READIN

Sunday, June 17th, 2012

🦋 Speaking of Hitchhiker's Guide and LOTR...

He grinned at them particularly because he knew that in a few minutes, he would be giving them one hell of a quote.

I had totally forgotten this: every time I say or write "This is obviously some strange new use of the word (whatever the word is) that I was previously unfamiliar with" (which happens with nonzero frequency), I am making a reference to Arthur Dent and to the Hitchhiker's Guide. Don't know if Adams was the inventor of the construction but this is certainly the first place I ever saw it.

posted evening of June 17th, 2012: Respond
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Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012

🦋 Ecce Bilbo

In foramine terræ habitabat hobbitus.

posted evening of May 22nd, 2012: Respond
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Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

🦋 History is told by the victors

With that proverb in mind, Kirill Yuryevitch Yeskov set out to relate an alternate history of Tolkein's Middle Earth from the point of view of the losing side: Yeskov tells the story of the War of the Ring as seen by the forces of Mordor. Fascinating! Yeskov published his book Последний кольценосец in 1999; it does not look like a commercial translation in English will be forthcoming any time soon because the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien does not cotton to infringement on its intellectual property... But fandom to the rescue! Blogger Yisroel Markov has made available his translation of The Last Ring-Bearer (done over the course of "a few dozen lunch hours," and vetted and corrected by Eskov) for free download. Far out. Thanks, Mr. Markov! (and thanks for letting me know about this, Gabe!)

(Readers of Russian can peruse the original at lib.ru.) ...And more: an essay by Yeskov at Salon.

posted evening of February 15th, 2011: Respond
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Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

🦋 Edda

At the dark doorways
they dinned and hammered;
there was clang of swords
and crash of axes.
The smiths of battle
smote the anvils;
sparked and splintered
spears and helmets.
In they hacked them,
out they hurled them;
bears assailing,
boars defending.
Stones and stairways
streamed and darkened;
day came dimly --
the doors were held.

Elizabeth Hand reviews the book for the Washington Post, and says, "Perhaps more than any other single work of Tolkien's, this one provides a direct experience of the fierce intellect and imagination that produced 'the author of the century,' as British scholar T.A. Shippey called him."

* Thinking a little more about this: in epic verse, the difficulties I had with LOTR would fall away completely (assuming the verse was well done) -- it's no longer an issue whether I can believe the dialog and the motivations, and I'll be able to pay attention exclusively to the imagery and themes -- I liked LOTR best when I was reading this way.

posted evening of May 5th, 2009: 1 response

Saturday, April 25th, 2009

🦋 Mutt and Jeff

I've been having mixed feelings about Book V of LOTR -- I mean the whole trilogy has been fairly warlike, with men who thrive in battle and women who are mostly absent; but the sadistic, drawn-out glamour of the battle for Minas Tirith is freaking me out a bit. Also the timeline of the Riders of Rohan arriving at Minas Tirith and Aragorn arriving leading an army of the dead. (And why no mention is made of their being dead, after he initially hooks up with them in Dunharrow.*) OTOH some of the imagery is just breathtaking, and I like how some of the characters are drawn. Legolas and Gimli are growing on me in a way they have not thus far. Take a look at this passage in Chapter 9, after the two have told Imrahil he is needed at Aragorn's tent:

"That is a fair lord and a great captain of men," said Legolas. "If Gondor has such men still in these days of fading, great must have been its glory in the days of its rising."

"And doubtless the good stone-work was wrought in the first building," said Gimli. "It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise."

"Yet seldom do they fail of their seed," said Legolas. "And that will lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places unlooked-for. The deeds of Men will outlast us, Gimli."

"And yet come to naught in the end but might-have-beens, I guess," said the Dwarf.

"To that the Elves do not know the answer," said Legolas.

* Ah ok, not too many pages later it becomes clear that Aragorn was no longer leading an army of the dead, when he arrived at Minas Tirith. This makes the course of events make much more sense.

posted afternoon of April 25th, 2009: Respond

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

🦋 Strategizing

I am having a lot of fun with listening to Sylvia coming up with ways that Bilbo and the dwarves could get out of their scrapes -- if they tell Smaug there are fifteen gallons of gold in Hobbiton, then he will fly there and they will be able to get his treasure away (and the hobbits of the Shire will be safe because Smaug "can't smell hobbits"); or Bilbo could loan the ring to Thorin and Thorin would creep down into Smaug's lair and say something that caused the dragon to freak out and run around in circles, until he bumped his head and was out of commission... She's particularly interested in the ring, coming up with ways it could be used to make the entire party invisible. If it's big enough, two of them could put their pinkies together and squeeze it on. (I have myself been wondering how the ring comes to be the right size for Bilbo's halfling fingers.) Bilbo could go to each of their cells in the elf-king's dungeon as the door was being opened to give them food, and toss them the ring, and they could slip out in a flash.

