Tuesday 8 February 2011

Tolkien Transactions IX

January 2011

So, we have now reached the ninth issue of my attempt to extract the best (in my highly subjective estimate) of Tolkien related ‘goings-on’ on the 'net. This issue is a little delayed, for which I apologize: an unfortunate combination of business both in the on-line Tolkien world and in my own work and private life — there are, after all, times when, against all rational logic, other things must be prioritized before Tolkien . . .

All the usual disclaimers apply about newness, completeness and relevance (or any other implication of responsibility) :-)


= = = = Sources = = = =

John D. Rateliff (JDR) — “Sacnoth's Scriptorium”
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com

Jason Fisher (JF) — “Lingwë — Musings of a Fish”
http://lingwe.blogspot.com

Michael Drout (MD) — “Wormtalk and Slugspeak”
http://wormtalk.blogspot.com/

Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull (H&S) — “Too Many Books and Never Enough”
http://wayneandchristina.wordpress.com/

Pieter Collier (PC) — “The Tolkien Library”
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/

Douglas A. Anderson (DAA) et Al. — “Wormwoodiana”
http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com

Corey Olsen (CO), “The Tolkien Professor”
http://www.tolkienprofessor.com

David Bratman (DB), “Calimac”
http://calimac.livejournal.com/

Larry Swain (LS), “The Ruminate”
http://theruminate.blogspot.com

‘Wellinghall', “Musings of an Aging Fan”
http://wellinghall.livejournal.com

Various, ‘The Northeast Tolkien Society' (NETS), “Heren Istarion”
http://herenistarionnets.blogspot.com

Bruce Charlton (BC), “Tolkien's The Notion Club Papers”
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/

Andrew Higgins (AH), “Wotan's Musings”
http://wotanselvishmusings.blogspot.com

Various, The Mythopoeic Society
http://www.mythsoc.org

Troels Forchhammer (TF), “Parmar-kenta”
http://parmarkenta.blogspot.com

Mythprint — ‘The Monthly Bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society'
http://www.mythsoc.org

Amon Hen — the Bulletin of the Tolkien Society
http://www.tolkiensociety.org/

— and others


= = = = News = = = =

Tuesday, 4 January 2011, “Iran to celebrate J.R.R. Tolkien’s birthday”
http://www.ibna.ir/vdcauino.49nuw1gtk4.html
Just a curious little bit of information out of a country that is not exactly known for its openess to Western culture. Iran's Association of Children and Teenager's Authors celebrated Tolkien's birthday, and the Fantasy Academy of Iran held its first session this winter on assessing Tolkien's work.

DB, Thursday, 6 January 2011, “Words by JRRT”
http://calimac.livejournal.com/494746.html
David Bratman discusses music that is not only inspired by Tolkien's work, but which actually sets music to Tolkien's words. It appears that the Tolkien Estate has adopted a policy of not allowing anyone to do this any longer (apparently this was done ‘some years ago'), leaving the Danish/English Tolkien Ensemble to be the last to set music to Tolkien words and publish — at least for some time.

H&S, Sunday, 9 January 2011, “The Tolkien Collector no. 31”
http://wayneandchristina.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/the-tolkien-collector-no-31/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5rgpbpr
Wayne and Christina announce that issue no. 31 of The Tolkien Collector is ‘almost ready for posting to subscribers.'

JC, Thursday, 20 January 2011, “A new trend on Youtube — Reading the books by JRR Tolkien”
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/977-Reading_Tolkien_on_YouTube_trend.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/643rxck
Apparently fans reading out of Tolkien's books has become a new trend on YouTube. Pieter gives some examples and some background.

PC, Sunday, 23 January 2011, “Overview of JRR Tolkien related news from last week”
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/980-Tolkien_news_last_week.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4mklw5x
Pieter Collier has begun to make a weekly overview of Tolkien-related items in the news. Some of these items will also appear on my list, but most probably will not. You can find these, and other articles that I do not include here, in the archives of Pieter's Tolkien Library website: http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/archives.php

‘Trotter', Sunday, 30 January 2011, “Year's Work and Review of English Studies”
http://www.tolkienguide.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=1454&forum=9
http://preview.tinyurl.com/47vt8k5
Links to a number of articles by Tolkien in various Oxford publications — unfortunately one does need to have access rights (and I don't know how to get that).

