Floating down the Anduin, the Fellowship put off their next move for a few days after leaving Lórien. Sam’s not sure if he’s most scared of the trees, the lack of trees, or the curiously Gollum-shaped log that’s following them down the river (which Aragorn has known about, like, forever). Before anyone can say “failure to communicate”, the Company are attacked by Orcs… and something worse. We talk Entwives, vehemently defend Tolkien’s use of the word “eyot”, and watch what happens when a wood-elf trades his slender bow for a great one.
To see the lecture “How To Read J.R.R. Tolkien” given by Michael Drout at Carnegie Mellon University, see here: https://youtu.be/lXAvF9p8nmM
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Recommended Reading:
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings (Mariner Books, paperback) pp. 371-78, “The Great River”
Tolkien, J. R. R. (Christopher Tolkien, ed.) The Silmarillion (Mariner Books, paperback)
Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Mariner Books, paperback)
I don’t know if it is the blocking in China or what, after you changed the server, I cannot connect to your site anymore. Any alternative I can link to?
You could try our YouTube page – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE9PeoO8s8eX5br252sXWMw. I’m surprised to hear that our Libysn feed wasn’t blocked, but that our new Spreaker feed is blocked. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Dear Alan, thanks so much for the kind feedback! Sorry for the bothersome news but youtube cannot work for China either. The libsyn subscriber will redirect me to spreaker server, so now the only way to listen to your program is to listen it on the page. Very lucky I can still your page.
I haven’t finished the episode quite yet, so I don’t know if you also come to this conclusion about why Aragorn doesn’t tell the others about Gollum.
Aragorn obviously doesn’t want Gollum killed and I think he doesn’t want to risk one of the others killing him. I think some of the others would be all too eager to kill him and Aragorn doesn’t want to have to deal with the conversation of why they shouldn’t. Plus having everyone watching for him would put Gollum on his guard and make catching him even harder. While Gollum thinks he has a chance to grab the Ring on his own, he’s less likely to alert others to the company. Regardless, Aragorn rarely makes decisions without thinking everything through and he certainly must have had good reasons for not communicating.
Also didn’t Gandalf know about Gollum in Moria? I assume he did, and I wonder if he and Aragorn discussed it and Gandalf asked Aragorn not to tell the others. I’d imagine Aragorn would stick to that, even if he didn’t know the reasoning.