Tell me, where is Gandalf? For I much desire to speak with him.

Well! As I'm comfortably (kind of) ahead and I need to study for a quiz on this book, I feel like I should write this up. Oh, and because it made my feelings toward JRR Tolkien do a complete 180. Marky Mark has made me a Lord of the Rings dork. He has made me even dorkier. I am so full of dork right now. So full.

Obviously we read The Fellowship of the Rings. I am going to assume that if you haven't read it you've at least seen the movie and not bother with preliminaries. If you haven't read it, DO IT NOW. If you haven't seen the movie, DO IT NOW. Come on, even when I had a blood grudge against Tolkien I at least liked the movies. Now I love at least the one book more, though I have difficulty loving Bilbo as much. Anyway.

My first note regards the mentioning of Bree--hardcore Narnia fans will get it, maybe. If not, in the third book the 'horse' of the title is named Bree-hee-hinny-hoo-ha. I have several marks like this, for example, there is a mentioning of a place in Middle Earth called Etten Moor (or something similar to that). In Narnia, there is a land known as Ettinsmoor. Also, in the sixth and seventh Narnia books there are the dragons that live deep underground to be awoken when the final moments of Narnia are nigh, to strip the land and destroy it and eventually die themselves. Marky Mark gave us a brief history of the Balrog--a beast sleeping under the earth till the dwarves accidentally woke it up and it wreaked havoc till Gandalf killed it. Oh hey similarities. Of course, they were close friends and commiserated often. And apparently the fact that CS Lewis took such a short time in writing and publishing his books made it look like Tolkien got his ideas from Lewis when his books were finally finished annoyed the heck out of Tolkien.

I didn't like Peter Jackson's interpretation of Bilbo flipping out over the Ring. It seemed... I don't know, too much. Or not enough. What bothered me more was the second time Bilbo sees the Ring, when Frodo has it. In the movie, he flips out and morphs for a second into a '28 Weeks Later' zombie and gets all creepy-like, in the book it's much more... subtle, I guess. "To his distress and amazement he found that he was no longer looking at Bilbo; a shadow seemed to have fallen between them, and through it he found himself eyeing a little wrinkled creature with a hungry face and bony groping hands" (260). I imagined more of a pathetic little creature, like Gollum. Which I guess isn't necessarily subtle... just not as intense as Jackson made it. I mean, it made it hard to feel bad for Bilbo. It was just kind of, I don't know, shocking.

"'I pity snails, and all that carry their homes on their backs'" (78). Aw, Frodo's so cute. Can we hang out?

Marky Mark said that Tolkien wanted to create sort of sayings, if you know what I mean. I'm not really sure how to describe what I mean, other than giving examples: "Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger" (94) and "Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes" (94). He also wanted to offer explanations for many unknown things, like the rock formations and megaliths common in Europe--the most common being Stone Henge. And the nursery rhyme about the cow jumping over the moon, that finds its 'root' in a nonsense song made up by either Bilbo or Frodo.

"'But where shall I find courage?' asked Frodo. 'That is what I chiefly need.' 'Courage is found in unlikely places'" (95).

Oh, here's a note that no one but I will care for. At one point, Tolkien says Frodo hears a babel of voices, or something along those lines. And I was all, hey, JRR, ever heard of the word babble? Because that's what people use. But then, I was all HEY! The tower of Babel! The Biblical story? It all sounded like Babel because all of a sudden everyone was speaking a different language! Then I was like, hey, that's probably where the word 'babble' came from! Sooooo.... yup. Just call me a professor of, um, philology (sp?).

"'Not all those who wander are lost'" (195).

"'You were very fond of Bilbo, were you not?' he asked. 'Yes,' answered Frodo. 'I would rather see him than all the towers and the palaces in the world'" (257). Love!

"'Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens'" (315). Easily my favorite quote of the book. Gimli, high five? Yes?

"'I had a funny dream an hour or two before we stopped, Mr Frodo,' he said. 'Or maybe it wasn't a dream. Funny it was anyway.' 'Well, what was it?... I haven't seen or thought of anything to make me smile since we left Lothlorien'" (430). There is something I love about this little exchange, even though it is nothing of huge bearing, or importance. I just like it....

So yep. I'll be reading the rest of the series once I have less on my plate, though first I'll be going back to reread The Hobbit, a book I previously despised, but am now willing to give a second chance. Now, back to my novel! Fare thee well!

So, where exactly is Gandalf? Well, I happened to catch him at his new job the other day... Something about it just seems to suit him.