DAA, Sunday, 30 January 2011, “Wormwood indexed, also Avallaunius, Faunus and Tolkien Studies”
http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2011/01/wormwood-indexed-also-avallaunius.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6azljff
Douglas A. Anderson announces an on-line database of magazines that has now indexed some journals that he is involved with, including Tolkien Studies. The database is available at http://www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/0start.htm


= = = = Essays and Scholarship = = = =

ArwenAmidala, Saturday, 1 January 2011, “Survival of the Tolkienist.”
http://herenistarionnets.blogspot.com/2011/01/survial-of-tolkienist.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/65ballu
A collection of four ‘reaction papers' addressing some very different aspects of Tolkien's work, The Lord of the Rings, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, The Children of Húrin, The Silmarillion and probably other stuff that I have already forgotten ;) Quite interesting — there are some things that I don't necessarily agree with, which I consider a high quality, since, at least in this case, it shows that the analysis and opinions are not merely indifferent.

BC, Monday, 3 January 2011, “Tolkien and the sea-yearning — the meaning of Earendil”
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/01/tolkien-and-sea-yearning-meaning-of.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/64dhtdm
The two key passages, in my opinion, are
I think Tolkien regarded the sea longing as an aspect or representation of saintliness, where sainthood is conceptualized as being a link between the earthly and heavenly realms, the saint as intercessor for humankind with God.
and
He [...] wrote about those individuals (and races) who were subject to this sea-yearning, and seemed to accord them the highest esteem — yet I would guess Tolkien himself did not directly share this yearning, which is why he wrote comparatively little about the sea itself, and even less about the experience of sea-going.
It is a very interesting idea, and I should very much like to hear your comments on this.

AH, Monday, 3 January 2011, “Wagner and Tolkien Thread: Strange Ring Fellows”
http://wotanselvishmusings.blogspot.com/2011/01/wagner-and-tolkien-thread-strange-ring.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6ennvsb
Andrew continues his investigations into similarities, parallels, or whatever we wish to call it, between Wagner and Tolkien. Personally I don't like Wagner, and I am aware that this makes me more sceptical than I would probably otherwise be, but I do try to keep an open mind, and Andrew's posts are generally quite interesting.

BC, Friday, 7 January 2011, “The essential meaning and purpose of the Notion Club Papers”
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/01/essential-meaning-and-purpose-of-notion.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5ru5rjn
Bruce Charlton is moving on from the specific to the general. Admitting that he has been brooding obsessively (his own words!) over the Notion Club Papers (NCP), he takes a stab at the ultimate intention behind the text. In essence he thinks that the NCP was supposed to establish the link between the mythical world of his legendarium and the modern world: a replacing of the Eriol / Aelfwine figure.

DB, Saturday, 8 January 2011, “the Inklings in fiction”
http://calimac.livejournal.com/494909.html
Announcing an update of his list of fictionalisations of Inklings, either individually or as a group, David Bratman has a list that is much longer than I had thought, currently ranging from 1933 to 2010.

BC, Saturday, 8 January 2011, “Curing the ‘vulgarization' of England — from Smith of Wootton Major”
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/01/curing-vulgarization-of-england-from.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6bq42g7
Continuing from his entry on “[t]the essential meaning and purpose of the Notion Club Papers”, Bruce Charlton here combines his ideas on what Tolkien was trying to achieve with the Notion Club Papers with what is know about Tolkien's thoughts on his short story ‘Smith of Wootton Major'. As usual Charlton's observations are interesting and non-obvious.

BC, Friday, 21 January 2011, “An imaginary completed Notion Club Papers — form and character”
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/01/imaginary-completed-notion-club-papers.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4vkdykf
This was a busy day on Bruce Charlton's blog. In this first entry on this day he shares some ideas and thoughts on what a the Notion Club Papers might have looked like if Tolkien had ever finished them — the ideas presented here are then built upon in the following entries published on this Friday.

BC, Friday, 21 January 2011, “Who is Dolbear? A wizard/ angel/ messenger from Faery”
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/01/who-is-dolbear-wizard-angel-messenger.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/49d4ke8
A good thing about Charlton's Notion Club Papers blog is that he normally uses a title that actually tells you what he is discussing in the entry — an old-fashioned virtue, I know, but I like it ;-) Dolbear is a character in the Notion Club Papers, and Charlton here ponders the significance of this character, speculating that he may be a kind of messenger from Faërie or a human link to Faërie. This links to some of the things that Charlton said in earlier entries this month about the inhabitants of Faërie actively seeking to renew the links between Faërie and the world of humans.

