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There can never be enough Bombadil!

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Tue 25 Oct , 2005 1:17 am
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<cough> anomalous

Other than that, I agree with you, Faramond.

Brian, next you're going to argue that if Tom wasn't in the Jackson movie he must not really exist. :D

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Faramond
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I thought there was something anamalous about the way I was spelling anamalous!

;)


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Faramond
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I won't have time to get to Voronwë's questions tonight, so I thought I would instead just throw out one of the questions I hope to get to in a longer post later:

Could Tom have done more to help the Ring Quest?

Should he have done more?


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IdylleSeethes
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I've arrived a few days late and am at the end of mine with a few glasses of bubbly, so I can only contribute a little. Thanks Jnyusa for starting this and I hope the discussion continues until I can have some time to properly participate. All of you have made great contributions.

I first read LOTR when I was young and inexperienced. At the time, I still thought of Alice in Wonderland as a children's story with a collection of odd characters and unconnected incidents. It took me years to understand how closely both are connected to real life.

Tolkien offers us a wider spectrum of character types to contemplate than most stories. There are things that precede good and are beyond evil, to paraphrase Nietzsche.

Tom and the Orcs are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Someone mentioned congruence between Tom and the transcendent Gandalf, but there is some distance between them. Gandalf is still concerned with knowledge and the affairs of the world, but Tom is all about understanding. I like Impenitent's comparison to the Dalai Lama.

The Orcs are at the other end and are all about reaction and totally devoid of understanding.

Tolkien had experience at both ends. As Din pointed out, Tom ties into Tolkien's academic background. The Orcs are out of his trench warfare experience. My exposure was not so severe as Tolkien's, but I do remember how different life seems after being disconnected from the rest of the world and being totally immersed in the military. Orcs don't seem so remote after that experience. Neither knowledge nor understanding is important. You just react.

Good and evil are parochial elements between the extremes of understanding and mostly irrelevant to those living at the extremes. I now read Tom's statement concerning identity as a challenge for us to decide where in the spectrum we belong. Another existential statement in Tolkien.

Obviously, I think Tom and the Orcs are parts of a single discussion.

Welcome to the board Brian.

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Dindraug
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Posted: Tue 25 Oct , 2005 7:24 am
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The ring had no power over Tom, why would he wan't to get involved in it?

We only have Gandalf premonition that in the end Tom and Tomland (tm) would have been overun by Sauron. It hadn't happened before, why should it now?

As for more help, well he did save the Ring quest. If not for Tom it would have been buried under the Tyrn Gothed for an age or more, coverted by some Weight who I am not convinced would have wanted to hand it over.


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Jnyusa
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Posted: Tue 25 Oct , 2005 8:40 am
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Liddy presented a really interesting idea in his 'Name Rings a Bell' thread.

Here's his post: Liddy's post

I think this puts Tom's answer to Frodo in a very interesting light.

Also makes it rather unlikely, I think, that Tolkien would put such a sentence into the mouth of a Valar.

Jn

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Frelga
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I have nothing to add to the discussion although I follow it with great interest. I'm just thrilled to see Idylle.
:cheers:

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Semprini
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I agree with Faramond that the question of who Tom is within the framework of the overall mythology is not the prime question. The prime question is: what does Tom tell us, or ask us. This has been Jn's perspective in this thread from the beginning. Not "who is Tom"? But "who is Frodo, who are we?". What does Tom tell us, ask us?

I would argue that Tom functions as a counter-example, just like the Elves.

1. We all agree, I think, that Tom appears to be outside the tale, and that he comments on the tale from an external stand point. More significantly, Tom is also outside the society of Men. He is not among men. He is not really interested in the others.

Therefore, schematically, we have three ways of living in LOTR:

(i) To live among the others, thus following Aristotle's definition of life: "to live among men" (inter homine esse). This concerns all the main characters of LOTR except, at the end of the day, Frodo. What makes us human is that we interract with other human. Alone, we would lose our mind.

