m. c. de marco

I was going to title this post “Zombie Frodo,” but that would imply some horrifying Lord of the Rings/Dawn of the Dead crossover, and this is just a quote I came across in my very slow rereading of the former.

[Sam] took out all the things in his pack. Somehow each of them had become dear to him, if only because he had borne them so far with so much toil. Hardest of all it was to part with his cooking-gear. Tears welled in his eyes at the thought of casting it away.

‘Do you remember that bit of rabbit, Mr. Frodo?’ he said. ‘And our place under the warm bank in Captain Faramir’s country, the day I saw an oliphaunt?’

So I have finally reached the end of The Two Towers, where Sam makes another comment about hope in the following one-paragraph scene:

Sam reeled, clutching at the stone. He felt as if the whole dark world was turning upside down. So great was the shock that he almost swooned, but even as he fought to keep a hold on his senses, deep inside him he was aware of the comment: ‘You fool, he isn’t dead, and your heart knew it. Don’t trust your head, Samwise, it is not the best part of you. The trouble with you is that you never really had any hope.

My progress through The Two Towers has been slow. Gimli had a nice moment in the Glittering Caves of Aglarond, but for quotable material I had to wait for Frodo to reach the Black Gate in book IV:

Sam said nothing. The look on Frodo’s face was enough for him; he knew that words of his were useless. And after all he never had any real hope in the affair from the beginning; but being a cheerful hobbit he had not needed hope, as long as despair could be postponed.

See the calendar category page for my previous blog entries about calculating Durin’s Day. Today’s entry is a note on the interpretation of “new moon” in the definition of Durin’s Day. To recap:

“The first day of the dwarves’ New Year,” said Thorin, “is as all should know the first day of the last moon of Autumn on the threshold of Winter.”

Durin’s Days are coming soon, many thanks to Alan Eliasen and Frink. This entry is just a note on the interpretation of “autumn” in the definition of Durin’s Day and of the dwarves’ New Year in general. To recap, in The Hobbit, the dwarves’ New Year’s Day is said to fall on the last new moon of autumn, where autumn is unfortunately not defined.

I’ve been rereading The Hobbit on the train, because it’s more portable and durable than my 30-year-old Houghton Mifflin trade paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings, despite being even older (specifically, the 1966 Ballantine revised, “authorized” paperback edition). Yesterday I reached the discussion of Durin’s Day:

“The first day of the dwarves’ New Year,” said Thorin, “is as all should know the first day of the last moon of Autumn on the threshold of Winter. We still call it Durin’s Day when the last moon of Autumn and the sun are in the sky together.

Now I remember why I used to read The Lord of the Rings over school vacations: it’s long. I’m not a regular doorstop fantasy trilogy reader, so it’s still long every time. But Gimli’s parting from Galadriel near the end of The Fellowship of the Ring has reminded me why, in my quest to become a doorstop fantasy trilogy writer, I started with dwarves:

The travellers now turned their faces to the journey; the sun was before them, and their eyes were dazzled, for all were filled with tears. Gimli wept openly.