ArwenAmidala, Friday, 21 January 2011, “In which I argue against the Professor with great fear and trepidation.”
http://herenistarionnets.blogspot.com/2011/01/in-which-i-argue-against-professor-with.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5r6jkrw
ArwenAmidala discusses the Battle of Maldon and Tolkien's interpretation. Taking into account Tolkien's propensity for rhetorics[*], I am not convinced that she is actually arguing so much against Tolkien. It appears to me that Tolkien's main point was that the use of ofermod is meant negatively, and it does not appear that she disagrees with this. (Of course, to a Dane it is very hard to imagine that the word could be positive: the Danish word overmod does mean excessive pride / self-confidence / courage).
[*] See for instance also the essays by Michael Drout and Tom Shippey in LotR Plaza's Scholars’ Forum:
http://www.lotrplaza.com/forum/forum_topics.asp?FID=77&title=scholars-forum
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6fkcn9j

BC, Friday, 21 January 2011, “The Notion Club Papers — why England, why Oxford?”
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/01/notion-club-papers-why-england-why.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6kh9gjh
It will not have escaped the notice of the observant reader that I am rather fond of Bruce Charlton's Notion Club Papers blog. A part of this is that he often comes up with ideas and thoughts that I would not have thought of myself. Of course that also means that I am often not convinced by his arguments, but it is nonetheless interesting to see his ideas. This entry, in which he discusses the reasons why the Notion Club Papers are set in Oxford, England, is a good example of ideas that are interesting and thought-provoking even though I don't think he is entirely right.

AH, Saturday, 29 January 2011, “Langon — The Mouth of Melko — Some Etymological Detective Work”
http://wotanselvishmusings.blogspot.com/2011/01/langon-mouth-of-melko.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4j6f3h8
An interesting piece of analysis by Andy Higgins — Langon, the Mouth of Melko, indeed!


= = = = Reviews = = = =

Remember to keep an eye on http://www.mythsoc.org/reviews/ where the Mythopoeic Society is publishing review — many of which have previously appeared in either Mythprint or Mythlore. This month we got, among others, Jason Fisher's review of Dimitra Fimi's 2009 book, Tolkien, Race and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits that first appeared in Mythlore 111/112 (Fall/winter 2010).

Wednesday, 5 January 2011, “Tolkien's Double Worlds and Creative Process by Arne Zettersten”
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/963-Tolkien_Double_Worlds_Creative_Process.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5r5mzn4
Not so much a review, actually, but rather a bit of reminiscing about meeting Arne Zettersten (and others) along with an announcement of Zettersten's upcoming book.

AH, Saturday, 15 January 2011, “Looking for the King — An Inklings Novel By David Downing — A Review”
http://wotanselvishmusings.blogspot.com/2011/01/looking-for-king-inklings-novel-by.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/62nbzhr
There has been a bit of attention for this particular book. The author is professor of English at Elizabethtown College and a well-known Lewis scholar, and the dialogue he gives to the inklings is drawn from what they have actually said or written. Andy Higgins is positive about the book, though not as overwhelming as Pieter Collier was (see the transactions for November 2010).

JF, Monday, 24 January 2011, “Middle-earth and Beyond — first look!”
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/01/middle-earth-and-beyond-first-look.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5wq9zdy
More information on the upcoming collection edited by Kathleen Dubs and Janka Kašcáková, Middle-earth and Beyond: Essays on the World of J.R.R. Tolkien. Another collection of critical essays on Tolkien's work, arguing that it is different because the editors say so. Thinking of the volumes that sit unread on my shelves, I think it's going to take a couple of positive reviews to convince me to buy this volume.

JF, Friday, 28 January 28 2011, “The Bones of the Ox”
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/01/bones-of-ox.html
Following in the tradition that I have established of including announcements of books in the review section, we have here Jason Fisher's announcement that his book (as editor and contributor), The Bones of the Ox”: J.R.R. Tolkien and Source Criticism is forthcoming. This is one book that I am fairly sure that I will buy, if nothing else then because Jason describes its purpose as being in part ‘to explain and justify source criticism as a valid critical approach to Tolkien’s works'. Being somewhat wary of source criticism myself (it can be done very well, I think, but there are many examples where it is not), a book that sets out to justify it, and to ‘lay out a systematic methodology for how it ought to be conducted' will be a good opportunity to get a vocabulary to express what I think is good and useful about source criticism and to express my own critique of source criticism (the bad kind).


= = = = Interesting discussions = = = =

AH, Saturday, 8 January 2011, “The History of Middle Earth — A Chapter by Chapter Exploration”
http://wotanselvishmusings.blogspot.com/2011/01/history-of-middle-earth-chapter-by.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6hanqnv
This is not the discussion in itself, but it inspired by a kind of ‘Chapter of the Week' concept sprung from the Tolkien course given by Dimitra Fimi. Unfortunately they have chosen to use Facebook for this extremely interesting project, and the discussion interface on Facebook is abominably bad, so my expectations for this are not too high (already the amount of posts for each chapter seem to be petering out). Still, there is some intersting comments in some of the first chapters, and Dimitra Fimi has contributed some comments.

