THe New Arrival: Puzzling

So, the day before we left for our trip the latest Tolkien book I'd ordered arrived, an eight hundred page, fifty dollar tome. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, so the following are a few impressions based on some skimming.

The book:

J. R. R. TOLKIEN: THE BOOKS, THE FILMS, THE WHOLE CULTURAL PHENOMENON; INCLUDING A SCENE-BY-SCENE ANALYSIS OF THE 2001-2003 LORD OF THE RINGS FILMS by Jeremy Mark Robinson [2010]

Preliminary comments:

(1) eight hundred page books really shd have indexes. The absence of one here means any passage that catches yr eye is pretty hard to find again. For instance, so far as I can tell from the Table of Contents there's only one two-page section of this book devoted to THE HOBBIT (pages 260-261), and it concerns itself entirely with retelling (not entirely accurately) the story of how that book got published.

(2) the author starts off by listing fourteen authors he prefers to Tolkien (pages 11-12).* This cd be seen as A Bad Sign: if he feels that way, why not writing about them instead? Why not a book on Le Guin's Earthsea and its two film adaptations, the horrible Sci-Fi channel miniseries and the Miyazaki Jr. anime? Answer: because, being about LeGuin, only a fraction of people wd buy it compared to those who'll buy a book about the Tolkien films sight unseen.

(3) similarly, Robinson lists fourteen directors he wd have preferred to have worked on the LotR films over Jackson (page 345), including Kurosawa (who's dead), David Lean (likewise), Werner Herzog, Ingmar Bergman, Terry Gilliam, Borman, Orson Welles, and, most bizarre of all, Sam Peckinpah (!). This, despite his belief that some of those he names "none . . . would be quite right for Tolkien's kind of story". The mind boggles.

(4) however, it's hard to take Robinson's Jackson-bashing seriously, once you realize he hates the Peter Jackson films so much that he tries to denigrate them through a point-by-point comparison with Bakshi's cartoon, which he much prefers. For example, he attacks Jackson for having some characters undergo so much make-up and prosthetics that it interferred with their ability to express facial emotion (page 341).** Fair enough. But then in the very next sentence of the same paragraph he praises Bakshi for having his actors wear masks so it was quicker to get them ready for filming. This makes sheer nonsense of his argument.

(5) Robinson has a casual approach to accuracy. Sometimes these are simply slips ("Christopher Manlove", "R. Purhtill").*** Others seem to reveal a superficial knowledge of the material. For example, Roy Campbell and Roger Lancelyn Green ought not to be listed as members of the Inklings (page 39). Elaine Griffiths did not "[work] at Allen & Unwin's offices (on Tolkien's recommendation)" (page 260). Christopher Wiseman did not die on the Western Front in 1917, as Robinson claims (page 25) -- as I can personally testify, having met him in 1981 and again in 1985. Robinson also occasionally makes up details in what's meant to be facetious mockery of Jackson's work (e.g., pages 340 and 344), so you never really know if what he's saying is true, meant to be true, deliberately false in an attempt at humorous exaggeration, or simply wrong.

(6) even more oddly, Robinson seems to forget what he's written from one paragraph to the next. For example, he includes "The Immigrant Song" in a short list of Celtic-inspired Led Zeppelin songs (page 192), then on the next page (accurately) notes that the song is told from the point of view of a Viking raider -- which is not v. airy-fairy Celtic at all. And let's not even get into his describing their song "Kashmir" as another of their Celtic-themed songs (does he even know that Kashmir is not in Wales but on the India/Pakistan border?)

(7) At first I thought the book improved and the accuracy picked up when I got to the part about the films (500 pages out of the 800 page total), then realized I needed to evoke Grubb's Law: just because I knew less about this material, and thus spotted fewer mistakes, didn't mean his accuracy had actually improved. On the whole, though, his giving his opinion is preferable to his giving facts about Tolkien's life and books, since I assume the opinions are genuine whether I agree with them or not, whereas an unknown but too high percentage of his 'facts' are just plain wrong.

