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Healing the Long Cleeve  by TopazTook 5 Review(s)
LindeleaReviewed Chapter: 1 on 10/16/2005
Actually, I do that a lot--read chapters out of context and out of order, that is. Sometimes they pull me into a story and I put that story on my list "to read when there's time". I usually try to leave a note after each chapter, but if I'm rushed it becomes a note after five chapters or so... I really don't remember if that was an isolated chapter or if I'd been intrigued enough to go back and read the whole.

It is nearly 2 am here so I doubt I'm making sense.

Looking back, the story that I was writing in this time frame (early in Pippin and Diamond's marriage) was probably "A Took By Any Other Name", which followed from "Seeing the Forest", which of course was an offshoot of "Jewels".

Or maybe it's related to the fact that I've been trying to rewrite "Jewels" to get Estella's age in line with canon. Pretty futile up to this point. Cannot seem to re-think certain key scenes.

Am not really sure at this point. Had better try, at least, to sleep.

*sigh* Guess that means I won't go on to chapter 2 tonight (this morning). Ah well. Something to look forward to.

LindeleaReviewed Chapter: 1 on 10/2/2005
I thought I had read this, and reviewed it, but looking through the reviews I don't find any of mine. Perhaps there are some, buried in the deluge, but I didn't find them!

I love the way you've set this up, and your Paladin, so bravely taking on the difficult choices he faced, paying in the coin of his children, yet doing what he could to offer them a choice in the matter. I loved Eglantine's motherliness, and her finding Pippin's scars as he slept. I loved Pippin's conflict (adult versus child, what was he now?), and thought it very well portrayed.

One of your reviewers maintains very strongly that it would be impossible for hobbits to have arranged marriages. Looking at the same text (from Letter 214, was it?) I don't see Tolkien making such a thing impossible. Arranged marriages were very common in the culture JRRT sprang from, and in other cultures, and did not necessarily imply unhappy marriages. As a matter of fact, I sometimes suspect that such marriages were happier than many we have now, in this time of choice, simply because the people were committed by custom and culture to make things work. And certainly, even if a marriage were arranged, it did not necessarily mean a wife was chattel or possession--I am thinking of the castles we visited, lately, and the information that the lady of the castle ran the domestic side of things, but when her husband was away she was also in charge of the defence of the castle and other aspects of the lord's "job description".

And so I see what you've written here as falling well within the pale (is that the right spelling?) of canon.

Anyhow, I think I've avoided this story for quite awhile, since I was writing in the same time frame, but wanted you to know that it has been on my "want to read" list for just as long.

I could cut-and-paste the majority of the chapter, I suspect, but one part that really jumped out at me as very "hobbity" was:
Still, what was this to talk of saving the world? Despite the incursion of Men into the Shire, and his position of Took and Thain, Pad knew little of the lands beyond the borders. He supposed it was all well and good that Frodo had saved this world; but his son had saved the Shire.


Author Reply: (Sorry it has taken me so long to reply, and that I *still* haven't updated the final chapter...every time I think I am going to have a chance to work on it, my life invokes Murphy's Law. Sigh.)

Anyway: I think you posted a review of one chapter, but I was confused because it seemed as if you had read it as a standalone, and I couldn't figure out, if that was the case, how on earth you had made any sense of the story...

I'm glad that you liked Paladin, and Eglantine, and Pippin's conflict between adult vs. child. I think that aspect of his experience on the Quest may be one reason I'm particularly fascinated with him, so I was glad to get to explore it a bit. It's also a bit of a subtheme in my dealings with Diamond in this story: yes, it bugs me a bit that she was underage when she was wed, despite the fact that I know it's historically been very common for females, especially those of the noble class, to get married *very* young.

I'm also glad that you think the arranged marriage thing works. I do not by any means want to claim that my story is the definitive answer to "the story behind those brief notations in the Appendices", as I think one of the great aspects of fan fiction is that there can be so many different interpretations of the same event. That's what I'm trying to do: provide one interpretation of it, which says some things in a certain way. And, as you point out, arranged marriages are a historical and/or cultural commonplace, to which today's reader may bring interpretations based on her own experience that do not necessarily reflect the way things actually are. (Actually, I was just reading something that pointed out the danger in imposing current values on the motivations of people who lived in a different era: doing so, that author said, may mean missing the entire point.)

You were writing in the same time frame? Really? Where? I feel like I've missed something in your stories.

Thanks for saying Paladin's thoughts on his son and the Shire were "hobbity": that's what I was going for there. :)


LarnerReviewed Chapter: 1 on 8/3/2005
A very interesting premise, I must say. Looks to be an interesting story. Will have to read more tomorrow or another day--getting late.

Author Reply: Welcome. Hope you do come back, after catching up on your sleep. It *was* getting late (1 a.m.) when this story's update was posted.


DreamflowerReviewed Chapter: 1 on 8/15/2004
Oh my! An arranged marriage. Your take is certainly interesting. I have seen other fics where Pippin and Diamond have an arranged marriage. But this seems just a bit different. I do like that it is portrayed as uncommon and unusual. I would hate to think of this as something often done in the Shire.

Author Reply: Yes, part of the idea behind this fic is to do a slightly different take on things than what else is out there. And it is fairly unusual in my Shire -- but so were many things that happened during and as a result of the War of the Ring.

Lyta PadfootReviewed Chapter: 1 on 7/18/2004
Eglantine finding Pippin's scars was a difficult scene to read. I could imagine my own mother's quiet horror at seeing the evidence of so much past hurt. Paladin may not have been invaded, but he had to make compromises close to home. I know old treaties were often sealed with marriages, but it still seems rather callous. I suppose the Proudfoots and North-tooks might have thought Paladin less likely to abandon them if his children were married to theirs. Still, poor Pippin and Pervinca. I hope their marriages work out for them.

Author Reply: That's why Pippin didn't want to tell his mother.
The arranged marriages were very much a part of history, particularly in noble families. Sometimes they became love matches, and sometimes they didn't. I tried to portray it as an anguished decision for Paladin to make -- and he's also letting it be just as much Pippin' s choice to go along with it. As for what happens with Pippin's and Pervinca's marriages...well, it wouldn't be much of a story if I told you what happens, now would it?

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