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| The Tenant from Staddle by Larner | 11 Review(s) |
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| Radbooks | Reviewed Chapter: 7 on 10/19/2006 |
| At least I caught up with this story! :) I find myself liking Bartolo quite a bit. A bit of a rascal, perhaps, but a good hobbit all the same. I was glad to see Merry and Pippin, too! Author Reply: Bartolo is purposely patterned after a friend who now resides in England--hope she doesn't mind. And so glad you like seeing Merry and Pippin here. They are a part of it all, too. | |
| Andrea | Reviewed Chapter: 7 on 10/14/2006 |
| Merry made a face. "Phht--he’ll not say a word and you know it. He’ll not allow anyone else to know about it or admit anything about it if I know my Frodo--and you know I do, Pip." My Frodo! That's great, Larner! Of all the three hobbits who went with Frodo, Merry is the one who knows him best (and longest)! And I must say I really like young Persivo! There's a lot of Baggins blood in him, what can be seen not only in his features but also in his actions. Bartolo should allow him to be apprenticed at the Great Smials, for his and his son's sake. It's obvious that those two have difficulties in learning from each other. A little distance would help, I'd say. And I speak from experience! I love my father very much, but working together with him sometimes was a little bit difficult ;-) Author Reply: Yes, Merry knows Frodo is his, after all. And he knows his Frodo. Yes, there's a good deal of Baggins in Persivo, and especially the Baggins intelligence and ability to analyze things. And I do believe that Bartolo's strongly tempted to accept the offer of apprenticeship at the Great Smial for his son--at least he knows his son will come into the full profession with the best preparation and education available behind him. Bartolo has his own share of Bracegirdle ambition to him, at least, although he's more interested in seeing it fulfilled in his son than in himself. And having seen the Kid and my late husband together, I KNOW how difficult it can be for fathers and sons to work together easily. | |
| Bodkin | Reviewed Chapter: 7 on 10/14/2006 |
| Fathering a son who has a definite resemblance to his Baggins cousin - what an irony! Bartolo will just have to accustom himself to nobility of character. I'm glad to see he has a soft centre under his grouchy exterior. Author Reply: Yes, definitely ironic here, that he loves in his son what he finds impossible to take in Frodo. And even the most acerbic of folk have a soft center, I've found. Glad you are glad to see it in Bartolo. | |
| Linda Hoyland | Reviewed Chapter: 7 on 10/13/2006 |
| What a lovely idea that eagles could visit Frodo.(sorry I had 2 windows open and have reviewed your stories the wrong way round) Author Reply: Well, this is the one that got a bit out of place, but believe me I don't mind. I'm just glad you enjoyed the story this much. | |
| Linda Hoyland | Reviewed Chapter: 7 on 10/13/2006 |
| I imagine the hobbits would gradually appreciate the changes.Merry and Pippin must cause quite a stir. Author Reply: To see other Hobbits looming over him at the four and a half feet Tolkien indicates in his letters Merry and Pippin reached, I think that Boboli would have felt very surprised. At least he finds they are threatening only to those who threaten the Shire in their own right. And now at last Boboli has the chance to head home. | |
| White Gull | Reviewed Chapter: 7 on 10/12/2006 |
| This is a great story. It's so nice to find another author who loves hobbits! Author Reply: So glad you enjoy it, White Gull. Yes, I love Hobbits; but I also am very devoted to Aragorn, and so a couple focus on him. But so far there have been Hobbits in all of them, even if just seen from afar. | |
| SurgicalSteel | Reviewed Chapter: 7 on 10/10/2006 |
| You've certainly done a nice job of making Bartolo quite real and likeable. It'll be interesting to see what Lothario's up to with the wills. Author Reply: Rather like Whitley on "It's a Different World," most folk who are almost totally obnoxious do have a good side--it's just that you often have to dig to find it. Bartolo is extraordinarily acerbic to those he doesn't quite like, particularly Frodo; but he did win a Baggins lady after all. There must be something likeable about him! And Lothario's a very different piece of work who so far manages to keep out of trouble only because he's so definitely a follower. | |
| French Pony | Reviewed Chapter: 7 on 10/10/2006 |
| I think there's a little bit at the very end that was supposed to go in a few pages above: "May--may I talk to you," his father corrected him. "Yes, son--come in." He located Gammer Alma’s file, found the last will, and laid it on his desk while replacing the rest in the drawer where he kept his clients’ files. Once the drawer was locked again he sat down and faced his son expectantly. That bit. You have done a marvelous job of humanizing a lawyer. Not an easy task! I like that, even though Bartolo doesn't especially like Frodo, you've made him a real, rounded, somewhat sympathetic person. He's just a guy who's had problems of his own, but takes good care of his family. Even if he and Percivo don't always get along, you can tell that they have a certain respect for each other at all times. Merry and Pippin will be very interesting neighbors for the Hedgeses. Author Reply: For some reason taking my files between the newer laptop and this desktop for transmission purposes is proving to be a real pain in the patoot. With my old Toshiba laptop