"The Lost Road as Faerian Drama" (My Newest Publication)

So, it's been a long time in the making, but I'm happy to announce that my essay "The Lost Road as Faerian Drama" (working title: "Valinor in America") has just been published earlier today by THE JOURNAL OF TOLKIEN RESEARCH:

https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol12/iss2/3/

I call it a "speculative look at some of Tolkien's later speculative writings". Part of it I presented at last month's Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo, but it was good to get the whole thing over and done and out there.

Enjoy.

--John R.

 

The Northmoor Road Project

 So, just as C. S. Lewis's home, The Kilns, has in recent years been turned into a residential hall and study center devoted to preserving the Lewis brothers' legacy, now it's Tolkien's turn:

https://www.projectnorthmoor.org

The idea of Tolkien's house being preserved is encouraging. And who wdn't want to have the opportunity to attend "a programme of retreats, writing seminars and other cultural events", either onsite or online?

The fear of course is that they'll go too cutesy, of which there are some hints in the initial announcement  (e.g. build yr own hobbit-hole in the garden). Though Tolkien himself might approve of the garden (yard) being restored (though it looks quite nice as is from the glimpses offered in the various views accompanying the online stories).

programme of retreats, writing seminars and other cultural events, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/03/campaign-to-buy-jrr-tolkien-house-backed-by-lord-of-the-rings-actors-ian-mckellen-martin-freeman

I was a little surprised that of the dozen people who show up in the promo film embedded in the link above I recognized only five: McKellan, Rhys-Davies, Freeman, Jacobi, and Lennox. The other seven I don't know, though the last of them seems to be children's author Julia Golding, who seems to be the driving force behind the project.

Also, I don't do much crowdsourcing (just the occasional Kickstarter), but isn't it unusual for a crowdsourcing project that doesn't make its goal to just keep what money they do raise? 

https://people.com/home/lord-of-the-rings-stars-quest-to-save-the-home-of-author-jrr-tolkien/?fbclid=IwAR2KeIoLb1exwugJBB000iRn1c5nfzHyBh1vwejhNupf8R4IplIkXt-8X8E

Thanks to Janice for the link.

--John R.

THE DARK TOWER and A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS

So, I've been reading (or more accurately re-reading) a number of books by  David Lindsay, whose first and most famous book, A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS, celebrates its centenary this year. And I was struck by something I had previously passed over without its drawing my attention: a striking parallel between  Lindsay's book and Lewis's THE DARK TOWER. Lewis openly confessed his debt to Lindsay, particularly to OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET, but I don't think I've seen anyone extend the influence to include the final, unfinished fourth book of the Ransom series. 

I'm all tied up with other projects right now, but if I were going to write this up I'd focus on one of the most striking things in A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS. Lindsay's work is famous for the way his protagonist grows new organs and appendages once he enters the alien world, the first of which is a breve, described as "something hard on his forehead . . . a fleshy protuberance, the size of a small plum, having a cavity in the middle, of which he could not feel the bottom" (VtA.44) 

This is strongly paralleled by what happens to Lewis's hero:  when Scudamour jumps through the chronoscope, switches places with his double, and arrives in the Otherworld, he acquires a sting growing out of his forehead: "It was broad at the base and narrowed quickly to its point, so that its total shape was rather like that of a thorn on a rose-branch . . . It was hard and horny, but not like bone . . . and . . . [d]ripping with poison" (DT.33). But where Maskull's breve granted him telepathy, The Stingerman's sting converts those he attacks with it into automatons. 

In addition to this major point of the appearance of otherworldly organs on the forehead, three other paralleled elements between Lewis's unfinished work and Lindsay's odd masterpiece might be worth exploring.

First,  the seance that opens Lindsay's book, along with the materialization of a being from the other world into our own, parallels the projection of images from another world that opens Lewis's. MacPhee even has an exchange with Orfieu about the validity or otherwise of psychical research.  

Second, there's the image of the Tower that so dominates Lewis's story, while a similar tower frames Lindsay's work, appearing first as the Observatory early in the book, then reappearing as Krag's tower at the story's climax, containing the long sought for route into the true world, Muspel. 

Third, it might be worthwhile to do something with the theme of doubles: Maskull and Nightspore in Lindsay's book (so that one cannot appear until the other is gone) and Scudamour/the Stingerman in Lewis's.

As I said, I'm too absorbed in something else to write this up and develop the argument. And besides, I've already had my say about THE DARK TOWER in my essay on the interrelations between Lewis's Ransom books, esp the first and fourth one) and Tolkien's two time travel stories.* And I've also already said pretty much what I had to say about A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS.**

On the other hand, if anybody has explored / developed the DARK TOWER / VOYAGE  TO ARCTURUS parallels and I just missed teir piece,*** I'd be happy if someone points me to it.

--John R.

*this appeared in TOLKIEN'S LEGENDARIUM, an unofficial festschrift for Christopher Tolkien (2000)

**in my online monthly column CLASSICS OF FANTASY: Lindsay's strange masterpiece was the focus of the sixth essay (January 2003). It's no longer up on the Wizard's site but can still be found online with a bit of internet searching

***I think I've read all the scholarship on DARK TOWER, but you never know

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid

 So, I had kind of tuned out news about the Tolkien tv series currently in the works, feeling detached from the project once I realized that I was not their target audience (as opposed to the Peter Jackson movies, which I followed closely from v. early on). Which is why I initially missed the announcement that the people working on the Amazon project are looking to hire extras "comfortable with nudity".*  And that they have hired an 'Intimacy Coordinator' to oversee sex-scenes to make sure actors and actresses appearing in them are treated respectfully.

Nude extras is one thing -- say for example a shot of the elves awakening at Cuivienen (I doubt if they were created fully clothed). Hiring an Intimacy Coordinator sends a different kind of message: that this series will be less Peter Jackson and more Game of Thrones. That's not surprising, but it is disappointing.

For a rumination on the issue of nudity in the new series, see the following post from www.theonering.net:

https://www.theonering.net/torwp/2020/10/06/108573-sex-sensibility-amazons-nude-take-on-tolkien/

--John R.

--current reading: LINDBURGH by Scott Berg, a light novel, and David Lindsay's THE WITCH

*BEYOND BREE, Nov. 2020 issue, page 10

The New Tolkien

So, it's now been officially announced that the next book by Tolkien (that is, the next book of new material by JRRT) will be out in June:

THE NATURE OF MIDDLE-EARTH, edited by Carl Hostetter (co-editor of TOLKIEN'S LEGENDARIUM).