(ii) To live like a Saint, or to put it otherwise, to live for the others. This only concerns Frodo for whom LOTR represents a route, a passage from a life among men to a life for men. In the book, gradually, Frodo takes the burden for all, and ceases to live for himself. Whereas Aragorn takes the opposite route, from living for the others, as Strider, to living among men, as Elessar.

(iii) To live neither like a Man, and neither like a Saint. To live beyond Good. That's Tom Bombadil. And that's not a Man's life.

2. In LOTR, Frodo shows us that pity is the only way to break Morgoth's curse, to oppose Morgoth's Ring (without Gollum, to whom Frodo showed pity, the Ring would not have been destroyed). Pity can only arise if we accept our human condition, if we accept to live among the others, if we look every day at the others without blinking. However, Frodo can only lead the way, and cannot be part of the historical world that begins at the end of the tale. It is because to live alone like a Saint is beyond our human strength. Frodo cannot live alone in the Shire because he is to deeply hurt; he suffers too much. He can only live like a Saint, show pity to Saruman after having shown pity to Gollum. When one has been a Saint, one cannot live like a Man afterwards.

3. To live inter homine esse, among the society of Men thus means to accept our mortality, our human conditions, and to accept to live with others.

Here come into play the Elves, and, at last, Tom Bombadil.

- The Elves are a counter-example in terms of immortality. Their sorrow and the profound sadness that inhabit their heart because they have to leave a land they love (Middle-Earth) and because their destiny remains obscure to them since they are not eternal, show that immortality is not the answer. Immortality is a poisoned gift. Acceptance of our condition is the only way for Men. It is because the Elves exist that the question of mortality/immortality can be explored in LOTR, by contrast. Therefore, the Elves are indispensable to the understanding of Men.

- Tom Bombadil is also a counter-example. By his complete freedom, his complete absence of responsability, his almost unconscious joy, his disdain of what is at stakes with the Ring, he shows what Men are not, or should not be. Tom is different, he does not really live among us. He knows himself, he does not need to hide: he knows nothing of the struggle that we must conduct to reveal ourselves, to name ourselves. We never really know who we are at the beginning. We must first get rid of our metaphorical Ring of invisibility, and even so, without guarantee of success.

It is because Tom exists that the question of what it is to be a Man can be explored, analyzed in LOTR. Therefore, Tom is indipensable to the understanding of Men. Tom asks us the question: "Who are we?", and like Socrates, awaits for us to give an answer. He cannot answer the question himself because he does not know what the human condition is.

4. Tom is concrete because he does not change. "He is". Frodo and us are not like him. We change. The concrete/abstract distinction mentioned by Jn was used by Hegel in part to attack Kant's view that we should not accept the world as it is, and that we should try to change the world by trying to be better people. Kant's starting point is Men, as they pass their own laws, as they apply their own law to themselves (eg, "we should act as we would like others to act"). On the contrary, Hegel wants us to be part of the world, to be a whole with the world, to be within the spirit of the world, but regardless of human moral. And in this process, we can only lose our individuality, as this process prevents us from taking the route that will lead us to define who we are, and to accept our human condition at the end of the day. As Men, we have to take that route. We have to answer Tom's question. We cannot be completely concrete because we evolve; and we evolve in the right direction, not when we follow the spirit of the world like a blind man, but when we first try to name ourselves and to progress as human being (arg, not time at all to refine this last paragraph, I hope it makes some sense!)


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Jnyusa
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Posted: Wed 26 Oct , 2005 5:21 pm
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That's wonderful, Semprini!

It answers the question I asked of myself above, whether it would be possible for Tolkien to present of model human who was 'concrete' given his religious background. He could if the enigma of Tom is that he leads us to see what we cannot entirely be, and in this way leads to see what we can be.


Jn

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Cerin
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Posted: Thu 27 Oct , 2005 5:06 pm
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Quote:
Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless?
It's been wonderful reading through this thread (although difficult to try and absorb all at once).

