Parma-kenta

Saturday, 5 November 2011

Tolkien Transactions XVIII

October 2011

So, October. That's my birthday month, and I treated myself to a couple of new Tolkien books: The Art of the Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien edited by Wayne G Hammond and Christina Scull, A Tolkien Tapestry: Pictures to accompany The Lord of the Rings by Cor Blok edited by Pieter Collier, and Parma Eldalamberon XV - 'Si Qente Feanor & Other Elvish Writings_. They have now all arrived, and I'm looking forward to get more acquainted with them (having so far only found time for a brief perousal of each). I've saved a little for Flieger's Green Suns and Faerie: Essays on J. R. R. Tolkien, but that was unavailable when I ordered.

Also, I have finished reading Jason Fisher's book, Tolkien and the Study of his Sources — another very good book overall (though also with a few examples of less excellent scholarship).

Reviews of all will be forthcoming here on Parmar-kenta when I find the time.

But the Tolkien Transactions is (mainly) about the internet and what is going on there that I have found interesting.

= = = = News = = = =

Pat Reynolds, The Return of the Ring, Sunday, 2 October 2011, ‘Special Guest: Jef Murray’
http://returnofthering.livejournal.com/3181.html
What it says . . .

Pat Reynolds, The Return of the Ring, Sunday, 9 October 2011, ‘Special Guest: Ted Nasmith’
http://returnofthering.livejournal.com/3515.html
Again, as per the headline.

Rene van Rossenberg, Wednesday, 12 October 2011, ‘25th Anniversary of Tolkien Shop Report’
http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2011/10/12/48984-25th-anniversary-of-tolkien-shop-report/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6bxc7o3
A brief report from the silver anniversary of the Tolkien Shop: the only (physical) store in the world dedicated entirely to Tolkien. For the shop itself see http://www.tolkienshop.com/.

= = = = Essays and Scholarship = = = =

Matthew R. Bardowell, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, Friday, 1 January 2010, ‘J. R. R. Tolkien's creative ethic and its Finnish analogues’
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/J.+R.+R.+Tolkien's+creative+ethic+and+its+Finnish+analogues.-a0218950941
http://preview.tinyurl.com/69o3cx9
This brilliant source study investigates, as the title suggests, the influence of the Finnish Kalevala on Tolkien's writings, but does so at another level than much other source criticism. Bardowell looks into the thematic content by studying the ethics of creation that underlie the two works and comparing these, he concludes that Tolkien was indeed influenced by the Finnish epic. The beauty of this is that regardless of whether, or how far, you agree with Bardowell, you can probably learn something about Tolkien by reading this article: if nothing else, it can be read as an excellent example of comparative criticism.

AH, Sunday, 2 October 2011, ‘Across the Bridge of Tavrobel’
http://wotanselvishmusings.blogspot.com/2011/10/trip-to-tavrobel.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6xesheo
Andy Higgins has been on a trip to Great and Little Haywood and Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire in search of Tolkien's Tavrobel from The Book of Lost Tales, and he claims to have stood on the ‘Bridge of Tavrobel’ though he is not sure that he really did see Gilfanon's house, the ‘House of the Hundred Chimneys’ when looking at Shugborough Hall.

MM, Monday, 3 October 2011, ‘Why is Middle-earth Segregated in The Hobbit?’
http://middle-earth.xenite.org/2011/10/03/why-is-middle-earth-segregated-in-the-hobbit/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6f4737t
The segregation here seems to refer to the (relative) isolation of the communities that Bilbo and the Dwarves pass through: the Shire, Rivendell, Beorn's house, the Elvenking's halls and Lake Town. Of all these only the last two seem to have some kind of communication, whereas in The Lord of the Rings it is evident that these far-flung pockets of civilisation are all in communication, even if there is no regular post-service outside the Shire.

JF, Sunday, 9 October 2011, ‘The Poros and the Bosphorus’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/10/poros-and-borphorus.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6jy4d4g
Jason Fisher proposes a speculative Primary World derivation of the name of the Poros — the river that flows from the Ephel Duath into the Anduin and forms the southern border of Ithilien — by suggesting the Greet word Poros, the last element of Bosphorus. Jason's hypothesis certainly seems possible to me, but it will require stronger evidence to finally convince me (and even stronger evidence to convince me that it was a deliberate choice by Tolkien). The ensuing discussion in the comments to the blog is quite interesting as well, so be sure to read the comments also.

AH, Sunday, 9 October 2011, ‘Be Very Qwiet, I am Hunting Tolkienian Woodwoses’
http://wotanselvishmusings.blogspot.com/2011/10/be-very-quiet-i-am-hunting-tolkienian.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6hrgd97
Andy Higgins is hunting Tolkien's use of woodwoses in his fiction — a very interesting study that includes occurences in the Anglo-Saxon sources that Tolkien worked with.

BC, Tuesday, 11 October 2011, ‘From Hobbit-sequel to Lord of the Rings - the role of The Notion Club Papers’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/10/lord-of-rings-mostly-equals-hobbit-plus.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6fybzyb
Bruce Charlton here argues that the Lewis / Tolkien agreement that led to the space trilogy for Lewis and to the Lost Road and the Notion Club Papers_ for Tolkien was, for both authors a turning point that led their mythopoeia in new directions. The further claim that The Lord of the Rings would never have become other than a new Hobbit — a book of the same style as The Hobbit — without the impetus from The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers and that Tolkien's evolving Silmarillion mythology had less to do with the ‘growing up’ of the Hobbit sequel seems to me to require extraordinary evidence.

Lynn Forest-Hill, Wednesday, 19 October 2011, ‘Tolkien and Bevis: romancing the foundation of myth’
http://www.lotrplaza.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=242515
http://preview.tinyurl.com/655e7wq
Another excellent contribution to the ‘Scholars’ Forum' series at The Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza website, Forest-Hill discusses the role of medieval romances in general as inspiration for Tolkien, and that of Bevis of Hampton in particular.

MM, Wednesday, 19 October 2011, ‘Were There Two Thrains in the Original Hobbit or Just One Thrain?’
http://middle-earth.xenite.org/2011/10/19/were-there-two-thrains-in-the-original-hobbit-or-just-one-thrain/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6crn5e8
A discussion that has, at times, been conducted with some heat, Martinez here ends on the conclusion that ‘J.R.R. Tolkien accidentally created two Thrains in the first edition of The Hobbit and he had to both acknowledge this error and fix it in the next edition’. This seems to me a fair representation of my understanding also — I might have wished to stress the inadvertent nature of the accident, but that's mere dressing. Another way to have fixed the error could of course have been to remove the superfluous Thrain, but I think that Tolkien was more apt to invent a story that made the error not an error but an oversight: ‘Ooops, did I forget to tell you more about that other Thrain (whom I had no idea existed)? Sorry about that, but here goes:’ ;-)

= = = = Book News = = = =

Damien Bador, Mythprint, Tuesday, 4 October 2011, ‘Tolkien and Wales’
http://www.mythsoc.org/reviews/tolkien-and%C2%A0wales/
‘This review originally appeared in Mythprint 48:7 (#348) in July 2011.’
Damien Bador finds Phelpstead's book sligtly more academic in style than I did, but he, too, is generally positive about Tolkien and Wales.

JDR, Friday, 14 October 2011, ‘New Tolkien Calendar’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/10/new-tolkien-calendar.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6a3u7qd
John Rateliff still doesn't like Cor Blok's art, but nonetheless has bought the 2012 Tolkien Calendar in which it features.

JDR, Sunday, 16 October 2011, ‘The New Arrival: Ruud's Companion’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/10/new-arrival-ruuds-companion.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5uf3lg5
John Rateliff reviews Jay Rudd's Critical Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work ending ‘So, my initial impression: an impressive achievement, but to be used with some caution.’ At $75 it may be a little too expensive for most amateur enthusiasts such as myself: in particular with comments such as this (also John Rateliff's comment that the commentary on The Hobbit that follows the plot summary ‘is a bit eccentric’).

