Chris Newton's Blog
March 25, 2024
Tolkien Reading Day: Mount Doom
Tolkien Reading Day is held on the 25th of March each year. The date of the 25th of March was chosen as the date on which the Ring was destroyed, completing Frodo's quest and vanquishing Sauron.
I began my 'real time' re-read in earnest with The Shadow of the Past in April 2023. But for the sake of completion, I wanted to read from the very beginning including the prologue and A Long Expected Party, so it seemed only right to begin on Tolkien Reading Day 2023 - it hadn't really occurred to me that I would reach Mount Doom in exactly one year's time!
It's Tolkien Reading Day 2024, and I'm reading The Black gate Opens from the Rings of Power tie-in The Return of the King (I thought Adar's gauntlet was suitably Mouth of Sauron-esque) and Mount Doom from The Return of the King with the cover illustration by Roger Garland - very fittingly depicting Orodriun surrounded by Lava, with Barad-dûr in the distance.
It's a grey, rainy day. I've mentioned before the sense of reading along with the seasons - the waning light of Autumn as we leave the Shire, heading into the darkness of Moria in the dead of Winter and then the return of the light, bringing life and hope, along with the destruction of the Ring on the 25th March - as close to the Spring Equinox as makes no odds.
So I was probably expecting the clouds to part, and dazzling sunshine to herald the end of Sauron. But bearing in mind that Frodo and Sam are "at the end of all things", and they don't actually wake up in The Field of Cormallen until the 8th April - the greyness seems appropriate. The host of Mordor have fled, and Sauron has been scattered by the winds, but there is not much celebration here reading in isolation, just a grim sense of duty - which is very apropos to the theme of this year's Tolkien Reading Day: Service and Sacrifice.
The thing that struck me the most as I eked out the journey through Mordor over the last week, was when Frodo and Sam cask away their gear. Specifically, Sam throwing away his pans. No more breakfasts!! Was that the moment he truly knew there was no hope of going "back again"? And yet they didn't turn back, or run, they did what they set out to so all those months ago.
But surely the real eucatastrophe (Tolkien's term for "good catastrophe") is waking up on the fourteenth day of the new year (in Gondor)?
I look forward to the imagined blue skies and flowers and gentle spring breeze on the 8th of April, but for now it is enough to know that the Quest is over.
So to mix my fandoms in celebration of Service and Sacrifice, I'm going to quote from the Doctor Who episode, Extremis:
"Goodness is not goodness that seeks advantage. Good is good in the final hour, in the deepest pit without hope, without witness, without reward. Virtue is only virtue in extremis."
Even with the Ring gone, Frodo and Sam are truly without hope as they lie down to die on their island ashen hill at the foot of Orodruin, and in what they believe to be their final moments they choose to forgive Sméagol. This act of kindness is the ultimate defiance of Sauron's malice.
I began my 'real time' re-read in earnest with The Shadow of the Past in April 2023. But for the sake of completion, I wanted to read from the very beginning including the prologue and A Long Expected Party, so it seemed only right to begin on Tolkien Reading Day 2023 - it hadn't really occurred to me that I would reach Mount Doom in exactly one year's time!
It's Tolkien Reading Day 2024, and I'm reading The Black gate Opens from the Rings of Power tie-in The Return of the King (I thought Adar's gauntlet was suitably Mouth of Sauron-esque) and Mount Doom from The Return of the King with the cover illustration by Roger Garland - very fittingly depicting Orodriun surrounded by Lava, with Barad-dûr in the distance.
It's a grey, rainy day. I've mentioned before the sense of reading along with the seasons - the waning light of Autumn as we leave the Shire, heading into the darkness of Moria in the dead of Winter and then the return of the light, bringing life and hope, along with the destruction of the Ring on the 25th March - as close to the Spring Equinox as makes no odds.
So I was probably expecting the clouds to part, and dazzling sunshine to herald the end of Sauron. But bearing in mind that Frodo and Sam are "at the end of all things", and they don't actually wake up in The Field of Cormallen until the 8th April - the greyness seems appropriate. The host of Mordor have fled, and Sauron has been scattered by the winds, but there is not much celebration here reading in isolation, just a grim sense of duty - which is very apropos to the theme of this year's Tolkien Reading Day: Service and Sacrifice.