taking special characters from the characters map would make them the same size font as the rest of the text; in this one it makes them 13 point instead of 12 or 14 or whatever, which if not caught right away will cause text to manhandle itself once the text editor for the site is involved. And on occasion it will do the same when I go from plain text to italics, which appears to have happened this time. It looked fine in the text editor, but then I got called away before I finished using the preview feature. And so it took out the one paragraph it somehow convinced itself had font size change in it and moved it to the end, for some odd reason leaving everything from that point on in italics! GRRRRRR! And am so glad I obviously managed to do with Bartolo what I wished to accomplish with him. He is doing his best to be the type of guy whom his wife and children will always respect; but he can't help it he has the emotional appearance of a true git when he's dealing with most folk. And as often happens with sons approaching adulthood, father and son are finding they just clash WAY too much! So glad you enjoyed this one. | |
| Kitty | Reviewed Chapter: 7 on 10/10/2006 |
| Delphie is good for Bartolo, no doubt. Loved the comparison to the hedgehogs :D And it is not so far from the mark, I suppose, considering how 'contrary' he is feeling, wanting to take Delphie with him mainly because he thinks Frodo wouldn't be happy with the decision. it’s a wonder he doesn’t insist that the Sun was shining at night and the stars a-gleaming in the daytime *giggle* Nice way to put it. You know, I fear Pip is only too right here! Merry is knowing not only Frodo, but the rangers, too, quite well to be able to guess so correctly their reactions. Well, I'm somehow pleased the both of them learned something of the matter this way. And I'd love to see Merry and Pippin visiting with Boboli and his family. Persivo seems to be a nice, sensible and perceptive lad, and I am sure he will become a very good lawyer. Maybe he will even be able to convince his father how important it can be to ponder *future* consequences of certain wordings in wills and the like. There is the example of Gammer Alma, after all ... Had to grin about Bartolo permanently correcting the grammar of his son, though Persivo is probably not too happy about it. But sometimes I could have use for Bartolo to write my reviews ;) Author Reply: Oh, yes, as I've noted in other stories, marrying Delphinium Baggins was the making of Bartolo Bracegirdle, who may have a difficult time dealing with the personalities of most Bagginses but is still so besotted with her he'll do anything to keep her love and respect. But Frodo just rubs him the wrong way! Have a friend very like Bartolo, and this was precisely how our mutual friend Annie described her, only she used the comparison of a porcupine. Felt hedgehogs were a better and more appropriate reference for Delphie to use. Pippin and Merry have become pretty good at predicting how certain folk will or must have reacted, among them folk like Faradir, Paladin, and (of course) Frodo. Once he fully appreciates just how the contract wordings Lotho and Timono were devising and presenting was used to cheat so many out of their property and their money, Bartolo may very well finally begin to appreciate just how the mixture of intelligence AND personal integrity AND compassion he finds frustrating in his son is important to keep something like the Time of Troubles from happening again. And Bartolo doesn't want his son to sound as if he just came from a rather obscure village somewhere--he wants him to sound like SOMEBODY. I suspect he himself has forced himself to learn to speak properly in the past by paying attention to how Delphie uses grammar. Now he's trying to do the same for his son, whom he wishes perceived by the Shire at large as an educated Hobbit. | |
| Dreamflower | Reviewed Chapter: 7 on 10/10/2006 |
| This is going to be very interesting. I'm very glad that Merry and Pippin will know about the new tenant--even though Frodo won't tell them. But they've their own ways of keeping up with their beloved cousin even now, and Merry was observant and shrewd enough to guess at anything he wasn't told. Hmm...Bartolo's taking the family along, eh? And he older son is rather a kindred spirit to Frodo. That should make for some very interesting dynamics. By the way--the italics seemed to have messed up your formatting, placing a paragraph at the end that looks to have been intended for the middle. *sigh* happens to me *all* the time... Author Reply: I'm not the only one to find the text editor on this site likes at times to move some paragraphs to the end, eh? My first few attempts to post the first few chapters of "Stirring Rings" required me to do some serious work with the site text editor before hand to make certain it didn't interpret the italics as text size changes or whatever it does and move what it sees as offending paragraphs to the end. I HATE this feature, and wish the new laptop were not so contrary when it deals with text itself. Merry and Pippin are getting pretty good at anticipating what Frodo may do; and they at least will not be totally in the dark in the future. Not only does Bartolo hate to disappoint his beloved wife--he hopes in one way or another to thumb his nose at Frodo and his insistence on oaths of secrecy. Thanks to you, French Pony, and Harrowcat on the heads up on the text--I was called away before I was able to finish with the previewing, so I ended up just publishing it without truly going through all the text. | |