Benedicte Page, The Bookseller, Monday, 17 October 2011, ‘HarperCollins pre-empts Hobbit anniversary’
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/harpercollins-pre-empts-hobbit-anniversary.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6bjohxz
The big story is of course the publishing of The Art of the Hobbit edited Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull that contains many previously unpublished sketches and illustrations that Tolkien made for The Hobbit, but this is accompanied by the release of a single-volume revised edition of John Rateliff's The History of the Hobbit, a pocket-sized Hobbit and a 75th-anniversary boxed-set edition of The Hobbit along with The Lord of the Rings. All of this is to start the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of The Hobbit next year.
The news are taken up in several other news-outlets, a few of which are :
PC, Wednesday, 19 October 2011, ‘HarperCollins pre-empts The Hobbit anniversary’
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/1013-Pocket_Hobbit_JRR_Tolkien.php?436
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5tpjjux
The Tolkien Library story.
Paul Bignell, The Independent, Sunday, 23 October 2011, ‘Lost Hobbit images get first showing’
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/lost-hobbit-images-get-first-showing-2374676.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3b6oxap
This article contains a number of . . . shall we just say ‘dramatic exaggerations’ and leave it at that :-)
Alison Flood, The Guardian, Monday, 24 October 2011, ‘Tolkien's Hobbit drawings published to mark 75th anniversary’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/oct/24/tolkien-hobbit-drawings-published
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4yqtzgh
Associated with this article from The Guardian is also a gallery of some of the pictures from the new book.
This is just a small sampling of the many articles on the beginning of the celebrations of next year's anniversary, most of them focusing on The Art of the Hobbit: congratulations to Christina Scull and Wayne Hammond for their achievement — the book is a delight (so far I have only had time to skim the book and enjoy the pictures).

AH, Sunday, 23 October 2011, ‘From Dragons and Swords to Motor Cars and Gaffers’
http://wotanselvishmusings.blogspot.com/2011/10/from-dragons-and-swords-to-motor-cars.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3btbsqj
Andy Higgins makes me want to read _Mr Bliss_! His investigation into Tolkien's use of ‘Gaffer Gamgee’ draws on published letters (nos. 76 and 257 being the primarily relevant, but also nos. 144 and 184), but it is mainly his enthusiasm about the story itself that I find contagious (my immune system being particularly weak against that kind of contagion).

= = = = Interviews = = = =

MM, Friday, 14 October 2011, ‘Interviews With The Scholars’
http://middle-earth.xenite.org/2011/10/14/interviews-with-the-scholars/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/662dmmo
Michael Martinez here introduces his commendable new series of e-mail interviews with known Tolkien scholars.

MM, Friday, 14 October 2011, ‘An Interview with Janet Brennan Croft’
http://middle-earth.xenite.org/2011/10/14/an-interview-with-janet-brennan-croft/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5u2g9lc
A very interesting interview ranging in topics from the personal (first encounter with Tolkien) over reflections on the state of Tolkien scholarship today to the interpretative.

MM, Friday, 21 October 2011, ‘An Interview with John Rateliff’
http://middle-earth.xenite.org/2011/10/21/an-interview-with-john-rateliff/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6kb5dkk
An excellent interview that, naturally, focuses on The Hobbit along with the two editions of John Rateliff's book.

MM, Friday, 28 October 2011, ‘An Interview with Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull’
http://middle-earth.xenite.org/2011/10/28/an-interview-with-wayne-hammond-and-christina-scull/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/66fhdeo
The interview with Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull is far-ranging and highly interesting. It obviously touches on the newest book from their hand, The Art of the Hobbit as well as the earlier J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator and a number of the other books, essays, papers and not least falsifications that they have contributed to the study of Tolkien.

= = = = Other Stuff = = = =

Byron Jennings, Friday, 2 September 2011, ‘Is that a fact?’
http://www.quantumdiaries.org/2011/09/02/is-that-a-fact/
What I found particularly interesting in a Tolkien context about this blog (that has a completely different focus) is the description attributed to Carl Weiman about the different views of novices and experts. While the terms are, of course, debatable when applied to a wholly different field of study, I think there is a useful reminder in the distinction between those who seek ‘a catalogue of facts’ and those who ‘sees patterns, relationships and organization but has no catalogue of true statements.’ I argue that these views do exist also in Tolkien studies and that they are to some extent incommensurate (though I think also that it is a more gradual transition and only the end-points, which very few occupy, are truly incommensurate), and that it often useful in a discussion to realize what is the starting point, the perspective, of the other participants.

MM, Wednesday, 21 September 2011, ‘The Much Bemusing Bloggery of Online Tolkien Scholarli’
http://blog.tolkien-studies.com/2011/09/21/the-much-bemusing-bloggery-of-online-tolkien-scholarli/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6eahwqu
Martinez shares a list of various blogs and websites that he considers ‘people who, in [his] opinion, have something credible and interesting to say about J.R.R. Tolkien, Middle-earth, or some of his linguistic or other classical interests.’ There was a few blogs and sites there that I didn't have on my lists (thanks, Michael!), and though many of these seems to only occasionally have something to say that will appear here, some of them will doubtlessly eventually make the list of sources below (I follow many more blogs and sites than those listed: the listed ones are only those that I refer to regularly in this collection).

MM, Wednesday, 5 October 2011, ‘Did J.R.R. Tolkien Invent Orcs?’
http://middle-earth.xenite.org/2011/10/05/did-j-r-r-tolkien-invent-orcs/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/64jyqep
I've been interested in the Orcs lately, and was interested to read Michael Martinez' take on this question. I would add that it does, of course, depend somewhat on what you mean by ‘invent’ and that The Hobbit wasn't the first time Tolkien mentioned Orcs. The Orcs of The Lord of the Rings derive elements from both the MacDonaldesque goblins of The Hobbit and the demonic Orcs of the Silmarillion.

BC, Saturday, 29 October 2011, ‘Native language?’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/10/native-language.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/68cvgg6
Charlton comments on the idea of native language as described in Tolkien's Notion Club Papers. See also the rewarding discussion about the strong sense of place below.

Jonathan McCalmont, Boomtron, Sunday, 30 October 2011, ‘DC: The New Frontier . . . Stripp'd’
http://www.boomtron.com/2011/10/darwyn-cooke-dc-the-new-frontier-strippd/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6hxrshw
Out of the depth of a review of two new DC comic books rise this passage:

In contrast, the world of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings supports the escapist fantasies of millions of adults because though Tolkien’s world is a world where magic exists and good triumphs over evil, Tolkien also infused his world with more ‘realistic’ thematic concerns such as the cost that the good must pay in order to rid themselves of evil. The departure of the elves and the scouring of the Shire echo with the losses of the Second World War and so make Middle Earth seem that much more real. By keeping one foot in the real world, Tolkien ensured his creation remained relevant to modern audiences in a way that Cinderella simply is not. Thus Tolkien’s work demonstrates the balancing act that modern myths must perform: Make a story simplistic and you make it irrelevant but make a story realistic and you run the risk that it will no longer provide a means of escape.

The review has more to say about escapism, and I find it interesting though I do not agree with the view that ‘the popularity of escapist media derives from a deep-seated need to immerse ourselves in a world that makes sense to us’ (I believe the popularity derives from them being a natural and rational — perhaps even necessary — means of making the Primary World make sense to us).

Matthew Wright, Sunday, 30 October 2011, ‘Why Tolkien wouldn't be published today — and what that means for writers now’
http://mjwrightnz.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/why-tolkien-wouldn%E2%80%99t-be-published-today-%E2%80%93-and-what-that-means-for-writers-now/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6yzdx2n
While the blog post is interesting enough, there are, I think, two things that the author doesn't quite get right. The first thing is in the premise of the title — Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was extremely unlikely to be published also in the fifties, and while we might discuss degrees of ‘extremely unlikely’ I think the reasons that are listed are wrong: these things would also have prevented publishing in 1954 — if there is a smaller probability today of an author such as Tolkien to get published, this is, I believe, more due to changes in the company structure in the publishing industry: it is, I deem, more likely to find the kind of willingness to accept a loss in order to publish a prestige book in smaller, family-owned publishing houses than in the huge companies of today. The other thing that Wright, in my view, doesn't get quite right is the popularity of The Lord of the Rings prior to the release of the paperback editions. LotR was actually selling extremely well for its price and availability, and the main reason for the sales numbers to soar in the mid-sixties was, I believe, the dramatic changes in price and availability that associated the release of the Ace and Ballantine paperback editions.