I love Tom and the Old Forest so much. They are my favorite parts of the book. If I were plopped down right in the middle of Middle-earth, I think I would make my way there, to the house of Tom and Goldberry.

It strikes me that the ordinary answer to his question (who are you, alone, yourself and nameless), is, 'still me, of course'. So I see the underlying question as being, 'yes, but what is the 'me' of you, and how can the world celebrate that 'me' without a name to call you by?' I think that's what Tom is saying with his answer to Frodo -- that names are essential because the name we give someone or something represents the totality of its history and what it is in all the aspects in which it is apprehended in the world. So a name is the way the unarticulated fullness of something or someone can be communicated as an idea.

I would say Tom is the most powerful figure in the story. I agree with Faramond that this is the deepest and wildest magic in the book but I also feel as though it is the most under control. I agree with Semprini that Tom represents the adult part of the story though I'm not exactly sure why. I love the way he sees through to the truth of things. Absolutely no bs with Tom.

Semprini referred to the light in the story. I've always been puzzled at comments about the story being dark, because to me it is just incandescent with light and joy, rippling, shining and bubbling like a river through it all, and the place where that seems to center quietly as an abiding peace and contentment, is in the forest with Tom. I was reminded of something from one of the Christianity discussions going on in Symp; I had mentioned authority, and Di had said that authority was servanthood. And to me this describes Tom perfectly. He has authority, I think clearly the greatest authority within his sphere of anyone in the book. Yet what does he occupy himself with -- housekeeping! He is Master, but he serves in the simplest, seemingly least consequential ways though with great seriousness underneath that ebullience, I think.

Edit

So the question that occurs to me is, is there something important about doing those seemingly simple chores, or about rejoicing in doing them the way Tom does? I think that is what I would go to the Forest to find out.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a bit off the track:
Alatar wrote:
What I won't do is try to pretend that there is some deeper meaning and higher purpose behind this. There isn't. There doesn't need to be. I am sure the great minds here will make powerful arguments to prove otherwise, but they are illusions, simply an exercise in intellectual gymnastics.
Sounds alot like me and my annoyance with people trying to find deeper significance in things that were just put into the movies for surface (filmic requirement) reasons. :)
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However, I hold to my original opinion that Bombadil is not worthy of the deep philosophical discussions that are being applied to him.
My sentiments exactly regarding the movies. :)

The difference, though, I think, is as Jnyusa said:
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I think that a lot of the abstruse things we discuss were actually instinctive in Tolkien ... they are not conscious creations but they flow unconsciously and unerringly from a very consistent and coherent moral perspective. I don’t want to put interpretations into his mind that he never dreamed of, but I think it is legitimate to discuss interpretations that seem consistent with his moral perspective as it is revealed in the story.
We can rely on the consistency and coherency of the author's underlying moral perspective, but I don't think the same can be said for those factors that affected the filmmakers' decisions.

So while I think Alatar is wrong, I still think I am right. :D


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yovargas
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Could someone post the full context of the "Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless? " quote? I don't have the book with me and it's been on my mind today.

Cerin, your interpretation of that statement strikes me as too literal or pragmatic somehow. I'll wait until I get a fuller sense of the context before saying anything more.


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Sassafras
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He spoke at last out of his wonder and a sudden fear of that silence:
"Who are you, Master?" he asked

"Eh, what?" said Tom sittting up, and his eyes glinting in the gloom
Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are you alone, yourself and nameless? But you are young and I am old.
Eldest, that's what I am. Mark my words, my friends: Tom was here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the
first acorn. He made paths before the Big People, and saw the little People arriving. He was here before the Kings and the graves and the
Barrow-wights. When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent. He knew the dark under the stars when it
was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from Outside."


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Jnyusa
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They are in Tom's house, after the dinner of the second evening, and Tom has been telling them the stories of the Old Forest. Tom lapses into silence, there is a narrative pause, and then Frodo asks his question.

