Not to hog the thread, but here are my notes on Chapter 4:
Treebeard
Immediately, there is a change of pace. They are not only heading into the woods, but heading "deeper and deeper into Fangorn." Fear of orcs fades, replaced by "A queer stifling feeling... as if the air were too thin or too scanty for breathing."
It almost feels like we're back in the Old Forest, huh? Although Pippin is reminded instead of home:
Pippin wrote: It reminds me, somehow, of the old room in the Great Place of the Tooks away back in the Smials at Tuckborough: a huge place, where the furniture has never been moved or changed for generations. They say the Old Took lived in it year after year, while he and the room got older and shabbier together -- and it has never been changed since he died, a century ago. And Old Gerontius was my great-great-grandfather: that puts it back a bit. But that is nothing to the old feeling of this wood. Look at all those weeping, trailing, bears and whiskers of lichen! And most of the trees seem to be half covered with ragged dry leaves that have never fallen. Untidy. I can't imagine what spring would look like here, if it ever comes; still less a spring-cleaning.'
Merry, though, comforts him -- this is no Mirkwood, no home of "dark black things." It is just... tree-ish.
They climb a hill, just as they did in the old Forest, to get above the tree-tops... but this time, it works better. The wood almost looks pleasant, and Pippin "almost felt [he] liked the place."
Enter Treebeard. Neckless, Troll-like, Bark-skinned and seven-toed. I want to say that the cave troll in Mazarbul has too few toes... Can anyone confirm that? At any rate, he does not like Merry or Pippin much at all: They look like orcs, but then he likes their voices and does not wish to be hasty. Here, that slow movement saves their life. At any rate he is not quick to trust: he doesn't tell them his own name for himself, and thinks them hasty in telling him theirs. As a small note, he also says that "Elves made all the long words: they began it." This is just a sweet little note -- a reminder that language is an elvish invention, hence "Quendi" as their first name for themselves: those who speak with voices.
He asks them for news, anyway, and brings up Gandalf -- and the Orcs, and Saruman, who he calls "young Saruman", which I've always liked. He also says that Gandalf is "the only wizard that really cares about trees,", which feels odd. Does Radagast not? Does Treebeard just not know Radagast? But if he doesn't, then does he only know Gandalf and Saruman? Or the Blue Wizards, perhaps? No -- it seems easier to say that for some reason, Treebeard doesn't consider Radagast to
really care about trees.
He also corrects their grammar: He will not do anything with them, so long as by
with what they mean is
to them. Treebeard does have a bit of the schoolboy about him, doesn't he? What with the lists, and the grammar, and so on.
He also does Celeborn sort of dirty, suggesting that they have gotten behind the times. That being said, he does suggest that Fangorn -- like Lothlorien -- is a perilous place, and that they are lucky to ever get in or out. There are, as he says, Ents and things which only look like Ents. There are dark things in the wood...
And, at last, somebody makes the connection to the Old Forest. Surprisingly, Treebeard knows what that is, by that name.
Treebeard remembers ages past, when the Elves first woke the trees. They were always eager to speak to things, he says.
Quendi indeed. There's tragedy here, and as much as he seems to tease the elves for singing only of things which will never come again, he too sings of that which is lost.
They come then to Wellinghall, and drink the ent-draught. It seems to just be water -- albeit enchanted water, since Treebeard gives us a clearer look at "magic" in
LoTR than we get from anyone else, save Gandalf, when he makes the waters (and the trees around them) glow.
They tell Treebeard their story (sans Ring) and he has some interesting thoughts. Clearly the world is changing again, but for now he is not caught up in it: Not on anyone's side, because nobody is on his side, not even the Elves. This is a fascinating wrinkle -- although Treebeard does thank the elves for "curing us of dumbness," he still does not feel that they are truly on the side of the Ents. Why?
And yet... Treebeard is not inactive. He admits that he has been idle, and has let things slip. No longer!
Thank god, also, for Merry, who paid attention in Rivendell and is able to give Pippin some exposition on just what Isengard actually is here. I honestly think the simplifying of Merry and Pippin into essentially the same character is a loss of the film's -- Merry's age comes out here, as he's teaching his friend.
They spend some time with Bregalad, Quickbeam, who seems to be something of an Ent radical. He has already made up his mind: they must march. And then... they wait. They wait. They wait. Three days of an Entmoot, and then everything changes.
I understand why PJ changed this so much, I really do -- but man, in shifting it, making the decision to march on Isengard a gut reaction to suddenly realizing that the orcs were cutting the forest, so much is ruined about this moment. Treebeard makes it clear: they have been under attack for a
long, long time, and this desire has been slowly building in their hearts. This isn't a Chamberlain appeasement-party situation: this is the dam, finally burst.
The chapter ends in dusk and moving trees, and Pippin seems halfway dreaming again: Night has come to Isengard.
I nearly freaked out but fortunately my text was still there, lol! Our kids listen that 'song' a lot. 
:-D I finally had time to read too, this afternoon. Almost finished Treebeard and loved every bit of it so far. Hopefully I get time tomorrow to finish it and write something about it. Next week is going to be very busy but the week after all our family has autumn break and we hope to either spend it in the mountains of Austria or, if our country gets locked down again (we are on the brink of it...), at home. Either way I'll have lots of time to read!
And Gandalf gets great honor and a wonderful title in the Mark from King Théoden. 
)
