The Twenty-four Feast takes place in Wootton Major, and it seems to be a moderate success: everyone is well-fed and happy. This Feast, however, marks the beginning of something truly special for one of the boys present at the celebration.
The appointment of Nokes for the important public post of Master Cook highlights the problem that Wootton Major is facing: most villagers have no more taste for wonder. Nokes is the embodiment, albeit an extreme one, of the disease affecting the village.
Smith of Wootton Major is a short tale, but despite being so it is filled up to the brim with ideas, beliefs and concepts that J. R. R. Tolkien held on the realm of Faery and fairy-stories. Read more
Creative processes can often be unpredictable and uncontrollable. It is especially true when applied to writing. Planning to create a piece, a writer might end up somewhere totally different from his initial intention, but by doing so to open a new door offering a fascinating path to take. It is very likely that when J. R. R. Tolkien put pen to paper following a request to write an introduction to George MacDonald’s Golden Key, little did he know where it would take him. Read more
The closing chapter of Roverandom is a good example of a happy turn of events when you least expect it. Moreover, it is where we can see the results of Rover’s moral journey and how he has changed over the course of the story.
Chapter 4 is the longest one in Roverandom. It takes our dog, as he becomes Rover for a while again, on the next leg of his journey and to an absolutely new place: down to the bottom of the ocean.
In chapter 3 Roverandom’s adventures take a new turn. He gets a chance to explore the place on the Moon none has seen before. As a final stage of his stay there, it gives him a very interesting perspective and shows the dark side of the Moon, in both meanings of the word “dark”.
In chapter 2 of Roverandom the enchanted Rover embarks on the first leg of his journey and travels to the Moon. The chapter is full of new experiences and meetings for Rover, as well as mythological and folkloric references.
Rover’s adventures begin one day when he plays with his yellow ball outside and bites a wizard for taking the ball, which is not to the dog’s liking. The animal’s misfortune is that he has not got the slightest idea that the man is a wizard because “if Rover had not been so busy barking at the ball, he might have noticed the blue feather stuck in the back of the green hat, and then he would have suspected that the man was a wizard, as any other sensible little dog would; but he never saw the feather at all” (Roverandom, p. 41-42). Being really annoyed, the wizard turns Rover into a toy dog and his life turns upside down.
