"Our ships are now without the wind..."

[pandemonium-213.livejournal.com]

B2MeM Challenge: B2MeM 2013, Day 4: Quote from The Akallabêth, The Silmarillion.
Format: Awkward photo collage
Genre: Commentary
Rating: General
Warnings: Critical look at JRRT's worldview
Characters: Elendil, Herendil
Pairings: What?
Summary: A progressive ape's response to a conversation in The History of Middle-earth, vol V, The Lost Road.



“The sun went down, and there came a great silence. Darkness fell upon the land, and the sea was still, while the world waited for what should betide. Slowly the fleets passed out of the sight of the watchers in the havens, and their lights faded, and night took them; and in the morning they were gone. For a wind arose in the east and it wafted them away; and they broke the Ban of the Valar, and sailed into forbidden seas, going up with war against the Deathless, to wrest from them everlasting life within the Circles of the World.”

The above text is familiar to many of us who have read (and re-read) The Silmarillion. In addition to the text that Christopher Tolkien deemed publishable in The Silmarillion, JRR Tolkien wrote an extensive backdrop of the Fall of Númenor, which has been collected and published in The History of Middle-earth, vol. V, The Lost Road and Other Writings. This volume includes a remarkable time-travel story that Tolkien wrote in response to a challenge offered up by The Inklings.

Chapter III of The Lost Road (a wonderfully detailed look at Númenor, or at least Elendil's villa, before the fall) offers a conversation between Elendil and Herendil, the father-son duo who travel through time by the means of visions. In this chapter, Elendil recounts the coming of Sauron to Númenor and gives the reader a glimpse of the nature of the fleet Ar-Pharazôn commanded (see quoted text in the collage). Through Elendil as his mouthpiece, Tolkien laments the ills of technological progress. So, progressive ape that I am (see Tolkien's Mythopoeia), I cannot resist a counterpoint in the form of a mishmash of photos.

Link to large copy here; click to expand.


The RMS Oceanic, the HMS Dreadnought, the Bayard Condict Building (New York City), and the Guaranty Building (Buffalo, NY) are pictured in the collage. I doubt that the engineers who designed those magnificent ships (from Tolkien's era) nor Louis Sullivan, the "father of the modern skyscraper" who designed the buildings pictured, would particularly appreciate Elendil's assessment. After all, beauty, as well as utility, may be found in technology.

Comments

[dreamflower]

What a fun response to this prompt!

[pandemonium-213.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what provoked the response, but provoke it, it did! :^D

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Above all, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and things that Elendil (or Tolkien) might not have found "fair", other people may well consider beautiful. And we mustn't forget that while function without form is unsatisfying, form without function is bloody useless ;)

I agree with dreamflower02 - a very cool response to this prompt!

[pandemonium-213.livejournal.com]

Above all, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and things that Elendil (or Tolkien) might not have found "fair", other people may well consider beautiful.

Exactly! And that's kind of the point of my response to the prompt, i.e., the alternative view. :^)

And we mustn't forget that while function without form is unsatisfying, form without function is bloody useless ;)

Heh. Yes, "form follows function" was something we yammered a lot about during my ill-conceived stint as an architecture major (abandoned, obviously) and a case in point that aptly illustrates "form without function is bloody useless" is my almost next-door neighbor: MIT's the Stata Center (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_and_Maria_Stata_Center), designed by Frank Gehry. It's a funky looking building and has won praise and garnered criticism. I drive by it regularly, and I think it looks kind of neat from the exterior, but apparently, its inhabitants are not too thrilled with its function (or lack thereof).

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

*snrks* We have a tea-maker like that. It looks pretty cool (kind of like EVE from Wall-E, if you've seen that?), but it keeps leaking and you can't actually pour tea while the can is full without spilling half of it because the form of the can is so awkward the tea wants to exit anywhere but at the beak. :P Well done, designer!

[pandemonium-213.livejournal.com]

(http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/24135754_mFN87B#!i=2394984254&k=dDrJBT6&lb=1&s=A)

Eeeeeeeeeveeeee! :^D The team-maker must be very cute and sleek, but...heh.

I love your icon. I think I squee over it any time I see it.

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

I has jibbering to myself yesterday about the grandeur of the language in the published Silmarillion's description of the fleet of Ar-Pharazon.