The thing that struck me the most as I eked out the journey through Mordor over the last week, was when Frodo and Sam cask away their gear. Specifically, Sam throwing away his pans. No more breakfasts!! Was that the moment he truly knew there was no hope of going "back again"? And yet they didn't turn back, or run, they did what they set out to so all those months ago.
But surely the real eucatastrophe (Tolkien's term for "good catastrophe") is waking up on the fourteenth day of the new year (in Gondor)?
I look forward to the imagined blue skies and flowers and gentle spring breeze on the 8th of April, but for now it is enough to know that the Quest is over.
So to mix my fandoms in celebration of Service and Sacrifice, I'm going to quote from the Doctor Who episode, Extremis:
"Goodness is not goodness that seeks advantage. Good is good in the final hour, in the deepest pit without hope, without witness, without reward. Virtue is only virtue in extremis."
Even with the Ring gone, Frodo and Sam are truly without hope as they lie down to die on their island ashen hill at the foot of Orodruin, and in what they believe to be their final moments they choose to forgive Sméagol. This act of kindness is the ultimate defiance of Sauron's malice.
March 14, 2024
The Seige of Gondor
"Out westward in the world it was drawing to noon upon the fourteenth day of March in the Shire-reckoning..."
We're into full-on multiple editions territory as I embark on The End of the Third Age to read The Tower of Cirith Ungol and the beginning of The Land of Shadow.
Meanwhile, I'm also reading The War of the Ring for The Ride of the Rohirrim (confusingly, most of this takes place during the lead up to The Siege of Gondor!) and The Siege of Gondor itself in The Return of the King - from the Centenary box set, appropriately featuring John Howe's depiction of Minas Tirith.
We're into full-on multiple editions territory as I embark on The End of the Third Age to read The Tower of Cirith Ungol and the beginning of The Land of Shadow.
Meanwhile, I'm also reading The War of the Ring for The Ride of the Rohirrim (confusingly, most of this takes place during the lead up to The Siege of Gondor!) and The Siege of Gondor itself in The Return of the King - from the Centenary box set, appropriately featuring John Howe's depiction of Minas Tirith.
March 10, 2024
A Coronal of Silver and Gold.
After reading The Muster of Rohan and the beginning of The Seige of Gondor, I was beginning to lose where I was with Frodo and Sam until Tolkien (and Barbara Strachey!) helped me out:
Im Minas Tirith... "It was the sunset-hour, but the great pall had now stretched far into the West, and only as it sank at last into the Sea did the Sun escape to send out a brief farewell gleam before the night, even as Frodo saw it at the Cross-roads touching the head of the fallen king."
Meanwhile, at the cross-roads...
"The brief glow fell upon a huge sitting figure, still and solemn as the great stone kings of Argonath. The years had gnawed it, and violent hands had maimed it. Its head was gone, and in its place was set in mockery a round rough-hewn stone, rudely painted by savage hands in the likeness of a grinning face with one large red eye in the midst of its forehead. Upon its knees and mighty chair, and all about the pedestal, were idle scrawls mixed with the foul symbols that the maggot-folk of Mordor used.
Suddenly, caught by the level beams, Frodo saw the old king's head: it was lying rolled away by the roadside. 'Look, Sam!' he cried, startled in to speech, 'Look! The king has got a crown again!' The eyes were hollow and the carven beard was broken, but about the high stern forehead there was a coronal of silver and gold. A trailing plant with flowers like small white stars had bound itself across the brows as if in reverence for the fallen king, and in the crevices of his stony hair yellow stonecrop gleamed.
'They cannot conquer for ever!' said Frodo. And then suddenly the brief glimpse was gone. The Sun dipped and vanished, and as if at the shuttering of a lamp, black night fell."
We remarked upon this passage when we covered The Lord of the Rings on A Book at Breakfast, and how that concept of fading glory and the ultimate triumph of nature was possibly the most Tolkien-ish thing in the whole book!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5H2...
