Further musings on Tom Bombadil

[Flammifer]

I like your thought that Goldberry usually wears flowers rather than clothes. It could well be. However, the incident where Tom tells the hobbits to run around naked on the grass under the sun to recover from the barrow experience (and they do, without any hesitation or embarrassment) also leads me to think that there is no reason why Tom and Goldberry should not go around with no clothes at all when no one else is around.

I think that Tom and Goldberry certainly suggest echoes of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. That's another reason I like the thought that they don't normally wear clothes.

 

[maswan]

My new suggestion is that Tom and Goldberry literally wear nature: that would be flowers and reeds for Goldberry, obviously. Tom's a bit harder: "bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow" suggests to me that he wears sky and sunlight. So in this conception, the magic clothing they "put on" (via magic) for the sake of visitors is mostly just changing the appearance of Goldberry's clothing so it looks more like a green dress with flower and reed decoration, instead of just the flowers and reeds that it really consists of.

Frodo's first impression of Goldberry, which he likens to unexpectedly meeting a "fair elf-maid clad in living flowers", is actually a true insight, not a fanciful metaphor. Goldberry IS clad in living flowers! They just look like a green dress, due to Tom's enchantment.

Ooh, I really like this take. I'm just not sure that I'd phrase it as magicking the appearance of clothing though, rather as using music to make a change in reality to turn living flowers or sky and sunlight into actual clothing. This way it is a creative act inspired by nature, not a convenience illusion for visitors.

This I feel is more aligned with how magical music is portrayed in LotR and the silmarillion too, music as a method or apparatus to effect a change in reality. Like growing your hair really long, or genetically engineering mallorn trees.

 

[Lincoln Alpern]

Just read through this thread, and it raises some fascinating points. I really like your defense, Flammifer, of disregarding (at the time) unpublished Silmarillion information when interpreting Lord of the Rings. Coincidentally, I've been listening through Corey's old class on Dune, and the other day I got to the part where he's discussing some poetry, and makes a case for disregarding later-published "Dune" material which sheds extra light on the content. Corey's argument is that even if the later-published material is stuff Herbert had worked out in advance, he didn't see fit to include it in this text, so that's all we should be looking at for now. How does it come across to a first time reader of the book, without privileged information which comes out later? Even if Tolkien had published the Silmarillion in approximately current form post-Lord of the Rings, it would still make sense to look at the trilogy on its own, without reference to other material.

(On the subject of why Tolkien never published the Silmarillion in his lifetime: I've also heard that the orc problem was a huge sticking point for him, and I could believe there were some others. I'd also point out though, as someone who knows a thing or two about authors - and I say this with the deepest respect and affection - it's entirely possible his reasons for not publishing it had just as much to do with petty nitpicks which even the most obsessive readers would've told him, "Hey, lighten up, it's not that big a deal." Everything I've gathered of Tolkien as an author from Corey over the years supports the plausibility of this scenario.)


On the subject of clothes: I agree Tom casually encouraging the Hobbits to "run naked on the grass" and them blithely going along with it are suggestive of both his and their attitudes. But I also agree with Jim Deutch that nakedness just isn't a thing in Tolkien, and I can't quite stretch Tom's casual attitude about it to the idea that he and Goldberry rarely bother with clothes at home, even with the Adam and Eve parallels thrown in. I'm more agnostic about them wearing other things, like flowers and sunlight, as opposed to traditional clothing - that seems off to me, as well, but maybe I just need to give it more thought.

However, I think this conversation so far has missed out on a pretty big fact regarding clothes, which I believe to be highly pertinent. The primary purpose of clothing on humans is practical: protection from the elements (which, even just going by Lord of the Rings material, I think we can safely infer neither Tom nor Goldberry strictly need); the second, social purpose, is modesty, which we've already discussed, including my 2 cents shared above. These are not the only purposes of clothing however, they also serve aesthetic functions: we like them for how they look, or how they feel, or how they make us look or how they make us feel, and similar such feelings they evoke.

Note how the clothing is introduced in Tom's song:

"Old Tom Bombadil / is a merry fellow!
Bright blue his jacket is / and his boots are yellow!"

Yes, it's amusing to imagine Tom thinking 'Right, there's apt to be visitors in the woods - got to remember the clothes so we don't have a repeat of last time,' and I could definitely see that working in a parody. (A good extension would be to have him show up in just the jacket and boots, having failed or forgotten to come up with a sufficiently lyrical way to describe a pair of trousers.) In context, however, it sounds like, more than anything, Tom Bombadil thinks his bright blue jacket and his yellow boots are awesome, and he enjoys them so much that he just has to tell the hypothetical audience for his song all about them. "Hi I'm Tom Bombadil! I'm a very jolly guy, and check out these sweet threads and this sick footgear I'm rockin'. Aren't they just the bee's knees?"