Then Ar-Pharazôn hardened his heart, and he went aboard his mighty ship, Alcarondas, Castle of the Sea. Many-oared it was and many-masted, golden and sable; and upon it the throne of Ar-Pharazôn was set. Then he did on his panoply and his crown, and let raise his standard, and he gave the signal for the raising of the anchors; and in that hour the trumpets of Númenor outrang the thunder.

Thus the fleets of the Númenóreans moved against the menace of the West; and there was little wind, but they had many oars and many strong slaves to row beneath the lash. [Creepy, dark!]

I admit to being a romantic and Luddite in my own embarrassed fumbling way. But I love function and form both and want to have my beauty and to eat it also. I would not give up my electricity for the most beautiful country cottage in the world (OMG! Life without the internet?).

I adored growing up in a house which is now 172 years old (and showed it in various nasty ways--the terrors of its basement!). But it was also warm and dry in the winter and cool in the summer and was touted as one of the first houses in our town which was fully wired for electricity.

I love you for digging out that quotation in response to this prompt. I wish I had had it at my fingertips last night when I was being lectured about inserting a so-called anachronism into one of my latest Silm fics.

[pandemonium-213.livejournal.com]

That description of Ar-Pharazon's fleet is gorgeous, and one of the reasons I am so attached to Tolkien, despite my criticism of some aspects of his work and his worldview that seeps through. The rowing beneath the lash always calls to mind the old movies with the slaves at the oars. Hence, I thought your selection of ships for the response to the prompt was excellent. As an aside, there's a bit in the Flight of the Noldor where Fëanor's followers are rowing the hijacked Telerin ships, right?

As oloriel aptly noted, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and there are some who might take the country cottage with no electricity over a fully wired - and wireless! - flat in the big city. I appreciate technology especially as a woman. However romantic it might be to think of living in, say, a post-Ring War peaceful Minas Tirith, Rivendell, or the Shire, someone has to do the laundry. I'll take my frontloading Samsung over a washboard and a tub (or a river and stones!) any day of the week!

Our farmhouse (>100 years old when I lived there) was all retrofitted for electricity, heat, and indoor plumbing!

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

I'll take my frontloading Samsung over a washboard and a tub (or a river and stones!) any day of the week!

I actually had my own private laundry area on the roof of my building in Mexico City, with giant stone tubs, washboard, and clothes lines. There was no convenient laundromat and when we first lived there, even the distant ones were prohibitively expensive, so I hired a laundry lady like everyone else. She tried (and failed) to teach me the skill of doing laundry by hand for a family of four.

Then the Noldor drew away their white ships and manned their oars as best they might, and rowed them north along the coast. --The Silmarillion.

Now there is an interesting point for speculation. Who was doing the rowing? I am getting a chuckle out of these guys from Tirion taking off and getting their oars tangled up. Kind of takes the epic drama out of that picture for me.

(cough! cough! the Brooklyn Bridge icon! functional interpretation on a gorgeous theme)

[pandemonium-213.livejournal.com]

Oooh, good icon and appropriate, too!

I actually had my own private laundry area on the roof of my building in Mexico City, with giant stone tubs, washboard, and clothes lines.

Good lord. But then you had ready access to manual labor for this. I'm pretty sure my mother's family (she was one of seven kids) hired someone to do the laundry back in the day. I also remember the old washtub and wringer (mangle in the UK) in our basement that my paternal grandmother had used. Heh. I wonder if the clever Noldor invented the wringer?

I like Tolkien's qualifier in that: "as best they might." I can attest that a crew of eight inexperienced rowers is a hot mess. A story about the Noldorin exiles first attempts at the oars would be an entertaining and possibly harrowing read!

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

I like Tolkien's qualifier in that: "as best they might."

I died laughing at that! I bet Feanor was using some language in that scene! All the theory in the world is no substitute for experience under those circumstances.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

I like Tolkien's qualifier in that: "as best they might." I can attest that a crew of eight inexperienced rowers is a hot mess. A story about the Noldorin exiles first attempts at the oars would be an entertaining and possibly harrowing read!

I want to see this, now. :D

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

I could just imagine Numenor like that!

[pandemonium-213.livejournal.com]

The ornamentation on Louis Sullivan's buildings have a made-by-elves look about them!

[independence1776]

I love your response; those are beautiful.

[hhimring]

It is so easy to lament the ills of technology--and forget how ugly things can be without it.
I've seen really nice, well-designed toilets--but I rather doubt anyone has ever seen a pretty open cesspit.