= = = = Rewarding Discussions = = = =

LotR Plaza: ‘A Strong Sense of 'Place'’
http://www.lotrplaza.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=242613
This thread investigates the strong sense of place in Tolkien's writings. This includes specific places, but it also takes off where Carl Phelpstead left in his investigation of Tolkien's general ideas of regional identity in Tolkien and Wales.

RABT & AFT: ‘Elrond remaining in Rivendell’
news:7bf12b41-9d9f-425a-894c-f4c41fb2d8b5@s7g2000yqd.googlegroups.com
https://groups.google.com/d/topic/alt.fan.tolkien/d3QM2EUvBHY/discussion
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6k3pute
This discussion has, as discussions in RABT & AFT are wont, wandered down every possible by-road and side alley, including discussions of the the One Ring, what Sauron knew and guessed about Aragorn (prior to Aragorn joining the Company of the Ring) and the early history of particularly the Three. Good stuff!

= = = = In Print = = = =

I was pleased to find, in Mythprint issue 351, a small piece by Mark T. Hooker on ‘The Name Bolger.’ Though I often find it difficult to believe that Tolkien was actually conscious of all that is suggested, I always like these word-games very much. In this case the Hobbit name Bolger is tied to the Anglo Saxon bælg which is again related to Latin bulga. This immediately attracted my attention as bælg is in contemporary use in Danish where it is used for pods (e.g. pea pods) and all such are called bælgfrugter (bælg fruits, pod fruits), and from the word for the bellows, blæsebælg (blowing bælg). It is also used for a sword scabbard, though this is considered archaic and is these days only used in poetry or deliberately archaisms. It would be a fine play on this to have, in the Danish translation, Fredegar, as he collapses on the doorstep of a house in the beginning of chapter 11 of The Lord of the Rings, gasp as a bellows.

= = = = Web Sites = = = =

Tolkien Studies Blog, Michael Martinez
http://blog.tolkien-studies.com/
Sometimes you wonder how it could be that you had missed something — that is very much the case for me with Michael Martinez's blog on his tolkien-studies.com (which is, as far as I know, not affiliated with the scholarly journal in any way). Let that, then, be amended!

Middle-earth Blog, Michael Martinez
http://middle-earth.xenite.org/
Martinez runs a Tolkien-related blog also on the Xenite site. He is far too prolific for me to go through all the posts, and many of them are addressed mainly at Tolkien students that are not familiar with The History of Middle-earth, Tolkien's letters and other stuff. Still, many of the posts do contain rather interesting bits of information, and I can only recommend looking them over. In these transactions, however, I will focus on those of his posts that seem to me the most interesting.

Tolkien Index
http://www.tolkienindex.net/index/Main_Page
According to one of the creators, ‘Tolkien Index is nothing more (or less) than a page index of names for publications by J.R.R. Tolkien lacking an index (with a focus on Parma Eldalamberon and Vinyar Tengwar).’ Currently the index covers PE 17 and 19, VT 6, 26, 45, 46 along with some things from Quettar #13 and #14. Trusting that the authors will continue the work, this promises to be a very valuable index resource.

= = = = 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), ‘Kalimac’
http://kalimac.blogspot.com/
and the old home:
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

Henry Gee (HG) ‘cromercrox’, ‘The End of the Pier Show’
http://occamstypewriter.org/cromercrox/

David Simmons (DS), ‘Aiya Ilúvatar’
http://www.aiyailuvatar.org/

Michael Martinez (MM), ‘Tolkien Studies Blog’
http://blog.tolkien-studies.com/

Michael Martinez (MM), ‘Middle-earth’
http://middle-earth.xenite.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

--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or ‘Tolkien’ in subject.

The idea that time may vary from place to place is a
difficult one, but it is the idea Einstein used, and it is
correct - believe it or not.
- Richard Feynman

Saturday, 1 October 2011

Tolkien Transactions XVII

Tolkien Transactions XVII September 2011 September has been a rather busy month, both with respect to on-line content relating to J.R.R. Tolkien and his works, but also with respect to my work and other off-line obligations: I've barely had time (in my own eyes) to participate in the many interesting discussions.

= = = = News = = = =

JDR, Friday, 2 September 2011, ‘Farewell, FRODO FRANCHISE’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/09/farewell-frodo-franchise.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6fmua6e
John Rateliff laments the stop of Kristin Thompson's blog, The Frodo Franchise, which has focused mainly on the Peter Jackson films (the subject of her eponymous book). I haven't had time to look into the past posts, but of course the loss of any intelligent Tolkien-related blog is a loss to be lamented.

PC, Saturday, 3 September 2011, ‘Online course: J.R.R. Tolkien: Myth and Middle-earth in Context starts again in October’
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/1003-Tolkien_Online_Course.php?426
http://preview.tinyurl.com/66eqpwq
Another deep sigh — I have neither the time nor the money to follow Dmitra Fimi's on-line course, but I would dearly love to do so.

PC, Monday, 5 September 2011, ‘On October 8th the Tolkien Shop in Leiden celebrates its 25th Anniversary’
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/1005-Tolkien_Shop_25_Years.php?428
http://preview.tinyurl.com/62ekfrj
What it says . . . celebrations ensue :-)

Pat Reynolds, Return of the Ring, Tuesday, 6 September 2011, ‘A Year of Celebrating 'The Hobbit'’
http://returnofthering.livejournal.com/2489.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5r9s7gb
A whole year of celebrations up to the 75th anniversary of the first publication of The Hobbit — and more information on The Return of the Ring conference next year (finally something that does not elicit a sigh on my part, but an expectant smile).

Pat Reynolds, Sunday, 11 September 2011, ‘Special Guest: Colin Duriez’
http://returnofthering.livejournal.com/2573.html
Well, what it says: Colin Duriez will be one of the special guests at The Return of the Ring.
Sunday, 18 September 2011, ‘Green Dragon’
http://returnofthering.livejournal.com/3048.html
Another special guest, La Compagnie du Dragon Vert, which is a French group doing what might best be termed secondary historical re-enacting.

BBC News, Saturday, 24 September 2011, ‘Tolkien fans hold annual Oxonmoot in Oxford’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-15038836
http://preview.tinyurl.com/64xu6h8
A rather nice little piece about the Oxonmoot.

AH, Sunday, 25 September 2011, ‘On A Sunny Saturday and Monday Morning.....’
http://wotanselvishmusings.blogspot.com/2011/09/on-sunny-saturday-and-monday-morning.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5vwdj7s
A rather more personal and interested piece on the Oxonmoot — and the Charles Williams book that Andy Higgins bought while there.