She asked a question tonight that plagues me every time Bilbo or Frodo puts on the ring: do the objects he is holding also turn invisible? I don't see any very consistent approach to this question in the texts -- obviously the ring-wearer's clothing becomes invisible, and any paraphernalia in his pocketses; but at one point there was a reference to Frodo swordfighting while wearing the ring, and the sword was said to be visible*. I am not sure what the rule is, or if it's just a matter of the needs of the story-teller at each particular juncture.

* (And if I'm remembering right, the sword became invisible once more when he slipped it into its sheath -- how does this make sense?)

posted evening of April 23rd, 2009: 2 responses
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Saturday, April 18th, 2009

🦋 Frodo and Sam and Sméagol

I am finding book IV of The Lord of the Rings, the story (so far) of Frodo, Sam and Sméagol journeying towards Mordor, to be the most compelling reading of the first two volumes. I'm really tuned in to each of the three characters and sensitive to what's happening with them. In most of the rest of the book I have been liking it more as a visual experience -- a painting of words -- than as a story. I am very much in awe of Tolkien's ability to create a world, even if the story is not always making it for me -- this is making me feel good about the idea of reading the Silmarillion next, which I understand to be mostly world-creation rather than story.

I found this dialogue between Frodo and Faramir (at the end of Chapter 6) very moving -- suddenly this style of writing dialogue, which has been seeming very stilted to me, is making sense:

‘...Do not approach their citadel. ...It is a place of sleepless malice, full of lidless eyes. Do not go that way!’

"But where else will you direct me?" said Frodo. "You cannot yourself, you say, guide me to the mountains, nor over them. But over the mountains I am bound, by solemn undertaking to the Council to find a way or perish in the seeking. And if I turn back, refusing the road in its bitter end, where then shall I go among Elves or Men? Would you have me come to Gondor with this Thing, the Thing that drove your brother mad with desire? What spell would it work in Minas Tirith? Shall there be two cities of Minas Morgul, grinning at each other across a dead land filled with rottenness?"

"I would not have it so," said Faramir.

"Then what would you have me do?"

"I know not. Only I would not have you go to death or to torment. And I do not think that Mithrandir would have chosen this way."

"Yet since he is gone, I must take such paths as I can find. And there is no time for long searching."

Some bits of the language in the book are coming back to me from my previous reading of it. I seem to remember that when I read Chapter 9 of book III, "Flotsam and Jetsam", that was the first time I had ever seen those terms, and I looked them up in the dictionary and endeavored to throw them into conversation for the next little while. (If memory serves the distinction is that flotsam is wreckage floating away from the wrecked ship, where jetsam is wreckage that was jettisoned from the ship prior to its sinking.) I remember the name "Morgul" but thought somehow it was the name of an evil character or species, not part of an evil city's name... Either way it is certainly a bad-sounding handle.

posted evening of April 18th, 2009: 1 response

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

🦋 Weaknesses in Amber Spyglass

Michael Bérubé has a long post today about His Dark Materials and a few other things (thanks for pointing it out, Levi) -- it is a bit dense but as near as I can tell, he means to defend The Amber Spyglass against critics who think it is the weakest book in the series because it is too preachy, and simultaneously to point out a weakness in the series -- that it is written on too grand a scale -- and to talk about some other fantasy series, like LOTR and C.S. Lewis' science fiction books, in this context.

I'm grateful to Dr. Bérubé for what he says about the world of the dead scene in The Amber Spyglass -- I had been having some cognitive dissonance over the last few weeks from failing to acknowledge the lameness of the Lyra's-hair bomb plot device. I had gotten up on a horse about the great beauty of the descent into the world of the dead, but was having trouble riding it. That said I don't think the idea that the harpies want to hear true stories of the world of the living is as bad as Bérubé does; I kind of like it, and I didn't attach a huge amount of importance to its role in the plot as I was reading.

I'm tentatively working on a response to people who complain about the preachiness of His Dark Materials, and which I think would also work as a response to Bérubé's complaint about Tolkien's stilted language -- making the argument against the church seems to be a huge part of Pullman's goal in writing these books. I did not (generally) find that the pedantry detracted from the story; but he is not only telling a story. Saying that the pedantry detracts from the story is like, well, like saying that Tolkien's archæic usages detract from his story -- I think Tolkien is at least as interested in creating a world where these usages will work, as he is in telling a story about a hobbit's quest. But this needs a fair amount of work before it will actually be an argument of any sort.

