Baffled (David Lindsay)

So, I've been re-reading David Lindsay's novel THE VIOLET APPLE and have come to a passage that puzzles me. What I know about girls' education circa 1924 is negligible, but what are we to make of this?

It's the modern female education. A girl is encouraged -- practically forced by her mistresses - to cram for matriculation, while the rest of her time is largely spent on hockey or other violent sports. That means that nervous waste goes on continuously, at the expense of that quiet slow growth of the physical organs so beneficial to young girls, and one might almost add, so essential to a successful marriage later on. Of course, some have to pay for it more than others, and Haidee [Nt1] is one of the unfortunate ones. I expect her nervous system has been so exasperated during her school course that now she is sometimes hardly responsible for her actions. What she wants, she must have -- not tomorrow or the next day, but at once. I blame her mother very much.  She has been a teacher herself, and there is no excuse for her not recognizing the evils of the modern educational methods. The blunder is appalling.

[THE VIOLET APPLE, circa 1924, published 1978] 

--I have to confess that if asked to name major problems bedeviling girls' schools of the era, hockey wd not have been among my guesses. 

--John R.

Nt: (one of the novel's characters)

THE WIFE SAYS

Oh, you are a boy, aren't you?

I'm Speaking at Oxonmoot (remotely)

 So, I've been invited to give a presentation at at this year's Oxonmoot, only a little over a month away. With Janice's help we came up with what I think will be an interesting topic: my project in the early 1980s to meet or correspond with a number of the surviving Inklings: Nevill Coghill, Owen Barfield, Dr. Humphrey Havard, Lord David Cecil, and a few others. Also included are several others whom we may describe as 'Inklings adjacent', such as the widow of Tangye Lean (founder of the original, undergraduate version of the group) and Christopher Wiseman, the single surviving member of the T. C B. S., the most important of all the writers' groups Tolkien founded before the Inklings. Most of the presentation will consist of me reading aloud some of these unpublished letters, with bridging passages to establish the context. 

--Here's hoping people enjoy.

--John R.  

Three Pictures of Charles

So, here are three photos of Charles Noad, in his element: with fellow Tolkien scholars.

This one I think dates from my first trip to England in July 1981. 

Charles, Christina, and I are just outside the door to Jessica's back yard.

This is the time I made hushpuppies for Northfarthing Smial in Jessica Yates' kitchen. 

This one dates from the Marquette Mythcon in Milwaukee, summer 1987.

Left to right are Charles, Doug Anderson, and Taum Santoski

The third shows Charles and Christopher at Oxford at the Tolkien centenary in 1992.  They're walking around the quad at (I think) Keble College.

Marquette Archivist wins Hamer-Kegan Award

 So, congratulations to Bill Fliss, the keeper of Marquette University's Special Collection of J. R. R. Tolkien manuscripts, for winning this year's Hamer-Kegan Award, an honor granted by the Society of American Archivists for his work  in digitizing, re-organising, and making far more accessible the thousands of pages of manuscripts in their Tolkien collection.   Here's the link to a piece describing the honor and placing the award in context

https://www2.archivists.org/governance/handbook/section12-hamer

And here's a second link describing the reason why the committee judges Bill's work worthy of this recognition. 

https://www2.archivists.org/recipients/philip-m-hamer–elizabeth-hamer-kegan-award-dr-william-fliss

A lot of Tolkien scholars from this point forward will find their work made easier by Bill's having conceived of this project and recruited the resources to see it through.

--John R.

--current reading: THE VIOLET APPLE by David Lindsay

Charles Noad

Today I heard the news that one of my closest Tolkien friends has died. 

Charles was the first fellow Tolkien scholar I met, back in 1981, where typically we began by correcting the way each pronounced the other's name. The two of us exchanged books for years, wherein he'd buy and book printed over there and send it over here, while I'd send him books from over here (the most recent being sending him a copy of the catalogue from the recent Marquette exhibit). And for a long time he got me each of the Terry Pratchett books as they came out, standing in lines at UK signings and events.

 He had a powerful but subtle influenced on Tolkien studies, especially when it came to considering the History of Middle-earth books as a whole. He proofread many of the Tolkien books published over decades --including LETTERS and at least some volumes in the History of Middle-earth series. At my request he turned a meticulous eye on the entirety of THE HISTORY OF THE HOBBIT, to its improvement. He's the only person I've ever bought a beer (at the Eagle and Child).

Though I only saw him rarely (when I was in England  or he was in Milwaukee), he remained someone I always enjoyed getting a letter from. 

I'll miss him.

--John R.

Flooding in Arkansas

Just saw the news that there's danger of flash flooding in Stamps, Arkansas -- which is in Lewis County, which is adjacent to Columbia County, in the middle of which is Magnolia, Arkansas: my home town. The news alert didn't have much information, but I assume this is the Red River, which used to flood on a regular basis when my father  was growing up nearby (he went to high school in Stamps). That all stopped when they put the levees in. I think the last big flood came with Hurricane Betsy in 1965. Now I suspect the protection the levees have offered all these years may not be enough to face what climate change is sending.

More on this story as there's more news coming out of the area.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/jul/12/us-extreme-weather-live-vermont-phoenix-california-arizona-texas-nevada-heatwave-flooding-latest-updates#pinned-post 

DUNSANY rhymes with Rainy

So, thanks to Doug Anderson for his extremely useful post on his blog, giving the pronunciation of the names of several authors of fantasy or the supernatural:

James Branch Cabell (rhymes with rabble)

Lord Dunsany (rhymes with fun + say + ny)

Arthur Machen (rhymes with blacken)

John Cowper Powys (rhymes with Lois). also applies to his brother, Llewellyn Powys

J. R. R. Tolkien (rhymes with tol + keen)

http://ashiverinthearchives.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-to-correctly-pronounce-names-like.html 

It's good to have this confirmation of the right way to say 'Dunsany' to add alongside the two we had giving the pronunciation as rhyming with both RAINY and (less kindly) INSANY (from his eccentricities).  Certainly not Dun-sin-nay, as most Americans say it.

I'm sorry to say this source confirms that I've been saying Tolkien's name wrong all these years --something I've been aware of for some time but have not been able to break myself from (I say TOLL-kin).

--John R.