Im Minas Tirith... "It was the sunset-hour, but the great pall had now stretched far into the West, and only as it sank at last into the Sea did the Sun escape to send out a brief farewell gleam before the night, even as Frodo saw it at the Cross-roads touching the head of the fallen king."
Meanwhile, at the cross-roads...
"The brief glow fell upon a huge sitting figure, still and solemn as the great stone kings of Argonath. The years had gnawed it, and violent hands had maimed it. Its head was gone, and in its place was set in mockery a round rough-hewn stone, rudely painted by savage hands in the likeness of a grinning face with one large red eye in the midst of its forehead. Upon its knees and mighty chair, and all about the pedestal, were idle scrawls mixed with the foul symbols that the maggot-folk of Mordor used.
Suddenly, caught by the level beams, Frodo saw the old king's head: it was lying rolled away by the roadside. 'Look, Sam!' he cried, startled in to speech, 'Look! The king has got a crown again!' The eyes were hollow and the carven beard was broken, but about the high stern forehead there was a coronal of silver and gold. A trailing plant with flowers like small white stars had bound itself across the brows as if in reverence for the fallen king, and in the crevices of his stony hair yellow stonecrop gleamed.
'They cannot conquer for ever!' said Frodo. And then suddenly the brief glimpse was gone. The Sun dipped and vanished, and as if at the shuttering of a lamp, black night fell."
We remarked upon this passage when we covered The Lord of the Rings on A Book at Breakfast, and how that concept of fading glory and the ultimate triumph of nature was possibly the most Tolkien-ish thing in the whole book!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5H2...
March 7, 2024
Ithilien
"Here Spring was already busy about them: fronds pierced moss and mould, larches were green-fingered, small flowers were opening in the turf, birds were singing. Ithilien, the garden of Gondor now desolate kept still a dishevelled dryad loveliness."
In The Return of the King, Eowyn is telling Aragorn that she fears a cage, whilst Frodo is taken to Henneth Annûn by Faramir.
I'm still reading from The Ring Goes East, although it felt only right to dip into the Andy Serkis audiobook for The Forbidden Pool...
In The Return of the King, Eowyn is telling Aragorn that she fears a cage, whilst Frodo is taken to Henneth Annûn by Faramir.
I'm still reading from The Ring Goes East, although it felt only right to dip into the Andy Serkis audiobook for The Forbidden Pool...
March 5, 2024
Isengard
If I've worked it out correctly, today's reading consists of:
The end of The Road to Isengard
The Black Gate is Closed
Flotsam and Jetsam
The Voice or Saruman
The Palantir
Beginning of The Passing of the Grey Company
... which may be the most amount in one day do far!
It's very odd skipping from The Palantir straight to Chapter 2 of The Return of the King - yet Chapter 1 (Minas Tirith) begins with Gandalf and Pippin's arrival in Minas Tirith, whereas Chapter 2 (The Passing of the Grey Company) opens in Rohan with the sound of Shadowfax's hooves retreating into the night.
For Frodo and Sam's journey, I'm still reading from 'The Ring Goes East', whereas, for the whole three chapter Isengard sequence, I took the opportunity to revisit the paperback edition of The Two Towers I bought solely to annotate for our Book at Breakfast LOTR episode - delighting in the fact that the cover depicts Orthanc!
Then for The Return of the King (How can I be reading The Return of the King already?? I only finished Fellowship a week ago!) I am finally reading the 1974 Unwin Books edition with the cover art by Tolkien - the version I bought solely for the sake of completion over a decade ago! Everything about the cover, ghe typeface, and the layout reminds me if the joy of reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time...
The end of The Road to Isengard
The Black Gate is Closed
Flotsam and Jetsam
The Voice or Saruman
The Palantir
Beginning of The Passing of the Grey Company
... which may be the most amount in one day do far!
It's very odd skipping from The Palantir straight to Chapter 2 of The Return of the King - yet Chapter 1 (Minas Tirith) begins with Gandalf and Pippin's arrival in Minas Tirith, whereas Chapter 2 (The Passing of the Grey Company) opens in Rohan with the sound of Shadowfax's hooves retreating into the night.
