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Does Barliman Have a Beard? And Other Important Fannish Issues
© Michael Martinez
Nov 24, 2000
Sometimes I think, "All the great questions have been asked and debated." And then someone comes along and asks something new. Or, if it's not new, they ask an old question in a fresh way. One of the latest examples I've run across is "Who slashed the bolsters?" That is, in the chapter "A Knife in the Dark", someone breaks into the Prancing Pony and slashes the bolsters that have been made up look like Frodo's party of Hobbits.
Naturally, more than one answer has been provided to the question.
There is an old story circulating in fandom about how Isaac Asimov attended a panel where someone discussed one of his books (okay, this story has probably been told about a dozen authors -- I heard the Asimov version). The speaker started analyzing the author's motivations and Asimov spoke up and politely told the speaker his analysis was wrong. The speaker allegedly told Asimov he was incorrect. "But I'm the author," Asimov replied. "I know what I was writing about." The speaker then bluntly informed the author that his opinion didn't matter.
Tolkien tells the reader, through Aragorn, that the bolsters were most likely slashed by Bill Ferny, Harry Goatleaf (the gatekeeper), and maybe the sallow-faced Southerner who was standing with Ferny in the common room of the Prancing Pony. Is that sufficient for everyone? Absolutely not. Ask a group of people who slashed the bolsters, get out a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring, cite the Aragorn passage, and then count noses as people start suggesting that it could have been the Nazgul (in fact, some people may insist it could only have been the Nazgul). The author's opinions don't really matter in these debates.
Was it the Nazgul? I don't see any reason to believe so, but this is only one of hundreds if not thousands of questions where you can pull out the book, read a very straightforward passage, and then be told it means something completely off the wall.
For example, when Gollum attacks Frodo on Mount Doom, Sam sees the confrontation between Frodo and Gollum with "other vision" and during the brief interaction a voice speaks to Gollum: "Begone, and trouble me no more! If you touch me ever again, you shall yourself be cast into the Fire of Doom."
Whose voice is that? Frodo's? The Ring's? Would you believe that I have seriously been told that it could or should have been Gandalf rather than the Ring?
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The copyright of the article Does Barliman Have a Beard? And Other Important Fannish Issues in J.R.R. Tolkien is owned by Michael Martinez. Permission to republish Does Barliman Have a Beard? And Other Important Fannish Issues in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
In response to message posted by deathammer:
You all are a gift from Heaven! Once again I got slammed elsewhere for trying to poke fun
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-- posted by Michael_Martinez
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I must say that you have just successfully taken all the fun out of these silly arguements over little picky details. One conclusion that I have arrived at is that for any question concerning a middl
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It's true, I do. Let me take the relevant book off the shelf, and open it to the correct page. See what's written there? That's what he wrote, and that's what he meant to directly convey to the reader
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After a rough month or so of mixed LotR movie news, this article did a lot to clear my mind and remind me that, when all is said and done, Tolkien's writings (and all derived works) are enterta
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In response to message posted by silvan:
All true. I read 1 mailing list and 3 Tolkien related messageboards and you have described many
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