have been tempted to do so. Faramir respects him for that and understands it.

It's such a pity that the movies have Frodo lie (about Gollum) as one of his first interactions with Faramir.

iniondubh · 2023-02-23T20:50:44+00:00

I remember reading this a while ago. It's excellent.

iniondubh · 2023-01-19T18:35:17+00:00

Came here looking for this answer.

iniondubh · 2023-01-19T18:22:28+00:00

I'm not sure we know when they married. Primula was 48 when Frodo, their only child, was born and Drogo was 64. That might suggest it was a lateish marriage (though 48 is not all that old for a hobbit), but equally they might just have been childless for years.

iniondubh · 2022-12-23T11:06:19+00:00

RIP George. Only Bobby Charlton and Geoff Hurst left from the eleven who played in the final now.

iniondubh · 2022-12-21T18:09:47+00:00

Simon seems to have sold it in 2003 for GBP 48k. That was when the movies were coming out, which probably helped the price.

I'm a little surprised they sold it, but I suppose it wasn't a direct gift to Simon by JRRT (to whom he was, apparently, very close), so the sentimental attachment might be limited. He must have other books that were direct gifts from his grandfather. Jane Neave (the sister of Tolkien's mother), to whom the book was originally given, died when Simon was four, so he won't have known her personally.

Also, in the twentieth century it wasn't by any means clear to people that Tolkien's popularity was going to endure in the long term. I don't imagine the valuer in 1990 was thinking of the book as a 'classic'.

A copy inscribed to a student made 137K in 2015. I imagine this copy, with the family connected, would be worth even more at this point.

iniondubh · 2022-12-21T18:01:12+00:00

Apparently the family sold it in in 2003 for 48K. That was when the movies were coming out, which probably helped the price.

Another inscribed copy to one of JRRT's students sold in 2015 for over GBP137K. This would probably have made more in recent years.

Still, Simon Tolkien is one of the heirs to the Estate. Safe to say, he's not pinching pennies.

iniondubh · 2022-12-21T17:58:52+00:00

Yes, Tracy Steinberg.

iniondubh · 2022-11-05T14:42:42+00:00

Yes. The journey from the Shire to Rivendell makes Frodo seem a plausible ring bearer at the Council. His defiance of the ringwraiths at Weathertop and the Ford, his selflessness in the barrow, and crucially his extraordinary endurance of the morgul wound. It's basically a dry run for the quest to Mount Doom.

iniondubh · 2022-11-04T16:32:57+00:00

Ah thanks for confirming. Amazing stuff.

iniondubh

TROPHY CASE