Into the Wardrobe

As to Smeagol's knowledge, I'd favor the "Ring's Cry For Help" hypothesis: remember that Its power increased as It neared Mount Doom, and that It exercised a nearly absolute control over Gollum's mind. So he would not have been able to articulate--- to himself, even--- that he was saving It from destruction, only that he must get It back from the Hobbitsses at all costs. He was not acting under his own will or power, but as the hand of that power which was The Ring.

Careful. I'm not sure Tolkien meant the Ring to be a wholly Manichean* manifestation of evil. It is corruptive, certainly, but not autonomous. I'm with Shippey (The Road to Middle-Earth, who sees the Ring's power as an 'addiction'.

To sum up,

'Maybe all sins need some combination of external prompting and inner weakness. At any rate, on this level of narrative one can say that The Lord of the Rings is neither a saint's life, all about temptation, nor a complicated wargame, all about tactics. It would be a much lesser work if it had swerved towards either extreme.'

I think that it is the Ring's addictive power that compels Gollum to follow Frodo and Sam. The Ring's 'call' is none other but the drug-user's craving.

*Manichean view of evil is as a positive, external force. Boethian (orthodox Christian) view of evil is as the absence of good; zero.

I think you're right that the "call" of the Ring is half the will of Sauron exerting itself and half the weakness or willingness of the subject to listen.

I thought I'd revive this thread with a little tidbit that I just noticed while watching Fellowship of the Ring.
When Gandalf finds the old parchment with the "Account of Isildur and the Finding of the Ring of Power", he reads that the writing on the ring is a "secret that now only fire can tell."
And I was reminded that Gandalf had Narya, the Ring of Fire. Interesting too, that when Bilbo finally lets the ring go and Gandalf turns back into the house, Gandalf reaches to pick up the ring but he receives a sort of "flash" or "vision" of Sauron's Eye, and doesn't attempt to touch the ring.
Perhaps Gandalf had that "flash" because Gandalf had the Ring of Fire and only fire can tell the secret of the identity of the Ring.

I'm not very good at explaining it, I'm afraid. Is it clear what I'm saying? Anyway, I thought it was an interesting little aside about Gandalf's ring of fire giving him the "second sight" to see the true power of the one Ring.

I'm reading FotR with my son (age 7) now and having a wonderful time of it. Anyway, tonight we were reading in the next to last chapter about how Sam and Frodo discussed Gollum following them, and then Aragorn declares they will have to travel by night. Daniel wanted to know why travelling by night would help them if 1) Gollum prefers to go about by night, and 2) orcs also prefer to go by night.

Indeed, they have enemies to fear by day as well, but if they are being followed in the night by creatures with excellent night-vision, night hardly seems to lend them much added safety.

Oh well... we are loving these books. Even though it was almost midnight when we stopped tonight (we're on a pretty nasty schedule at the moment), he begged to go on. But we'll wait and finish tomorrow. Then we have to go buy a copy of The Two Towers because I didn't bring one with us to Kyiv, and we need something to read to get us through the upcoming long train trips we'll be making.