Forum

- Tolkien's view of nature is explicitated again in this chapter (as it has been in some others): is it coherent? This chapter really launches the ecological theme: do you think that is all the march of the Ents is about, or is there some other meaning?
- The Ents are probably one of the most magical races in Middle Earth: what do you think of them? How are they compared to Elves, Men and Dwarves? Are there any parallels between Ents and Hobbits?
- Where *have* the Entwives gone?

"I should say that Ents are composed of philology, literature, and life. They owe their name to their eald enta geweorc of Anglo-Saxon, and their connexion with stone. Their part in the story is due, I think, to my bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays with the shabby use made in Shakespeare of the coming of "Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill": I longed to devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war. And into this has crept a mere piece of experience, the difference of the 'male' and 'female' attitude to wild things, the difference between unpossessive love and gardening." Letters, #163 (footnote)

You find that some have bad hearts. Nothing to do with their wood: I do not mean that. .... there are some trees in the valleys under the mountains, sound as a bell, and bad right through. That sort of thing seems to spread. There used to be some very dangerous parts in this country. There are still some very black patches."

I do not doubt there is some shadow of the Great Darkness lying there [the Old Forest] still away north; and bad memories are handed down. But there are hollow dales in this land where the Darkness has never been lifted.

I've always been annoyed by the distinction between Ents and Entwives and their different attitude towards nature. My experience is about the oppostites: it's men who want to keep a garden and build a hedge around it, and women who adore the true wilderness of nature.

Anyway, Huorns. Love 'em. One of the aspects that I love about Tolkien's 'nature' is that it's so very much alive, but it's not 'good' or 'bad'. And it's not neutral either. Which is very different from most mythological or even cultural views of nature: most of the time you get either a 'good' nature (for instance in christianity, where nature is an incarnation of God) or a neutral one (for instance in our culture).

And, reading this chapter, I discovered something new again. Last time I read LOTR was about a year and a half ago; after that, I reread the Silmarillion, which I had almost completely forgotten. On this reading, I really knew what Treebeard is remembering when he sings about the ancient lands that now "lie under the wave", and the song stood out for me in a completely new way.