Nicki Thomas, Edmonton Journal, Monday, 26 September 2011, ‘University of Alberta clubs nothing if not eclectic’
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/University+Alberta+clubs+nothing+eclectic/5457944/story.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/68vc7kj
The various clubs and societies devoted to the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien have long played a pivotal part in the advancement of his writings. I even suspect that the ready-made audience of the societies may have helped pave the way for Tolkien studies in the academic world, as the base of organised fans has ensured the financial success of good books about Tolkien. In this piece about the on-campus clubs of the University of Alberta, the Tolkien club, ‘The Last Alliance’ is given a prominent place, and we are told of the embarrasment of the co-founder, Megan Engel, over not being able to speak fluent Elvish (though we are not told whether she means Sindarin or Quenya). Despair not, dear Megan — thou art not alone ;-)

The Orcadian, Thursday, 15 September 2011, ‘Danish frigate arrives at Hatston’
http://www.orcadian.co.uk/2011/09/danish-frigate-to-call-into-kirkwall/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/68sa856
A member of the Tolkien society referred to this piece of news asking ‘Are the Danes trying to take Orkney back?’ You just wait! Once we have dealt with the Swedes for stealing Scania in 1658, we will begin plotting revenge for all that the British have stolen from us — we'll steal every oak tree on the British Isles and then we'll rebuild the navy that Lord Nelson took and once more ravage the coasts of Britain! Or something ;-)

Kelsey Sheridan, Lexington Herald Leader, Thursday, 30 September 2011, ‘Tolkien-themed convention brings Middle Earth to Shaker Village’
http://www.kentucky.com/2011/09/29/1902683/tolkien-themed-convention-brings.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5s4pohx
A rather nice, in both length and angle, report from the Tolkien-themed convention, ‘There & Back Again’ (even if it is a local paper, I think it's quite good publicity).

= = = = Essays and Scholarship = = = =

BC, Monday, 19 September 2011, ‘Hierarchy, reverance and worship in Tolkien's work and life’
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011/09/hierarchy-reverance-and-worship-in.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6c233ol
As you know my education is in physics and computer science, and I am certainly not well read in matters of Roman Catholic thought and practice — only through my interest for Tolkien's work have I begun to read a little here and there as it has become relevant. Thus I had not previously encountered this idea of the hierarchical mediation, but once encountered I can immediately see its relevance for Tolkien's writings. See also my comments directly to the blog.

BC, Wednesday 21 September 2011, ‘Abel Pitt as Adam Fox’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/09/abel-pitt-as-adam-fox.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5u4w34p
One should of course not trust Google completely, but it does appear that Bruce Charlton is just a few months too late with this identification, which also appears in the essay by Diana Glyer and Josh Long in Tolkien and the Study of his Sources (edited by Jason Fisher).
Rob Sharp, The Independent, Friday, 23 September 2011, ‘Why do adults read children's books? Blame modern life’
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/why-do-adults-read-childrens-books-blame-modern-life-2359349.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3pyml2h

Boyd Tonkin, The Independent, Friday, 23 September 2011, ‘This theory could have come from the Soviet era’
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/boyd-tonkin-this-theory-could-have-come-from-the-soviet-era-2359350.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6xf7zeb
Here we have couple of interesting pieces, not in themselves scholarship, but referring to a piece of scholarship that is underway, the study by Dr Louise Joy of the adult appeal of many children's books. I, too, find myself getting irritated over people's theories about what attracts me to certain children's books: usually, even though I don't doubt that it is honestly meant and well-intentioned, it merely reads as so much self-aggrandizing nonsense (not to use a stronger word). One of the things that fascinate me about good children's literature is the ability to take up some of the fundamental questions of the human situation without all the postmodern idiocy (pardon my expression) — and this is also a part of my fascination with Tolkien's more mature work: he dares take on such questions as death and mortality, ways of being good and ways of becoming evil, and he does so in a way that is not quite as simplified as that of the children's books, but still no more complex than he avoids getting lost in the grey slush of real-life complexity.

Edith Crowe, MythCon, Monday, 26 September 2011, ‘MythCon 43: Call For Papers’
http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/43/papers/
Though I won't be attending, I hope that some good and strong scholarship will come out also of next year's MythCon for us to enjoy in print later.

Jannet Brennan Croft, Mythlore, Wednesday, 28 September 2011, ‘Mythlore 115/116: Table of Contents Announced’
http://www.mythsoc.org/mythlore/115/
At least a couple of Tolkien-related papers that look very promising.

= = = = Taum's Aphorisms = = = =

John Rateliff continues posting Taum Santoski's ‘Aphorisms Towards a Poetics of Fantasy’.
No. 13, Sunday, 4 September 2011:
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/09/taum-santoski-xiii.html
No. 14, Monday, 5 September 2011:
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/09/taum-santoski-xiv.html
No. 15, Tuesday, 6 September 2011:
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/09/taum-santoski-xv.html
No. 16, Wednesday, 7 September 2011:
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/09/taum-santoski-xvi.html
No. 17, Friday, 9 September 2011:
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/09/taum-santoski-xviii.html
No. 18, Monday, 12 September 2011:
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/09/taum-santoski-xviii_12.html
No. 19, Saturday, 24 September 2011:
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/09/taum-santoski-xix.html

Commentary:
JDR, Friday, 2 September 2011, ‘Taum's Aphorisms, parts VII to XII’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/09/taums-aphorisms-parts-vii-to-xii.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3h2urhj

Rateliff admits to understanding this second half-dozen of the aphorisms even less than he did the first. Still, I find his thoughts valuable for setting a direction for my own attempt to understand the aphorisms.
TF, Tuesday, 27 September 2011, ‘Taum Santoski's Aphorisms 1 through 6’
http://http://parmarkenta.blogspot.com/2011/09/taum-santoskis-aphorisms-1-through-6.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/62j5dpy
Building on Rateliff's comments, and on the various comments to the aphorism posts, I try to share some of my own thoughts on the aphorisms - mostly in the hope that it may attract comments that will help me understand them better.

= = = = Book News = = = =

JF, Wednesday, 7 September 2011, ‘Read a free excerpt from my book’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/09/read-free-excerpt-from-my-book.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/69noz5z
Jason announces that you can freely read an excerpt of his book, Tolkien and the Study of his Sources, at the publisher's web-site.

AH, Sunday, 18 September 2011, ‘Wotan Has Returned!!!! Autumn Postings Shall Commence’
http://wotanselvishmusings.blogspot.com/2011/09/wotan-has-returned-autumn-postings.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6dncluu
Andy Higgins has read Arne Zettersten's book on Tolkien, J.R.R. Tolkien's Double Worlds and Creative Process and found it highly recommendable. My internal bying committee has still not decided on the question of whether to buy this book in English or in the Swedish original, Min vän Ronald och hans världar (My friend Ronald and his worlds).

PC, Sunday, 18 September 2011, ‘Tolkien, le façonnement d'un monde - volume 1, Botany and Astronomy’
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/1008-Le_Dragon_de_Brume.php?431
http://preview.tinyurl.com/65s5zer
Since I don't speak, read or understand any French I have little use of this book, though I would have preferred it to be otherwise . . . but perhaps some of you may be able to enjoy the French essays and share the good points with the rest of us.

PC, Monday, 26 September 2011, ‘Tolkien and the Peril of War by Robert S. Blackham’
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/1012-Tolkien_and_the_Peril_of_War.php?435
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5spdl74
From what I have heard, this book appears to be mainly the illustrations for John Garth's Tolkien and the Great War — nothing, or next to nothing, new in the text, but many images, both new and rare, to accompany the words. I suppose that this book will be a true treasure trove for people whose imagination is triggered by images more than by words (I am not trying to be supercilious here, it just so happens that my own empathy and identification is triggered more strongly by words). Still, I also do love a good picture, so this book may at some point reach my book-shelf also (depending on the reviews).

Henry Gee, Wednesday, 28 September 2011, ‘Conversations With My Agent About E-Books’
http://occamstypewriter.org/cromercrox/2011/09/28/conversations-with-my-agent-about-e-books/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6b6k2k6
Henry Gee, editor of the Tolkien Society's journal, Mallorn and senior editor for Nature, promises a new edition of his book, The Science of Middle-earth out as e-book in time for a projected December 2012 release of the first Hobbit film by Jackson.

= = = = Other Stuff = = = =

JH, Thursday, 1 September 2011, ‘Tolkien Month, Day One — My Introduction to J.R.R. Tolkien’
http://worldsstrongestlibrarian.com/12075/tolkien-month-day-one-my-introduction-to-j-r-r-tolkien/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/67lt8p7
Josh Hangarne (JH) of The World's Strongest Librarian had dedicated his blog to talking Tolkien, Tolkien month. He starts out by telling of his introduction to Tolkien through an illustrated edition of The Hobbit. I am sure that most of us will recognize some parts of his experience — he seems to me to have encountered that enchanted state where the successful sub-creator induces Secondary Belief. Since I have failed to find an easily overviewed list of the Tolkien-related blog entries, I will provide one such below.

