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| Anticipating Midsummer by Larner | 1 Review(s) |
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| Lindelea | Reviewed Chapter: 2 on 4/15/2026 |
| The bag Mistress Rhysellë had brought with her had contained fruit from her orchard, as well as strawberries from her garden. I never thought of it before, but does Tol Eressëa have seasons? I can't think of orchard fruit that would be ripe at the same time as strawberries, but then it's early, and I'm not quite awake yet. instead displaying—was it eagerness? ...and perhaps that is one of the reasons the Ring had trouble gaining power over Hobbits? For the Númenoreans' fear of death was the seed that led to their downfall, if I'm remembering right. (As I mentioned earlier, I'm quite groggy yet this morning, and the kitten is meowing his head off for some reason which also makes coherent thought difficult. I think he wants someone to put on his leash and take him for a walk. He loves exploring outdoors.) Come to think of it, in the film ROTK, Bilbo talks about sailing West as just another adventure, and Ian Holmes portrayed him as joyful and eager despite the weariness of age that was on him. It seems quite natural for Sam and Frodo to display the same attitude. Author Reply: I'm not aware that Christopher or Ronald Tolkien (the name JRRT used as his own) did detailed maps of Aman as they did of the northwestern lands that included Arnor, Gondor, Rohan, and Mordor. I imagine that Tol Eressea was sunk after its two trips between Aman and Endore in a location much of same latitude of, say, California, more moderate than our placement more northerly situated and thus subject to greater differences in temperature than the Bay Area and points south. (Although Samuel Clemens famously commented that the coldest winter he ever experienced was a summer in San Francisco.) As children we had apple trees surrounding our house, each tending to ripen at different points in the summer and fall. The yellow hybrid would come ripe in early July, while the three Gravenstiens didn't do so until September, at which time the hogs from the farm behind ours would escape and come through the field to the house to gorge on the windfalls. Big Bro and I took turns in summoning the brothers who raised them to come herd their porkers back home. The strawberries that had gone wild on the south field would produce berries from late June through early August, while the blackberries would start ripening in July and produce through to early September. What ripening times on the Lonely Isle would be is difficult to say for certain, so I decided to take writer's liberties with many possibly overlapping with more temperate weather than we experience here on the west coast. Book-Bilbo indicated he was quite ready to make one more journey when Frodo and Sam joined the Elves in the Woody End, while Movie-Frodo went from pale and withdrawn once they entered the Grey Havens to smiling and more rosy cheeked once he crossed the gangplank and set foot on the ship's deck. James Barry wrote Peter Pan anticipating the possible coming of rising tides and the crocodile to eat him as possibly proving to be a great adventure, although he took advantage of the chance to escape the rock and the rising tide and return home to the cottage under the tree, forgetting he'd thought he might die betimes a short time ago. Seeing death as being as natural as enjoying a good meal followed by a satisfying smoke was probably one of the Hobbits' saving virtues, although I suspect it was the rarity of ambition for power over others that saved them from the Ring's lure in the end. Frodo and Sam had survived the Ring in the end, and each knew healing and fulfillment before they came to their time for dying. I think they, as was true for Aragorn, knew their time had come and were finally eager to let go and take that last blind step of faith out of this world into what comes after. Yes, I think at that point they were becoming eager. | |