 The write-up on Amazon doesn't have much information yet, other than that the book is 400 pages and the official release date June 1st.

I gather that this book draws from the period when Tolkien had largely abandoned  or set aside work on his various narratives and was shifting more and more into world-building.  Or to put it another way, rather than a grand narrative here we'll be seeing Tolkien's attempt to set down as much as he cd about Middle-earth. 

I suspect it'll feel rather like LETTERS, where he addressed so many queries from his readers. For those of us who came along too late to write to the Professor and pose questions ourselves, this book just might contain the answers to things we've always wanted to know. 

In short, not a book for the casual fan, but it promises to be full of good things for those of us who want to know all we can about Tolkien's subcreated world. Congratulations to Carl for bringing all this disparate material together. 

I've already pre-ordered my copy.

--John R.

P.S.: Here's the announcement of the news in THE GUARDIAN:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/19/jrr-tolkien-the-nature-of-middle-earth-published-june-2021

The Lindsay Event (Glasgow)

So, today was the long-awaited Centenary Seminar in honor of David Lindsay's A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS (1920). The timing wasn't too bad for an overseas event eight time zones away: 6pm Greenwich time and 10 am out here in the Pacific Northwest.

Dimitra Fimi was host and moderator and did a good job setting things up and then moderating the Q&A at the end. 

Of the three speakers, independent scholar Doug Anderson gave a fact-filled overview of Lindsay's life and writing career --a good thing to have if you're new to Lindsay and for those who know some  helpful for clearing up various mistakes in previous accounts. My favorite new fact I learned: J. R. R. Tolkien owned three copies of A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS: one of the 1920 original, one of the 1946 reprint just after Lindsay's death, and one from the 1963 edition that more or less marked  the point at which Lindsay's work came to be more widely known.

Novelist Nina Allan, whose THE RIFT contains some Arcturan echoes, discussed Lindsay's legacy to his fellow science fiction writers. I think my major takeaways from this was inherent in the realization of this being the centenary, that VtA came out at a mid-point between the early days of Verne/Wells and the classic era of science fiction in the 1930s.

Finally Professor Rbt Davis compared Lindsay's work with various theological thinkers and schools of thought, particularly Gnosticism. He quoted a v. interesting passage from a letter he'd received from Philip Pullman regarding both what Pullman sees as Gnostic affinities in his work (the evil imposter-god) and his greatest departure therefrom (Pullman's celebration of the natural world as good, not evil).

Quite a lot of interesting material within a short space, well worth watching.

For those who cdn't make the live event, they've put footage of the presentations up on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6HpKWSLuBM

--John R.

 

Update on Amazon (US & UK)

So, here's the happy ending: I had the Garth book before three o'clock the day after I ordered it. I've given it a quick skim; I'm sure I'll post about various odds and end that come up as I read it.

And to give them due credit, the UK amazon processed the cancellation right away, so that's all taken care of as well.

And if that weren't good news enough, the long-awaited packet of my current favorite Yunnan and Keemun finally reached me as well.

And now it's back to reading a slim volume of George Sterling (as a precursor to Clark Ashton Smith) and continuing on WATERSHIP DOWN. In token of which it felt entirely appropriate that on yesterday's walk from here to the local wetlands and back I saw seven rabbits on the way out and twelve on the way back, aa new record.

--John R.

Evil in Ireland -- Tolkien and Warnie

So, back some time ago when I was asked to write a guest editorial for MALLORN, I pointed out that there are some things about Tolkien we know because of detailed contemporary evidence. Other things we have to piece together as best we can from fragmentary, sometimes contradictory, evidence. And still others we just have to more or less take on faith. An example of the last is Tolkien's statement that in Ireland you could feel the evil in the very ground, seeping up from below, held back only by the great piety of its people. I commented about this in a post from 2009
( http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2009/12/evil-emanating-tolkien-on-ireland.html ), in which I reproduced the following quote:

George Sayer tells a remarkable story 

about Tolkien describing Ireland as 

'naturally evil.' He could 'feel,' Sayer relates,

'evil coming up from the earth,

from the peat bogs, from the clumps of trees, 

even from the cliffs, and this evil

was only held in check by the great 

devotion of the southern Irish

to their religion.'

A year and a half later, 'BGC' posted a comment saying

I'm pretty sure I have read something of this kind said by, or attributed to, Warnie Lewis (who was, of course, himself Irish) - maybe in his journal or attributed in a letter to Jack - but I can't seem to locate it.

It is certainly more the sort of thing Warnie would have said, in one of his deporessive moods; and very unlike Tolkien.

And now just a few days ago 'Wurmbrand' (Dale Nelson) shared his discovery of that passage BGC had remembered:*

here is the passage that BGC was recalling:

"There is something wrong with this country -- some sullen brooding presence over it, a vague sense of something mean and cruel and sinister: I have felt the same feeling in the hills behind Sierra Leone, and once in 1919 at Doagh in Co. Antrim. A beastly feeling. On the merely physical side, it was most depressing country. I have never seen any place so enclosed before: wherever you go, the grey road is flanked by old stone walls, and banks on the top of which grow thick hedges, the whole overhung by heavy motionless foliage on old trees and lidded with a grey brown sky. After a time the longing for any sort of escape from these everlasting tunnels became acute, and one almost fancied it to be accompanied by a sensation of choking from trying to breathe air from which the oxygen was exhausted. The natives were as depressing as their landscape: during the whole morning I did not see anyone of any age or either sex who was not definitely ugly: even the children look more like goblins than earthborns....I wonder can it be possible that a country which has an eight hundred year record of cruelty and misery has the power of emanating a nervous disquiet? Certainly I felt something of the sort, and would much dislike to see this place again....[Later in the day, after leaving Waterford on our run down the Suir River, we passed Ballyhack, where there were some early Norman castles.] There was [also] a long succession of big houses, all very shut in and desolate, of which J remarked that Walter de la Mare could write detestable stories: and we talked for some time about horror and its treatment in fiction."  (BROTHERS & FRIENDS p. 111-112)

This was written in 1933, years before Tolkien himself first set foot in Ireland. And interestingly enough CSL seems to have disagreed with Warnie -- Warnie's entry for the next leg of their walking tour, in the Plymouth area recounts that

J[ack] and I argued briskly about the country [around Plymouth] we had walked through, J contending that not to like any sort of country argues a fault in oneself: which seems to me absurd . . . I suspect he was talking for victory. [ibid 112]

Congratulations to Dale N. for his connecting the dots and for sharing his discovery.