In the end, I'm really left wondering who the audience for this book is. It's too long, and much too expensive, to tempt any casual reader. It's too careless to hold up as scholarship. It seems aimed at people who love Tolkien but despise the movies, yet who's going to spend fifty dollars to read eight hundred pages about a movie they dislike? Maybe things will become clearer to me on a more careful reading that are a little murky on a mere skim.

--John R.

Postscript: and I have just learned this weekend that Robinson also released a second book about Tolkien on the same day as this one: J. R. R. TOLKIEN: POCKET GUIDE (272 pages, $22). I confess that I suspect this is an abridged version of the larger book, with all the parts about the movies stripped out -- not least because the three paragraphs from its Introduction given on amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1861712782/ref=oss_product) appear, word-for-word identical, in the larger book.

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*including Petrarch, D. H. Lawrence, Jn Cowper Powys, Henry Miller, Hardy, Chuang-tzu, Byron, and Le Guin.

**Rhys-Davies' Gimli being a case in point. It's to be hoped that Jackson & Co. simplified the dwarf make-up for the new HOBBIT movie, or there'll be real trouble here.

***every book has this type of regrettable lapse -- my own most cringeworthy offender in HISTORY OF THE HOBBIT being a passing reference I made to Jn Gower as the author of PIERS PLOWMAN -- gah! All you can do is keep them to an absolute minimum and fix them as soon as some sharp-eyed reader catches them.

Las Bolas de Erech

So, day before yesterday Janice drew my attention to an interesting Central American variant on prehistoric monumental stones (to rank beside stone circles and monoliths and dolmans): the stone spheres of Costa Rica. These reminded me of the Olmec heads, except that those are much earlier (the petrospheres were apparently still being carved at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, which led to the extinction of the culture)* and in an entirely different area (further to the north and west). Here's the link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8593717.stm

Interesting as these are from an archeological perspective, I was also intrigued by the possibility of a Tolkien link here, given his description of the Stone of Erech:

". . . a black stone, round as a great globe,

the height of a man, though its half

was buried in the ground" (LotR.820)

Cf. the description of the stones from wikipedia,** which notes that the largest are "over 2 meters (6.6 ft) in diameter . . . Most are sculpted from gabbro, the ganitic equivalent of basalt" -- and indeed, although lightened by weathering several of those pictured in the BBC article are in fact black, though not the smooth shiny black I'd imagined while reading Tolkien's passage.

Could the Bolas, as they are locally known, have actually inspired Tolkien's Stone of Erech? As far-fetched as that first appears, it actually could have been possible. The stones were first discovered in the 1930s, and drawn to the attention of the archeological community when Doris Stone published an article about them ("A Preliminary Investigation of the Flood Plain of the Rio Grande de Terraba, Costa Rica") in a 1943 issue of the journal AMERICAN ANTIQUITY (vol. 9, no. 1; pages 74-88). I haven't yet had a chance to read this piece (that awaits my next visit to Suzzallo-Allen), but checking the Bodleian's online catalogue I note that they do have this issue, and the first mention of Tolkien's Stone seems to come about a year later, in October/November 1944 (cf. HME.VIII.234 & 262). And we know that Tolkien was interested in archeology, and subscribed to ANTIQUITY magazine (the British, not the American journal).***

So, possibly coincidental, but intriguing nonetheless -- and it might explain the oddity of the Stone of Erech, which seems distinctly unlike all the neolithic monuments scattered throughout the story. I'll post a follow-up after I've seen Doris Stone's original piece and find out whether it included any illustrations.

--JDR

*I don't know if that extends to the people. Let's hope not.

**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Bolas

***one of the mailers an issue came in is preserved among his manuscripts in the Bodelian (A29/1, fol. 1)

UPDATE (W.4/7-10):

I have now read Stone's original article, the most interesting feature of which was her stressing that stone balls have been found widely distributed, all the way from Tennessee through the Caribbean (Haiti, Puerto Rico) to the southernmost tip of South America. However, most of these are hand-sized, and probably used in games.

