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I see my mother in my face, but only when I travel
I still have a fever. I had to cancel hanging out with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eredien. Observe me continuing unthrilled. And it's beautiful out, too.
In an effort to distract myself from annoyance and malaise, I am re-reading The Hobbit for the first time since high school or college. It turns out that the hardcover we have downstairs is the first revision from 1951, not the third edition from 1966, meaning that I've never read the author's final preferred text, but I am nonetheless enjoying it very much (and may spam your friendlists with random thoughts on the book, since I'm not sure my brain is good for much else at the moment). I do have, however, one serious complaint:
As I was saying, the mother of this hobbit—of Bilbo Baggins, that is—was the famous Belladonna Took, one of the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took, head of the hobbits who lived across The Water, the small river that ran at the foot of The Hill. It had been said that long ago one or other of the Took family had married into a fairy family (the less friendly said a goblin family); certainly there was still something not entirely hobbitlike about them, and once in a while members of the Took-clan would go and have adventures.1 They discreetly disappeared, and the family hushed it up; but the fact remained that the Tooks were not as respectable as the Bagginses, though they were undoubtedly richer.
Not that Belladonna Took ever had any adventures after she became Mrs. Bungo Baggins . . .
With all your Unfinished Tales and Lost Tales and Had Them Here A Moment Ago, Must Have Left Them In My Other Jacket Tales, Mr. Tolkien, could you not have given us some of her adventures from before that point? I have always liked that Bilbo's unconventional, tricksterish streak comes down through his mother's side (as with Odysseus). I like even more that Belladonna had stories in her own right, because you don't pick up either of those adjectives by marrying a man who sounds like the hobbit's answer to the Drones Club. It's confirmed that she knew Gandalf well—"To think that I should have lived to be good-morninged by Belladonna Took's son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!"—and perhaps when Bilbo speaks of the wizard's responsibility for "so many quiet lads and lasses going off into the Blue for mad adventures," who knows but that he's not speaking unwittingly of his own mother? But that's all we ever hear. And this from an author whose supplemental materials include family trees and histories of characters who never rated even a mention in the text itself? In short, Tolkien, I respect the invention of more than fifty thousand years of recorded history: but you could totally have spared some for the Old Took's remarkable daughters. I haven't even a clue what her sisters got up to. And I am not, even with the excuse of a fever, writing fanfic to find out.
1. And here, actually, is one of the sentences Tolkien revised for the edition I've never read, thank you, Google Books: "It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife. That was, of course, absurd, but certainly there was still something not entirely hobbitlike about them . . ." I am definitely going to need the correct edition; I have no idea what other small stray changes I've missed. I was going to write that a library is next on my to-do list, but it will probably be simpler just to raid Eric's shelves.
eredien. Observe me continuing unthrilled. And it's beautiful out, too.In an effort to distract myself from annoyance and malaise, I am re-reading The Hobbit for the first time since high school or college. It turns out that the hardcover we have downstairs is the first revision from 1951, not the third edition from 1966, meaning that I've never read the author's final preferred text, but I am nonetheless enjoying it very much (and may spam your friendlists with random thoughts on the book, since I'm not sure my brain is good for much else at the moment). I do have, however, one serious complaint:
As I was saying, the mother of this hobbit—of Bilbo Baggins, that is—was the famous Belladonna Took, one of the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took, head of the hobbits who lived across The Water, the small river that ran at the foot of The Hill. It had been said that long ago one or other of the Took family had married into a fairy family (the less friendly said a goblin family); certainly there was still something not entirely hobbitlike about them, and once in a while members of the Took-clan would go and have adventures.1 They discreetly disappeared, and the family hushed it up; but the fact remained that the Tooks were not as respectable as the Bagginses, though they were undoubtedly richer.
Not that Belladonna Took ever had any adventures after she became Mrs. Bungo Baggins . . .
With all your Unfinished Tales and Lost Tales and Had Them Here A Moment Ago, Must Have Left Them In My Other Jacket Tales, Mr. Tolkien, could you not have given us some of her adventures from before that point? I have always liked that Bilbo's unconventional, tricksterish streak comes down through his mother's side (as with Odysseus). I like even more that Belladonna had stories in her own right, because you don't pick up either of those adjectives by marrying a man who sounds like the hobbit's answer to the Drones Club. It's confirmed that she knew Gandalf well—"To think that I should have lived to be good-morninged by Belladonna Took's son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!"—and perhaps when Bilbo speaks of the wizard's responsibility for "so many quiet lads and lasses going off into the Blue for mad adventures," who knows but that he's not speaking unwittingly of his own mother? But that's all we ever hear. And this from an author whose supplemental materials include family trees and histories of characters who never rated even a mention in the text itself? In short, Tolkien, I respect the invention of more than fifty thousand years of recorded history: but you could totally have spared some for the Old Took's remarkable daughters. I haven't even a clue what her sisters got up to. And I am not, even with the excuse of a fever, writing fanfic to find out.