Various, “Master of Words, by Words Mastered”
http://www.lotrplaza.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=239720
The thread is started in December, but I have not become aware of it before January. The overall theme is to explore the relationship between Tolkien's philological work and his fictional work. One of the things that seem to be emerging is a view of Tolkien not as a family man, a philogist, a poet and an epic author, but as one whole person whose personality found outlets in various ways. The main focus, however, is Tolkien's relationship to words and language and how this has influenced all his work.


= = = = Other Stuff = = = =

Comments, idle thoughts, curious articles and what-nots that don't really fit in any of the other categories that I have created.

3 January 2011, “Becoming J.R.R. Tolkien”
http://www.legacy.com/ns/news-story.aspx?t=becoming-jrr-tolkien&id=206
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6jak566
A nice enough little piece on Legacy.com about some of Tolkien's sources of inspiration. There is nothing new or controversial here (though it is not entirely precise in all details), and I include it mostly as an example of the tributes to Tolkien on the occasion of his birthday.

BC, Wednesday, 5 January 2011, “A superhero Fellowship of the Ring”
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/01/superhero-fellowship-of-ring.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/48z7wpa
Charlton is playing with the idea of creating a more high-powered fellowship to take the Ring to Mount Doom. Personally I disagree strongly with his assessment of Sam, but it's a funny idea in any case.

Justin Olivetti, Friday, 7 January 2011, “The Road to Mordor: The Professor”
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/01/07/the-road-to-mordor-the-professor/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/645vhbu
A tribute to the Professor from a gamer of ‘The Lord of the Rings On-line' game, detailing for other gamers a quest-chain within the game that is a tribute to Tolkien. Perhaps one ought to try out this game one day . . .

JDR, Friday, 7 January 2011, “A Tolkienian Puzzle”
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/01/tolienian-puzzle.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5ta8f5w
In essence John Rateliff is asking what made Tolkien choose to abandon the prose format of The Book of Lost Tales and adopt the narrative poetic format of the The Lays of Beleriand. He spends a bit more thought on it, but doesn't come up with any suggestions. Any takers?

PC, Friday, 7 January 2011, “Avoid Bying Fake Tolkien Signatures on Ebay”
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/965-Avoid_Buying_Fake_Tolkien_Signatures.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/48yyved
Sound advice from Pieter Collier, who not only advises you to avoid the fake signatures (I could have done that), but also on how you can go about at least reducing the risk of buying a fake Tolkien signature.

BC, Sunday, 23 January 2011, “Free-will, purpose, prophecy and providence in Tolkien”
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/01/free-will-purpose-prophecy-and.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4pz57gt
Quoting from ‘The Quest of Erebor' as published in Unfinished Tales, Bruce Charlton makes the following statements:
The Lord of the Rings is permeated by a deep understanding
of the Christian concept of how free-will is compatible
with with purpose, prophecy and providence.

When such matters seem seem paradoxical, or merely muddled,
this is well worth pondering.
I agree on this (obviously — I have myself spent quite some time pondering this), and though I don't really think that a blog is an appropriate medium for that discussion, I do hope that Charlton will take up the thread in another blog entry.

AH, Sunday, 23 January 2011, “To Have and To Have Not”
http://wotanselvishmusings.blogspot.com/2011/01/to-have-and-to-have-not.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6cxbacl
Andy Higgins is learning Finnish and in that connection he shares some thoughts on how the idea of ‘to have' is phrased in some non-Germanic languages.

PC, Monday, 24 January 2011, “The amazing art of bookbinding”
Pieter Collier has made a series of articles on bindings for Tolkien's books, where he looks at some absolutely fabulous bindings — the good thing is that the price of these is so high that it is likely to stay outside my reach forever: that way I can read the articles without getting any ‘my precious' urges ;-)
So far this series comprises:
“The Lord of the Rings — Part 1”
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/981-Book_art_book_binding_lord_of_the_rings.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4rb3seh
“The Lord of the Rings — Part 2”
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/982-Book_art_book_binding_lord_of_the_rings_2.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5rhrxxs
“The Hobbit”
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/983-Book_art_book_binding_The_Hobbit.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5rhcdjb
“The Silmarillion”
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/984-Book_art_book_binding_The_Silmarillion.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4wg9omt

PC, Monday, 31 January 2011, “The most expensive copies of The Hobbit in the World — Association Copies”
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/987-The_Hobbit_Association_Copies.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5v79bkl
Following up on his articles on rebound (and very expensive) copies of Tolkien's books, Pieter here goes through some of the most expensive copies of The Hobbit that have been sold on auctions — the top scorer being sold at a staggering £60,000!


Troels Forchhammer

Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.
- Reaper Man (Terry Pratchett)

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