--John R.
current reading: more on Milne (who suffered badly from Conan Doyle syndrome)


*I've reposted it here because I think those who agree with me about the importance of Dale's discovery are more likely to come across it this way than if it only appeared as a comment on a post from eight years ago.

P.S.: Happy Tolkien Day, all.

Clyde Kilby's Collected Essays

So, just before Christmas arrived the new book by the late Clyde Kilby, A WELL OF WONDER: ESSAYS ON C. S. LEWIS,  J. R. R. TOLKIEN, AND THE INKLINGS (ed. Loren Wilkinson & Keith Call; Mount Tabor Books/Paraclete Press 2016). I'd been asked to provide a blurb and had been happy to submit one,* which I'm glad to see they used. Here's  what I said in the blurb:

As the first decades of Inklings scholarship 

recede from living memory, it's good to see 

the papers of an influential critic from that 

period made available again. Kilby is now 

mainly remembered for founding the Wade

Collection, but he was also among the first

to see the Inklings as a coherent writers' group,

and the pieces collected herein make the case

for considering these authors in context

with each other's work. Perhaps the out-

standing piece is his short account of

meeting C. S. Lewis at Oxford in 1953;

published in 1954, this is one of the earliest

memoirs of Lewis to see print, and it's good

for it to see the light of day again after

more than a half-century.

In the current book, this piece appears as Chapter 2: "My First (and Only) Visit with Mr. Lewis", p. 16-19.  The two men met for about half an hour, by appointment, in Lewis's office at Magdalen. Lewis was fifty-four at the time and engaged in compiling the bibliography for his O.H.E.L. volume; he talked about all the exercise he got from lugging folios about and disparaged the idea of naming 'periods' of literature, like "the Renaissance" ("an imaginary entity responsible for everything the modern reader likes in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries"). They spoke of Palestine, and Lewis expressed a curiosity over whether the re-establishment of Israel (it having been created as a new nation only six or seven years before) wd mean a rebuilding of the Temple and a restoration of sacrifice.

Questioned about art and Xianity, Lewis pooh-poohed the idea of Christian literature: "He said the same relation existed between Christianity and art as between Christianity and carpentry" -- that is, that a carpenter might be a Xian but this didn't mean that he produced 'Xian carpentry'. Told of Wheaton College's founder's description of a novel as "a well-told lie", he dissented strongly, saying that "one is far more likely to find the truth in a novel than in a newspaper".   They talked a little about the then recently deceased C. E. M. Joad**

Asked when he might come to America, he was emphatic that this cdn't take place before his retirement. As for a specific invitation to come that very summer, he replied "he had to get some vacation then, and a trip to this country [i.e., the US] would be anything but a vacation." He autographed a book for Kilby, somewhat reluctantly (Kilby does not say which one of CSL's bks it was, only that he had brought it with him). When Kilby expressed a wish to hear Lewis lecture, Lewis first said there were no lectures scheduled (presumably the visit took place during one of the breaks between terms) and teased Kilby for being a "professor [who wanted] to hear a lecture while on vacation". They talked a little about metaphor and then Kilby, fearing to overstay his welcome, departed.

In addition to the Lewis piece, the volume also gathers together pretty much all the account of Kilby's meetings with Tolkien that had been originally published in Kilby's little book TOLKIEN AND THE SILMARILLION.*** I haven't gone through and compared to see if all that material is now here, but certainly most of it is, making this essay collection a good place to read an account by someone who had the chance to read virtually all of THE SILMARILLION during Tolkien's lifetime.

There are also a number of essays on Lewis and on Tolkien, largely focusing on Xian aspects or interpretations of their work, as well as an essay apiece on Williams and on Sayers, and at least two on CSL, JRRT, et al being considered together as 'the Oxford Group'

All in all, well worth having on the shelf.  As an extra added bonus, the dust jacket has a nice picture of four Inklings together: Dundas-Grant, Hardie, Havard, and Lewis. It's a well-known piece, but this is the best reproduction of it I've seen, and its presence here is appropriate, given that Kilby was co-author of the book IMAGES OF HIS WORLD, the first to gather together photos of Lewis and his friends.

--John R.



*after all, with the exception of Deborah Sabo I think Kilby and I are the only Tolkien scholars to have been at Fayetteville, Arkansas -- albeit decades apart.

**whom Tolkien once described as 'Joad of Joad Hall', suggesting that his personality bore more than a little resemblance to Kenneth Grahame's Mr. Toad

***herein  titled Chapter 15: "The Evolution of a Friendship and the Writing of The Silmarillion
At thirty-three pages I think this is the most substantial memoir of Tolkien yet published, aside from the FAMILY ALBUM.

Inklings Murder Mystery ("The Sinister Student", ) SPOILERS

So, I've now finished the fourth of Kel Richards' C. S. Lewis mysteries. This one I think reads better than the rest, simply so far as readability goes. But like the previous books in the series, it does have what was for me an absolute jump-the-shark moment. I think in general if you liked any of those previous books, you'll probably like this one too. And if you didn't like them, there's not much hope for this time round.


First, there's the murder mystery -- which need not be taken too seriously, given that the murder victim is revealed on the back cover of the book. Richards tends to favor wildly improbable methods of murder he pulls out of the hat; in this case the murder weapon and hence murderer are obvious from very early on.

Second, there's the P. G. Wodehouse sections. Whenever Richards' point-of-view character runs into the girl he's sweet on, they lapse into faux-Bertie Woosterisms (what ho, what ho). They even mention by name several times a Wodehouse character (Florence Cray, one of Bertie's onetime ill-matched fiancees). I'm a great admirer of Wodehouse myself, so I'm glad to see that Richards is too, but his imitation shows that it's harder than it looks. In short, Richards is not just not another P. G. Wodehouse: he's not even another P. H.  Cannon.