Jn

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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Yov, can you pick up and respond to my PM to you? Thanks. :)


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Cerin
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yovargas wrote:
Cerin, your interpretation of that statement strikes me as too literal or pragmatic somehow. I'll wait until I get a fuller sense of the context before saying anything more.
It is almost a given that my interpretation of something will be too literal (for everyone else). :D


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Faramond
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Semprini, I'd like to make a post that is largely in response to yours, but first I have to ask some questions.

You say that when one has lived as a Saint, one cannot live as a Man afterward. Well, why? It seems right, and yet you gave a perhaps mild counter-example in the same post with the example of Strider becoming Elessar.

You say that Tom shows, in part, what men should not be, and I agree with this, though I haven't yet explored this idea in this thread. You also say that what is so difficult and important for us as men, rejecting the Ring of invisibility and discovering and affirming our own names, comes easily and effortlessly to Tom. This I also agree with ... and then I must wonder about this contradiction. We want to know our own names, as Tom does, and yet the very thing that allows him to so fully know his own name, his lack of concern for the outer world, is precisely what we don't want to emulate. Has Tom taken the easy path to knowing his own name? Is there something false about it, because there is no struggle?


Tom is concrete because he does not change.

Tom is concrete, and he does not change. I don't see what one has to do with the other, though. In fact, is it not the more concrete, the more real, that is more likely to change, while the abstract is unchanging?


We cannot be completely concrete because we evolve

I do not really understand this. I would think we are at our most concrete when we are capable of evolving, not by being shaped by the world, but by changing in response to the world. It is when we attempt to view ourselves as abstractions that we do not change.


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Semprini
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Hey Faramond,

>>>You say that when one has lived as a Saint, one cannot live as a Man afterward. Well, why? It seems right, and yet you gave a perhaps mild counter-example in the same post with the example of Strider becoming Elessar.

You are absolutly correct about Strider. There was a contradiction in my post in this respect. I wanted to stress the difference between the path Frodo has taken and the path Aragorn has taken. But in fact, Strider is not a real Saint; he just temporarily appears to act like a Saint and only on the surface. For he is not a true Saint. He does not solely live for the others, since he also lives for Arwen, and through her, through his love for her, for him.

Regarding the possibility of becoming a Man after being a Saint: I think that being a Saint is beyond Man's ordinary strengths. It is admirable, but it is not common. It is possible that the people we ordinary call Saints have been awarded a kind of "grace" (which origin is to be found in themselves I must add) and live in a state of bliss, but it is also possible (and this is what I believe) that being a Saint represents a series of extraordinary, almost inhuman, hardships that only rare people can overcome at the price of great suffering. For the real Saint must remain hidden; he is a nobody. He cannot live like a Man among other Men. People must not know what he has done for them, just like the Hobbits in the Shire do not really know what Frodo has done for them at the end of LOTR. So the Saint is alone and does not expect any reward, any acknowledgements from others. He cannot share his burden, not even with God, assuming the latter exists. It must require a tremendous inner strength, not to have the right to interract with the others. There is an excellent novel exploring the possibility of a suffering and lonely Saint by French writer Georges Bernanos, called Under the Sun of Satan. I think it has been translated in English (it is a classic) and I recommend it heartily. So, can a Saint after having roamed alone and hidden, come back to the normal life we live each day, where we live for ourselves, and for our family and friends, and not for the unknown others? I do not think so. It is a one way trip.

>>>Has Tom taken the easy path to knowing his own name?

Tom had no path to take. "He is". He was wearing his name before everyone else. He was "born" with his name, with the world. I am not condemning or judging Tom. I say that he does not know what it is to be a Man. And he does not need to know.

>>>Tom is concrete, and he does not change. I don't see what one has to do with the other, though. In fact, is it not the more concrete, the more real, that is more likely to change, while the abstract is unchanging? … I would think we are at our most concrete when we are capable of evolving, not by being shaped by the world, but by changing in response to the world. It is when we attempt to view ourselves as abstractions that we do not change.