JH, Saturday, 3 September 2011, ‘On Fairy Stories — An Essay by Tolkien’
http://worldsstrongestlibrarian.com/12093/on-fairy-stories-an-essay-by-tolkien/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6k79uvw
From a very brief background on The Hobbit to _On Fairy-Stories_? Well, I love to see Tolkien's essay get some more publicity, and getting more people to know it, or at least about it, is in my opinion a good thing, though the PDF version that Josh Hangarne links to may not, as Pieter Collier points out, be entirely legal (it appears to be put up by West Chester University as a service to their students — whether that is legal, and whether it is legal for non-students to access it is beyond me to tell).

BC, Monday, 5 September 2011, ‘Tolkien and Women - a word’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/09/tolkien-and-women-word.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/68kohl7
Charlton, in my opinion, has here a valid point about how we judge Tolkien's ethical position, and in particular about being careful to read what he says without cutting corners. It is, obviously, still possible to disagree with Tolkien (I often do so myself), but it is important to understand exactly where this disagreement arises, and to understand Tolkien's position.

BC, Saturday, 10 September 2011, ‘Humphrey Carpenter and Tolkien’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/09/humphrey-carpenter-and-tolkien.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6hc8pbo
I have never been much of a student of the Inklings as a group, nor of any of the other individual members than Tolkien, and so I have never read Carpenter's book on the Inklings, but the strength of this attack(?) surprises me. Speaking solely about the Tolkien biography, I agree that Carpenter does not seem to be at every point sympathetic to Tolkien's very personal ideas about ethics and aesthetics, but I don't get the impression that he is disloyal to his subject — I rather appreciate that he he lets it shine through that he disagrees, since that allows us to take that into consideration, whereas if the author would seem to agree with Tolkien about everything, I might (depending, of course, on the circumstances) suspect that the author was rather turning Tolkien into his own mouthpiece rather than the other way around. Carpenter, in my opinion, does a good job at portraying a person whose sole claim to greatness is in the works of his mind — and I think it is only right that he leaves the interpretation of that greatness (and of any intention or project associated with Tolkien's art) to others.

JDR, Monday, 12 September 2011, ‘Steig Larsson and Tolkien’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/09/steig-larsson-and-tolkien.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5vukwgy
Rateliff has found a couple of Tolkien references from Stieg Larsson's Män som hatar kvinnor (Men who hate women — English title The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). P.S. It's a little amusing that Rateliff does the e-i inversion in Stieg Larsson's name, but not in Tolkien's ;-)

BC, Monday, 26 September 2011, ‘A note on Hobbit government’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/09/note-on-hobbit-government.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6jy5cws
I am not sure that I agree with Charlton on the details of what is described as the idea rule of a nation in Tolkien's work: the Númenórean set-up appears to me rather to put the King, in terms of worship, first among equals and speaker on the behalf of the people rather than the King representing Eru to the people. I will need some time, which unfortunately I don't have at the present, to get my thoughts together, but it seems to me that Tolkien made much of the difference between governing and ruling, and that this difference is essential to understand his views on the rule of the people.

= = = = Tolkien-related entries on ‘The World's Strongest Librarian’ = = = =

= = = = Rewarding Discussions = = = =

These are a few of the discussions that I would have loved to have more time to contribute to . . .

Linguistic Archaisms
news:16eb5f8c-d135-472e-bc62-723b6c97bbd3@t29g2000vby.googlegroups.com
https://groups.google.com/d/topic/rec.arts.books.tolkien/p2zNWDqjig4/discussion
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5urf93e

Elrond remaining in Rivendell
news:7bf12b41-9d9f-425a-894c-f4c41fb2d8b5@s7g2000yqd.googlegroups.com
https://groups.google.com/d/topic/rec.arts.books.tolkien/d3QM2EUvBHY/discussion
http://preview.tinyurl.com/633sm45

Was Narsil bronze?
news:mUedq.9702$Ol1.7921@newsfe07.iad
https://groups.google.com/d/topic/rec.arts.books.tolkien/g60xqC2jFd4/discussion
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6ce42r6

Proof that Sauron was Bombadil's "Dark Lord"?
http://www.lotrplaza.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=238593&PN=2&title=proof-that-sauron-was-bombadils-dark-lord
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5tuxq76

= = = = Web Sites = = = =

Is Tolkien Actually Any Good?
http://www.rilstone.talktalk.net/tolk.htm
This is an interesting piece of criticism that apparently fails to answer its own question, though it seems to me more a matter of the author being unwilling to fully acknowledge the quality inherent (IMO) in his experiences. I find it curious that he relates some of the ‘self-evident’ truths of literary criticism — e.g. that the use of clichés is bad (I've never understood why this is necessarily and immanently bad) — without questioning those, but questions whether his own desire to immerse himself in Middle-earth is indicative of good writing.

Colin Duriez
http://web.mac.com/colinduriez/inwriting/Home.html
The web-place of Colin Duriez, an excellent Tolkien scholar.

= = = = 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), ‘Kalimac’
http://kalimac.blogspot.com/
and the old home:
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
Henry Gee (HG) ‘cromercrox’, ‘The End of the Pier Show’
http://occamstypewriter.org/cromercrox/
David Simmons (DS), ‘Aiya Ilúvatar’
http://www.aiyailuvatar.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

Tuesday, 27 September 2011

Taum Santoski's Aphorisms 1 through 6

Since the beginning of August, John Rateliff has, acting as Taum Santoski's literary executor, been posting a series of aphorisms by Taum Santoski in, as I see it, a celebration of Santoski's life and work on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of his death.

John Rateliff calls them ‘Aphorisms Towards a Poetics of Fantasy,‘ though he acknowledges that ‘… of Tolkienian Fantasy’ might be ‘nearer the mark.’ The aphorisms appear to me to be rather cryptic (in his commentary John Rateliff also has to occasionally give in and tell us that he has ‘no idea what Taum is talking about here’ so I am at least in good company), so I thought that I would put down my thoughts in the hope of attracting comments that may help my understanding.

My understanding of these first six aphorisms has already been helped a lot by John Rateliff's comments to which I will frequently refer.

First Aphorism

‘Odin the Wanderer’
by Georg von Rosen
(from Wikipedia)

Here Santoski asserts that Tolkien's work is aetiological in nature. Santoski refers to the effort to ‘make comprehensible the human situation of doubt, fear, and hope,‘ and David Bratman, in comments to the original post, speaks of Tolkien's work being also aetiological in an etymological and an historical sense. To this I would add that Tolkien's work also deals with the basics of causation. When Tolkien speaks of The Lord of the Rings as being ‘a fundamentally religious and Catholic work,’ I think that this is most clearly visible in the basic fabric of causation in Middle-earth: we see how grace and providence affects the causation, not by wrestling the world into a certain path, but by making certain paths possible and by making some paths more or less likely to be followed than they would have been without the action of grace and providence. In this way Tolkien deals with the fundamentals of causation. If we take Tom Shippey's ideas of Tolkien creating an asterisk-reality, then Tolkien's work can also be seen as aetiological in the sense that it investigates the (possible) cause of the later European mythologies (Túrin as the asterisk-source of Kullervo and Mithrandir as the origin of the image of Odinn wandering Midgard rather than the other way around).

John Rateliff has seen Tolkien's world as being rather teleological, but I am not convinced these two views are necessarily at odds: within Tolkien's sub-creation, I would say that the purpose of Arda is also largely the cause of much of what is and happens within Arda — one might even argue that Arda, and indeed all of Eä, is caused by Eru's purpose with it.