Some great discussion in the comments thread over there as well -- particularly from Kathleen, Alan Jacobs, Rich Puchalsky. I'm reluctant to enter into it myself because I like the books so much -- the tone of the comment thread seems to be focusing on the faults of the books, if I join the discussion mooning about how great the trilogy is, I am just going to look silly and thoughtless -- and yet I find my response to the criticisms is mostly just along the lines of "yeah that's true, but still it is a wonderful read..."

posted evening of April 8th, 2009: Respond
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Monday, April 6th, 2009

🦋 The Mirror of Galadriel

In this chapter there are two passages that strike me as very cinematic -- I can see them playing out animated on the screen. (Granted Tolkien was writing before the advent of anime, so he probably did not have that style in mind; but I think it is suited very well to his words.)

She lifted up her hand and from the ring she wore there issued a great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.

This is just great. I can see her holding the ring up, it shining down on her, her transformation into something fearful -- it could be lifted right out of Howl's Moving Castle.

Then there was a pause, and many swift scenes followed that Frodo in some way knew to be parts of a great history in which he had become involved. The mist cleared and he saw a sight which he had never seen before but knew at once: the sea. Darkness fell. The sea rose and raged in a great storm. Then he saw against the Sun, sinking blood-red into a wrack of clouds, the black outline of a tall ship with torn sails riding up out of the West. Then a wide river flowing through a populous city. Then a white fortress with seven towers. And then again a ship with black sails, but now it was morning again, and water rippled with the light, and a banner bearing the emblem of a white tree shown in the sun. A smoke as of a fire and a battle arose, and again the sun went down in a burning red that faded into a grey mist; and into the mist a grey ship passed away, twinkling with lights. It vanished, and Frodo sighed and prepared to draw away.

I'm not as crazy about this. I think it could work really well on screen; but in the text something seems wrong with it. Those images are flashing by quickly, my gut reaction is that Frodo cannot be processing them as quickly as the narrator is telling us, and it makes it seem like a cheat. In the movie you would see all those images but you would not be able to narrate them in real-time like this -- you would have to assemble the narrative after the images had passed -- which is what I think Frodo would need to do, and by serving it up to us like this the narrator is taking us away from the story. Not sure this makes any sense, I'm trying to convey my impression here.

Magic and prophesy are another element that LOTR has in common with Narnia and His Dark Materials -- maybe I did not mention this last time because it seemed obvious, magic and prophesy are sort of defining features of the fantasy genre -- but I think it would be worth a post at some point examining how magic and prophesy in the story, and the characters' response to them, affect my reading experience. I don't read very much fantasy, so I am noticing this part of the reading as something unusual.

posted evening of April 6th, 2009: 3 responses

Sunday, April 5th, 2009

🦋 What do Hobbits look like?

In tonight's reading (Bilbo and company are captured by, escape from, and are recaptured by the goblins who live under the Misty Mountains), Sylvia happened on the question of how tall are Hobbits -- I know Tolkien lays out somewhere in this book their approximate dimensions, but I've forgotten what they are now -- my rule of thumb has been thinking that dwarves are about Sylvia's height, hobbits about a foot shorter. Sylvia hazarded some guesses and I told her what I thought.

Toward the end of the reading, as we were hearing about how Bilbo was better off making his way through the goblins' cave than someone like you or I would be, because hobbits are used to tunneling, when Sylvia asserted that hobbits should look like rabbits. --"But I think they are shaped more like people, just shorter." --"But it's ugly if they look like people. I think they look like rabbits." Hm, well, interesting... and shows that she hasn't got exposed to the cartoon image of Bilbo that is fixed in my head. So we finished the reading, and as I was saying goodnight I asked her what about dwarves, do they look like people or like rabbits? -- And got in response a long, elaborate description of a cartoon dwarf à la Snow White. I'm finding this kind of funny -- a word gets fixed in our heads with the cartoon we watch describing it.

Update: This is kind of funny -- the eagle that carries Bilbo from the ærie to the Carrock, also says he thinks the hobbit looks like a rabbit.

"Don't pinch!" said his eagle, "You need not be frightened like a rabbit, even if you rather look like one. It is a fair morning with little wind. What is finer than flying?"

posted evening of April 5th, 2009: 3 responses

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