Aside from a single two-foot-diameter stone ball found at Veracruz, all the giant balls seem to be limited to the Terraba region of Costa Rica. Stone does include an evocative picture of one of the largest stones still half-buried in the ground (Plate IV, image f, opposite page 77) that could have inspired Tolkien's description of the stone at Erech.

Could have. But that one image is simply one among many accompanying an article whose rather dull title conceals the interesting topic within. All things considered, without some more direct tie it seems unlikely that Tolkien would have stumbled across this image or essay. Interesting though it is to find that this detail from his fantasy world has a real-world parallel, in all probability it's just co-incidence.

But if anyone comes across any collaboration, I'm listening . . .

--JDR

The Weirdest Story I Read Today

So, just to prove that terrorists are people too, comes the story that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are collecting spare rations to send to victims of the earthquake in Haiti.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/31/gitmo-haiti-donations-pil_n_521006.html

Amazing. Simply amazing as a tribute to the human spirit.

And if you consider that a fair number, probably the majority, of these are people were arrested or kidnapped, then held and tortured for the better part of a decade, for things they didn't do, it's even more impressive.

--JDR

Humboldt County Pot Grower Tax Deadbeats

So, this will probably be the last of the posts inspired by our vacation down to see the Redwoods, but a news story I saw in a local paper down there was too good to pass up.

It seems that now, after decades of fighting to legalize marijuana, the people who grow it have now suddenly realized that once it's legal the cost will go down and they'll have to pay taxes on it. You know, just like alcohol after the repeal of Prohibition. And while they're happy to make a living growing dope, the idea of paying taxes to The Man dismays them. Here's the link*

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/03/outlaw_pot_growers_in_californ.html

Another reason we either need to bring back Prohibition or end the 'War on Drugs'; our current patchwork system of trying both at the same time is simply not working.

--JDR

*although in the local newspaper version I saw its title was "Illegal Growers Fear Legalized Pot"

NSGW

So, when we visited Ferndale Cemetery -- a v. interesting place, by the way -- among other things we were struck by the number of masonic tombstones and generational family plots, some clearly still in use. It was interesting, and a little unsettling, for example to see the mausoleum where the people whose house we'd stayed in the previous night were buried. There were also quite a few burials with a little marker bearing the initials G.A.R. or N.S.G.W.

'GAR', or Grand Army of the Republic, I know about, this being a Civil War veteran on the Yankee side, the equivalent of the Confederate cross marking a smattering of graves in old cemeteries back home (like my great-great-grandfather's nr Hope, Arkansas). But 'NSGW' was a new one to me. At first I thought it might relate to World War I (something something Great War), but the dates didn't work out for that; most of the people involved wd have been fiftyish at the time Woodrow Wilson's war started. And the Spanish-American war seemed unlikely, while the dates were a bit too late for what used to be called the Indian Wars.*

We were without an internet connection in Ferndale, but once we were back in Crescent City I googled the term and discovered its meaning: the person so designated was a member of the Native Sons of the Golden West, a fraternal order for native-born Californians that dates back to 1875, or about a generation after the Gold Rush. Their website (http://www.calnative.org/) talks a bit about their good works and desire to preserve California history.

It was not until I went to The Source of All Knowledge (wikipedia), seeking a second opinion, that their history as the west coast's equivalent to the KKK emerged. Turns out a major part of their purpose was to exclude non-whites from California as much as possible, esp. the Chinese. As late as World War II, they were enthusiastically urging the mistreatment of Japanese Americans. Here's the brief wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSGW . Apparently those Bad Old Days of whipping up Yellow Peril hysteria are long past now; good to know.

Or, to adapt one of my favorite sayings: "half a century does not pass in vain".

--JDR

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*or, as my friend Fan Shen called it, "the most successful genocide campaign in modern history".

Hobbiton USA Is No More

So, one of the stops I wanted to make so long as we were in the area was HOBBITON USA,* a tacky Tolkien-themed tourist trap just south of Phillipsville (pop. 250) near the Avenue of the Giants (the wonderful drive through the southernmost of the four Redwoods state & nat'l parks in the area).

