Her WHAT?!?!

#17 in the series "J.R.R. Tolkien--Smut Peddler!"

In all this talk of love and lust in the Lord of the Rings, one poor guy seems to have been left out completely. Our wallflower's name: Frodo.

My personal fave

Frodo is, on one level (of the many possible) the story's Christ-figure. We might expect a devout Christian to weave a Jesus into his tale; plenty of others more talented than C.S. Lewis have done so, and even agnostics like Faulkner have had a go. But Tolkien goes beyond them all by giving us not one but three Christs: there's Gandalf, master of elemental powers and ageless wisdom, and Aragorn, rightful and righteous king, and Frodo . . . sacrificial lamb. We might also expect a typical Christian not to attach any sexual energy to Jesus. Though the Bible portrays him as an ordinary human man who like good food, good wine, and good foot-rubs, the traditional view of Jesus was of someone who--despite being awful chummy with Mary Magdalene--had not the slightest sexual aura

By Tim Kirk, from the 1975 Tolkien Calendar

Surely Frodo has no such aura. He isn't as much as chummy with a single female of any species throughout the entire story. Galadriel is one of only three women with whom he has any kind of contact, and she is more mother than mate. (Recall that Frodo is an orphan and was raised by his uncle. And of the other females, Goldberry is a Maia, and Arwen he talks to only after she's married.) I've already asserted that the Phial of Galadriel is not a sexual symbol, and I believe the above data reinforce this view. Frodo's suffering, his receipt of the Phial, and his lack of any percepti- ble libido, make him otherworldly in a way that even Elves are not: other- worldly in the way of wizards. After his wounding with the Morgul blade he even becomes slightly dematerialized: there is a certain transparency about him that can be detected by those with eyes to see like Gandalf. As a Catholic, Tolkien was taught that sexuality and spirituality are not compatible: note St. Paul's "I would that all men were like me." And Paul means not merely abstinent, nor celibate, but "chaste": not even thinking about sex. This was the ideal of the "spiritual" life that Tolkien lived with on a daily basis from childhood--between the ages of 12 and 21 he was even raised by a priest. We can say, then, that the kind of otherworldliness we find in Frodo is a defining characteristic of "spirituality" as Tolkien understood the term. "My kingdom is not of this world," said Jesus, and neither is Frodo's, in the end.

But all that Frodo might have had in this world he bequeaths to Sam. And unlike his ethereal master, Sam is . . . well, Sam is downright earthy. Sure, he's a gardener, but that in itself should clue us in to the central role fertility plays in his life. We've already seen the overtly sexual nature of his temptation by Galadriel, and his powerful reaction to it. We know exactly with what Galadriel is tempting him--or rather, with whom--and we also know he's been fantasizing about this certain someone throughout the story. He thinks about her in Lorien, he thinks about her in Mordor--on the very slopes of Orodruin!--and no sooner is he back in Bywater than he's getting his mack on with Rosie Cotton before the War of the Ring is even over. Shy stumble-bum he may be, but he knows what he wants. And he wants it bad.

And Galadriel knows it. Which is why her gift to Sam is particularly dirty. Literally.

"G" marks the spot

It's . . . dare I say it? . . . a box. Her box. It's even got a G-rune on it. A box full of dirt. A bunch of dirt with a seed in it. A white seed. And Sam knows just what to do with his seed. After marrying Rosie, that is. Forget the darn mallorn--and remember that Sam and Rosie end up with thirteen children.

La vala Manwe! No more! I can't go on . . . it's all too smutty . . . her box . . . oh, the humanity . . . parents, tell your children. . . .

And how does our "gardener and lover of trees" respond to Galadriel's act of generos- ity? "Sam went red to the ears and muttered something inaudible." So, I imagine, have many young men upon receiving the gift of a lady's . . . box.

Galadriel devotes more time to describing Sam's gift (and telling him what to do with it) than she spends on any other gift she bestows--with one exception. That exception is the entire (paperback) page she spends on her gift to Gimli. And at first she doesn't even know what she's going to give him. But if the previous interaction between the Elf-queen and the Dwarf is any guide, we know that--in the immortal words of James Brown--whatever it is, it's got to be funky. . . .

to be continued

"Oh, It's Me and My Crew, We've Come For a . . ."

Awhile back, I talked about how some critics have had fits trying to encompass the works of J. R. R. Tolkien within their theories. The following quote seems to me to capture some of their difficulties with The Lord of the Rings quite nicely:

"Far from redeeming . . .  not fully satisfy . . ." Are these cool and cautious phrases what one really wants to say about this novel? If the question seems odd, perhaps it is because modern criticism does not fully encourage one to rely upon personal feelings when discussing a book. . . . [This book] raises no great problems of interpretation: most literate readers are likely to share a common view of its meaning. By now its impact is also a matter of common knowledge, those who detest the novel offering evidence as forceful as those who admire it. But when it comes to estimating the value of [this work], a notorious silence overcomes the critics, perhaps because they sense that here neither approval nor dismissal matters as much as recording faithfully one's primary response.