Two things that are very much to the good in this book, that makes it stand out and made it a more enjoyable read, for me at least, than its predecessors, is the Oxford setting and the inclusion of J. R. R. Tolkien as a character. I'm obviously a soft touch when it comes to books set in Oxford, and much more so when it comes to Tolkien. And for all this faults, Richards does produce a character named 'Tolkien' who actually plausibly resembles the real person of that name -- something many who have written JRRT into their stories as a character have utterly failed at. It's also nice to see a reconstructed Inklings meet (one Thursday night in Lewis's rooms, the other on a Tuesday at the Eagle & Child), with a plausible roster of Inklings in attendance: Lewis himself, Warnie,* Tolkien (who reads them his just-finished last chapter of THE HOBBIT), Nevill Coghill, Adam Fox, and latecomer Hugo Dyson. I'm sorry to see Dr. Havard doesn't make an appearance at either meeting, but then they were an informal group and it wasn't at all odd that one or another of them cdn't turn up at their gatherings, so I just told myself Humphrey was busy at the clinic that week. And while in his previous books Tolkien was just mentioned a time or two, he's a fairly major minor character this time around: after the point-of-view character (Young Morris) and CSL, I'd say Warnie and Tolkien probably show up the most often, often to comment on the ongoing events.


As for the jump-the-shark moment, for me this came when the rather odd visiting researcher who kept trying to meet Tolkien and Lewis, and seemed strangely informed about their works (including ones not-yet-published), turned out to be a time-traveller from the future who'd come back to Oxford 1936  in his tardis specifically to meet those two great writers. His tardis has a functioning chameleon circuit, so it takes the form of a wardrobe, thus giving Lewis the idea of travelling to another world by entering a wardrobe. And while it's clear the traveller isn't Doctor Who himself, he might as well be; he even uses a sonic screwdriver at one point to uncover a clue for Lewis et al. And if I'm reading Richards rightly, it's the time-traveller who's responsible for the famous bargain between Lewis and Tolkien: he certainly accidentally gives JRRT the idea of writing a story about Atlantis.


So, not a turn of events that I saw coming, and not one that I thought improved his book. If it had worked for me, I suppose I'd be calling it jump-the-genre instead of jump-the-shark. I suppose I shd give him points for originality, but is it originality to be the first person to have a really bad idea?

--John R.




*in one rather nice touch, Richards admits in an endnote that he calls Warnie 'the Major', even though he now knows Warnie was still Captain Lewis at the time, simply because it sounds right: Warnie is widely known as 'the Major' among fans of the Inklings.

The New Arrival (2017 Tolkien Calendar)

So, I've known for a while that this coming year's Tolkien calendar would be one of the good ones, featuring Tolkien's own art. Now that it's arrived, it lives up to all expectations -- beautiful reproductions of all nine of his full-page black and white drawings for THE HOBBIT, plus the half-page Mirkwood halftone. I was surprised to see a piece I was pretty sure I'd never seen before (and I've seen a lot of Hobbit art): a black-and-white drawing version of the November image, "Conversation with Smaug".

Turns out I was only surprised because I skipped right to the art and jumped over the v. nice introduction by Alan Lee,* who explains that two of the illustrations are 'new pen-and-ink renditions' of two of Tolkien's watercolors, redrawn by one Nicolette Caven esp. for this calendar. I don't know Caven's work otherwise, but she did a fine job here.**

All in all, an excellent calendar, and one I'm looking forward to hanging up up in my office come the new year.


Also newly arrived is the latest of the C. S. Lewis-as-detective books from Kel Richards. The fourth so far, THE SINISTER STUDENT, which I find I've taken to calling in my head 'Murder at the Inklings'. It repeats the pattern of the first three: from what little I've read of it so far it's notable mainly for including a fictional meeting of the Inklings early on: Lewis, Warnie, Tolkien, Coghill, Fox, and latecomer Dyson, as well as series character Tom Morris and the student of the title, one Auberon Willesden (a modernist who's come so he can feel superior). Tolkien reads them the last chapter of THE HOBBIT. It's rather surprising that Havard isn't there, but then the real-life Inklings and Inklings-as-chacters in Richard's books has always been a casual fit (for example, he calls Warnie 'The Major' throughout, though he was still Captain Lewis before his WW II service).

More on this one when I've had a chance to read it, if more seems merited.

--John R.

current reading
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF CABAL by Jonathan Howard (having now reached about the mid-point)


*Lee traces influence on Tolkien as an artist from Jennie Harbour, Kay Nielsen, Arthur Rackham, Wm Morris, other Pre-Raphaelites, and, rather surprisingly, Rudyard Kipling (one of those many English writers deft with little drawings, like GKG and CSL).

** the other redrawn piece is "Rivendell" (for March).
All five of Tolkien's watercolors for THE HOBBIT are included, but four of them are shrunk down to quarter-page size, leaving only one (Conversation w. Smaug) for full-page full-color glory.

The Return of "Tolkienian Gloom"

So, today I was skimming a piece about the NEW YORK TIMES' apparent fixation of using 'shadow' or 'cloud' when describing Mrs. Clinton's campaign when I came across an unexpected Tolkien reference in it. There's the link to the whole piece (which, as I said, I've only skimmed") below, but here's the salient passage:

"Like many people, I've been bothered by an ominous, insinuating tone in the NYT's Clinton coverage. HRC always seems to be inhabiting a gloomy, almost Tolkienesque realm of cloud and shadow .  . .  I went searching for instances of "cloud(s)" and "shadow(s)" in stories from the past few months."

The piece goes on to say that the writer "found 20 articles since early May using 'clouds' or 'shadows' as the de rigueur metaphor of choice. (To be fair, three of the examples are Associated Press stories the Times ran.)" and then goes on to cite specific examples. Here's the link:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/new-york-times-cloud-shadow-clinton-coverage



Now, this reminded me right away of a similar usage that drew Tolkien's attention and resulted in him writing a letter to the newspaper, just a year before he died, to protest association of his name with gloom. The original letter to the editor can be found at Tolkien Gateway (http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_339), which reproduces an image of it as it appeared in the paper; for just the text itself, see LETTERS p. 419-420.

So, while I think it's often specious to say what a writer would or would not have liked, here we're on pretty solid ground to feel that Tolkien wd not have been best pleased by the association of his name and work with clouds and shadows, however metaphoric.

--John R.
current reading: LONGITUDE: THE TRUE STORY OF A LONE GENIUS WHO SOLVED THE GREATEST SCIENTIFIC PROBLEM OF HIS TIME, by Dava Sobel (1995/96).

Stephen Colbert is Brilliant (Frodo & the Ring)

So, I have Janice to thank for sending me this link, which I wd otherwise have missed.

Stephen Colbert has long been notable for being a self-confessed Tolkien fan (indeed, a Tolkien nerd), and proud of it.