Second Aphorism
The first part, where Santoski states that the world of Tolkien's mythos (his sub-created world) is ‘related to but not identical’ to our Primary World (to borrow the phrasing of Tolkien's ‘On Fairy-Stories’) seems at first obvious, though it does of course, as David Bratman implies in his comment, depend on what Santoski meant with that phrase. Tolkien said that ‘The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live, but the historical period is imaginary,’ and though this means that there is a very great overlap between Tolkien's Secondary World and our Primary World (Middle-earth, as Ian Collier states in a comment, ‘ springs from Tolkien's experience and knowledge of the primary world’), they are still not identical — Tolkien both subtracts from and adds to the Primary World in the sub-creation of his Secondary World, and net result of this process can, to my mind, very well be described by saying that the two worlds are ‘related to but not identical.’ As I say in a comment, Tolkien sets up a situation in which his Secondary World in external fact derives from our (or rather his) present world, but also where, in internal fact, our present Primary World derives from his Secondary World.

Taum Santoski goes on to note that Tolkien's world is not merely a mirror image of the Primary World (not even, I will add, an image in a distorting mirror), but that it contains its own (secondary) reality. Lastly he asserts that Tolkien's world, by this very reality that it uniquely its own, impinges ‘very efectively, but with a newness and nowness, upon our world.’ I am not sure whether there is more to this than a simple statement that any good story worth telling has applicability for the reader, but, as Rateliff notes in connection with aphorism no. 6, ‘perhaps I'm simply not seeing a subtlety here.’

Third Aphorism
In the third aphorism, Taum Santoski asserts that Tolkien's mythic world is ‘in another order of time,’ referring to H.A. Frankfort's idea of the absolute past:

This deliberate co-ordination of cosmic and social events shows most clearly that time to early man did not mean a neutral and abstract frame of reference, but rather a succession of recurring phases, each charged with a peculiar value and significance. Again, as in dealing with space, we find that there are certain ‘regions’ of time which are withdrawn from direct experience and greatly stimulate speculative thought. They are the distant past and the future. Either of these may become normative and absolute; each then falls beyond the range of time altogether. The absolute past does not recede, nor do we approach the absolute future gradually. The ’Kingdom of God’ may at any time break into our present. For the Jews the future is normative. For the Egyptians, on the other hand, the past was normative; and no pharaoh could hope to achieve more than the establishment of the conditions ‘as they were in the time of Rē, in the beginning.’

Before philosophy: the intellectual adventure of ancient man: an essay on speculative thought in the ancient Near East by H. and H.A. Frankfort, John A. Wilson and Thorkild Jacobsen. URL: http://openlibrary.org/books/OL24401493M/Before_philosophy

Receding into the distance,
disappearing from view.

In Tolkien's Secondary World, both past and future are normative — in the absolute past there is the cosmogonical drama and the Golden Age of the Quendi in the Blessed Realm, and in the absolute future there is the promise of Arda Remade, of the Music of both Ainur and Eruhíni — not knowing the relation between the Music and Time, Eru's final chord may come tomorrow or in thousands of years. The events of The Lord of the Rings can be viewed in both ways. It is clear that events of the Second Age and early Third Age have indeed receded, become mere distant history, but internally we can see Tolkien's ‘discovery’ of the texts as recovering the events of the War of the Ring to an absolute past though they had receded into a far distant historical past that had left only vague traces in the myth of ancient history.

I am not sure what Santoski may mean by saying that the mythic past in Tolkien's world ‘percolates through “history” from time to time,’ though I suspect that this may be because I take the image too literally (there is not a slow seeping through a porous membrane). Still, given Tolkien's use of the musical metaphor, I would prefer to say that the mythical past resonates through all of time, that it is as a standing wave on time between the Word (‘Eä!’) and the final chord. The Golden Age that is never brought any closer in Time may be Arda remade (or Arda Healed), in which case the Golden Ages that tarnish is every temporary victory within Time, from the Noontide of Valinor through the rule of King Elessar and further. The tarnish on the first Golden Age(s) is light as they remain close in the absolute past, but with the degeneration of the mythological world, the tarnish grows stronger until there can only be an echo of a golden age that quickly recedes in time.

Fourth Aphorism

Four elements — a
simple explanatory model

The opening statement, that Tolkien's sub-creation is a miniature world sub-created by Tolkien's best efforts, sets the scene for another of my favourite metaphors for explaining what sub-creative literature can do. The author obviously cannot sub-create a full world in all its detail, and so the sub-created world becomes a kind of model understood in the scientific sense. That is, it contains a limited reality that is appropriate for studying some specific phenomena. In physics we will often start mechanics with a model containing only a single force, gradually adding gravity, friction, air resistance etc. as the student progresses. In the same way an author of sub-creative literature sets up a model in which he can study some specific aspects of the human condition without the full noise of reality.

In the continuation Santoski speaks of re-establishing a ‘harmony with the present world’ through participating in the mythic powers of Tolkien's world, mediated by the words. Here I am reminded of Tolkien's statements in ‘On Fairy-Stories’ about Enchantment. I am also reminded of Bruce Charlton's thoughts in his Notion Club Papers blog that Tolkien's goal was ‘recovery of history as myth,’ though Santoski's aphorisms would, I think, rather lead to the postulation of a goal of restoring an absolute past.

Fifth Aphorism

Inspiration or plagiarism?

Taum Santoski seems here to me to launch an attack against any claim that Tolkien was unoriginal or even that he plagiarized earlier myths, claiming that while some of Tolkien's myths are derived from (or inspired by) ancient mythologies, the sources ‘grow and fructify,’ thus becoming ‘a new thing.’ Having reached some way into Jason Fisher's new book, Tolkien and the Study of his Sources, I think that it might be a worthy line of inquiry for good source studies to attempt to explicate just how Tolkien manages to create something entirely new out of his sources rather than ‘merely a hybridized retelling.’ The focus here would not be on individual sources, but on the interplay of the sources and the literary techniques that allow Tolkien to achieve not a mish-mash (or a ‘hybridized retelling’), but something new that has its own life and its own unique secondary reality.

Sixth Aphorism
John Rateliff thinks that Santoski's claim here is ‘entirely specious, eloquence overwhelming the argument.’ Personally I also suspect a high degree of speciousness, but as Rateliff wisely adds, we may not be seeing the subtlety here.

The argument that if myth and history can be split into two categories, then ‘their definitions must be different processes’ is, I believe, false. There may be different processes involved, but this does not follow necessarily, nor does it follow that such differences of process necessarily the defining difference, even if they exist. I do think that there are procedural differences involved, but I also think that it is more a matter of a complex interplay of many processes where there are differences in the focus and weights of the contributing processes, and thus that the dichotomy of processes is false.

Sigurd?
Myth? History? Legend?

Trying to think of examples of the difference between myth and history, I first thought of the events of the later part of the Niflung cycle (the events that Tolkien retold in his Guðrúnarkviða en Nýja, including the fall of both the Burgundians / Niflungs and Attila / Atli. To these events we have both the mythological treatment in the Niflung cycle and the accounts of medieval Greek and Roman historians. Of these the mythological treatment is the later, though we don't know how soon after the actual events they were ‘mythologized’.

The other example I have come up with is the historicizing of mythology that we seen in some medieval accounts, of which the one that I know best is the inclusion by Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum of historicized versions of some of the Old Norse myths.

In both of these examples, I do think that Taum Santoski's distinction between perception vs. observation of events can make sense to some degree, but they certainly do not fit a dichotomy, and I believe that this perceived difference, even if correct, is a result of some underlying defining difference that would, I suspect, have to be put in teleological terms: i.e. the defining difference is not in how the account is produced, but rather in why it is produced. To complete the circle of the first six aphorisms, I believe that the differences between the purpose of myth and the purpose of history is to a large extent aetiological: there is in both an element of attempting to explain the present world by causes in the past, but they attempt to explain different aspects of the present world and they look at different causes altogether.

