The Two Towers // Book 3, Chapter 4 // Treebeard

Hilarious anecdote (speaking facetiously of course), I'm soooo excited about Chapter 5 coming up (and have already listened to it twice) that I didn't realize till I sat down at the computer just now and was staring at the post list that apparently I utterly and completely forgot to post on Chapter 4! *face palm*

Well, let us to it without more delay and then Chapter 5 can come as quickly as ever it can. xD

No two ways about it, Chapter 4 maaaaaay be the longest in the trilogy (if it's not, because I'm being very un-technical in saying so, it's at least gotta be close). In here particularly again, the writing (as reflecting the content itself) is just jumping out at me again -- careful and slow moving, even a bit sleepy in places, but sturdy and deep and abiding. There's clamor pressing outside the forest, but at the moment, snatched away from all the hurly-burly, it's like we're caught inside a rainbow glinting bubble -- all relaxed and dreamy and very quiet, but then moving slowly yet surely with greater and greater impetus into the final rumbling, impetuous, thrilling march to battle.

Ents are so unusual aren't they? And specific to Tolkien's imagination as hobbits are.

I can never quite tell what I think when it comes to the tale of the Ent-wives, especially as I can see both sides of the question. My take on it being the Ents, while shepherding what is, possibly wanting to more let things happen as they will, approach matters in more of a custodial fashion; while the Ent-wives wanted to impose more order, to maybe be involved more in the act of ongoing creativity itself? Sorry, that's kind of a rough-hewn thought. It's all just so sad it's kinda hard to think about. It is interesting in that it's another thread (somewhat similar to Bombadil) which doesn't have any direct bearing on the current events, but I think helps make the entire thing real/into an archetypal story; life, or in this case, Middle Earth -- all those other stories with just one chapter passing through ours or where we just catch a glimpse of the edges, but that go to building up the entire huge tapestry, making a glorious and cohesive creation, yet made of threads running every which way. (And I'm just referencing the little bits of their back story we get here, obviously the Ents themselves will be a big part of our story going forward.)

Anyhow! Treebeard is a brick and it does crack me up when he refers to "young Saruman down at Isengard."

I also find it so interesting how Tolkien says trolls are counterfeit Ents, made by the Enemy. Very neat that.

Quotes:

• "For a moment, Treebeard stood under the rain of the falling spring, and took a deep breath; then he laughed, and passed inside... Treebeard lifted two great vessels and stood them on the table. They seemed to be filled with water; but he held his hands over them, and immediately they began to glow, one with a golden and the other with a rich green light; and the blending of the two lights lit the bay, as if the sun of summer was shining through a roof of young leaves. Looking back, the hobbits saw that the trees in the court had also begun to glow, faintly at first, but steadily quickening, until every leaf was edged with light: some green, some gold, some red as copper..."
  
• "The effect of the draught began at the toes, and rose steadily through every limb, bringing refreshment and vigour as it coursed upwards, right to the tips of the hair. Indeed the hobbits felt that the hair on their heads was actually standing up, waving and curling and growing."
  
• "He has a mind of metal and wheels; and he does not care for growing things..."
• "Good! Good!' said Treebeard. 'But I spoke hastily. We must not be hasty. I have become too hot. I must cool myself and think; for it is easier to shout stop! than to do it.' He strode to the archway and stood for some time under the falling rain of the spring. Then he laughed and shook himself, and wherever the drops of water fell glittering from him to the ground they glinted like red and green sparks."
• "Of course, it is likely enough, my friends,' he said slowly, 'likely enough that we are going to our own doom: the last march of the Ents. But if we stayed at home and did nothing, doom would find us anyway, sooner or later."
• "But there, my friends, songs like trees bear fruit only in their own time and their own way..."
  

 

For thought:

• I know it happened gradually/unfortunately and all for the purposes of the story, but do you think the different approaches to life of the Ents and Ent-wives are actually in contradiction/had to be mutually exclusive?