Typically this has taken the form of his display of knowledge that shows he's not just read THE LORD OF THE RINGS and THE HOBBIT but THE SILMARILLION as well and is conversant with the VALAQUENTA and AINULINDALE, able to recall facts about the books off the cuff. Now for the first time he's moved from being just a fan (albeit a famous one) to, I wd argue, being a Tolkien scholar as well.

In a recent segment Colbert offered up an insight into THE LORD OF THE RINGS I don't remember ever coming across before. In essence, he argued that Gandalf knew Frodo would fail in his quest to destroy the Ring, because he'd seen with his own eyes that Frodo could not throw the ring into his own fire at Bag-End. Letting that sink in, I think Colbert is on to something here, and that it's a major point that had never occurred to me.

If Gandalf sees for himself that Frodo is already too tightly tied to the Ring even before settting out on his quest, then he knows that Frodo will never be able to toss the Ring into the Fires of Doom. However good-intentioned Frodo is, he's already too far in the power of the ring.

Therefore, I think it's fair to extrapolate that Gandalf must have had a contingency plan: that another person (himself, Sam, Strider) would need to be there to take the final step after Frodo had accomplished the grueling task of getting the Ring to the right place at the right time.  That is, unknown to himself, Frodo's quest was never to destroy the ring: it was to bring the ring to the place where it could be destroyed. And he achieved his task, at great cost, and was duly honored for it, but privately haunted for failing in the second test (a bit like Gawain's hyper-honor at the end of SGGK).


That's where my cogitation on Colbert's observation led me, anyway; I'd be curious what others make of it.

--John R.
currently in: Magnolia, Arkansas



xx

http://nerdist.com/tolkien-nerd-stephen-colbert-nailed-his-audiences-lord-of-the-rings-questions/

Verlyn Flieger Festschrift (A Call for Papers)

Here's something I wanted to spread the word about: a new collection of essays in honor of Verlyn Flieger's three-plus decades of Tolkien work.

Call for Papers

"A Wilderness of Dragons":

Essays in Honor of Verlyn Flieger

. . .

An call for papers

centered on, but not limited to,

her groundbreaking work on J. R. R. Tolkien

Other possible topics include

• her work with fantasy and the Arthurian mythos

• her engagement with other authors (fantasy and non-fantasy)

• examinations or appreciations of her own fiction.

Verlyn Flieger is the author of Splintered Light,

A Question of Time, Interrupted Music, and Green Suns and Faerie,

and editor or co-editor of The Story of Kullervo and

the extended editions of Smith of Wootton Major & Tolkien On Fairy-stories.

She has been asking interesting questions,

and coming up with even more interesting answers,

since her first book.

Paper proposals: September 1st 2015

Finished papers: March 1st 2016

Contact: John D. Rateliff

sacnoth@earthlink.net

Shippey Lectures

So, I just order another lecture series from The Great Courses, to go with the Bart Erhman one from several years ago. This one is called HEROES AND LEGENDS: THE MOST INFLUENTIAL CHARACTERS OF LITERATURE, and my attention was drawn to it by noticing that the first lecture was devoted to "Frodo Baggins -- A Reluctant Hero" and the last two to Lisbeth Salander ("Avenging Female Fury") and Harry Potter (Whistle-Blower Hero"), while most of the other twenty-one come from more traditional literature (the Wife of Bath, Elizabeth Bennett, Sherlock Holmes).

What entirely escaped me, until my attention was drawn to the fact by a posting over on the MythSoc list, is that the lecturer is none other than Tolkien scholar and distinguished medievalist Tom Shippey. Here's the link:

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=2192


I've ordered the audiobook version of the course, so more on this one when it's arrived and I've had a chance to listen to it. Shippey is a great lecturer, charismatic of presence and memorable of phrase, so I'm really looking forward to this one.

Oh, and we've just heard that the Shippey festschrift,* of which I'm one of the editors, is either in typesetting or about to enter that stage, so we're getting close to the release date, which shd be late spring/early summer. I've also been told that it's appeared in McFarland ads in LIBRARY JOURNAL (Feb 15 2014 issue, p. 52) and BOOKLIST (ibid, p. 13). And now it's available for preorder on Amazon as well, which estimates the release date as May 15th -- just a hair too late for Kalamazoo, but if we're lucky they might have an advance copy or two on display there. We'll see. It's nice for this project, which took far longer than any of us thought it would, to finally be coming to fruition.

--John R.
currrent audiobook: DREAMS OF TERROR AND DEATH: THE DREAM CYCLE OF H. P. LOVECRAFT (which turns out to actually not be 'the dream cycle' of HPL but his dreamland stories mixed with a lot of other things, like CHARLES DEXTER WARD, "Pickman's Model", and "From Beyond")
current reading: AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND by Geo. MacDonald (just finished, thank God); I AM A BARBARIAN by E. R. Burroughs (just started; the story of Caligula's bodyguard)


*TOLKIEN IN THE NEW CENTURY: ESSAYS IN HONOR OF TOM SHIPPEY

Dress Like A Hobbit (or Zombie, or Fairy) Day

So, thanks to Allan for sharing the news about a rather strange upcoming event in the area (up towards Carnation, I think), where a sustainable-farms-mean-healthy-waterways group is hosting an event in which they want people to dress up as zombies (to demonstrate an ecosystem gone terribly wrong), or hobbits (exactly the reverse, I think), or fairies ("female spirit[s] of nurturing life"). Scary zombies, jolly hobbits, flighty fairies: sounds like a big treasure hunt with actors in-character to guide visitors at certain points. Given that this area has an annual zombie parade, and that some folks love any opportunity to put on their elf-ears, I suspect they'll get a decent turn-out of volunteers. I'll be curious if any would-be-hobbits show up, though.


Here's the text of the call-for-volunteers:

REQUEST FOR HOBBITS (Volunteers)

Thinking about Food Constantly? Want to Get Out of the Shire for a Bit? Feeling Communal?

We need  Hobbits! The "Where Cows Meet Clams" Team is hosting a Zombie-Fairy-Hobbits in the Forest event on Saturday, November 2nd to connect forest stewardship with salmon and Puget Sound.... it's possible hobbits could find more food sources in the river systems that feed into Puget Sound.

