A "Lord of the Rings" appreciation (No. 1)

OK, I am now going to indulge myself, but I hope you'll be edified as I do.

With all the hype about the upcoming Narnia movie, I was reflecting recently about the hype that was going on four years ago, when Peter Jackson's adaptation of the first book of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, was about to hit theaters. I'm looking forward to seeing the Narnia movie, but I really bought into the hype for Fellowship and couldn't wait to see it. I have been a fan of Tolkien's trilogy for a long, long time and have probably read all three volumes at least a dozen times. Thankfully, the movies didn't disappoint. Yes, there were departures from the story in places, but I was able to forgive Jackson for that because I had a sense that he loved the material as I do and made his changes simply to adapt the material to a different medium.

But back to the books. . . . My regard for the trilogy is such that I like to take one or the other of the books off the shelf and open to a favorite passage here or there, places in the story where Tolkien's writing is especially appealing to me. This seems, to me, a little wierd because I feel as if I am using Tolkien in much the same way Christians use the Bible, and I certainly don't want to equate "The Lord of the Rings" with Scripture in any way.

Nevertheless, there are some portions of the trilogy that I simply treasure, and in memory of those bygone years of waiting for the next "Lord of the Rings" movie, I'd like to share a few of them with you throughout this month. If you have read the books, I'd be interested in knowing whether these passages move you as they move me. If you haven't read the books, I hope these tidbits will motivate you to take up and read.

Here's a passage from the first book's second chapter, "The Shadow of the Past." It's a long chapter in which Gandalf and Frodo have a very interesting conversation by which Tolkien provides a lot of crucial background info for his story. In this passage, Gandalf is telling Frodo how the One ring consumed the creature Gollum. At the end, there is an unmistakeable reference to an unnamed providence that is operating behind the events of the trilogy, a reference that actually made it into the movie (in Gandalf's conversation with Frodo in the mines of Moria). Enjoy!

"The thing was eating up his mind, of course, and the torment had become almost unbearable.

"All the 'great secrets' under the mountains had turned out to be just empty night; there was nothing more to find out, nothing worth doing, only nasty furtive eating and resentful remembering. He was altogether wretched. He hated the dark, and he hated light more: he hated everything, and the Ring most of all."

"What do you mean?" cried Frodo. "Surely the Ring was his precious and the only thing he cared for? But if he hated it, why didn't he get rid of it, or go away and leave it?"

You ought to begin to understand, Frodo, after all you have heard," said Gandalf. "He hated it and loved it, as he hated and loved himself. He could not get rid of it. He had no will left in the matter.

"A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo. It may slip off treacherously, but its keeper never abandons it. At most he plays with the idea of handing it on to some one else's care--and that only at an early stage, when it first begins to grip. But as far as I know Bilbo alone in history has ever gone beyond playing, and really done it. He needed all my help, too. And even so he would never have just forsaken it, or cast it aside. It was not Gollum, Frodo, but the Ring itself that decided things. The Ring left him."

"What, just in time to meet Bilbo?" said Frodo. "Wouldn't an orc have suited it better?"

"It is no laughing matter," said Gandalf. "Not for you. It was the strangest event in the whole history of the Ring so far: Bilbo's arrival just at that time, and putting his hand on it, blindly, in the dark.

"There was more than one power at work, Frodo. The Ring was trying to get back to its master. It had slipped from Isildur's hand and betrayed him; then when a chance came it caught poor Deagol, and he was murdered; and after that Gollum, and it had devoured him. It could make no further use of him: he was too small and mean; and as long as it stayed with him he would never leave his deep pool again. So now, when its master was awake once more and sending out his dark thought from Mirkwood, it abandoned Gollum. Only to be picked up by the most unlikely person imaginable: Bilbo from the Shire!

"Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought."