The New Arrival: GREEN SUNS

So, last week (Tuesday) brought my copy of Verlyn's latest book, GREEN SUNS AND FAERIE: ESSAYS ON J. R. R. TOLKIEN. I'd had this on order from amazon.com for months last year, until they finally cancelled; you'd think they'd have added it back in on my 'recommended' list when it finally became available. Apparently not. Given that, once I heard from the MythSoc list (for which thanks) that it was now out, I decided to order it directly from Kent State.

Wow what a book. Haven't had time to read it yet, but I already know a number of these pieces from having heard Verlyn present them at conferences and workshops over the years (some of them dating back to when we first met, over twenty-eight years ago now!) For some reason, the amazon.com entry seems to lack a Table of Contents, so here's what all's in this book [N.B.: the essay numbering is not in the original, being added by me here to help differentiate between the sometimes-lengthy essay titles*]:

PART ONE: TOLKIEN SUB-CREATOR

1. Fantasy and Reality: JRRT's World and the Fairy-story Essay

2. The Music and the Task: Fate and Free Will in Middle-earth

3. Tolkien and the Idea of the Book

4. Tolkien on Tolkien: OFS, THE HOBBIT, and LotR

5. When Is a Fairy Story a Faerie Story?: SWM

6. The Footsteps of AElfwine

7. The Curious Incident of the Dream at the Barrow: Memory and Reincarnation in Middle-earth

8. Whose Myth Is It?

PART TWO: TOLKIEN IN TRADITION

9. Tolkien's Wild Men from Medieval to Modern

10. Tolkien and the Matter of Britain

11. Frodo and Aragorn: The Concept of the Hero

12. Bilbo's Neck Riddle

13. Allegory Versus Bounce: Tolkien's SWM [Flieger vs. Shippey]

14. A Mythology for Finland: Tolkien and Lonnrot as Mythmakers

15. Tolkien, KALEVALA, and 'The Story of Kullervo'

16. Brittany and Wales in Middle-earth

17. The Green Knight, the Green Man, and Treebeard: Scholarship and Invention in Tolkien's Fiction

18. Missing Person

PART THREE: TOLKIEN AND HIS CENTURY

19. A Cautionary Tale: Tolkien's Mythology for England

20. The Mind, the Tongue, and the Tale

21. A Post-modern Medievalist

22.Taking the Part of Trees: Eco-conflict in Middle-earth

23. Gilson, Smith, and Baggins

24. The Body in Question: The Unhealed Wounds of Frodo Baggins

25. A Distant Mirror: Tolkien and Jackson in the Looking-glass

I also found it interesting that when I read the blurbs on the back cover, for once I didn't think they exaggerated at all. Here are a few representative snippets:

"No one knows Tolkien's oeuvre better than Flieger,

or presents it more accessibly"

--Tom Shippey

"It is not often that a new book makes me want

to stand up and shout 'Hallelujah!'"

--Diana Pavlac Glyer

"essential reading, not just for scholars but for all readers

who want to understand Middle-earth and its development"

--Michael Drout

"a book of insights and delights"

--Marjorie Burns

and finally my personal favorite, the one that says it all:

"these essays track a major scholar's deepening understanding

of the work of the master of fantasy"

--I know that, for my part, I'm going to be savoring these, one at a time, for weeks to come.

--JDR

*many of these's topics are self-evident from their titles, although this is not the case with some ("Whose Myth Is It?" being about the Athrabeth while "Missing Person" suggests no Christ is coming to Middle-earth).