On the look-out for scary, energetic and sure footed Hobbits:

10 Hobbits to act like... well Hobbits (eat, drink, laugh, create community)... and

10 Hobbits that can help with naturalist interpretation (hydrology, forest ecology, salmon and Puget Sound)... still short but can take a break from food to share knowledge

Hobbit Code:

·       Must come dressed as Hobbit (or bring with you morning of to dress)

·       Be willing to volunteer

·       Attend a  3-hour onsite training at the gorgeous Carnation Forest on October 20th

Contact: Steve Gersman: sgersman@gmail.com; (425) 427-2222 or

Heidi Siegelbaum: heidi@calyxsite.com; (206) 784-4265

--and here's more about the event:

NAME OF PROJECT/AUDITION:

         Zombies, Hobbits and Fairies

COMPANY / SCHOOL / AGENCY:

         Calyx Sustainable Tourism

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

Calling for men and women volunteers 16 or and over to act the roles of Zombies, Hobbits and Fairies on November 2.

The King County Conservation District is hosting a Zombie-Hobbit-Fairy treasure hunt event in the beautiful forests of Camp River Ranch. The event is intended to educate children and adults to connect forest stewardship with salmon and Puget Sound and sustainability of our valuable farms and forests. Come help spread the message of nature along with giving children and adults a fun time.

The legends of zombies, hobbits and fairies all lend themselves to telling a story about the future we will create for ourselves. Zombies embody the fear of the wrong direction we could head towards (destroying nature and ourselves, transmitting diseases across species). Hobbits rely on the purity and availability (and yumminess) of our food system and help to build community, the sticky stuff of solutions. Fairies embody the humor, laughter, magic and belief that keeps us buoyant, positive and light... they are the female spirit of nurturing life.

For each type of character, we need just 10 folks to act like fairies (all instructions about how to dress and act  will arrive after the actor indicates a willingness to volunteer).

For certain roles, an orientation may be required on October 20.

To volunteer, please email Steve at steve@calyxsite.com putting "Volunteer Actor" in the subject line or call at 425.427.2222.

PRIMARY LOCATION OF PROJECT:

         Carnation, WA

WEBSITE FOR THIS PROJECT:

         http://www.calyxsite.com/?page_id=620

PROJECT BEGINS:

         Nov 2, 2013

PROJECT ENDS:

         Nov 2, 2013

--so, if that calls to your inner hobbit, drop me a line afterwards and tell me how it went.

--John R.

current reading: just finished THE BOOK OF THREE; just starting THE BLACK CAULDRON

Seeing Susan Cooper

So, thanks to someone in our book group sending out the word (thanks, Matt), Janice and I found out about Susan Cooper's being scheduled to give a speech tonight down in Puyallup as part of their first annual Book Fair (which they're combining with the celebration of their library's centennial).  We thought we'd allowed plenty of time, but inexplicable slowdowns on Hwy167 (the valley highway) meant we arrived just as folks were getting seated.

There were actual several parts to tonight's event: three songs performed by the Revels, a group/ musical movement I'd not heard of before today but wh. Cooper has been involved with for decades,* a brief talk by a fellow who I think is director of the library, a film tribute to the English teacher whom they were naming the lecture series after (Jim Taylor). The surprise appearance of Ursula K. LeGuin, tomorrow's featured speaker, to give the introduction to Cooper's talk tonight was an added bonus, LeGuin being her usual articulate, witty self (with the occasional sting, as is her wont), and warm to boot (which is not always the case).  And then of course there was the lecture itself, partly autobiographical and partly focused in on the importance of libraries; she also spoke at the end about her latest novel, GHOST HAWK, about the local Native Americans who once lived where she now lives, in a house that sounds right out of THE WOMAN IN BLACK (Marshfield House, surrounded by sea-marshes and by salt water when the tide is high). Having grown up in London nightly bombings during World War II, she made clear that there's nothing like the knowledge that people are trying to kill you, without your personally having done anything to them or even having met them, to start you thinking about the evil humans do to each other. It was a good talk; glad we made it.

Tomorrow it's LeGuin's turn, so we're planning on heading back down for that (and to see if Cooper returns the favor and introduces LeGuin in turn); thanks to Gyda (also of book group) for letting us know LeGuin was coming. They're also having a mini comicon, so there shd be plenty to do.

If I'd had a chance to ask her a question, it wd have been about whether she ever went to any of Tolkien's lectures -- having worked out from her age and learning that she went to Somerville College that she must have just missed Lewis but wd have been there when Tolkien was still there. Turns out she addresses this in an interview on her website (http://www.thelostland.com/about/interview.html): I was wrong, in that she did go to Lewis's lectures as well as some of Tolkien's. The only detail she gives about him being that he was "rather mumbly" but she does mention how they all eagerly awaited the publication of THE RETURN OF THE KING, which pretty much dates it. She also talks about the Tolkien/Lewis syllabus' focus on preVictorian literature, with the result that their exposure to Malory and Spenser encouraged an interest in dragons.

I also learned from her website that she's published a book of essays and lectures. DREAMS AND WISHES [1996], which I'll have to track down, given that I enjoyed her talk tonight enough to want more.

I do have to add that I had one real shock during the short film they ran honoring Jim Taylor, the Puyallup high school English teacher they've named the new lecture series after. Included in the happy memories of how inspiring a teacher he was came one woman's account of how he burned her twelve-page essay (on WAR AND PEACE I think it was) before the whole class because she'd ended a sentence with a preposition. I'm sorry, all my years of teaching (two at Fayetteville, seven more at Marquette, not to mention Continuing Education night classes) rose up in revulsion at any teacher who'd do that to a student. And over such a crackpot thing such as ending sentences with prepositions. Gah!

But as for the lecture itself, and the whole book fair: they're off to a great start, and I hope it becomes the ongoing tradition they plan for it to be. In all the years I've lived in the region (is it really sixteen years since we left Wisconsin?), this is just the second time I've been in Puyallup. The first time was to visit their local cheese shop, which disappointingly turned out not to carry Cheshire. This second visit was far more satisfactory. We'll see how the third once tomorrow goes.

