Recovery and Escape

Then suddenly he stopped…the hobbits sat still before him, enchanted; and it seemed as if, under the spell of his words, the wind had gone and the clouds had dried up, and the day had been withdrawn, and darkness had come from the East and the West, and all the sky was filled with the light of white stars

Whether the morning and evening of one day or of many days had passed Frodo could not tell. He did not feel either hungry or tired, only filled with wonder. The stars shone through the window and the silence of the heavens seemed to be round him. He spoke at last out of his wonder a sudden fear of that silence. (Pg 128-129 )

Frodo in the house of Tom Bombadil.

I can never tell who’s more enchanted by this place – me (the reader) or the protagonist Frodo. I can still recall the first time I came across this passage, it was in a radio dramatization and for a moment I saw in my mind’s eye the tired weary eyes of Tom Bombadil as he sat and time slowed to a halt. Bombadil stands as this great gaping hole in the Tolkien mythos where anything and everything he does is beyond explanation–and it really doesn’t need any explanation. 

The day had been withdrawn… In terms of recovery and escape, Tom has delivered the hobbits from more than just Old Man Willow but reality itself, like in this passage, the wind had gone and the clouds had dried up. Is Tolkien speaking purely metaphorically here? As in, being with Bombadil makes it seem like the wind is gone and the clouds have dried up? I don’t think so, I believe entering into Tom’s house is a lot like falling into another dimension, not of sight and sound, but of mind.

He doesn’t just choose to not take part of the events of Middle-Earth, in many ways those events can’t even reach him. It’s as if Tom Bombadil is a book, and once you pick him up and start reading you cannot return to your world, but must enter his. Frodo is not just sitting at his feet listening, but you are too as soon as you read those passages.

There’s certainly fair and perilous parts to this effect, like in this part: he spoke at last out of his wonder a sudden fear of that silence. Losing your own reality and perception of things is not necessarily a pleasant experience. Frodo isn’t exactly thrilled at the feelings he’s having in the House of Bombadil, in many ways being around Tom is a lot like ingesting hallucinogens. You may have a pleasant experience but you open the door to a host of other unpleasant emotions that all have sway over you.

That to me is what enchantment is essentially, good and bad all at once while you’re experiencing it. That’s what makes any fantasy worth picking up and in general what makes life worth living. It’s the contrast between sweetness and bitterness that makes every story interesting, including our own lives. If I were to put this into a category of fantasy I’d have to reach for Liminal, as the hobbits aren’t really aware of what’s happening exactly. They didn’t cross borders into a strange realm, (which would fall into the Portal Quest terminology) they just stayed and listened to a strange man in the woods talk and they felt weird about it. They feel uncertain about the nature of Tom’s existence… and so do we.