The New Studio Ghibli

So, thanks to Janice, who thanks Anne, I've now seen the trailer for the newest Studio Ghibli film, ARIETTY, based on Mary Norton's THE BORROWERS. Looks good. Looks very good. Here's the link to the clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzBBIBSi2Vo&feature=share

Having been a bit disappointed by EARTHSEA and PONYO (though THE CAT RETURNS and HOWL were top-notch), I'm hoping this one marks a return to form. We'll soon see.

Definitely time for another anime night soon.

--John R.

The New Arrivals: Eddas and Fanzines

So, Friday brought two long-awaited and strangely parallel publications to our doorstep. The first is the latest volume in Ursula Dronke's THE POETIC EDDA (Vol. III, rather confusingly subtitled 'Mythological Poems II). This is the third installment of a long-term project, Vol. I (Heroic Poems) having appeared in 1969 and Vol, II (Mythological Poems) almost thirty years later, in 1997. I first encountered Volume I in the Magnolia college library and have never been able to find a copy for myself (having been forced to fall back on a photocopy of the Suzzallo-Allen copy). And I somehow missed any announcement that Volume II had come out till some time after the fact, meaning that when I ordered a copy of that one all I got was a print-on-demand tome -- easier to reference than the photocopy of the first volume, but still a bit of a disappointment considering what I paid for it.

And now Volume III, which I actually did know about beforehand, having seen it advertised in a catalogue; I even pre-ordered it, paying for a copy at the Oxf. Univ. Press booth at Kalamazoo,* and have been eagerly awaiting its arrival ever since. Now that it's out, I see it's a much slimmer volume than the other two, Dronke having changed the plan she'd announced in Vol II whereby the remaining twenty Eddic poems wd be covered in Volumes III (the Helgi lays & Sigurd cycle**) and IV (the remaining misc and mythological pieces). Given that she'd only published thirteen of twenty-nine poems in the space of forty-two years,*** there's cause for concern whether she'll ever finish this superlative edition: we can but hope. Perhaps it'll become a multi-generational project, like James Murray's OED.

In any case, this new volume contains four more poems: HAVAMAL (the source of Fimbulfambi) and HYMISKVITHA (Thorr vs. the World Serpent), GRIMNISMAL (Odin on the Tree) and GROTTASONGR (the story of Frothi/Froda's mill). Text, translation, and extensive commentary mean this is a slim but substantial work of about 150 pages. I have to admit that, having devoted twelve pages of MR. BAGGINS to an essay about a character who doesn't actually appear as such in that book, I have a soft spot when I see that Dronke has similarly devoted a section (four pages) to a scene that doesn't appear in the poem she's editing ("The Missing Rowing Scene").

So, even though I'm not an Old Norse scholar, this one goes high up on the list of books to read -- though I'm strongly tempted to go back to that first volume and re-read that first, followed by Vol. II (which I've only read pieces of), culminating in Vol. III. So many books in proportion to the time available to read; we'll see.

As for the other new arrival, it too is the latest installment in a multi-volume work, although on a smaller scale, this being Gary Hunnewell's magisterial survey of Tolkien fanzines in chronological order. Having started from the beginning (November 1959 -- just a year or so after my own beginning!), he's now produced three of these: the first covering Tolkien fandom up to 1964, the next devoted to 1965, and now this to 1966; its formal title is THE YELLOWSKIN OF TUCKBOROUGH: TOLKIEN FANDOM REVIEW 1966. In it Gary lists the contents of each Tolkien fanzine, or other science fiction/fantasy fanzine that had Tolkien content, with a brief description of each essay or poem or editorial. It's the sort of project that requires encyclopedic knowledge, a superb collection to draw from, good organizational ability, and a great deal of stick-to-it-ness. Well done!

--John R.

current reading:

--THE MAN WHO MADE FRIENDS WITH HIMSELF -- Christopher Morley

--CAHOKIA: CITY OF THE SUN

*thus getting a small but welcome discount against its staggering list price of $180 -- making it the most expensive book I'll buy this year, barring some spectacular used-book find, which I'm not expecting.

**i.e., the material Tolkien drew on for SIGURD & GUDRUN.

***not counting however many years' work went into the creation of that first volume, still my favorite of the set -- she mentions in her preface to it having finished work on one of its component poems in 1963.