Thursday, 1 September 2011

Tolkien Transactions XVI

August 2011

Matthew Bladen, Monday, 8 August 2011, ‘Öjevind Lång’
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3lvknhg
Early in August the Tolkien Newsgroups were hit by the sad news that Öjevind Lång had died. A long-time regular of the newsgroups, and a personal friend to many of the regulars, Öjevind's warmth, wit and wisdom will long be remembered by those who experienced them in the groups. Öjevind also translated The Children of Húrin to his native Swedish. He will be missed! Namarië!

= = = = News = = = =

Robert Marquand, The Christian Science Monitor, Friday, 5 August 2011, ‘Tea-party hobbits? Hardly, say indignant Tolkien scholars’
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2011/0805/Tea-party-hobbits-Hardly-say-indignant-Tolkien-scholars
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3l98bkd
One of last month's more amusing items was the appearance of ‘hobbits’ in US politics — presumably intended disparagingly. Though gainsaid by such illustrious Tolkien scholars as Jason Fisher and Wayne Hammond, I will maintain what I said last month that the comparison need not be quite as far-fetched as all that (perhaps I should add that I most certainly do not sympathize with the Tea Party movement). This, of course, does not invalidate the points of critique here levelled against the usage.

Arwen, Middle-earth News, Sunday, 7 August 2011, "Mythgard Institute Partners with UWIC"
http://www.middleearthnews.net/2011/08/mythgard-institute-partners-with-uwic.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3skzweg
The news that the two institutes offering on-line academic courses on Tolkien, the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff and the Mythgard Institute, have entered into a partnership and will recognize the credits earned at each other. Strangely the linked pages at the Mythgard Institute appears to have been taken down again — does this mean that the partnership has stopped before it started?

H&S, Monday, 8 August 2011, ‘New Website’
http://wayneandchristina.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/new-website/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/43huycw
Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull are moving their web-site to a new host and a new URL — see under web sites below.

Glen Weldon, NPR, Thursday, 11 August 2011, "NPR's Top 100 Science Fiction And Fantasy Novels: Parsing The Results"
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/08/11/139346998/nprs-top-100-science-fiction-and-fantasy-novels-parsing-the-results
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3qdrzz4
NPR has had a vote on the 100 best science fiction and fantasy novels, and has now released the results. Not surprisingly _The Lord of the Rings_ comes in first, but it's more surprising that The Silmarillion gets in as number 46. Lewis' Space Trilogy only just makes the list as no. 100. I haven't found any other Inkling books on the list. Children's books and young adult books were banned, which, while this means that The Hobbit and the Narnia books were ruled out together with His Dark Materials and the Harry Potter books, it also kept out such as Twilight and Eragon . . .
John Rateliff comments on the list here:
JDR, Friday, 12 August 2011, ‘And The WInner Is . . . (NPR Fantasy List)’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/08/and-winner-is-npr-fantasy-list.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/44yxzw8

= = = = Essays and Scholarship = = = =

LS, Saturday, 6 August 2011, ‘A Saga sort of post.....’
http://theruminate.blogspot.com/2011/08/saga-sort-of-post.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3lnmdls
Primarily on compounding in Germanic languages with a focus on compounds of the old word for an enclosure, geard or garthi. I first read this post shortly after having helped my daughter with her homework on compounds in modern Danish. In modern Danish there is only one way in which you can put two nouns next to each other an keep them as two words: if the first is a genitive form. Otherwise you run them together in a compound word (you do this iteratively, so you can, if you will, construct completely legal compounds of ten or more nouns run together). Speaking of compounds and words, Larry takes his outset from Miklagarthi (Constantinople) and also touches on Tolkien's use of Mundburg and Isengard.

BC, Saturday, 6 August 2011, ‘Tolkien and the nature of evil: Morgoth versus Sauron’
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011/08/tolkien-and-nature-of-evil-morgoth.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3uxa4rp
Tom Shippey has discussed Tolkien's portrayal of the nature of evil in The Lord of the Rings, but I think that the study of this question based on The Silmarillion, and particularly based on the late work on the Silmarillion published in Morgoth's Ring and _The War of the Jewels_ is due. Bruce Charlton makes a start of this and that deserves to be encouraged here.

TF, Sunday, 28 August 2011, ‘Source Criticism’
http://parmarkenta.blogspot.com/2011/08/source-criticism.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3rrlvf7
Prior to starting reading Jason Fisher's new book, _Tolkien and the Study of his Sources_ I wanted to put down some of my thoughts on source criticism. Jason has stated (see the Tolkien Library interview below) that he would like to win over some sceptics, and so I thought it a good experiment to see if he manages to sway my views with his book.

= = = = Taum's Aphorisms = = = =

JDR, Wednesday, 10 August 2011, ‘Taum: Twenty Years’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/08/parker.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/423q96h
John Rateliff has been publishing a series of posts containing a set of aphorisms written by Taum Santoski (what Rateliff says might be called ‘Aphorisms Towards a Poetics of Fantasy’), celebrating Santoski's life and his contributions to Tolkien studies up to the twentieth anniversary of his death.
No. 1: Wednesday, 10 August 2011:
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/08/taum-santoski-i.html
No. 2: Thursday, 11 August 2011:
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/08/taum-santoski-ii.html
No. 3: Friday, 12 August 2011:
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/08/taum-santoski-iii.html
No. 4: Saturday, 13 August 2011:
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/08/taum-santoski-iv.html
No. 5: Tuesday, 16 August 2011.
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/08/taum-santoski-v.html
No. 6: Thursday, 18 August 2011:
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/08/taum-santoski-vi.html
No. 7: Friday, 26 August 2011:
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/08/taum-santoski-vii.html
No. 8: Saturday, 27 August 2011:
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/08/taum-santoski-viii.html
No. 9: Sunday, 28 August 2011:
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/08/taum-santoski-ix.html
No. 10, Monday, 29 August 2011:
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/08/taum-santoski-x.html
No. 11, Tuesday, 30 August 2011:
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/08/taum-santoski-xi.html
No. 12, Wednesday, 31 August 2011
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/08/taum-santoski-xii.html

Commentary:
JDR, Friday, 26 August 2011, ‘Taum's Aphorisms, parts I to VI’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/08/taums-aphorisms-parts-i-to-vi.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3egfzt4

One of the advantages of writing in aphorisms is that it lends itself to a great deal of ambigiuity, so there is some room for interpretation ;-) Rateliff says, in his comments to no. 6, that he thinks that this one is ‘entirely specious’ though of course he can't rule out the possibility that he doesn't see the subtlety, and this is, I think, one of the dangers of this form. I am trying myself to make sense of it all, and I think that there is some valuable help both in Rateliff's comments and in other comments on the individual aphorisms.

= = = = Book News = = = =

PC, Monday, 1 August 2011, "Interview with Jason Fisher about Tolkien and the Study of His Sources"
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/1001-Interview_Jason_Fisher_Tolkien_Sources.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3rghedj
One of the big news of late has been the book that Jason Fisher has been editing on source criticism in a Tolkien context, and here is an interview that Pieter Collier has done with Jason on the subject. I doubt that Jason will win over many of those who reject source criticism as a valid approach to Tolkien's work because they probably will not read his book, but people such as myself, who are very wary of source criticism without rejecting it outright may come to view it in a more positive light. I look very much forward to reading this book.

Damien Bador, The Tolkien Library, Tuesday, 2 August 2011, "Interview with Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull about The Art of the Hobbit"
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/1002-Interview_Art_Hobbit.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/43no5yh
A little extra information on the upcoming book by Wayne and Christina on Tolkien's own artwork for The Hobbit. There is very little to add, I think, except to note the intriguing promise of their having ‘one or two ideas’ which they 'hope to develop with HarperCollins and the Tolkien Estate' but which they are 'not yet free to talk about'.

JDR, Thursday, 4 August 2011, ‘The Bones of the Ox’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/08/bones-of-ox.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3ruob4x
We are, it appears, several who are reading _Tolkien and the Study of his Sources_ edited by Jason Fisher. John Rateliff is one of the contributors, but at the moment of writing, I have not yet reached his essay on She and Tolkien.