For Frodo and Sam's journey, I'm still reading from 'The Ring Goes East', whereas, for the whole three chapter Isengard sequence, I took the opportunity to revisit the paperback edition of The Two Towers I bought solely to annotate for our Book at Breakfast LOTR episode - delighting in the fact that the cover depicts Orthanc!
Then for The Return of the King (How can I be reading The Return of the King already?? I only finished Fellowship a week ago!) I am finally reading the 1974 Unwin Books edition with the cover art by Tolkien - the version I bought solely for the sake of completion over a decade ago! Everything about the cover, ghe typeface, and the layout reminds me if the joy of reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time...
March 2, 2024
Edoras
Today, Gandalf the White Rides to Meduseld with Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli ... but not forgetting that the Entmoot hasn't ended Yet!
So I began the morning reading the final pages of Treebeard in the 1974 Unwin Books paperback - the very first edition of The Two Towers I ever owned and read, 23 years ago!
Before picking up where I left the others in The Treason of Isengard for Gandalf to heal Théoden.
Yet, meanwhile, Frodo and Sam are traversing The Dead Marshes in The Ring Goes East.
So I began the morning reading the final pages of Treebeard in the 1974 Unwin Books paperback - the very first edition of The Two Towers I ever owned and read, 23 years ago!
Before picking up where I left the others in The Treason of Isengard for Gandalf to heal Théoden.
Yet, meanwhile, Frodo and Sam are traversing The Dead Marshes in The Ring Goes East.
February 29, 2024
Fangorn
Here's where it gets really interesting!
On the 29th of February, Merry and Pippin escape the Uruk-hai and meet Treebeard in Fangorn Forest. But meanwhile, in the Emyn Muil, Frodo and Sam first encounter Gollum.
Here's where the 6 volume box set comes in useful as I read Book Three. Chapter Four and Book Four Chapter One simultaneously!
But that's not forgetting Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimil, who I left around the start of The Riders of Rohan.
What's more, Aragorn's meeting with Éomer, and the Entmoot, take place on the 30th February... a day which does not exist in our calendar!
But, rather than leave it until tomorrow, it feels only right to read those events on "the last day in February" - so today's reading consists of
The majority of The Riders of Rohan
The very end of The Uruk-Hai
The majority of Treebeard
All of The Taming of Sméagol
The first few pages of The Passage of the Marshes
... although not necessarily in that order!
On the 29th of February, Merry and Pippin escape the Uruk-hai and meet Treebeard in Fangorn Forest. But meanwhile, in the Emyn Muil, Frodo and Sam first encounter Gollum.
Here's where the 6 volume box set comes in useful as I read Book Three. Chapter Four and Book Four Chapter One simultaneously!
But that's not forgetting Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimil, who I left around the start of The Riders of Rohan.
What's more, Aragorn's meeting with Éomer, and the Entmoot, take place on the 30th February... a day which does not exist in our calendar!
But, rather than leave it until tomorrow, it feels only right to read those events on "the last day in February" - so today's reading consists of
The majority of The Riders of Rohan
The very end of The Uruk-Hai
The majority of Treebeard
All of The Taming of Sméagol
The first few pages of The Passage of the Marshes
... although not necessarily in that order!
February 26, 2024
The Breaking of the Fellowship
It's been the best part of a year since I started re-reading The Fellowship of the Ring, and so it seems bizarre that, as I finally reach The Breaking of the Fellowship, one month from today I'll have hurtled through The Two Towers and most of The Return of the King and the Ring will have been cast into the Cracks of Doom! (Spoilers!)
Here's where it gets a bit confusing - straight from the end of Fellowship and onto The Departure of Boromir and then the very beginning of The Riders of Rohan. We know that The Taming of Smeagol begins three days after Frodo and Sam leave the company (the 29th September by my reckoning), but I'm not sure where the beginning of The Uruk Hai takes place. I read the first half today, and will pick up with their escape, also on the 29th.
There are a few paragraphs more of Riders... to read tomorrow, then a large chunk of reading on the 29th February. On the subject of which...