Here's the link for the Book Fair et al:

http://www.puyallupfestivalofbooks.com/

--John R.
current reading: THE MAGICIANS AND MRS. QUENT by "Galen Beckett"

*(their singing is excellent, but they have an annoying habit of trying to get the audience involved, then dropping that audience en masse once they're done with them)

Thomas Wms Malkin of Allestone, worldbuilder

So, reading the Harry Bauer book (SEASONED TO TASTE) introduced me to an interesting historical figure I'd never come across before: Thomas Wms Malkin, who appears in two of Bauer's pieces ("These Are My Jewels", p. 6-7, about biographies by parents of their own children, and "Reading Readiness", p. 16-20, entirely devoted to T.W.M.).  Through these I learn that more than two hundred years ago Malkin was an inventor of an imaginary world with its own maps, stories, history, and invented language:

". . . Malkin devised a language for his fanciful island 

and compiled a dictionary for his imaginary subjects. 

Appended to the history was a table of Remarkable Events"

 (Bauer p. 19) 

 When he died in 1802, young Malkin was even working on a comic opera set in his imaginary world of ALLESTONE ("The Entertaining Assembly") and finding it rather heavy going. Which was not surprising, because he was six and a half years old at the time.

Now, there are plenty of us who at one time or another create our own world (just speak to any DM*). A few go far beyond what's needed for the particular story he or she is writing at the time, so that world-building becomes a major creative enterprise in itself: two well-known examples being Austin Tappen Wright's Islandia (which, I gather, he made no attempt to publish in his lifetime) and J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth (which only made it into print more than twenty years after he'd begun work on it). And there are quite a few juvenalia featuring invented worlds, such as C. S. Lewis's Boxon and E. R. Eddison's world of THE WORM OUROBOROS (which he identified with Mercury -- in the sense that all there are 'mercurial', rather than its being a hot bare place brightened by the sun). But while Boxon, like most such worlds, was deliberately abandoned by the Lewis brothers when they grew up, Eddison's imaginary world persisted: drawings survive in the Bodleian of recognizable scenes from THE WORM made when ERE was ten. Which category Malkin's ALLESTONE wd have fallen into is impossible to tell, but there's certainly enough of interest here to make me wonder what he might have made of it, given the chance.**

As is often the case with things, once they're brought to yr attention you find you have material on them ready to hand. For example, it'd passed unnoticed to me that the map Th.Wms.Malkin drew of ALLESTONE is in J. B. Post's ATLAS OF FANTASY, a work I've had for years but obviously never looked closely enough at (I only noticed this time because I'd been looking for Bernard Sleigh's map of faerie, which featured prominently in this year's Guest of Honor speech by Doug Anderson at MythCon***).

Since Thomas Wms died so young, you'd have thought he'd have been wholly forgotten. The reason he was not was that his father, Benjamin Malkin, wrote a biography of his gifted son in 1806, his own version of 'A Spring Harvest'. And therein lies another tale. Today that biography is famous, not for preserving the memory of young Thomas, but because the frontispiece, a portrait of young Th Wms, was made by a friend of his father's, an unknown artist by the name of William Blake. In fact, according to what I've read, Malkin Sr. devotes a good deal of his preface to a sketch of Blake's life and work, making it a major source of information on Blake's biography from during Blake's lifetime. In the process, he included several of Blake's poems, publishing for the first time now-famous pieces like THE TYGER ("Tyger, Tyger, burning bright . . . "). I've even seen it claimed that it was through Malkins' work that Wordsworth and Coleridge first learned of Blake's work.

All this makes Malkin Sr's book about his son sound all the more interesting, esp. since Bauer notes that  Malkin Sr. includes "numerous stories, fables, and parables", as well as "The epic of Allestone, written in a series of disconnected letters"  and "the history of his island kingdom". Finding a copy of the original book wd be prohibitively expensive, but fortunately the book is available through warious print-on-demand services, though one warns the reader of "very fine print" (a chilling phrase). So I'll probably be picking this up, come September; if so, and once I've had a chance to look through it, and assuming that look-see turns up something of interest, I'll post again.

--JDR

current reading: THE RING GOES SOUTH ("Farewell to Lorien")
current audiobook: The Great Courses: The Western Canon. by Prof. John M. Bowers (Univ. of Nevada), a series with a number of Tolkien references along the way.

*(Not to mention those half of all fantasy writers who write Coleridgean rather than Wordsworthian fantasy)

**for a sample of one of young Th.Wms' stories, see the (extended) write-up under the Amazon.com entry for Benjamin Malkin's book, which purports to include one of his stories in its entirity: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2AZCIEGTPGNY4/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1854772104&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=283155&store=books

***Sleigh's map being (poorly) reproduced on pages 92-97 of Post's book

Tolkien and Harry Bauer

So, having discovered that Tolkien corresponded, at least briefly, with H. C. Bauer (see previous post), I set about trying to see if I cd find out anything about Bauer. I quickly discovered he's no longer with us (b. 1902, d. 1978), which means he can't answer our questions directly, but he turns out to have been a well-known local figure in this time: Director of the University of Washington's Library (1947-1959, having been asst. director before that) and then professor of library science until his retirement (1959-1967). Originally from St. Louis, he was a decorated combat intelligence officer during World War II, receiving the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Air Medal; he was also a Mason, a Shriner, a Kiwanis, and member of the American Legion. And, one rather suspects from hints here and there, a character. A number of photographs of him are available online, such as these two::

(1) http://content.lib.washington.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/portraits&CISOPTR=231

and

(2) http://content.lib.washington.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/uwcampus&CISOPTR=166

Another example of Bauer's being well-known* and respected in the community is that during the dust-up back in the 40s and 50s about whether comic books led to juvenile delinquency Seattle's mayor appointed a commission to investigate the problem: Bauer wrote the committee's report, suggesting that banning comics wd do little good and that offering more activities (Boys' Clubs, scouting) was a better solution to prevent delinquency -- a moderate position at the time, when a witch-hunt was on that almost destroyed comic books in this country.**


From my point of view, I'm most interested in Bauer as an author -- specifically, in identifying, if possible, the piece he sent Tolkien. The factors we have to go on are

(1) it existed by November 1966, when Tolkien thanked him for sending it

(2) it was probably by Bauer (though this is not a certainty)

(3) it probably related in some way to Tolkien (or else why wd he send it?)

