- by Owen Morton
I get the impression that the above title is going to take some quite impressive discussion before anyone out there even remotely accepts that there are any but the most tenuous links between these two almost entirely unconnected beasts. However, since I have almost nothing to do on this fine evening, I might as well spend my time trying to justify the fact that there are links between the both of them.
Let’s start with a couple of definitions. Curiously enough, considering that The Lord Of The Rings is one of my principal obsessions (barely a day goes by without me quoting it, for some reason), there’s been a great dearth of articles on the subject on this website. The only one I remember is the one back in February 2003 about orcs going to school, which – while interesting in its own way – did not really feature much in the way of actual discussion of the phenomenon of The Lord Of The Rings. This article that you now find your lucky selves in shall seek to amend that in at least some respects i.e. by comparing it to The Borrowers.
And so, with a very cunning link there, we come to The Borrowers. It’s a little more obscure, this one. Chances are, if you haven’t been living with your head in your broom closet for at least the last four years, you’ll have heard of The Lord Of The Rings. However, The Borrowers might have passed you by if you weren’t paying the slightest bit more attention, and how much of a treat would you have missed if that were the case! Not much, as it happens, but there we go.
Right, so – The Lord Of The Rings is a fantasy book that indeed defines the genre of fantasy, written in the 1950s, that some claim is a metaphor for the loss of traditional English country life by the devastating effects of two major world wars, and they quote the destruction of the quiet life of the Shire (as featured at the end of the book) to support this view. I personally do not subscribe to this view, because Tolkien himself states quite clearly that the book is not a metaphor for anything. It’s just a story. And he says this in the Foreword, included in every edition, so really people who come up with such grand theories ought to read the entire book before they do so.
Meanwhile, The Borrowers is one of those children’s books that features some frankly improbable freak of nature (in this case, a load of miniature people who live underneath the floorboards and steal things when everyone’s asleep, and thus giving rise to the often made statement that they’re not borrowers at all. They’re thieves. However, a book entitled The Thieves would probably not engender much sympathy for its principal characters, so possibly it’s best left the way it is). Anyway, I haven’t read The Borrowers (partly because it’s a load of rubbish which is not worth the effort expended in reading it – but mostly because, embarrassing to admit though it is, for a children’s book, it is actually quite difficult to read), and so I can’t really comment on any similarities between the book and The Lord Of The Rings, in any of its myriad incarnations.
However, The Borrowers did have the indignity of being made into a BBC children’s drama series foisted upon it. You’ll probably remember the type of series, even if you don’t remember this particular one. They made series’ of The Chronicles Of Narnia (which seemed good at the time, but just watch them now), Five Children And It (which didn’t seem good at the time, and almost certainly would seem worse if you were to watch it now), and some tripe called Merlin Of The Crystal Caves. I have spent some of this evening watching The Borrowers as BBC drama series, and have formulated some comments on it. I feel these comments could best be made by drawing unfavourable comparisons with The Lord Of The Rings, for reasons probably best known to myself, and since I don’t know said reasons very well, it’s entirely possible there aren’t any reasons at all. But let’s continue anyway.
All right. Everyone (again, unless you’ve had your head in a broom cupboard for four years, in which case allow me to be the one to break the happy news to you) knows that there have been films made of The Lord Of The Rings. They’re quite good really, as that sort of thing goes, but personally I regard a little-known dramatisation of The Lord Of The Rings as being somewhat better. Yes, it’s a little longer, dragging in at 13 hours long, but all in all, it has the edge, in that it doesn’t annoy me by pointlessly switching dialogue around. (Come on, who else was annoyed in The Fellowship Of The Ring when Gandalf says, “Keep it secret, and keep it safe” rather than “Keep it safe, and keep it secret”? … Just me, then. Well, it’s a very minor change, yes, and it doesn’t alter the meaning of the sentiment in any way, and that being the case, why change it? Why?)
Sorry. I seem to have got distracted. What I mean to say is that I prefer the radio version of The Lord Of The Rings to the film ones. It was made by the BBC in the early 80’s, I think, and it was bloody fantastic – well done Brian Sibley and Michael Foreman for your fantastic adaptation, and well done Penny Leicester and Jane Somebody-Whose-Name-I-Can’t-Quite-Remember for your fantastic directing, and well done all the actors for your fantastic acting. I’ve never heard anything better on the radio (although if Mr Crowley had actually kept his word in Year 7, I might have been on the radio myself, in which case I’m sure that would have been better – so thanks a bunch, Mr Crowley, not that I’m bitter or anything).
Anyway … I’m now going to start up on the comparisons. Keep sharp everybody, because there are so many similarities between the two things that they’re going to be coming fast and furious, and I won’t really have time to stop in between each one to explain it. Really, honestly, that’s how it’s going to be.
Right, first and foremost, there’s the matter of Ian Holm. He plays Pod, the Daddy Borrower, in The Borrowers, and Frodo Baggins, the lead hobbit, in the radio version of The Lord Of The Rings. He’s also got the part of Bilbo Baggins in the filmed version of The Lord Of The Rings. Freaky coincidences, huh? (Personally, I bet he was only cast as Bilbo in the films because the producers thought it would be amusing – not that he’s not actually good, that is.) So, what’s with that? Ian Holm playing three different people, all of whom are smaller than average. Has he got a natural affinity for playing small people? (I did consider doing an article about Ian Holm and small people, but thought it would probably wind up being somewhat tasteless and offensive to vertically challenged people, so I changed my mind and instead did the article you’re now reading, yet I’m still getting in this dig at Ian Holm and the small people.)
It’s probably also a coincidence that Ian Holm says the same thing with the same inflection in both the radio The Lord Of The Rings and The Borrowers. He says “terrible danger”, in The Lord Of The Rings, somewhere near the start when Merry and Pippin want to come with him, and he says the very same thing in The Borrowers when Arriety wants to talk to the boy. On both occasions, he puts the accent on the first syllable of “terrible”, which makes it sound almost overacted, to be quite honest. Not that he’s not a fantastic actor (apart from that scene in the radio The Lord Of The Rings in the Tower of Cirith Ungol, when he screeches about the ring being his. You can just imagine him spasming about on the floor, shouting, “The ring is mine! Mine! Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!!!!” It’s really not good.)
The only other similarity between them is even more tenuous, if that’s possible. You know Bilbo, in The Lord Of The Rings? Well, in the prequel, The Hobbit, he’s a burglar. And if you ask me, the borrowers are burglars too. Just burglars who live under your floor, which is a little unusual for burglars, I will confess.
There are other similarities, I’m sure, but I’ve forgotten them now.