Forthcoming Publication: PICTURING TOLKIEN

So, I just got word that I can now share the good news about a forthcoming publication that includes a piece of mine. It's an essay called "Two Kinds of Absence", appearing in the collection PICTURING TOLKIEN, edited by Jan Bogstad and Phil Kaveny and due out from McFarland half a year from now (official release date: July 31st 2011). Here are two links to descriptions of the book, the first at the McFarland website

http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-4636-0 *

and the second at amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Picturing-Tolkien-Essays-Jacksons-Trilogy/dp/0786446366/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1297226695&sr=8-1

My own contribution (the full title of which is "Two Kinds of Absence: Elision & Exclusion in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings”) examines the claim of Jackson and his co-writers -- that scenes not appearing in the movie nevertheless took place in the film world -- by looking closely at the Bombadil material. In the process, I also take into account how seven previous adaptations (film, audio, and stage) dealt with the Bombadil chapters. It was an interesting mental exercise to distinguish between characters and events that could appear (say, in a hypothetical vastly extended cut) from those that could not, pre-empted when events in the film-world diverge from what happens in the book. It having been some years since I'd written anything about the films (in the extensive three-part review I did at the time the films were released), it was also a good chance to renew my acquaintance with the first film in particular on a v. detailed level.

What's more, I'm pleased to be in such good company: here's a table of contents listing.

Introduction: Jan Bogstad and Phil Kaveny

1. "Gollum Talks to Himself" by Kristin Thompson

2. "Sometimes One Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures" by Verlyn Flieger

3. "Two Kinds of Absence" by John D. Rateliff

4. “Tolkien's Resistance to Linearity" by Edward Risden

5. "Filming Folklore" by Dimitra Fimi

6. “Making the Connection on Page and Screen” by Yvette Kisor

7. “It’s Alive!" by Sharin Schroeder

8. “The Matériel of Middle-earth" by Rbt Woosnam-Savage

9. "Into the West" by Judy Ann Ford and Robin Reid

10. "Frodo Lives but Gollum Redeems" by Phil Kaveny

11. "The Grey Pilgrim" by Brian Walter

12. "Jackson's Aragorn and the American Superhero Monomyth" by Janet Croft

13. "Neither the Shadow nor the Twilight: the Love Story of Aragorn and Arwen in Literature and Film" by Richard West

14. "Concerning Horses" by Jan Bogstad

15. "The Rohirrim, the Anglo-Saxons, and the Problem of Appendix F" by Michael Drout

16. "Filming the Numinous" by Joseph Ricke and Catherine Barnett

--congratulations and thanks to Jan and Phil for all their hard work assembling these essays and seeing the book through the editing process. I'm really looking forward to the chance to read the other contributions.

--John R.

current audiobook: more Kipling (gah!)

current book: Verne

current music: Bare Trees (Danny Kirwan/Fleetwood Mac)

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* for a convenient listing of all four of their books on Tolkien, see http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/searches/advanced_search2.php?advanced=tolkien&x=0&y=0

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UPDATE 2/13-11: It's been pointed out to me that I got the publisher's name wrong; accordingly, I've gone back in and fixed 'Macfarland' to McFarland. Thanks to Jason for catching that. --JDR