Well, September certainly flew by. Lots to do with school starting up, taking advantage of the last bits of nice weather before it turns, football season starting, and of course birthdays to celebrate (mine, Bilbo, and Frodo!). But I did make my way through the next chapter of The Treason of Isengard which pushed the story very close to it's finality. I struggled for a while thinking about how I might articulate the various intricacies that moved the story along when last night I began the next chapter and found the Christopher Tolkien summarized things quite well (as should be expected):
"The intractable problems that had beset The Lord of the Rings thus far were now at last resolved. The identity of Trotter had been decisively established, and with the work done in successive versions of 'The Council of Elrond' his place and significance in the history of Middle-earth was already made firm--meagre though that history still was by comparison with the great structure that would afterwords be raised on these foundations. The hobbits were equally secure in number and in name, and the only Bolger who ever roamed far afield would rove no more. Bombadil is to play no further part in the history of the Ring. Most intractable of all, the question of what had happened to Gandalf was now conclusively answered; and with that answer had arisen (as it would turn out) a new focal point in the history of the War of the Ring: the Treason of Isengard" (p. 161, The Treason of Isengard).
It's fascinating to watch the twists and turns of how The Lord of the Rings came to be.
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