News Resources
Login
Become a member
Help
Search
|
|
| About Us News Resources
Login
Become a member
Help
Search
|
|
|
| A Small and Passing Thing by Lindelea | 2 Review(s) |
|---|---|
| Antane | Reviewed Chapter: 55 on 9/3/2011 |
| It's dreadful that it has taken me two years and a half years to get back to this but I began yesterday once more and enjoyed the previous chapter and this one. Poor Frodo! You show his torment well. Namarie, God bless, Antane :) | |
| FantasyFan | Reviewed Chapter: 55 on 10/30/2003 |
| You know, I'm just not patient enough. Now that we see the day from Frodo's point of view, it's quite a different picture. Maybe his shoulder did hurt when he caught Rosie on his lap, and in the concern for Rosie and the excitement over the news, he was able to conceal it so that Freddy and Sam don't remark on it. In this chapter, it sounds like he's been fighting against the darkness for a good while. In Jewels, he tells Merry he's always got to fight it, with light and love and laughter. In what we've seen so far of a normal day at Bag End, Frodo does spend a fair amount of time immersing himself in the ordinary joys of the garden with Sam and the kitchen with Rosie. But he also spends a lot of time alone, in the study or on the roads, and today at least, he spends that time enduring rather than fighting. Is it like that all the time? If that's the case, he's much worse off than we'd been led to believe from all the witty repartee in the previous chapters. How can he give such good advice to Merry, and not take it himself? Yes, he doesn't want to burden those he loves. But to ask for help, when you need it, is also a loving act when the alternative is self-destructive. (do you know how many years it took me to learn that?) Freddy's so sharp, he sees some of it when Frodo's too tired to hide it all, but Freddy may not be strong enough himself yet to see through all Frodo's evasions, or to do anything about it. Somehow, I wish Frodo hadn't been quite so successful in the previous chapter, and I'd had just a hint of how he was really feeling (or even something ambiguous, that I could find after reading this) whether or not any of the others notices it. It is rather an abrupt shift between the two chapters, although perhaps that is exactly what you intended, that we readers be as clueless as Sam. Author Reply: Keep in mind he's just had one of his anniversaries... a very bad day for him, though he fought it much more successfully than the previous year. Life is not always so difficult, and though he always has to be aware of the darkness reaching for him, it is not usually so bad on a normal day. As you might recall, he was "off" for a week or so after the previous March 13, to Freddy's eyes, and evidently Freddy is noticing he's "off" now. Sam is distracted, but Freddy has lots of time to think and observe. | |