... when I planned this readalong, I hadn't given any consideration to the fact that the Shire calendar was different to ours. (Each month contains 30 days.) Yet, serendipitously, 2024 just so happens to be a leap year, meaning that I can actually read the events of 29th February in Middle-earth ON the 29th February. (No such luck for the 30th... so I'll read Treebeard in its entirety on the 29th.
Here's where it gets a bit confusing - straight from the end of Fellowship and onto The Departure of Boromir and then the very beginning of The Riders of Rohan. We know that The Taming of Smeagol begins three days after Frodo and Sam leave the company (the 29th September by my reckoning), but I'm not sure where the beginning of The Uruk Hai takes place. I read the first half today, and will pick up with their escape, also on the 29th.
There are a few paragraphs more of Riders... to read tomorrow, then a large chunk of reading on the 29th February. On the subject of which...
... when I planned this readalong, I hadn't given any consideration to the fact that the Shire calendar was different to ours. (Each month contains 30 days.) Yet, serendipitously, 2024 just so happens to be a leap year, meaning that I can actually read the events of 29th February in Middle-earth ON the 29th February. (No such luck for the 30th... so I'll read Treebeard in its entirety on the 29th.
February 25, 2024
The Great River
'Behold the Argonath, the Pillars of the Kings!' cried Aragorn. 'We shall pass them soon.... Hold the middle of the stream!'
As Frodo was borne towards them the great pillars rose like towers to meet him. Giants they seemed to him, vast grey figures silent but threatening. Then he saw that they were indeed shaped and fashioned.... Upon great pedestals... stood two great kings of stone: still with blurred eyes and crannied brows they frowned upon the North. The left hand of each was raised palm outwards in gesture of warning.... Great power and majesty they still wore, the silent wardens of a long-vanished kingdom....
'Fear not!' said a strange voice behind him. Frodo turned and saw Strider, and yet not Strider; for the weatherworn Ranger was no longer there. In the stern sat Aragorn son of Arathorn, proud and erect, guiding the boat with skilful strokes;... a king returning from exile to his own land....
As Frodo was borne towards them the great pillars rose like towers to meet him. Giants they seemed to him, vast grey figures silent but threatening. Then he saw that they were indeed shaped and fashioned.... Upon great pedestals... stood two great kings of stone: still with blurred eyes and crannied brows they frowned upon the North. The left hand of each was raised palm outwards in gesture of warning.... Great power and majesty they still wore, the silent wardens of a long-vanished kingdom....
'Fear not!' said a strange voice behind him. Frodo turned and saw Strider, and yet not Strider; for the weatherworn Ranger was no longer there. In the stern sat Aragorn son of Arathorn, proud and erect, guiding the boat with skilful strokes;... a king returning from exile to his own land....
February 14, 2024
The Mirror of Galadriel
After almost a month's rest in Lothlórien, I'm back with the Rings of Power tie in edition of The Fellowship of the Ring
The series was divisive - but I absolutely loved Morfydd Clark as Galadriel, and it only felt right to read this edition for The Mirror of Galadriel.
Talking of adaptations, it's sometimes too easy to let the Jackson film versions to overshadow your memory of the book. The images of a devastated Bag Shot Row and the Eye rimmed with fire, and the Ring growing heavy on its chain, that I had forgotten Frodo's other visions in the mirror. Gandalf the White! The white fortress with seven towers! A ship with black sails!
Having been reading The Fellowship of the Ring for the best part of a year now, the events of The Return of the King still seem very far off - but it's mind boggling to think that Frodo and Sam will reach the Cracks of Doom on the 25th March!
The series was divisive - but I absolutely loved Morfydd Clark as Galadriel, and it only felt right to read this edition for The Mirror of Galadriel.
Talking of adaptations, it's sometimes too easy to let the Jackson film versions to overshadow your memory of the book. The images of a devastated Bag Shot Row and the Eye rimmed with fire, and the Ring growing heavy on its chain, that I had forgotten Frodo's other visions in the mirror. Gandalf the White! The white fortress with seven towers! A ship with black sails!
Having been reading The Fellowship of the Ring for the best part of a year now, the events of The Return of the King still seem very far off - but it's mind boggling to think that Frodo and Sam will reach the Cracks of Doom on the 25th March!
