The Houses Of Healing

J.R.R.Tolkien's realm of Middle Earth has for many years been one of my favorite escape destinations. Going back and re-reading my last few posts here suggests to me that it just might be a wise choice to revisit some of my favorite moments in those beautiful books.

Each of the books has something to offer and I could name endless examples of things that delight and frighten me in all of them. It is a very rare thing for me to be able to chose just one item from a group of things that I like; however in this instance it is much less difficult. I have always been drawn to, and repulsed by, the passage in The Return of The King in the chapter titled The Houses of Healing, where Gandalf says to Eomer, concerning his injured sister Eowyn, "But who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?" I am drawn in by a kindred spirit who like me, has spoken to the night. I am repulsed because a fox will chew off its' own leg rather than remain caught in a trap and face certain death.

While flipping through the pages of The Return of The King, I had an epiphany. The thing that sets Lee Child and Cornelia Read apart from the rest of the field for me, is voice. They, like Tolkien, have a clearly defined voice. It is more than a cadence or rhythm; the way they shape and move and bend the words, they write with their senses and help us hone our own senses until the voice is heard as clearly as a silver bell on a clear winter night. I had been wondering why, of all the authors I read, why do Lee and Cornelia enthrall me? Now I know and the knowing only strengthens my conviction that they are in rarefied company. Regrettably, finding that voice is not something every writer can do.

There is always hope.

Betty