“The Lord of the Eagles of the Misty
Mountains had eyes that could look at the sun unblinking.”
The physicality of the The Hobbit is striking. Take, for example, the imagery of food in “Out of the Frying-Pan
and Into the Fire.” There
is frightening hunger – Bilbo reduced to sorrel and three strawberries. Yet by the end, there is feasting when the eagles
bring “rabbits, hares, and a small sheep” which the dwarves butcher and toast
on sticks. I’m reminded of the second
chapter in James Joyce’s Ulysses,
when the dainty brutality of the carnivorous impulse is depicted: “Mr. Leopold
Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a
stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod’s roes.” While the dwarves stuffed their faces with
meat, Bilbo found himself longing for more mild domestic pleasures: a loaf of
bread and butter.
When eagles look to the sun, they
find only mystic fire. When they look to
the earth, they find meat and wars and goblins.
We cannot look at the sun without blinking, yet how many among us can
look at the truth of our earth, or our food, with unwavering eyes?
Image: American Museum of Natural
History
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