Two Outta Three Ain't Bad

So, one of the things that really caught my attention in BLOOMSBURY PIE* -- Regina Marler's account of how 'The Bloomsbury Group' went from being a literary writers' circle (loved by some, hated by others) to a social phenomenon (e.g., Woolf's face on coffee mugs and tote bags) -- is her claim (p. 160) that the two signs that an author has 'arrived' are, first, "the formal establishment of a society devoted to a literary figure"** and, second, the publication of that author's "letters and diaries in . . . complete and unexpurgated editions". By these standards, Woolf has ranked as a major author since the 1970s.

And how does Tolkien stack up by her proposed standard? Well, we've had a Tolkien Society for decades -- indeed, several societies. But I think she overestimates the importance of that in establishing an author's reputation. After all, at a glance how are we to distinguish between a gathering of like-minded scholars and a fan club? Browning had one, Harry Potter has the other; Tolkien's societies have tended to be a bit of both.

As for her second standard, Tolkien scholarship is lagging far behind C. S. Lewis in this regard: CSL has been the subject of no less than three major biographies (Green-Hooper, Sayer, and Wilson), his diary is in print (as well as a generous selection of his brother's diaries, which are far superior), and we now have a massive three-volume (4000 pages) COLLECTED LETTERS, plus three or four collections of memoirs and recollections. By contrast with Tolkien we have to content ourselves with the authorized biography (excellently supplemented by Garth and Scull & Hammond) and the selected letters, both more than three decades old now.

That would seem to indicate that Tolkien has yet to arrive, so far as the Academy is concerned -- something also backed up by T. A. Shippey's observation about all the major literary journals who've never published a single piece on JRRT.

But there are some more metrics I think relevant that Marler fails to take into account. One I've been v. much aware of is the publication of scholarly editions of an author's rough drafts, showing how their works were put together. We've had this for years with Woolf, but the supreme example remains THE JAMES JOYCE ARCHIVE, which reproduces in facsimile every page of Joyce's literary manuscripts, page proofs, &c known to survive in sixty-three huge folio volumes. Here Tolkien triumphs: the treatment of his drafts and unpublished literary manuscripts is unparalleled in being both massively detailed and wildly popular (the JJA never got hardcover AND mass-market paperback editions, for example). Here's also where Tolkien's posthumous trajectory has been more in line with the treatment accorded 'canonical' authors than has CSL's -- partly no doubt because Tolkien left behind masses of manuscripts of vast interest to his readers, while relatively few of Lewis's manuscripts survive, and the treatment of Walter Hooper when he published one of the more significant ones, THE DARK TOWER, was not such as wd encourage any editor to release more material.

One more metric I'd argue is predictive of creeping canonization is the outpouring of dissertations focused on Tolkien's work -- something that marked Tolkien studies right away (the first thesis came out within a year or two of the book's publication) and shows no sign of ceasing all these decades later.

So, while Tolkien's current status doesn't fulfill all of Marler's conditions -- something which in itself accurately reflects Tolkien's still uncertain status as he edges ever closer to acceptance within the academy (or what's left of it) -- the signs are promising. And that's not even taking into account the establishment of TOLKIEN STUDIES as a well-respected peer-reviewed dedicated journal nor the extraordinary number of books on Tolkien's works published in the last forty-five years.

--John R.

..........................

*thanks to Doug Anderson for recommending this one.

**she quotes another scholar that the establishment of such a Society serves as "a kind of predictive index to that figure's scholarly weight" (ibid).

Poke-Em-With-A-Stick-Wednesday (Joseph Wright Takes On Saul of Tarsus)

So, I've finally gotten around to reading THE PARGITERS: THE NOVEL-ESSAY PORTION OF 'THE YEARS', an edition of Woolf's unfinished first-draft attempt at the work that later became her demi-penultimate novel, THE YEARS. I've had a copy since 1986 (when I bought it at People's Bookstore in Milwaukee, on the lower east side), but given that THE YEARS is one of her weaker books I've obviously taken my time in getting around to it, spurred on by my recent reading of two other books on Bloombury or by Bloomsbury figures.

The most interesting thing about THE YEARS, from my point of view, has always been that one of the characters in it was inspired by Joseph Wright, Tolkien's tutor; Woolf had been deeply impressed by Wright's biography (written by Mary Wright) and his enlightened attitude towards women (which might in turn have explained Tolkien's support of women's higher education, which many of his generation at best tolerated and more often disparaged). In fact, in the course of my researches I found a letter Woolf had written to Mrs. Wright unknown to the editors of her Collected Letters (after I drew it to their attention they did get it added in, but I forget whether in the trade paperback reprinting or a supplement -- it's a long time ago now).

