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[Eve]

I actually just popped in out of curiosity to see if the thread had been dropped, and was astonished to see 78 posts! For those who think I fled out of cowardice, I may as well tell you what's been happening. I was staying at my aunt's in Israel. My cousin (her daughter), who suffers from two rare and horrendous conditions, got taken into hospital seriously ill; to give you a rough idea, she probably wasn't able to eat anything at all for about a week (after that, they managed to get a feeding tube into her stomach), she was on an IV when they could actually get it into her, I don't think she slept for several days at a stretch because of the constant agonising pain, and she's so ill that she weighs about 5 1/2 stone (perhaps less). She's out of hospital by now, but we're still scared stiff; my step-father asked me if I thought she was going to live when he picked me up from the airport (I flew back to London earlier than planned, they had enough on their plate without having a guest in the flat), and I said I don't dare think about that. In addition, I am disabled with ME myself and currently having a serious relapse, which has meant that most of the time I can barely get of bed and as far as the kitchen to get some food, let alone onto the computer. I've had more important things to worry about. And no, I haven't personally been through the army, but half my family and plenty of my friends have, so I do know quite a lot about it.

And no, I wasn't scared of your arguments, but I posted that message in the hope of actually discussing the topic. Only about 10% of the replies did so seriously; the rest was fighting and insult-flinging, and I can think of better ways to discuss something (in fact, the main reason for leaving was boredom). Getting all upset about how dare I even suggest there's a gay subtext in anything is not a discussion of the topic. I also got rather bored with the quarrels about should we discuss sex in literature, and is there a difference between friendship, love and a sexual relationship (of course there is, and there's also an interesting grey area in between, which is what I was trying to look at).

For those who took the trouble to wade through all that, one thing I noticed coming up was references to Tolkien's war experiences. Very interesting. Sorry for quoting an outside source yet again (whoever it was who objected to my comparing Galadriel and Celeborn to the Bennetts, all I was doing was pointing out that one pair have a realistic relationship whereas the other don't, you know perfectly well that I wasn't saying Galadriel was like Mrs Bennett - the mind boggles at the idea, so thanks for tha laugh at least!), but have a look at some of Siegfried Sassoon's work, and possibly Wilfred Owen (I don't know whether Owen also wrote about it, but he was certainly in and writing about WW1, and gay - in fact, he developed rather a crush on Sassoon when they met at Craiglockhart Military Hospital and worked on his poetry together, bless him). Apparently there was quite a problem in WW1, when they were busy encouraging "brotherly love" as a means of helping the men to get through these appalling experiences alive and sane, but at the same time worrying that this "brotherly love" could go too far. Sassoon was warned to keep his head down, as he was rather prominent after his anti-war protest, had written a few poems about his fellow soldiers that were more than friendly (brave man, I'd never have dared under the circumstances), and there was a lot of anti-gay feeling, especially after the notorious Oscar Wilde trial. But anyway, the whole issue of how men in war (under enormous pressure, having to trust each other with their lives, little or no access to women) react to each other, and the sometimes ambiguous nature of the relationships they form, is a very interesting one. One thing I've noticed about the Israelis, who all have to go through 2 or 3 years national service (and real national service, you don't get to age 20 without attending a few funerals in Israel) is that they seem to be far more relaxed about being affectionate with each other, even with members of the same sex, and without permanently worrying that this might be seen as gay. Although I'm not quite sure how that relates to the amount of homophobia in Israel (more than I'd expected, unfortunately).

Having thought I'd left my Sassoon poems in London, I've just found them. Usually, the relationship Sassoon is described as having with his men is a paternal one: he was protective of them, and in fact used "looking after my boys" as part of his justification for going back to the front despite hating the war: ah, just found the perfect quotation, "Love drove me to rebel./ Love drives me back to grope with them through hell,/ And in their tortured eyes I stand forgiven." (Banishment)

The two that I've heard quoted most often with regard to Sassoon and sexuality (the first one commenting on the strange relationship between sex and war, not the first time images of rape and violation have been used - and no, I didn't put the sex in! I prefer the second, personally, which I find very moving):

The Kiss

To these I turn, in these I trust -
Brother Lead and Sister Steel.
To his blind power I make appeal,
I guard her beauty clean from rust.

He spins and burns and loves the air,
And splits a skull to win my priase;
But up the nobly marching days
She glitters naked, cold and fair.

Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this:
That in good fury he may feel
The body where he sets his heel
Quail from your downward darting kiss.

The Dug-Out

Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen, cold,
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulders;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head...
You are too young to fall asleep forever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.

Now doesn't that sound like Frodo and Sam, that last one? Not entirely sure it was the one I was after, I remember a friend talking about this subject and talking about an interesting one where he's watching a young soldier sleep, so I think it's this one. Very beautiful, very moving, and yes, his feelings are somewhat ambiguous. To compare it to Frodo and Sam, the interesting thing is that although the relationship is fairly unequally divided in terms of affection, with Sam worshipping Frodo and not getting as much in return, if you imagined that poem being one of them watching the other sleep in Mordor, it could be either way round.

