Of the quiet before the storm
There is an old story in Hollywood that goes something like this: what is the difference between a European movie and an American movie? In the European movie, the story starts with a beautiful view of a plane, flying against an incredible sunset. The next shot shows an even more beautiful view, with the sky filled with purple and pink, and all sorts of flamboyant colors. In the American movie, the story starts with a plane flying across the sky. In the second shot, the plane explodes.
This may be one of the reasons I gave up on reading the Lord of the Rings when I was in my teens. I had seen many American movies and many planes explode in the first few minutes. The sensitivity of my story nervous system may have been a bit saturated, and incapable of appreciating what is really going on in the first chapter. True, it doesn’t start on a high note. Rather, it starts with a slow movement, gently building the themes and ideas that will prove important later.
In a very strange manner, it starts with a party. With the preparation of the party, and the party itself. The ambiance is one of joy and excitement. There’s a lot of food, and drinking, and merrymaking, and it ends with incredible magic fireworks. It’s a party so beautiful that people remember it for years on. It feels a bit strange to the reader because it’s the kind of scene you would expect at the end of a story. When all the characters have reached the end of their journey. When those who are still alive come home and celebrate. It feels very much like the end of any Asterix story. So why is it pushed at the beginning?
Tolkien identifies here a very interesting pattern. One that we know without really paying attention to it with the expression “the quiet before the storm”. It is something very strange to experience: before a storm, there is something in the air, something that makes humans worried and animals silent. The usual sounds of the world seem to be on hold. Everyone goes to shelter; everyone waits anxiously for the grand forces of nature to start their show.
Something similar exists in human affairs. Terrible events are sometimes preceded by extremely joyous ones. As if life was giving an extra measure of happiness to prepare us for what is to come.
I remember seeing this firsthand one New Year’s Day, at my aunt’s house, near Toulouse, in France. The whole family was there. Four generations gathered in the same place for a day of eating, drinking, listening to music and celebrating new beginnings.
One of my grandfathers was there with his companion. They had met in their golden years and spent a few beautiful years together. That day, my grandfather was exceptionally happy. He sang, he danced, and he told us stories. It was the first (and last) time that I saw him dance.
For some reason, I felt that something was going to happen: that specific New Year Day felt like a goodbye party.
A couple of days later, we received a phone call. Annie, my grandfather beloved companion, had had a stroke. She was in the hospital. There was very little chance of recovery.
A few weeks later, Annie was put in a home, one hour away from where my grandfather lived. He went there every day, for almost three years. He kept spending his days with her, even though she was barely conscious. He would bring books, and flowers, and food, and he would talk to her and read and help her do all the rehabilitation exercises that the doctors prescribed. One night, she passed away quietly. My grandfather inherited all her belongings. He gave me a few books, including a set of Zola’s Rougon-Maquart, in the prestigious Pleiade collection.
All this was prefaced by an exceptional day of merrymaking, that gave, I hope, my grandfather all the energy he needed to face what was coming.
I felt something a bit similar in the weeks leading up to October 7. During the summer, I started preparing for the year to come. I jotted down ideas for articles I wanted to write, outlined classes I wanted to teach, and took notes for the book I wanted to write. I did it as well as I could, as much as I could, but something inside me was telling me that none of this would happen. That the year to come would be totally different from what I anticipated.
The week before the war started was Sukkot. A one-week festival that I didn’t celebrate in the same way when I lived outside of Israel. It’s only here that I discovered how to experience it fully. The country stops for a whole week, and the only thing we do is be happy, and enjoy the nice weather. We eat in our soukot, we decorate them, we sing, we visit friends. Every day is there to add more joy to the previous one. The week ends with Simhat Torah, the happiest day of the year. He who hasn’t danced with a Torah scroll cannot know true happiness.
On Simhat Torah 5784, we were home. We had a couple of friends over for dinner. We had a very nice evening, and we went to bed early, knowing that our children would be up early, holiday or not. At six in the morning, I was in the living room with my son. At six thirty I was with the whole family in the mamad, the protected room, while rockets were exploding around us.
Sukkot 5784 was the moment, at the collective level, when our beings were recharging. Taking in all the happiness we could before the war would start. We needed it. For many cycles of celebration, in Israel, no one was ready to celebrate the usual way.
Which takes us back to the 111th birthday of Bilbo, and the 33rd birthday of Frodo. A party unlike any party, where merrymaking quenches the souls of our heroes. They do not depart immediately after the party, but the event is powerful enough for its positive (and mysterious) charge to last a few years.
Why is it that they don’t leave immediately after? It’s another one of these seemingly strange narrative choices of the first few chapters that started only making sense for me when I read them as an adult in times of war. But it’s already another story.