(4) it may have related in some way to Sinclair Lewis (or else Tolkien's sudden seque into BABBITT and reading all of S.L.'s work is a bit of a non-sequetor)


It turns out Bauer was relatively prolific, though many of his publications were what I suppose we might call technical in nature -- yearly listings of publications by the Tennessee Valley Authority, for example. The most promising item is a book he wrote of literary essays called SEASONED TO TASTE -- but it came out in 1961 (published in Seattle, University of Washington Press), which seems a bit early. I now have the library's (much marked up) copy of this book, which turns out to be a collection of some sixty-four essays, most of them quite brief (two or three pages). All but two*** of these in turn are said to have been taken from Bauer's column of the same name, "Seasoned to Taste", which ran monthly in the WILSON LIBRARY BULLETIN for ten years, from September 1951 (Vol. 26, number 1, page 6) through June 1961 (Vol. 35, number 10, page 799). Out of these hundred issues, he selected those he included in his book.****

Having read his book, I can testify that there are no mentions of Tolkien or of S. Lewis anywhere within its pages. Similarly, I have so far gone through half the run of his columns (1951-1954 and 1960-1961) and found nothing that at all fits the parameters; I'll still have the years corresponding to the original release of THE LORD OF THE RINGS to go through, so I'll report back here if I find anything of interest in Volumes 29-33.

So, how is Bauer's book? Let's just say that his jokes haven't aged well. His occasional pieces on current issues involving libraries are for the most part dated but still occasionally relevant. Most pieces are comments on books and authors and themes that have caught his attention, and some of these are interesting in their own right. By far the most interesting was one on Th. Wms Malkin, a child prodigy who died in 1802 at the age of six and a half, having already created his own imaginary world, written stories set therein, and even come up with an invented language spoken therein. Young Malkin is so interesting that I need to devote a separate post to him.


In short, Bauer's column resembles nothing so much as a blog, with him expounding upon whatever topic has seized his attention since the last entry.

For now, I've had no luck in finding just what it was Bauer sent Tolkien. I'll continue the search, but it's quite possible I won't be able to discover it -- instead of one of these columns,  it might just as easily have been a book review (say, of LotR upon its first publication, dug back out at the time of the book's campus popularity in the mid-sixties) for a local newspaper (Seattle used to have two, but the better one folded a few years back) or any of a number of other outlets.

In any case, I'm glad to have learned about Bauer, and through him about Malkin, but the identity of the piece Bauer sent Tolkien remains as elusive as ever.

--John R.
current reading: THE RING GOES SOUTH: "Journey in the Dark"
current audiobook: "Tolkien's THE LORD OF THE RINGS -- Literature?" (lecture thirty-five in Jn M. Bowers' THE WESTERN LITERARY CANON IN CONTEXT (2008)


*(when I went into the Suzzallo-Allen special collections to see if they had any Bauer materials, the special collections librarian there looked at the form and said "Oh, Harry Bauer!" -- clearly he'd been a personality whose reputation still lingers)

**"Comic Books Problem", the LIBRARY NEWS BULLETIN 17 (1949), being the report on Mayor Devin's Citizens' Committee on Comic Books. Note that the infamous Fredric Wertham launched his attack on comics in 1948, through an article appearing in the SATURDAY REVIEW and also READER'S DIGEST, six years before his famous book  SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT.

***the two exceptions, according to his Preface, come from the BULLETIN OF BIBLIOGRAPHY (1956) and the WASHINGTON ALUMNUS (1949)

****note that the WILSON LIBRARY BULLETIN only puts out ten monthly issues a year, taking a hiatus for the school vacation months of July and August, and starting each new issue in the fall (September). For reasons unknown, Bauer missed the issue of September 1953, in which his column does not appear.

Tolkien and Sinclair Lewis

So, one of the surprising things in the EMP Fantasy exhibit we went to a few weeks back that I didn't mention in that earlier write-up (because I wanted more time to research it) was a letter from J. R. R. Tolkien to Professor H. C. Bauer. While quite brief and typed, not handwritten, I found it of great interest, because (a) I'd never heard of a Tolkien/Bauer connection  and (b) the letter to Bauer, brief as it is, contains information I'd never come across before.

In the letter, dated November 1966, Tolkien thanks Bauer for an article or reprint Bauer had sent him. What this piece was I have been unable to establish, there being no entry for Bauer in West, Johnson, or Jonsson's bibliographies. Nor is he mentioned anywhere in the index to the Scull-Hammond CHRONOLOGY and/or READER'S GUIDE. However, it must have had something to do with the work of Sinclair Lewis, since Tolkien immediately segues into saying that he is now inclined to think that the word hobbit owes something to Lewis's BABBITT. That information is already known to us from the Plimmer interview a few months later (see HoH.59, Note 6), and indeed I now suspect Tolkien brought it up to the Plimmers because of this then-recent exchange with Bauer.

The Bauer letter does resolve one puzzle. In The History of The Hobbit (page xxxvii) I pointed out the difficulties of BABBITT having influenced Tolkien's creation of the word 'hobbit' on what turns out to be the false assumption that Tolkien may have learned of Sinclair Lewis's book through S.L.'s winning the Nobel Prize for literature, the first American to be so offered. But that was in November 1930, whereas the evidence suggests Tolkien invented the word earlier that year, in the summer (and those who disagree with my argument for that date all want to date it earlier, not later).

That problem disappears with Tolkien's statement in the Bauer letter that he read all of Sinclair Lewis. Even if we assume that by "all" he means not literally everything S.Lewis had ever written (some two dozen books) but the famous ones: MAIN STREET (1920), BABBITT of course, the only title we know for certain, since in his remarks to the Plimmers Tolkien describes Babbitt's character and its shortcomings (1922), ARROWSMITH (1925), ELMER GANTY (1927), possibly DODSWORTHY (1929), and IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE (1935).

Quite aside from being interesting in its own right -- I look forward to the first article comparing S. Lewis's and Tolkien's works -- this new information helps put to rest the idea that Tolkien was largely ignorant of literature after 1400. He was of course conversant with pretty much everything a literature major today would have known about English literature up to the start of the Victorian era (i.e., through the Romantics and Austen), and we know from scattered miscellaneous evidence that he knew a fair amount about works from the following century or so, especially the Georgians, but like many of us did not keep up with many of his contemporaries (e.g. Joyce, Lawrence, Woolf). If we were picking names at random, the idea that Tolkien was fond of the work of Sinclair Lewis would seem unlikely -- but here we are fortunate enough to have direct evidence from Tolkien himself that he must have thought highly of S.L.'s work to read so much of it. A nice little discovery to make, which wd have made the visit to the Fantasy exhibit worthwhile just in itself, even without all the other enjoyable exhibits.

Next up: more on Harry Bauer.

--John R.
current reading: THE RING GOES SOUTH
current audiobook: Boswell's LIFE OF JOHNSON (tenth of thirty-four disks).