"GL1" - читать интересную книгу автора (vol08)

PART ONE.

THE FALL OF
SARUMAN.

I.
THE DESTRUCTION OF ISENGARD.

(Chronology)

The writing of the story from 'The King of the Golden Hall' to the end
of the first book of The Two Towers was an extremely complex
process. The 'Isengard story' was not conceived and set down as a
series of clearly marked 'chapters', each one brought to a developed
state before the next was embarked on, but evolved as a whole, and
disturbances of the structure that entered as it evolved led to disloca-
tions all through the narrative. With my father's method of composi-
tion at this time - passages of very rough and piecemeal drafting being
built into a completed manuscript that was in turn heavily overhauled,
the whole complex advancing and changing at the same time - the
textual confusion in this part of The Lord of the Rings is only
penetrable with great difficulty, and to set it out as a clear sequence
impossible.
The essential cause of this situation was the question of chronology;
and I think that the best way to approach the writing of this part of the
narrative is to try to set out first the problems that my father was
contending with, and to refer back to this discussion when citing the
actual texts.
The story had certain fixed narrative 'moments' and relations.
Pippin and Merry had encountered Treebeard in the forest of Fangorn
and been taken to his 'Ent-house' of Wellinghall for the night. On that
same day Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas had encountered Eomer and his
company returning from battle with the Orcs, and they themselves
passed the night beside the battlefield. For these purposes this may be
called 'Day 1', since earlier events have here no relevance; the actual
date according to the chronology of this period in the writing of The
Lord of the Rings was Sunday January 29 (see VII.368, 406).
On Day 2, January 30, the Entmoot took place; and on that day
Aragorn and his companions met Gandalf returned, and together they
set out on their great ride to Eodoras. As they rode south in the
evening Legolas saw far off towards the Gap of Rohan a great smoke
rising, and he asked Gandalf what it might be: to which Gandalf
replied 'Battle and war! ' (at the end of the chapter 'The White Rider').
They rode all night, and reached Eodoras in the early morning of
Day 3, January 31. While they spoke with Theoden and Wormtongue
in the Golden Hall at Eodoras the Entmoot was still rumbling on far

away in Fangorn. In the afternoon of Day 3 Theoden with Gandalf
and his companions and a host of the Rohirrim set out west from
Eodoras across the plains of Rohan towards the Fords of Isen; and on