Middle-earth Journeys

Je soutiens l'idée qu'un bon sujet de film ou de roman n'est pas forcément lié à une histoire d'amour, il y a de nombreux films d'hommes où l'intrigue suffit par elle-même, d'autres où n'apparaissent que des femmes (moins, mais ça existe) et si le récit est de valeur, de qualité, si le suspense ou l'intérêt est bien conduit ,le résultat est excellent. On pourrait ouvrir un fil sur la question et rechercher tous les films sans romance ?Cela peut être amusant et instructif.....

Here's something very minor that won't disappear from the back of my mind:

In The Hobbit and in The Lord of the Rings books, Bilbo, Frodo, Merry, and Pippin are very upper class and proper hobbits. I know that I'm a 'purist', but I don't like too much departure from this in the movies. So a couple things that bother me in the films are the somewhat dirty condition of Bag End and the fact that Merry and Pippin are stealing veggies from a farmer. Not that Mippin aren't above some hi-jinks, but something that would hurt the livelihood of a working man would be just mean.

If anything, Bilbo was even more proper than Frodo, so should we expect Bag End to be cleaner and more orderly in the new movies?

Merry, you may recall from the book that Frodo was terrified of Farmer Maggot because, as a younger lad, he had joined up with his Brandybuck cousins in the practice of stealing vegetables, particularly mushrooms, from Maggot's farm and got caught. Apparently, this was a practice common among the young tween lads, both as a means of generating excitement and to help "fill up the corners" between meals when they were chased out of the kitchens. Some fanfic authors have given this practice the name "scumping." PJ showed Mippin doing this in the film as a bit of a shout-out to this passage in the book.

As far as Bag End being a bit untidy, I really had no problem with it. Bilbo and Frodo are both eccentric bachelors who are much more interested in their hobbies and rambles about the Shire than in housekeeping, outside of keeping the dishes washed, of course. Tidying up after food preparation is an entirely different matter! The Professor refers to the Bagginses having a gardener for their extensive property, but there is never a mention of a housekeeper or other indoor servants. Most bachelors left to their own devices without a maid or housekeeper tend to let things go a bit.

Just my opinion!

Good points, Lindariel! But I should point out that Frodo stole mushrooms from Farmer Maggot as a child. And while mushrooms grow in only certain special places (including my side garden, where a tree was long ago cut down, but I'm not at all sure that they are edible or not, drat it!), the movie shows Mippin stealing everyday cabbages and carrots which, I think is much less justifiable, not that stealing the mushrooms would have been justifiable. (What a bad sentence I just typed!)

I do understand your point about bachelors, too. In fact, after a long semester, my house is rather bachelor-like, too, a condition I'm trying to remedy! It's just that I remember a line from when the hobbits had returned and were taken 'prisoner' by Sharkey's men, they lamented a table that had not been scrubbed. Bilbo, I think, was even fussier, and I hope we see that in the movies.

I have been growing to love Martin Freeman, by the way, in season two of 'Sherlock'. I think he will deliver a nuanced performance.

I've been reading our old Hobbit Calendar and enjoying it very much! One thing that has surprised me is that the company was captured by goblins today, June 26, but they didn't escape until July 19. That's a long time!

Here's a nice idea for September 21:

http://www.hobbitsecondbreakfast.com/

I'm going to be on a road trip that will start very early that day, so we might indeed have a second breakfast!

Au 12 septembre est sorti le journal :''FILMS'', et dans les' previews' 2012/2013, 15 pages sont consacrées au film de P.Jackson, avec photos des personnages, anecdotes, interviews de certains acteurs, retour sur la trilogie LSDA; 1er aperçu intéressant

If anybody is following along with the Hobbit Calendar, things are beginning to get fast and furious! Our little hero is about to visit Smaug: can't wait to see that scene in the movie, although I suspect it won't be this first movie in which it will happen.

As I typed in the calendar title for today, it struck me how beautiful and sad those words are. I wonder how Tolkien decided that the name of the mountain would be Lonely, besides the fact that it stands alone, of course!

Not necessarily discussion of the book but I wanted to share this cool site I found today. It's an interactive map with a timeline for the store. You can find it here.

That's pretty fun, Philipa! It's wonderful that someone loves an imaginary world so much that he/she would go to so much work to make something so creative!

Merry wrote:That's pretty fun, Philipa! It's wonderful that someone loves an imaginary world so much that he/she would go to so much work to make something so creative!

I thought so too. I had to share.

c'est formidable! j'aime imaginer que ce monde pourrait être VRAI! et j'aimerais que quelqu'un trouve un anneau qui délivre le monde dans lequel nous vivons de tous les maux que nous subissons ... Souhait utopique mais combien sincère!!!

MICHKA wrote:c'est formidable! j'aime imaginer que ce monde pourrait être VRAI! et j'aimerais que quelqu'un trouve un anneau qui délivre le monde dans lequel nous vivons de tous les maux que nous subissons ... Souhait utopique mais combien sincère!!!

That is a wonderful wish Michka.

Some of you know that, last year, I had a dinner party for some Tolkien friends for which I recreated the meal that the hobbits enjoyed at the Prancing Pony. It was a great success, so much so that my friends have been asking for an encore! Last night, while rewatching 'The Hobbit' movie, I put together a menu based on the contents Bilbo's pantry:

cold chicken
deviled eggs
cheese (I'm thinking of those big yellow cheeses that Bombur carried out in the movie!)
seed cakes
salad
pickles
apple tart
red wine, tea, and ale

Doesn't that sound good? I've read that the seed cakes would have been some savory version of a bread with carroway seeds, so I'll need to look up some recipes for that. The dwarves also called out for minced pies and pork pies, but other than pizza, that may beyond my abilities! I'll also need to do some thinking about what kind of salad Bilbo would have had. I'm sure Mr. Gamgee would have had some nice lettuces and herbs growing in the garden, maybe some spring onions, probably not tomatoes, since they were a new world food. What kind of salad dressing would he have used?

I'll probably do this in early June. Last time, while I was putting the food away, my guests pulled my books off the shelf and began to read their favorite passages outloud, which became the evening's entertainment. I hope this happens again, since there are so many favorite passages!