What startled me this time was coming across a quote attributed to Wright in the editor's introduction to this volume (p. xii). It so happens that I own the two-volume biography of Joseph Wright (although I confess I haven't read it yet; in this case I've only had the book since 2005, so I shd get to it one of these years), so I looked it up. It's a good thing I did, since the editor in fact compressed the quote, leaving out half a sentence without any indication of having done so. Here's the quote as it appears in Wright's book:

"St. Paul and the likes of him have much to answer for, and it is ever my most pious wish that they will reap their due reward. It is due to them, and them alone, that woman has been such a downtrodden creature in the past. It is only the present generation of women that is beginning to realize the abject state of woman in the past. Not so very long ago -- it still exists in many old-fashioned families -- a woman was regarded as a poor weak and feeble-minded creature who had no right to think for herself, but must leave all that to her husband, however silly and stupid he might be. Nay, things were even worse, for a woman was not generally allowed to chose her own husband, that was practically settled for her by her parents or guardian. I am thankful that all this is passing away. Apart from every other consideration, it is much better for the whole human race . . ." *

This is, of course, overstating the case -- Roman law and Mediterranean/Mid-East culture were both pretty misogynistic all on their own -- but he's right in that Paul of Tarsus put a theological imprimatur on misogyny that lasted for centuries (in fact, in some circles it's not over yet).

And did JRRT absorb this lesson from his mentor, along with his encyclopedic knowledge of out-of-the-way words and thirst to learn all he cd about their origin, or dogged determination to see a lengthy project through until its final triumphant completion and publication? Impossible to say, but it is interesting to note that for an author as old-fashion and traditionalist as Tolkien is generally held to be, there's a marked lack of emphasis on 'Obey'. Might be interesting to go back and re-read "The Mariner's Wife" from that perspective.

--John R.

current reading: THE PARGITERS by Virginia Woolf

*letter of Joseph Wright to his fiancee, Mary Wright; Sept. 5th 1896. Boldface emphasis mine; italic emphasis his. THE LIFE OF JOSPEH WRIGHT, by Elizabeth Mary Wright. (London: Oxford Univ. Pr, 1932). Volume I, page 315. My copy of this book bears a worn sticker in the shape of a green shield that I take to read "[B]oots/[Boo]klov[er']s/[L]ibrary"

Henri d'Orn

So, I've been having a lot of fun lately with the character I'm playing in our current CALL OF CTHULHU game, one of the SuperGeniusGames adventures being run by Sigfried Trent as our Keeper. While I have a few favorite types I enjoy playing in C.o.C. -- the tenacious private eye (e.g., 'Martin Urnst'), the unscrupulous book/artifact collector (e.g., 'Mr. Damascus'), the Woosterish innocent (e.g., 'Capn. Mercer'*)-- once in a while it's fun to play something out of the box.

Hence my current character, Henry Dorn. Or, as he prefers to be known, Henri d'Orn. Most C.o.C. characters start out relatively normal and, though exposure to the Mythos, become increasingly unhinged as the campaign progresses, acquiring phobias and obsessions and frequent guest status in nearby asylums along the way. Not Henry, who lives in a world of his own right from the start (think Elwood P. Dowd). While others who see him see a street person, in his own mind he's a ranger lord, with all the skills and abilities (and responsibilities) to match. For him, life is one long D&D game (1st-edition, of course), and he interprets everything that happens in those terms. Others might be disturbed by evidence of weird half-serpent/half-human creatures slinking around in elevator shafts and ventilation ducts; he immediately concludes that New York City is currently undergoing infiltration by yuan-ti and that he and his newfound comrades are just the folks to stop it.**

All this has its drawbacks, of course. For one thing, for all his belief that he's tenth level, he's still (this being C.o.C.) just a normal human, with only a handful of hit points. Thus, when he bravely took on a maniac attacking a puppy with an axe, he saved the puppy by getting the axe-head buried in his torso. He survived and is even ambulatory, thanks to First Aid rolls, but he's still wandering around pursuing his Quest when he really should be in some hospital somewhere, preferably one that doles out pain medication with a generous hand. . I suspect he'll not fare well in whatever major encounter ends the adventure; we'll see. In the meantime, he's off in a world of his own that has more plausible interconnections with the real world than you'd imagine.

