Book VI, Chapter 9: The Grey Havens
Well, I’m glad you’re with me, here at the end of all things -- er, I mean, here at the end of the novel. We have come such a long way from the Gaffer and Old Noakes and Daddy Twofoot chit-chatting over pints about Bilbo and Frodo, and yet we are also right back here again, in the Shire: the story has come almost the whole way around the circle and these posts have come with it. (I do regret a little that Tolkien doesn’t write us one more bar scene for those old codgers, so we can hear them reflect on all the doings in the Shire, and what young Mr. Frodo’s likely been up to if he’s done as they say.) I do want to use this last chapter post (there are, again, Appendix and film posts ahead of us) to shout out the one unsung copy of LOTR used in this long journey -- a Kindle copy of the novel, whose cover appears here, which I bought a while ago when there was a very good sale (I think it was $2, maybe $3 -- sorry, Tolkien Estate, but seriously, you folks have gotten plenty of my cash over the years). I literally couldn’t have written all these posts without it, since the ability to do quick searches to check my memory of passages read weeks ago (to say nothing of grabbing a few moments to read while watching my daughter play in the yard, or eating my breakfast, without having to go hunt down a print copy) has been invaluable. Physical books are lovely and my posts have of course celebrated the ridiculous excesses I have indulged in where this particular collection of volumes is concerned, but I also say long live the ebook.
This chapter’s opening pages are so sweet and heart-warming, as the Shire is restored. Don’t miss, too, the sentence in which Frodo, in his role as Deputy Mayor, acts to “reduce the Shirriffs to their proper functions and numbers.” Yes, that’s right folks, even Frodo Baggins is down with #DefundThePolice. I love Sam’s discovery that his box of earth contains a special seed, and that he uses Galadriel’s gift to plant it in the field in front of Bag End, where a lone, lovely mallorn grows to replace the Party Tree and give a little hint of Lothlorien here in the Shire.
Frodo and Sam’s relationship remains a little complicated -- it’s a bit harder to sustain the Frodo+Sam romantic connection, I think, once Sam falls into Rosie Cotton’s gravitational sphere of influence, but there’s no denying that his heart is still tethered to Frodo. It’s one thing to move his new wife into Bag End to live with Frodo -- it might come across as a little weird, but it’s also sweet, and let’s face it, Frodo is often ill or depressed and he has no other local family, so there’s something really nice in knowing that he won’t be alone in that big place. But the naming conversation is more than a little weird -- when Rose Cotton Gamgee looks up from her newborn daughter to find that Sam’s left the room to go ask Frodo what to name the baby, uh…. I mean, Elanor is a lovely name with real significance to Sam and Frodo’s shared happy memories of their journey together, and that’s awesome, but I think it might have been sweeter if the name reflected, say, anything that Sam and Rose share as a nice memory, you know? Frodo’s even aware of the problem, I think, since when he starts to talk with Sam about leaving, he says that Sam is “meant to be solid and whole” and that he “will be”, which implies to me that right now Sam’s not solid and whole. But why not? As far as I can tell, Frodo’s either talking about his divided loyalties between Frodo and Rose, or else about the burden Sam feels surrounding Frodo’s recurring pains and ailments. I don’t think Frodo’s attitude there is super healthy -- there are ways to resolve Sam’s troubles without effectively dying, and in any case Frodo feels called to the West regardless of how Sam’s feeling.
The meeting with Elrond and Galadriel is lovely -- thanks to Sam’s comment about the tree where they first hid from the Nazgul, we know that this is the spot where they first heard Gildor and his people singing a song to Elbereth, and sure enough, it happens again. Gildor is here (often overlooked, I think, but I’m very glad he’s explicitly named), and the bearers of the Elven Rings all wear them openly now, which is pretty cool. The dialogue between Sam and Frodo here is really significant -- even though there’s a couple of pages left, this is the last we will see either of them speak to each other (and these are in fact Frodo’s last lines of dialogue). There are a few passages in this chapter that bring a lump to my throat, but I think the most powerful is Frodo saying “You have so much to enjoy and to be, and to do.” He’s both celebrating his beloved friend, whose life will be rich (with a richness Frodo genuinely delights in), and mourning his own life lost, and the many things he had to enjoy and to be and to do that will not come now, because of the sacrifices he had to make. Sam may have begun this story as Frodo’s servant, but he certainly ends it as his friend and heir -- even if there was a time when Merry Brandybuck (or some other young upper class hobbit) had a stronger claim on Frodo’s friendship, there’s no question now of his loyalties. He’s only invited one person here to see him to the Havens, and it’s the friend who will always be mentioned in the same breath with him: Frodo&Sam were inseparable in the great task of saving the world, and Frodo&Sam is how they will be remembered.
