Aotrou and Itroun

So, yesterday I was doing some work on The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun and noticed a line in the poem which may help internally date when the story is taking place:

The day wore on till it was old

she heard the bells that slowly tolled.

"Good folk, why do they mourning make?

In tower I hear the slow bells shake,

and Dirige the white priests sing

Whom to the churchyard do they bring?"

—lines 425-430

The key is in the reference in line 429 to "white priests". If we assume that this is a reference to the Cistercians (founded 1098), who were traditionally known as "the White Monks", then it means the action of the poem can't be taking place before circa 1100. The Cistercians underwent a boom of expansion in the early decades of the twelfth century under the missionary zeal of Bernard of Clairvaux; I haven't come across when they penetrated into Britanny, but in any case the evidence, such as it is, suggests the action might be taking place in the twelfth century — just in time to inspire "The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun", which takes the form of a thirteenth century Breton Lay.

Maybe, maybe not; just thought I'd share.

--JDR

Tolkien Documentary (I)

So, I recently came across a Tolkien dvd I didn't think I'd seen before -- though at this point I've gotten the half-dozen or so that came out about the time of the Peter Jackson movies all mixed up. Some I know were good, others quite bad. But, as I say, after I while I forget which is which, or why the good ones were good, or what particular interesting bits were in which. So, I've decided to rewatch them all over the next few weeks and, if it seems worthwhile, to post a few notes here about each. Consider it a personal exercise in disambiguation.

And the first is the new one which just arrived day before yesterday: THE MASTER OF THE RINGS: THE UNAUTHORIZED STORY BEHIND J. R. R. TOLKIEN's THE LORD OF THE RINGS. With a name like this, and the thoroughly generic cover, it looks like one of the bottom-end among the Tolkien documentaries. But on the other hand, it's from Lion's Gate, who have done some good documentaries in the past.

Watching it, the thing I found most interesting is its complete lack of a narrative. With most documentaries, the filmmaker has an idea about the subject that he or she wants to get across, and he or she selects and arranges the material accordingly. Not here. Instead, MASTER OF THE RINGS offers a melange of episodes, each unrelated to the one before except that they're all in some way about Tolkien.

First, several Tolkien Society members talk about Tolkien's works -- and, to the filmmaker's credit, there's no attempt to make Tolkien fans look weird (as is all-too-often the case).

Second, a guy stands in front of houses where Tolkien lived in Oxford and talks some about Tolkien's life at the time. Unfortunately, his grasp on the details of Tolkien's biography is a little shaky; more on this latter.

Third, we have a too-long segment on what the film calls a larp but are really fantasy/medieval battle reenactments from a group called Dagorhir.

Fourth comes a segment where Humphrey Carpenter talks about Tolkien; although this only ran about three and a half minutes it was for me the highlight of the show. Plus, there were several further clips from the same interview later on. The best bits were (1) HC's observation that when Tolkien came to see his adaptation of THE HOBBIT Tolkien looked pleased at the parts from the original he'd retained and frowned at the parts Carpenter had changed, which pretty much says it all, and (2) HC on having a conversation with Tolkien: "he'd got bad at communicating, because he'd lived with it so long so he . . . never explained what he was talking about".

Fifth profiles a singer named Bob Catley who looks like David Lee Roth disguised as Ozzy Osbourne, who performs some songs from his album about Middle-earth.

Sixth features the pastor at Tolkien's neighborhood church, the one he attended when he lived up on Sandfield Road. This part was utterly charming; the guy obviously would have loved to have been there back in Tolkien's day. It's a v. simple little church; we do get to see where Tolkien usually sat, beside station #12 (= the twelfth station of the cross, I assume).

Seventh shows Roger Garland at work.

Eighth shows the Eagle and Child.

Ninth features Merton (quite untruthfully asserting that Tolkien was a "very popular professor . . . his lectures were always v. well attended") (HC chimes in to say no, not so much).

and finally Tenth briefly mentions the films, which were forthcoming at the time. Here the best quotes go to HC, who observes "the films will increase the size of his pedestal" and a TS member who worries that she "might not like it as much as I want to like it".

And periodically, punctuating it all, it returns to the guy standing in front of Tolkien's houses -- first at St. John Street and Alfred Street, then on Northmoor Road, then the house on Sandfield Road, the apartment at Merton, and finally at Wolvercote cemetery. You really think they would have gotten a guide who knew the details of Tolkien's life better than this fellow does -- he gets the general outlines right but makes a bad gaff at Sandfield Road when he points to the JRRT-lived-here plaque and claims that the dates given on it (1953-1968) are wrong -- in fact, he claims the Tolkiens went on living here right up to Edith's death in 1973. As my friend Anders once said in another context, "Wrong, wrong, wrong." Anyone can make a slip, I suppose, but this one seems particularly egregious since he's contradicting the true facts literally right in front of him. Ah well; I've seen worse distortions.

