Try to imagine what it is like to be a fungus. Not a mushroom, pushing up through damp soil overnight or delicately forcing itself out through the bark of a rotting log: that would be like imagining the grape rather than the vine. Instead try to think your way into the main part of a fungus, the mycelium, a proliferating network of tiny white threads known as hyphae. Decentralised, inquisitive, exploratory and voracious, a mycelial network ranges through soil in search of food. It tangles itself in an intimate scrawl with the roots of plants, exchanging nutrients and sugars with them; it meets with the hyphae of other networks and has mycelial sex; messages from its myriad tips are reported rapidly across the whole network by mysterious means, perhaps chemical, perhaps electrical. For food, it prefers wood, but with practice it can learn to eat novel substances, including toxic chemicals, plastics and oil. Is it somehow sentient? As its thousands of hyphae simultaneously but independently rove through the soil, is the mycelium behaving as an individual or a swarm? What is it like to be this way?
I have to say..."he's a fun guy...fun-gi..." 😂🤣😂🤣 I almost choked on my soda pop!
This is right up there with "the song Puff the Magic Dragon is about smoking weed" or "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is about LSD"; meaning, it deserves to be the stuff of late night conversations (preferably slightly inebriated) among like-minded friends for all eternity!
Yes, seems so, but that's disappointingly literal or obvious, a lapse on JRRT's part, I'd say. Tom Bombadil is much weirder, and he gets to walk around and do stuff :-)
Yeah that’s a point. But Tolkien was kinda keen on creating monsters. So I can see her sort of fitting that category somewhat. Tom is weirder for sure.
Well, Tom certainly pops up all over like a mushroom, doesn’t he? This idea appeals to me, Jenn - of course - because I brought up mycelium. But I like where you take this with the hallucinatory time spent in Tom’s house, and his blue mushroom-like hat - it works for me, even if we skirt around allegory. In which case, I wonder if each mushroom Tom has individual consciousness or it resides in the mycelium itself - ? FYI, I once toyed around with a science fiction idea that involved humanoid-fungi beings on another planet who were connected by a vast underground mycelium network - so this is resonating all over the place with me now 🍄
Hmm … I was totally tripped out by Bombadil during this read-through. The last time I read LOTR was as a teenager with no experience of psychedelics. As a muuuuch older adult, doing this book group, I was struck by the weirdness of the interlude in his domain. (Weird in a good way — the strange passage of time, the wandering thoughts.) Curious to read what you’ve got brewing about Goldberry!
That is a fascinating idea, and spotting the connection to the color choices is a great hook.
It reminds me this article about the world of fungi is amazing and creepy: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n10/francis-gooding/from-its-myriad-tips
Try to imagine what it is like to be a fungus. Not a mushroom, pushing up through damp soil overnight or delicately forcing itself out through the bark of a rotting log: that would be like imagining the grape rather than the vine. Instead try to think your way into the main part of a fungus, the mycelium, a proliferating network of tiny white threads known as hyphae. Decentralised, inquisitive, exploratory and voracious, a mycelial network ranges through soil in search of food. It tangles itself in an intimate scrawl with the roots of plants, exchanging nutrients and sugars with them; it meets with the hyphae of other networks and has mycelial sex; messages from its myriad tips are reported rapidly across the whole network by mysterious means, perhaps chemical, perhaps electrical. For food, it prefers wood, but with practice it can learn to eat novel substances, including toxic chemicals, plastics and oil. Is it somehow sentient? As its thousands of hyphae simultaneously but independently rove through the soil, is the mycelium behaving as an individual or a swarm? What is it like to be this way?
...
Now that you mention it, Paul Stamets kind of reminds me of Bombadil.
His hat is made of a mushroom, and he does always wear a blue jacket or at least scarf, very much on purpose.
YES I was thinking that very thing; I just ran out of space to mention him here. But, right? Doesn’t he resemble him so closely?
I declare this canon! Tom = Mushroom. No other explanation accounts for so much. So hat tip and bring on Goldberry.
Sound the trumpets! It has been declared! And so shall it be!
I love this!
I love this. Thanks for sharing!
I have to say..."he's a fun guy...fun-gi..." 😂🤣😂🤣 I almost choked on my soda pop!
This is right up there with "the song Puff the Magic Dragon is about smoking weed" or "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is about LSD"; meaning, it deserves to be the stuff of late night conversations (preferably slightly inebriated) among like-minded friends for all eternity!
Do a little micro-dosing and speculate! 😶🌫️
Okay okay you guys I’ll write about Goldberry. Sheesh… 😍
But about Goldberry…
She’s the river-daughter, man. :)
Well, I know - but is she literally the river? That's rhetorical, but still :-)
I think she’s a dryad. Or a naiad, since she’s about the river and not necessarily trees.
Yes, seems so, but that's disappointingly literal or obvious, a lapse on JRRT's part, I'd say. Tom Bombadil is much weirder, and he gets to walk around and do stuff :-)
Yeah that’s a point. But Tolkien was kinda keen on creating monsters. So I can see her sort of fitting that category somewhat. Tom is weirder for sure.
Well, Tom certainly pops up all over like a mushroom, doesn’t he? This idea appeals to me, Jenn - of course - because I brought up mycelium. But I like where you take this with the hallucinatory time spent in Tom’s house, and his blue mushroom-like hat - it works for me, even if we skirt around allegory. In which case, I wonder if each mushroom Tom has individual consciousness or it resides in the mycelium itself - ? FYI, I once toyed around with a science fiction idea that involved humanoid-fungi beings on another planet who were connected by a vast underground mycelium network - so this is resonating all over the place with me now 🍄
Thanks for the inspiration!!
Hmm … I was totally tripped out by Bombadil during this read-through. The last time I read LOTR was as a teenager with no experience of psychedelics. As a muuuuch older adult, doing this book group, I was struck by the weirdness of the interlude in his domain. (Weird in a good way — the strange passage of time, the wandering thoughts.) Curious to read what you’ve got brewing about Goldberry!
It is literally trippy, isn’t it?