Kunochan, Periannath.com, Monday, 8 August 2011, "Glow-in-the-Dark Hobbits & Homophobic Frodos: Rankin Bass' 1980 'The Return of the King' Reviewed"
http://periannath.com/feature/glow-in-the-dark-hobbits-homophobic-frodos-rankin-bass-1980-the-return-of-the-king-reviewed/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3b6tev5
(Thank you, internet, for URL shorteners!) A rather humorous review of the abominable (as most viewers appear to agree) 1980 animated adaptation of The Return of the Ring by Rankin & Bass.

JF, Friday, 12 August 2011, "My book is now published and available!"
http://lingwe.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-book-is-now-published-and-available.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3wwhjuu
Jason Fisher is understandably elated that his book, _Tolkien and the Study of his Sources_ is now available from the book sellers.

Kristin Thompson, Thursday, 18 August 2011, "editors discuss ‘picturing tolkien,’ a new anthology on the lotr film trilogy"
http://www.kristinthompson.net/blog/2011/08/18/editors-discuss-picturing-tolkien-a-new-anthology-on-the-lotr-film-trilogy/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4xuvwek
Kristin Thompson, who wrote The Frodo Franchise, interviews the editors of _Picturing Tolkien: Essays on Peter Jackson's The Lord Of The Rings Film Trilogy_, a new book dealing with Tolkien and Jackson.

TF, Tuesday, 23 August 2011, ‘Tolkien and Wales’
http://parmarkenta.blogspot.com/2011/08/tolkien-and-wales.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3szkmeq
My on-line review of Phelstead's book Tolkien and Wales. The short version is: it's an excellent book, buy it and read it yourself! The long version? Well, read the review ;-)

JF, Mythprint, Tuesday, 23 August 2011, "Reviews: A Tolkien English Glossary"
http://www.mythsoc.org/reviews/tolkien-english-glossary/
‘This review originally appeared in Mythprint 48:6 (#347) in June 2011.’ Jason Fisher applauds the concept, but doesn't find the execution at all up to it.

JDR, Thursday, 25 August 2011, "My Newest Publication: "Two Kinds of Absence""
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-newest-publication-two-kinds-of.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3fnb3cx
John Rateliff has also contributed to the volume _Picturing Tolkien: Essays on Peter Jackson's The Lord Of The Rings Film Trilogy_ and here offers a few comments.

PC, Sunday, 28 August 2011, "A Tolkien Tapestry: Pictures to Accompany The Lord of the Rings Will be Released Next Week"
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/991-A_Tolkien_Tapestry.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/49u7uj9
The text of the news-item from Pieter Collier doesn't appear on the page that it refers to, but the news run:
Next week, on the 1st of September, there will be released the book called A Tolkien Tapestry, that brings together all art by Cor Blok. I'm very proud to announce this, since I was asked to edit the book and find and scan all of the art that was sold all accross the globe. Hope you will all enjoy the result. Further this month there will also be released a signed limited deluxe edition.
Cor Blok's illustrations to The Lord of the Rings have produced some very strong reactions — one needs only to read a few of the on-line discussions on the 2011 and 2012 calendars — but though I have, initially, had to admit that Blok's artwork was outside of my limited sympathies, I have become increasingly curious about his work. I have started to seriously consider buying this book.

= = = = Other Stuff = = = =

JDR, Friday, 19 August 2011, ‘Taum Santoski’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2011/08/taum-santoski.html
On the day of the twentieth anniversary of Taum Santoski's death, a brief remembrance.

Tom O'Boyle, _Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sunday, 28 August 2011, "The Next Page / The eternal C.S. Lewis: now, more than ever"
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11240/1170132-109-0.stm
http://preview.tinyurl.com/444ppbq
I love Tolkien's work, and I am interested in the other Inklings insofar as the group was an important part of the context in which Tolkien wrote, but I have never read very much of their work (I've read the Narnia books, which I found preachy, but nothing else). So, I glean what I can from what I can find, and here was some bits that I didn't know about C.S. Lewis, and which I found interesting. The perspective is quite obviously Christian (the article describes what can best be termed a pilgrimage to Lewis' Oxford), but not in an importunate way.

= = = = Rewarding Discussions = = = =

RABT/AFT: ‘Jackson's Dwarves are smarter Dwarves’

news:slrnj2s5rv.d9.steuard@steuard.local
http://preview.tinyurl.com/42chjwd
There were some attempts made to try and bridge the usual trenches into which discussions of Jackson's film-versions of _The Lord of the Rings_ too often, and too easily, fall. Though the attempts may not in all ways have been successful, the chance to discover that it is often minute differences in perspective that decide whether you end up being regarded as for or against the films more than made up for the eventual reversal to the entrenched positions of some of the debaters.

LotR Plaza: ‘The Ring and Ofermod’
http://www.lotrplaza.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=241945
The best thing about this debate, from my perspective, was that I learned something about the scholarly discussions regarding the interpretation of the Old English word ofermod and of Tolkien's interpretation of The Battle of Maldon.

= = = = Web Sites = = = =

I will try to present a couple of sites every month — if I've found a new site (of any kind) that I have found interesting, then I will add that, and then I'll throw in some oldies to keep things rolling ;-)

Wayne & Christina
http://www.hammondandscull.com/
That Christina Scull and Wayne Hammond has a web-site is nothing new, but it has now moved to a new URL, so remember to update your bookmarks!

The Tolkien Usenet Groups' Web-site Project
http://tolkien.forchhammer.net/aft-rabt-index.html
The pages at SilenceIsDefeat.net have apparently grown unstable again, and so I will advocate using the mirror I have made on my own web-hotel. Everything that was on the other site is also found here, including the full overview of all our Chapter-of-the-Week discussions.

= = = = 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), ‘Kalimac’
http://kalimac.blogspot.com/
and the old home:
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

Henry Gee (HG) ‘cromercrox’, ‘The End of the Pier Show’
http://occamstypewriter.org/cromercrox/

David Simmons (DS), ‘Aiya Ilúvatar’
http://www.aiyailuvatar.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

--
Troels Forchhammer

The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.
- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Regarding Pictures

All pictures that are displayed on this blog appear with the kind permission of the artist, for which I am exceedingly grateful. Please do not copy or reuse them without permission, and please recall to always give credit where it is due.

Pictures that are not my own photos, are linked to lead to the artist's page – please click through and visit their page. You support them already by showing an interest, but please consider supporting them also financially – buying some of their works, or otherwise.

The artists that have allowed me to use their images are

Tsvetelina ‘Elmenel’ Krumova

Katarzyna ‘Kasiopea’ Chmiel-Gugulska

Graeme Skinner

Before his untimely death in August 2015, I had a similar arrangement with Jef Murray.

Pages

Saturday, 5 November 2011

Tolkien Transactions XVIII

= = = = News = = = =

= = = = Essays and Scholarship = = = =

= = = = Book News = = = =

= = = = Interviews = = = =

= = = = Other Stuff = = = =

= = = = Rewarding Discussions = = = =

= = = = In Print = = = =

= = = = Web Sites = = = =

= = = = Sources = = = =

Saturday, 1 October 2011

Tolkien Transactions XVII

= = = = News = = = =

= = = = Essays and Scholarship = = = =

= = = = Taum's Aphorisms = = = =

= = = = Book News = = = =

= = = = Other Stuff = = = =

= = = = Tolkien-related entries on ‘The World's Strongest Librarian’ = = = =

= = = = Rewarding Discussions = = = =

= = = = Web Sites = = = =

= = = = Sources = = = =

Tuesday, 27 September 2011

Taum Santoski's Aphorisms 1 through 6

Thursday, 1 September 2011

Tolkien Transactions XVI

= = = = News = = = =

= = = = Essays and Scholarship = = = =

= = = = Taum's Aphorisms = = = =

= = = = Book News = = = =

= = = = Other Stuff = = = =

= = = = Rewarding Discussions = = = =

= = = = Web Sites = = = =

= = = = Sources = = = =