They ride on through the Shire as a great company, then, and “none saw them pass, save the wild creatures” -- and you know, if you’ve been reading from the beginning, what I’m about to say. But I’m going to say it anyway. I guaranTEE you that one of the wild creatures who saw them pass was a fox who stopped and said to himself “well, well, well, a huge company of Elves riding in the moonlight, escorting hobbits westward? This is as strange as that time I found those hobbit lads camping in the wilderness. There’s something important happening, I’ll warrant.” And then he never found out any more about it.
I am glad that Merry and Pippin are as determined not to miss Frodo’s departure westwards as they were determined not to miss his going east with the Ring. And I am even more glad that, in yet another mirroring, which Tolkien’s done to great effect in ROTK, this time it’s Gandalf who’s tipped them off to a journey that only Sam was supposed to know about, since in Fellowship of course Sam had inadvertently given away a little about a journey that was Gandalf’s to plan and know. The reunion of Gandalf with all four hobbits goes by too quickly for me: I want to hear them say more to each other about their love for each other, and how they will miss each other. But perhaps it would have been too hard to bear.
The finish is just exquisite -- one of the finest conclusions to a novel I can think of. Frodo finally realizing the dream that beckoned to him all the way back at Tom Bombadil’s -- the white shores, “and beyond them a green country under a swift sunrise.” I get chills. And then the sweet, sad tribute of Sam and Merry and Pippin just standing together in silence, watching not just the boat disappear, but remaining in place, honoring and coming to terms with the departure, until many hours have passed and darkness has fallen. Tolkien is so gentle with them and with us, and there’s something wonderfully peaceful about the idea that “they spoke no word to one another until they came back to the Shire, but each had great comfort in his friends on the long grey road.” I’ve known that kind of peace in quiet companionship. It’s a rare gift, that kind of friendship. And it’s really good to see it here for Sam: Merry and Pippin are such a pairing that I knew they’d take good care of each other, but it’s really great to see their commitment to Sam and the bond that’s shared by all three of them.
And then Sam’s final line -- one of the more famous final lines in literature, I think. “Well, I’m back,” can mean lots of things, I think, depending on who you ask. All I’ll say for my own part is that to me it carries two opposite but harmonious ideas -- the idea that Sam’s great adventure is finally done and he can derive some peace now from living in the Shire Frodo saved, and the idea that he’s back from this journey now but that other journeys await him. I know that latter point isn’t there in the three words “well, I’m back.” I don’t know how I know it’s true all the same. But ever since I was a kid reading this book, I knew that when Sam said this, it was like a door left just a crack open -- that someday he would get up out of that chair again, and I wanted to go adventuring again with him when he did.
I wonder how you read that last line, and I wonder what it’s been like to take this journey with me. I made my first post 68 days ago, which in 2020 is the equivalent of three decades, so it’s pretty amazing that you’re still here. I hope you’ll stick out the next couple of weeks with me, as I read and reflect on the Appendices, and then the Jackson films (part of me would want to watch and post about the Bakshi and Rankin-Bass films too, given their huge presence in my childhood LOTR experience, but I don’t own them on disc and they don’t appear to stream anywhere for free, and I don’t think I really want to buy them for so frivolous a purpose). If this is where you stop, though, I’ll understand: what a nice place to stop, after all, with Samwise Gamgee holding his infant in his lap and smiling with both sadness and great contentment as he thinks about all he’s seen and done. May we all find a seat in our own Bag Ends, someday, and discover that same peace waiting for us. Next time, I’ll be posting about Appendix A, Part I (that is, all the way to the end of Aragorn and Arwen’s story).