For those who might be interested, here's Henry's stats:

HENRY DORN (Henri d'Orn, Ranger Lord)

Str 12 Int 12 Wis [Pow] 13 Dex 16 Con 12 Chr [App] 8

13 hp (currently 7) Size 13 +d4 damage bonus

LUCK 65 IDEA 60 KNOW 95 SAN 64

mental status: psychotic schizophrenic

limited druidic spell ability. 'animal companion': Mr. Tentoes***

SKILLS:

Conceal 50 MYTHOS 15 Dodge 32 Hide 80 Listen 90

Nat'l History 80 'Occult' (D&D Lore) 70 Sneak 85

Spot Hidden 85 Track 90 Weapon (bow) 50

SPELLS

Bat Form, Charm Animal, Cloud Memory, Command Animal (dog),

Deflect Harm ("shield"), Dream Vision, Heal, Heal Animal, Shrivelling

("magic missile"), Song of Hastur ("fireball")

His 'Mythos' score reflects his having memorized the eight pages devoted to the Cthulhu Mythos in the first edition/first printing of DEITIES & DEMIGODS -- which means (for example) he knows nothing about Yig and the serpent people but all about Hastur and the Necronomicon. Similarly, his 'Occult' score reflects his ability to find some plausible analogue within the AD&D rules to something he's encountered (e.g., a spell, artifact, or monster). His spell ability is the best C.o.C. analogue I cd come up with for the low-level cleric & druid ability a high-level ranger shd have. You'd be surprised how many times the police try to take your bow away when you're homeless.

The most amusing thing about playing him? How easy it is to fit anything that happens in our C.o.C. game into the 1st edition AD&D rules which Henry uses to understand the world. And how, after three sessions, they're still letting Henry talk to people when they really shd know better.

--JDR

current reading: THE PARGITERS by V. Woolf [1932/1977]

*who, after surviving four and a half years on the Western Front as a balloonist, returned obsessed with zeppelins and convinced that what people really wanted in a post-war world as individual (two-seater & four-seater) zeppelins, setting up dirigible-works on his uncle (Lord Worplesdon's) country estate.

*cf. MONSTER MANUAL II -- which of course he carries around w. him in his backpack, along with the other core 1st ed. AD&D books

It Begins

So, Thursday I bought a copy of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY for the first time in a long time -- not for any interest in the cover story (about a show I've never watched, and hadn't even known was based on a novel series by a writer now living in my old hometown*), but because I saw a little headline in the upper left corner: "THE HOBBIT: A Sneak Peek from Peter Jackson."

This turns out to herald a four-page piece on the forthcoming film, three and a half pages of which are pictures and the remaining half-page a brief interview with Jackson. And with this, the whole game of lamenting the things Jackson changed can begin.**

Up till now, those of us interested in the film have mainly been wondering how much of the original Jackson was going to include (the consensus: just about everything), which actors & actresses from the LotR film trilogy wd be returning in at least cameo roles (the answer: just about all of them who can plausibly do so), and what bits of off-stage action (like the White Council) or flashbacks (Smaug's original attack on Dale & the Mt, Thrain's doomed expedition) might find its way on-camera (the evidence so far: at least some). But what we cdn't tell was what Jackson might add, and what he might change. Some of the things he added to the original films worked spectacularly well (most memorably the beacon-fires sequence) while others fell spectacularly flat (Frodo repudiating Sam's companionship nr Cirith Ungol). The same was true of the things he changed: some proved to be great ideas (recasting Sam as more a friend than a lackey) and others duds (Denethor as a slavering loon). But there's been no way to guess what Jackson would add or change this time around.

Until now. Two very small examples can be gleaned from this article, brief as it is. The first is mention of the casting of an actress (Evangeline Lilly) to play an elf named Tauriel -- a character nowhere appearing in Tolkien's book. I suspect she wears a red shirt, but more on that another time. So here we have something new added -- we run into quite a lot of wood-elves in the course of the story, only one of whom (Galion) is given a name, so working up one of that faceless lot into a recognizable character makes sense.