If you've been following me so far (this being post #5 in the series) you've got an idea that fairy-tales, pornography, and the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien all have something in common, and that this something is sex. Tolkien knew fairy-tales like the back of his hand: such lore was part of his job as a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford. So of course he knew a dozen or more versions of Young Man Seeks His Fortune. And despite the way he's treated in various critical hagiographies, he knew about sex: he was a married man with four children, none of whom was conceived in a petri dish. As for his knowledge of pornography . . . let's just check out what he did with his own Young Man, and his Fortune, and find out for ourselves. But be warned! For in so doing we must now leave the cozy world of scholarly disputation and plunge headlong into a festering cesspool . . . of smut!

For behold! Here, in chapter 6 of Book II of LotR (that is, in the second half of The Fellowship of the Ring) we witness the approach of our handsome Young Man with his long, sharp Pointy Thing. And there right before him is the enchanted Forest, just begging to be--ahem--penetrated. So far, nothing you wouldn't find in Old Ethiopia, or Little Golden Books.

But hold! It seems our Young Man has brought some buddies along. Seven buddies, in fact. Whoa! That's not in the script! The story's gone kinky on us already, and we haven't even gotten to the penetrating part.

But then, this IS the modern world. As I pointed out in an earlier posting, modern writing just ain't the real thing unless it has at least one murder, orgy, cannibal feast, or rape. Faulkner's Sanctuary--what some regard as the first "modern" novel in this sense--was twenty years old when Fellowship was published, so the reader experienced in 20th-century literature should feel well-prepared to endure Tolkien's smuttiness. What's an eight-ply gang-bang compared to what happened to poor Temple Drake? And LotR is a fairy-tale, anyway: everything's symbolic. (Didn't Joseph Campbell say so?) We're not going to SEE anything. This isn't Cormac McCarthy we're reading here, let alone William Faulkner. Buck up, stalwart reader.

(Oh yes: the quote above, though it looks like it could be about LotR, is actually about Sanctuary. It's taken from Irving Howe's William Faulkner: A Critical Study, originally published in 1951, just after Faulkner got his Nobel Prize. And 1951 was the same year The Fellowship of the Ring was unleashed upon an unsuspecting world.)

But hold, again! It seems that in Fellowship the fairy-tale script isn't just being ignored, but trampled into the dirt. For our Young Man isn't exactly young. In fact, he's 87 years old! And he's engaged to be married! And worst of all: only one of his seven buddies is even human! What kind of story IS this? Maybe it's just as well we don't get to see anything. Even on the "symbolic" level we're being set up for something rather beyond mere kinky.


And while we're preparing ourselves for the worst . . . have you solved my riddle yet? You're going to need the answer when we get to the part with the dwarf. . . .

(to be continued)

El Squanto vs The Zombie Pilgrims!

Happy Thanksgiving! On this, the most sacred day on the year for America's food retailers, let us pause to consider the life of the man who made that first Thanksgiving possible: Squanto.
     Most of us heard vague rumors of this Indian guy back in grade school. He was a gentleman of the Patuxet tribe who helped the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony during their first miserable year in New England. It was he who taught them the fish-in-the-hole trick to fertilize their corn, taught them to plant squash and pumpkins, served as ambassador to surrounding Native tribes, and navigated them around unfamiliar territory. By most accounts, it was Squanto who saved the Pilgrims' bacon and ensured the survival of Plymouth.
     Something that always bothered me as a kid was a question my history picture-books never answered. How did Squanto learn English? In those texts the Pilgrims were Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise landing on an alien world and encountering locals who all sounded like James Earl Jones. More modern textbooks say Squanto learned his English from passing fisherman. What they don't tell you is that those fisherman kidnapped Squanto and sold him into slavery. He spent nine years in England before a sympathetic master arranged for him to return. However, an English slave-raider than captured him and sold him in Malaga, Spain. Our hero escaped, made his way to England, and after one failed attempt to return home via Newfoundland finally made it back to his home village after an absence of fourteen years. . . .
     . . . only to find that his home was gone. A smallpox epidemic had annihilated the Patuxet, passing through their village so rapidly that recently planted corn was still growing in the fields--fields that had just been taken over by the Pilgrims. For Plymouth Colony was founded literally on the ruins of Squanto's home village. Sure, Squanto was all too happy to assist the Pilgrims: he had no choice. He had nowhere else to go, and his tribe was gone. He was the sole survivor.
     Comparatively speaking, Squanto was lucky. The Pilgrims could have treated him, and the other Natives with whom they came into contact, much worse. Afterall, the Plymouth colonists--by their own admission--merely engaged in graverobbing:

The next morning, we found a place like a grave. We decided to dig it up. We found first a mat, and under that a fine bow. . . . We also found bowls, trays, dishes, and things like that. We took several of the prettiest things to carry away with us, and covered the body up again.

At least the Pilgrims left the body alone. Had Squanto ended up down south in Virginia he'd have had an outbreak of zombies to deal with. Here's the description from that wonderful book, Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen:

[The Virginia colonists] spent their early days digging random holes in the ground, haplessly looking for gold instead of planting crops. Soon they were starving and digging up putrid Indian corpses to eat. . . .

Me, I prefer mashed-potatoes. One wonders how many aristocratic planter families in the Old South are descended from ancestors who ate human flesh. It's the kind of thing you wish Faulkner had written about (and you thought "A Rose For Emily" was gross!). So as many of us in the next few days sit down to sumptuous meals, let us spare a thought for a man with strength, loyalty, intelligence, and courage to rival any luchador, and for the important role that zombies have played in American history. Take care and . . . eat well.