(I could totally see Tom as a someone whose dress choices would throw fashion designers into fits, but he doesn't care because he really likes the clothes and how they fit his style, even if they clash horribly for everyone else.)

 

[Flammifer]

Hi Lincoln,

I like your observation that Tom's enthusiasm about his jacket and boots in his song, and the close identification of them with him could indicate a close attachment between Tom and his clothes, and dis-indicate the supposition that he goes without clothes most of the time.

However, here are some alternative suggestions:

1. Tom is almost the opposite of 'materialistic'. He has no lust for the artifacts from the barrow, nor for the Ring. It seems out of character for him to consider clothing to be of major long term importance to his identity.

2. When are we most delighted by clothes? When they are new. Tom's delight in his bright blue jacket and yellow boots seems to me more likely to indicate that they are new and unusual, rather than that they are constant and customary.

3. If Tom does not usually wear clothes, but suddenly has to sing them up (and keep remembering to sing them up), it seems eminently reasonable that he might be rather chuffed with the effect he has created, and his pleasure and creativity in creating them and then including them in his song would also have the side benefit of making sure he keeps singing them up regularly, thus avoiding embarrassment.

 

[Jim Deutch]

making sure he keeps singing them up regularly, thus avoiding embarrassment.

I concede! I sort of ridiculed the idea of Tom usually going naked, but you've convinced me.
I wonder if you would convince Tolkien?

I still sort of like my theory, too: they started out with something from nature, rather than singing clothes up from nothing:

Frodo's first impression of Goldberry, which he likens to unexpectedly meeting a "fair elf-maid clad in living flowers", is actually a true insight, not a fanciful metaphor. Goldberry IS clad in living flowers! They just look like a green dress, due to Tom's enchantment.

 

[Flammifer]

Hi Jim,

Yes I also like your hypothesis that Goldberry can be clad in living flowers.

I now suppose that most of the time Tom and Goldberry are not clad at all, but I think that Goldberry might well be clad in living flowers from time to time.

 

[Lincoln Alpern]

You make an interesting case, Flammifer, and I suppose your scenario is plausible enough, but I'm still unpersuaded. Partially, I grant, this comes from my inability to imagine Tolkien countenancing such a thing, but I also have some specific counter-points:

1. Your first two statements are undoubtedly true, but I don't see the third statement as a necessary conclusion from them. I think we need to be cautious not to take an absence of covetousness as evidence for the opposite extreme of rejecting (or indifference to) material things. I could absolutely see Tom Bombadil as the sort of guy who has a favorite chipped mug with a silly slogan, a favorite pipe, and a favorite fob watch (probably broken), treasuring them not for their material value but because they appeal to his specific tastes and they bring him pleasure. Similarly with clothing.

We don't know exactly what Tom and Goldberry are, but I think they likely don't strictly need a house with four walls, or beds, or food and drink, or ponies, or a fireplace around which to tell stories. These are all "material" comforts (even storytelling, in a way) which Tom indulges in, and I have to think at least in part because of the pleasure they bring him.

(There is the part in the Council of Elrond where Gandalf or someone points out that Tom wouldn't have much interest in the One Ring; but that could just be because it's pretty drab on its own, and doesn't have much aesthetic appeal outside of Sauron's enchantments.)

2. True, but that's a mortal-human outlook. Again, whatever Tom is, he's basically immortal, and seemingly further from mortal-human psychology than even the eternal elves. The capacity for stuff like boredom is a survival trait in species with a limited life span and a need to eat, drink, rest, etc.. Whereas - as some works of speculative fiction have pointed out - boredom would be a maladaptive trait in immortals. I think the only way Tom could remain so jolly over all these millennia is by maintaining a sense of pleasure and wonder even in the things which are extremely familiar.

3. Also true, and one reason why I say your reasoning seems plausible. However, nothing in this point convinces me that your scenario is any likelier than mine, just that the argument holds together.

In summation: whose interpretation is more likely correct? I can't say, and perhaps there's just too little data to go on, but I still find mine the more convincing.

 

[maswan]

1. Tom is almost the opposite of 'materialistic'. He has no lust for the artifacts from the barrow, nor for the Ring. It seems out of character for him to consider clothing to be of major long term importance to his identity.

Well, he did "chose for himself from the pile a brooch set with blue stones, many-shaded like flax-flowers or the wings of blue butterflies." so he could have a "a pretty toy for Tom and for his lady". From this passage it seems like he does appreciate the artifact for both its beauty and the memory it is associated with: "Fair was she who long ago wore this on her shoulder. Goldberry shall wear it now, and we will not forget her!" A full-on opposite of materialistic view seems not to fit either.

Oh, and I just realized as I was writing this: If Gooldberry is expected to wear it, by the nature of brooches, that implies clothing to fasten it to.