First, I must underscore that I did not try in my post to analyze the human condition in terms of abstract against concrete, because I was not interested in such distinction. I was only concerned with the term concrete. Hence, when I used the term concrete, it was not with the intent to oppose it to the term abstract meant as type/classification.

Concerning the term abstract, I fully agree with you that we do not change when we see ourselves as abstractions or titles.

However, I also think that we do not change when we are concrete. Here is why:

I do not think that human beings should see themselves as a part of the spirit of the world or the Historical reason, assuming there exists such a thing. Hence, I do not think that we human beings should be concrete, within the meaning given to this word by Hegel, or should reflect the spirit of the world just like a rock would do. Why? Because being concrete here means to be part of the world, as the spirit of the world is reflected in ourselves, as if we were mere mirrors. As if we were even less than mirrors actually: the world looks at himself into ourselves, as if we were transparent. Hegel schematically says that we are part of the world, but that we do not know it yet, so when we respond to the world, we can only find out that we are part of it. We are a whole because we are a part of the whole/world. We are supposed to follow the spirit of the world, because the spirit of the world is the historical reason and reason is the sole reality, from which we are part. However, this is circular logic. If the only response to the world is that we are part of the Spirit of the world, where is our free will? The change that results from our being concrete is not a real change because it does not result from a conscious choice, it does not make us individuals, it does not give us a name, separate from that of the world.

We have an irreducible individual mind or soul, which is as important as the spirit of the world. It is infinite. Our mind or soul is not the projection or reflection of the spirit of the world. We are each one irreducible unit and one irreducible whole, distinct from the whole represented by the world. Yet, when we simply follow the world, as a part of the whole, where is our freedom, where is our ability to change regardless of the route taken by the spirit of the world? I think we should strive to be something else than historical creatures imprisoned by the present historical spirit of the world. Hence, this proposal: when we follow the spirit of the world, as a concrete part of the whole, as if representing the whole, we do not exercise our ability to move and change, and thus we do not individually seek to change, to find our name, which is not the name of the world. I agree with you that we can change in response to the spirit of the world, but precisely because we are neither concrete nor abstract, and only after we have named ourselves. We are a whole, the union of a soul and a body, but which cannot be separated (I agree that we should not be analyzed in dualistic terms). So we are the starting point, and we must find ourselves, name ourselves. Only after we have done that can we try to name the world, to find the spirit of the world if we want.. and if it exists.

Tom is concrete because he does not change. Tom is outside the affairs of Men. Either he follows the spirit of the world, or he is himself the spirit of the world. In a way, we are real, we exist, not when we blindly follow the spirit of the world, but when we follow our own path, seeking our name within ourselves. That would be a true response, to the world, where we live among men.

Perhaps Frodo's first answer to Tom should have been:"I am not Tom Bombadil".

Hmm. Does that make any sense? I guess it would in French, but in English?

Last edited by Semprini on Fri 28 Oct , 2005 2:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Jnyusa
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The change that results from our being concrete is not a real change because it does not result from a conscious choice, it does not make us individuals, it does not give us a name, separate from that of the world.

Yes, I think that Hegel expresses rather pointedly that individuality is a delusion ... you're quoting from Reason in History? ... and this would be antithetical to Tolkien's beliefs.

I like the abstract/concrete distinction though, because the concept of self-abstraction or self-alienation is very important to twentieth century thought and explains, in my opinion, a lot of our social dynamics.

Jn

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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Yes it makes sense. :)

Of course, sense is what you make of it, but that's another story.


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Semprini
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Jn, these are old memories of what I had understand of Phenomenology of Spirit (this is the hardest book I have ever read; a real pain, and perhaps not worth it, seeing how little I remember from it) and Introduction to the Philosophy of History.

>>>the concept of self-abstraction or self-alienation is very important to twentieth century thought.

Agreed.

Voronwe: :)


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