1. And here, actually, is one of the sentences Tolkien revised for the edition I've never read, thank you, Google Books: "It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife. That was, of course, absurd, but certainly there was still something not entirely hobbitlike about them . . ." I am definitely going to need the correct edition; I have no idea what other small stray changes I've missed. I was going to write that a library is next on my to-do list, but it will probably be simpler just to raid Eric's shelves.
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Feel better! Soon!
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And here I was, grinning, waiting until the end of the post where you would declare that to be your intention! You've made ME want to do so. Or perhaps a poem from Belladonna's perspective.
1. And here, actually, is one of the sentences Tolkien revised for the edition I've never read, thank you, Google Books: "It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife. That was, of course, absurd, but certainly there was still something not entirely hobbitlike about them . . ." I am definitely going to need the correct edition; I have no idea what other small stray changes I've missed. I was going to write that a library is next on my to-do list, but it will probably be simpler just to raid Eric's shelves.
And here I come to understand the depth of my obsession with this book; when I read what you quoted further up, I blinked and thought it was misquoted, because I distinctly remembered the construction being "taken a fairy wife." And then you said you had an older revision, and then wrote this, and I am such a Tolkien fangirl I'm a little pink in the cheeks right now. I really want to read your edition!
I hope you feel better soon!
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Why oh why would Belladonna willingly settle down and have her adventures quieted away?
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I would love to read the fanfic whereof you speak. If you ever should decide to write it, or find it written by somebody worth reading, I'd be grateful for a link.
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Hope your fever subsides soon.
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The chief family in the Shire were the Tooks, whose lands lay across the Water, the small river that lay at the foot of the Hill. Now [that is important, for] the mother of the hobbit of this Tale, Bilbo Baggins, was Belladonna Took, eldest of the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took, head of all the Tooks, and famous for having lived to the age of one hundred and thirty. It was often said (in other families) that the Tooks must have some elvish blood in them; which was of course absurd, but there was undoubtedly something queer about them, something not quite hobbitlike, according to the manners of the Shire: an outlandish strain maybe from long ago. Every now and again Tooks would go off on adventures. They disappeared, and the family hushed it up.
Not that Belladonna Took ever had any adventures after she married Bungo Baggins. Bungo, that was Bilbo's father, built for her the most commodious hobbit-hole that was to be found in that part of the Shire, always excepting the vast and many-tunneled dwellings of the Tooks. It was meant, of course, to house a large family. But Bilbo was their only son, and they both died young--for hobbits--being still in their early eighties. And there now was Bilbo, in the commodious hole, looking and behaving like a second edition of his solid and comfortable father. But maybe there was something a little peculiar in his make-up coming from the Took side, hidden, but waiting for a chance to come out. The chance never arrived, until Bibo Baggins was grown up, indeed about fifty years old, and had apparently settled down immovably.
Most of Toklien's aborted 1960 rewrite goes way too far removing the humor, but I actually prefer the rewrite of Bilbo's monologue remembering who Gandalf was (except for the needless removal of the second person in the crack about Bilbo being prosy):
'Gandalf, Gandalf! Not the old wizard who used to visit the Tooks? Good gracious me! He used to make marvellous fireworks for the Old Took's parties on Midsummer's Eve. I remember them! Splendid! They used to go up like great roses and lilies and snapdragons of fire, and hang in the sky like flowers of golden-rain in the twilight!' Mr. Baggins was not quite so prosy as he liked to believe, and any way he delighted in flowers. 'Bless me!' he went on. 'Not the Gandalf who used tell such wonderful tales about dragons, and goblins, and giants, and mountains in far countries--and the Sea. They used to send many quiet lads and lasses, off on adventures, it is said; any mad thing from climbing tall trees to visiting Elves, and even trying to sail in ships.' Bilbo's voice fell almost to a whisper. "To sail, sail away to the Other Shore. Dear me!' he sighed. Life used to be quite interest--I mean, you used to upset things badly in the Shire, once upon a time.'
When Tolkien did revise the paragraph in 1966, he changed "anything from climbing trees to stowing away aboard the ships that sail to the Other Shore" to "Anything from climbing trees to visiting elves--or sailing in ships, sailing to other shores!" The original text was written before he decided that mortals were ordinarily not allowed to sail to Valinor, while the 1960 revision included a foreshadowing of Bilbo's exceptional fate which the 1966 version avoids. And in 1960, instead of saying "You seem to remember my fireworks kindly, at any rate, and that is not without hope," Gandalf says "You do remember something about me; and what you say is very promising."
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Alas! Though I agree that most LOtR fic is terrible. (Though the ones that haven't been were hobbit-exclusive...
...you could write a poem about it...
Also, feh and sympathy of the fever! I wish you speedy recovery!
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Mmm, the Hobbit. Comfort reading at some of its finest.
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