If you want to use Legolas and Gimli, or Merry and Pippin, as examples of the kind of pairing-off which are about close ties of friendship without romantic (not the right word, but I'm tired and can't think of the right one, I'm not really talking about sexual feelings) overtones, and which someone pointed out are a phenomen common amongst men in war situations, then compare that with the totally different relationship between Frodo and Sam. This thread is so long I only skim-read it, but I did notice something interesting about how one-sided the relationship is (can't remember, did anyone pick up on the suggestion I made about how maybe Frodo is too bound up with the Ring ever to get that close to a human being?), also about how it was affected by social class.

I don't know what Tolkien saw in the trenches, he's not a writer whose letters etc. I plan to read (more likely Sassoon or someone like that), apart from presumably going through hell. My guess is that he will have seen the strong male bonding that rseulted in very intense friendships, mostly non-sexual as far as I am aware (that's not the right word either, as I said love is only partly connected to sex, and there is a definite difference between the love of friendship and the love of partnership even without sex - I love my best friend like a brother, but the thought of the kind of intimacy between lovers, even without the sexual side, just the emotional side, is like incest) - oh dear, it's late at night and my sentences are getting tangled! Anyway, my guess is that he also saw the deeper relationships that did develop between some men, and put that into the relationship between Frodo and Sam. When it's a world purely of men, as in war, as in prisons - well, humans are sexual beings (especially men!), and quite apart from the 10% who are gay anyway, a lot of friendships end up becoming a lot closer and more intense than they might have in a mixed environment.

Just by-the-by, I'd say that calling any of the relationships in this novel openly passionate (I'm saying "openly" to exclude the ones between men) is reading too much into it! I'd personally say that the straight ones are not terribly interesting, for whatever reason (women don't tend to do too well in epic etc., as we were discussing), but the relationships between men are fascinating and vary enormously. Come to think of it, the concept of a kind of brotherhood does come up again and again. The brotherhood of the wizards, for example, and the way Saruman';s betrayal of that deeply hurts Gandalf. Legolas and Gimli helping to cement race relations (I still get irritated at the way Tolkien has them enemies one day and bestest friends the next, and chickens out of describing the changeover apart from hinting that it might have something to do with Gimli's admiration for Galadriel - dammit, that would have been a really interesting scene!). The way the hobbits Stick Together.

ach, I'm tired and this is hardly most tidily-written post of my life. Considering that I still don't think this is a good place to be discussing it, I don't even know why I'm bothering! Probably for the two or three people who actually appeared interested in the topic (can't remember other names, sorry, one was very long and began with M I think, but Lush, thanks for your input and support!) Hope you enjoy the Sassoon poems; if you want to discuss the theme of men's relationships in war and how that relates to Tolkien's writing, then I'll probably only be back once to copy all this onto a Word document when I'm less tired, either for e-mail discussion with friends or in case I find a Tolkien discussion board that is more open-minded. If you know of one, let me know and I might see you there! I haven't been to the Guardian books talk board in ages; it's certainly not bigoted, although I might have the opposite problem of people not really wanting to discuss Tolkien. There's a thread somewhere about is the LOTR all a lot of rubbish (no, they didn't all say it was, they're mature enough over there to discuss something like that without flaming each other, plus they're not obsessive about it either - in fact, some of them even made jokes!), so they might not want to bother. Oh well, I'll go and tell them what happened, and if anyone fancies having a real discussion about this and other issues in the text over there, I'll let you know. As I mentioned somewhere, I'd be interested in starting up a discussion on concepts of femininity and fertility in LOTR (think of how the elves seem to be in some ways feminine, with several powerful female figures and lots of trees, flowers and singing, and in other ways very barren, while the world of the hobbits is all about fruitfulness and seems the most "natural" of all. Try to imagine a pregnant elf and you'll see what I mean). Here is obviously not the place, since I really can't be bothered writing 2,000 words explaining how images of fertility are not the same as sex.

One thing I have learnt is not to waste my time rising to people's bait. If there are people here who think that anything queer is inherently filthy, wrong and shouldn't be applied to their favourite book (and I like that attitude about as much as I like the attitudes that being black or Jewish is filthy, wrong etc.), and they seem to be the majority on this site, then we're never going to end up discussing my original question, so there's no point even trying. If I want to fight homophobia, I can go to that meeting with the chap from the council next week. And out of curiosity, why on earth are some people getting so upset because I'm comparing LOTR to other texts? No text exists in a vacuum, they're all inter-linked, and it's fascinating to compare one to another. You yourselves were bringing up references to both ancient epic and medieval romances (neither of which I'd classify as modern fantasy, for whoever was disputing that point, though I'd certainly say both influenced it and were perhaps its forerunners). Some people sounded like they were feeling threatened because they'd not actually read any other books! I'm sure you're not all like that, but it was quite curious to see.

One last thing (I admit I'm partly writing this to reply to all the people who irked me!): saying "I'm not homophobic, I'm very tolerant, some of my friends are gay," is a dead giveaway.