I agree with whoever it was that said that these are two chapters to generally be skimmed over.
Mushroom anyone?
-ksen
I don't think he's in Silmarillion. At least, I don't see his name indexed. He might be referred to in The Book of Lost Tales.
"...brownies, fays, pixies, leprawns, and what else are they not called, for their number is very great... they were born before the world and are older than its oldest, and are not of it, but laugh at it much..."A quick search says that there was a book published in 1961 called Adventures of Tom Bombadil. From what I can tell, Tolkien discusses him frequently in Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (letter numbers I have are 19, 144, 153,181, and 229.)The Book of Lost Tales, Part I, III The Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor
Mushrooms sound great! (going to lunch now)
Elrond: "But many another name he as since been given by other folk: Forn by the Dwarves, Orald by Northern Men, and other names beside. He is a strange character, (you go that right) but maybe I should have summoned him to our Council."
"He would not have come," said Gandalf.
"Could we not still send messages to him and obtain his help?" asked Erestor. "It seems that he has a power even over the ring?"
"No, I should not put it so," said Gandalf. "Say rather that the Ring has not power over him. He is his own master. But he cannot alter the Ring itself, nor break its power over others. And now he is withdrawn into a little land, wihtin the bounds thta he has set, though none can see them, waiting perhaps for a change of days, and will not step beyond them."
"But within those bounds nothing seems to dismay him," said Erestor. "Would he not take the Ring and keep it there, for ever harmless."
"No," said Gandalf, "not willingly. He might do so, if all free folk of the world begged him, but he would not understand the need. And if he were given the Ring, he would soon forget it, or mostly likely throw it away. Such things have no hold on his mind. He would be a most unsafe guardan; and that alone is answer enough."
A professor I had once described Hamlet as the ultimate literary reflector. A mysterious, rather than ambivalent, character that is much easier to identify by our opinions of them than by what they truly are. Bombadil, I think, is a similar kind of cipher or wildcard. Different things to different people.
For me, the one aspect of Bombadil that stands out the clearest is that he is the only character shown in the trilogy to be madly, passionately in love. He and Goldmoon are like perpetual newliweds. There is none of the heaviness to their relationship that is seen in the other marriages portrayed in LOTR.
Interesting especially in light of a CS Lewis quote I came across recently, where he called Tolkien the "most thoroughly married man" he'd ever met. I believe the tombstones of Tolkien and his wife are inscribed "Beren" and "Luthien."
OK, feel free everyone to blast me for spoilers if I've violated thread protocol. :)
That is perhaps the irony in it. Tom was not concerned with the affairs of men and wizards and elves and hobbits beyond how they pertained to what went on within the boundaties of HIS world. For him to have become part of the quest would have required an interest of a kind which would have rendered him vulnerable to the ring and therefore the very qualities that make him seem to be the ideal candidate would be invalidated were he to become involved. That's just my theory.