Turns out I was a few years too late. The site is now derelict, with a 'no trespassing' sign by the entrance where you pull off the highway. Had there simply been the closed sign, I wd have been tempted to poke around a bit to see the trail (after all, when was I going to have another chance?), but accompanied as I was by my conscience, I refrained. Still, you can see enough to get a sense of what it's like without entering the site.

From what I assume to have been the parking lot you can see Gandalf standing by the door of Bag End (half the door is missing), two other hobbit-hole's round doors, and the three trolls -- at least one of them v. obviously based on the Rankin-Bass cartoon. Checking google, I see that several folks have posted pictures of the displays we didn't get to see (out of sight up the hill, I assume): Bilbo, a warg trying to climb a tree, spiders and cocooned dwarves, Gollum in his cave, an Eagle, Smaug, Bard and the thrush -- several among them obviously taken from the Rankin-Bass-- and, rather puzzlingly, what looks like Bakshi's Aragorn. In person, it looks more like a miniature golf course than anything, except without as much dignity. No one will really miss it now it's gone, but still I'm sorry not to have seen it in all its awfulness. Let's hope no one ever builds another.

--John R.

current reading: THE PTEROSAURS.

current writing: "Inside Literature" (Kalamazoo paper)

*thanks, David, for letting me know beforehand that it was in the area

UPDATE (4/2-10)

Thanks to all those lucky visitors (David, Monte, Ed) who posted in the comments memories of visiting the spot before it closed. David also published a post about it on his own blog, which is well worth checking out if you haven't already (http://calimac.livejournal.com/437865.html).

One thing I overlooked until reminded of it by some links within links is that the place is featured in RINGERS: LORD OF THE FANS, the Dominic Monaghan-narrated documentary about Tolkien fandom. If you have this dvd from 2005, check out scene 10, which devotes two and a half minutes to touring the place and briefly giving a little of its history (apparently it opened in 1981; from other indications it went into decline after the woman who created it died in 1996). Described as "a living diorama of THE HOBBIT", which seems fair enough, it includes shots of Bilbo and Gandalf at the doorstep of Bag End, someone (a dwarf I assume) treed by a warg, wrapped-up dwarves hanging above Bilbo as he battles a Spider, an Eagle rescue, a castle (?? is this supposed to be Rivendell?), Lake Town*, Gollum's Cave, and the Shire Map. We also get to hear a little of the recorded push-the-button dialogue, which doesn't sound nearly as bad as I'd been expecting (one reviewer said it was obviously recorded by someone who played D&D a lot, as if this were a bad thing).

--JDR

*"it's only a model!" (by far the cheesiest of all the displays shown -- and yet another internet link featured the company that built the little 'lake' describing how it was done to show the versatility of their product)

somewhere in the world . . .

Somewhere in the world, they're still playing The Archies on the radio.

And as of this weekend, I know where that is: a little Italian restaurant/pizza joint off Hemlock Street*. The radio was set to an oldies station that so far as I cd tell didn't venture past 1968 or before 1963 or so (the earliest song I heard was "From Me to You", the latest "Sugar Sugar"). This was all the more amusing because I think you cd add the combined ages of any two employees working there and not equal the age of the newest song playing on their sound system.

As it so happens, I actually have the album THE ARCHIES GREATEST HITS -- one of my v. oldest surviving albums, along with THE BEATLES AGAIN (the only Beatles album I have that we bought when it was new), TARKUS (which I bought from my cousin Sam when he decided to buy a new copy), and perhaps one or two others. I hadn't listened to it in ages, but I got it out last night after we returned home and gave it a listen. A few of the songs I had almost entirely forgotten, though a single re-listening brought them back; others I remembered v. well. Of them all I think "Sunshine" is the only one that still holds up as a nice light little pop song (I remember I put it on a tape I took with me when I moved to Milwaukee); pity it never made it into classics status or its own spot on the oldies stations. But the album's still a fun listen, and v. much a period piece; somewhere between the Monkees and the Partridge Family.

--JDR

*apparently named after the tree, not the poison. Though what we cd observe of Cannon Bay's street naming (a presidential series, not entirely sequential), who knows?