…and with the episode of Bilbo and the Arkenstone comes at last Tolkien's (and Bilbo's) release into greatness - the first expression of his great and liberating theme and the discovery that was to inspire twenty years of creative labour: Renunciation.
читать дальшеIn Bilbo's great renunciation scene Tolkien's prose style <…> works for the first time fully in his favour. Bilbo's speech is exactly, richly, delicately expressive of his character and the nature of his action; he is stiff and pompous but is that way precisely because he is embarrassed by his own recognition of the nobility of his action. The stiffness of his language is functional, exactly representative of his own self-discovery: 'How can I, I, possibly be doing such a thing as this, stealing the most precious of all gems from the most unbendingly greedy of kings, and then giving it away to forestall a war?
"Really, you know," Bilbo was saying in his best business manner, "things are impossible. Personally I am tired of the whole affair. I wish I was back in the West in my own home, where folk are more reasonable. But I have an interest in this matter – one fourteenth share, to be precise.... A share in the profits, mind you," he went on. "I am aware of that. Personally I am only too ready to consider all your claims carefully, and deduct what is right from the total before putting in my own claim. However you don't know Thorin Oakenshield as well as I do now. I assure you, he is quite ready to sit on a heap of gold and starve, as long as you sit here."
"Well, let him!" said Bard. "Such a fool deserves to starve."
"Quite so," said Bilbo. "I see your point of view. At the same time winter is coming on fast. Before long you will be having snow and what not, and supplies will be difficult - even for elves I imagine".
The last touch of sly diplomacy is Bilbo at his greatest; he is stiff and embarrassed, but he is anything but ridiculous. Gandalf's statement after Bilbo has given the Arkenstone to Bard might well echo Tolkien's own pleasure at the wonderful potentialities of these hobbits his imagination has summoned: 'There is always more about you than anyone expects'. Tolkien is justly pleased with his hobbiot creations, and with their potential for realizing what he has discovered to be both his own great theme and their proper greatness, the spiritual power of renunciation.- Randel Helms,
Myth, Magic and Meaning in Tolkien's Worldинтересно; там вообще во всей книге так - не все мне близко, не со всем соглашусь, но интересно.
ЯбобсудилОбзр