The other example is the sort of innocuous change that drove Tolkien into a state when it occurred in the Zimmerman script,** the only film adaptation of one of his books he's known to have examined closely. One of the shots from the film shows Bilbo examining his contract, which is a long, long many-folded ream of paper, quite unlike the simple, terse contract given verbatim in the book (and reproduced in facsimile by Tolkien himself as a single two-sided sheet). Furthermore, the accompanying caption explains that

"Bilbo's actually got to sign a contract the dwarves have written up, and there's nothing like Dwarvish fine print"

Thus, the scene as Tolkien wrote it, with the contract being left on the mantle for Bilbo to find the next day after the dwarves have left, will be changed for a bit of comic business. What's not clear is how the new scene they'll have to write to replace it will play out -- just that the idea that they've offered him their terms rather casually, which he'll accept simply by turning up, seems to gone by the way. All we know is that the scene as filmed will be rather different from what's in the book. How well the new story will work or not we'll just have to wait and see (literally).

At any rate, from here on out we shd be getting a stream of detailed information about the film, although paradoxically I suspect this will give us relatively little insight into what the film itself will be like.

--John R.

current reading: BLOOMSBURY PIE by Regina Marler and PORTRAITS IN MINIATUE by Lytton Strachey.

*TRUE BLOOD and Charlaine Harris, respectively.

**Tolkien objected, strongly, to the scene in the script at the Prancing Pony where the innkeeper assigned Mr. Underhill room number fourteen and had him sign the registry.

Bilbo's Clue (clew)

So, here's something I came across a while back that I found interesting and thought I'd share.

In the original edition of RETURN TO BAG-END,* I noted in my discussion of Bilbo's riddling self-identifications of himself to Smaug that while most refer to v. specific events, there was an exception:

I am the clue-finder --this could refer to any of several episodes.

It might mean Bilbo finding the key to open the trolls' lair (page 97,

Chapter II) but more likely refers to his discovering the exact application

of the moon-runes on Thror's Map and thus enabling Thorin & Company

to find the keyhole at the exact moment on Durin's Day (Chapter XI).

Thanks to Anders Stenstrom, we can now narrow this down, and the passage should read as follows in the new edition:

I am the clue-finder -- this probably alludes to Bilbo's finding

the spider-thread and using it to guide his friends through the tangles

of Mirkwood in Chapter VIII, since 'clue' originally meant a ball of thread,

specifically the one used by Theseus to navigate the labyrinth

(Concise OED Vol I, page 434, under the spelling 'clew').

I am grateful to Anders Stenstrom for drawing this

etymology to my attention.

At the time I first drafted replacement text for this passage and posted it among the Errata on my website (Sacnoth's Scriptorium) [circa 2008, I think], I thought Anders' explanation was convincing, but more recently I came across some more information in quite another context that makes me certain of it. I was listening to an audiobook of an account of a famous murder from the early days of Scotland Yard, THE SUSPICIONS OF MR. WHICHER** by Kate Summerscale, which includes the following passage:

"The word 'clue' derives from 'clew', meaning a ball of thread or yarn.

It had come to mean 'that which points the way' because of the Greek myth

in which Theseus uses a ball of yarn, given to him by Ariadne, to find his way

out of the Minotaur's labyrinth. The writers of the mid-nineteenth century

still had this image in mind when they used the word. 'There is always a

pleasure in unravelling a mystery, in catching at the gossamer clue which

will guide to certainty', observed Elizabeth Gaskell in 1848. William Wills,

Dickens' deputy, paid tribute in 1850 to Whicher's brilliance by observing

that the detective found the way even when 'every clue seems cut off'. 'I

thought I had my hand on the clue', declared the narrator of The Woman

in White in an installment published in June 1860. 'How little I knew,

then, of the windings of the labyrinth which were still to mislead me!'

A plot was a knot, and a story ended in a 'denouement', an unknotting.

--page 88.

Of course, it this identification is correct (and I think it is), then Bilbo here is making reference to something that's no longer in the published story, since the whole 'Theseus theme' dropped out of the Mirkwood chapter and was replaced in the final book by the Enchanted River section. This it can now be identified as another fossil in the story, preserving evidence of an earlier version of the tale.

--JDR

current reading: BLOOMSBURY PIE: THE MAKING OF THE BLOOMSBURY BOOM by Regina Marler [1997]

*pages 521-522

**subtitle: A SHOCKING MURDER AND THE UNDOING OF A GREAT VICTORIAN DETECTIVE [2008]. It is Summerscale's thesis, which she demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt, that this particular 1860 murder inspired the whole genre of the 'English Country House' murder mystery and exerted enormous influence on the detective story, esp. Wilkie Collins' THE MOONSTONE [1865].

errata

Anders

Mr. Whicher