In the end, I decided that the 'assemblage' nature of the documentary was deliberate. The filmmaker I think wanted to show how people take Tolkien's work and make what they want out of it -- scholarship, music, mock-battles, painting, or whatever. The only connecting thread is Tolkien himself, and their joint love of his works.

Evaluation: you won't learn anything about Tolkien you didn't know before, but you might have an enjoyable time watching others convey the form their appreciation of his works takes. The best part are seeing the Oxford sites (including his favorite tree) and the HC bits; would that there were more.

--JDR

current reading: NAVIGATIO SANCTI BRENDAN

Never Been To Spain*

So, what with one thing and another, I've been to most parts of this country at one time or another over the years, even if just passing through -- a conference in Florida, a symposium in Massachusetts, a research trip to Austin. But one area I've never visited has been the southwest: in all that vast block I've never been further west than east Texas or further south than the Bay area. There's a lot to see down there (Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, and much much more), so we were thinking of going to Arizona sometime in the next year or two.

But now, with the new Jim Crow law they've just enacted, I'm thinking not so much. The idea that you can be arrested if you step outside to walk down to the mailbox without carrying your driver's license and birth certificate or passport with you is disconcerting, to say the least. I wdn't want to live in a state like that, much less visit.

As for the law itself, I wdn't think of it as much more than a sign of Arizona's slide into failed-state mentality, kind of like Zimbabwe or Somalia, if I thought it wd be impartially enforced -- i.e., if John McCain got pulled over and forced to prove his citizenship as often as the average Hispanic. But in practice I can't see it as anything other than sheer racism, and hence unconstitutional -- like the Jim Crow laws, which were only ever enforced to one ethnicity's disadvantage (e.g., white voters were tacitly exempted from literacy tests and poll taxes). The irony of an illegal law to tackle the issue of illegal immigrants adds a level of weirdness to the whole thing: who do they think they're fooling? Does anyone doubt for a moment that if the Hispanics they're targeting weren't ethnically distinct -- say, if it were a case of Idaho being overrun with Canadians -- that they'd have this new law?

It's disheartening to find that we haven't come that far from the kind of thinking that underlay the anti-Chinese laws of the mid-1800s, designed to combat the mythical threat of 'the Yellow Peril' (which took the form then of dirt-poor men doing back-breaking work laying railroad tracks). You have to wonder why the Haves (white, middle-class) are so desperately afraid of the Have Nots -- guilty conscience, perhaps? Maybe sometimes you just have to lie to yourself rather than admit you're just looking for someone who doesn't look like you to blame all your troubles on.

All this is more ironic given the backdrop of an ongoing Seattle case Janice pointed out to me, where a man was arrested for not giving his name to an officer

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/418746_video.html

The main focus of the article is about his having proved the police hid evidence that supported his account of the incident, but re. our topic there's one particularly telling line (emphasis mine):

Rachner's criminal defense attorney sought dismissal of his gross misdemeanor charge, citing the Washington State Supreme Court decision that says arresting a person for nothing more than withholding identification is unconstitutional. One reason cited by the court: This practice allows police too much discretion to pick targets and punish with arrest. Also, the state constitution is more protective of these rights than the U.S. constitution.

That's right: refusing to identify yourself is a constitutional right in the state of Washington.

Janice also pointed out one more curious thing about the Arizona law: where are the people who, just a few years ago, were up in arms denouncing the idea of a National Identity Card? Or are they suddenly for it, so long as it applies to other people, and imagine that they'd themselves somehow be exempt?

In any case, for our part we've decided not to take a trip to Arizona anytime in the foreseeable future. New Mexico, perhaps.

--JDR

*As for this post's name, it comes from the old Three Dog Night song, which I've been hearing over and over in my head these last few days:

Well I've never been to Heaven

But I've been to Oklahoma

Well they tell me I was born there

But I really don't remember

In Oklahoma

Not Arizona

What does it matter?

("Never Been to Spain" [1971])

Postscript: Since I drafted this, a California congressman has come forward to advocate the deportation of American citizens related to illegal aliens. Guess he wanted to prove not all the racists are in Arizona. Would that they were. --JDR

http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/goper-i-support-deporting-american-citizens-whose-parents-are-illegal-immigrants-video.php?ref=fpblg

The Merton Photo

So, after discussing an unfamiliar photo of JRRT in a recent comment on a recent post, I went back to see if I cd find where I'd first come across it. And, with a little digging, I did: it was in David Barratt's little book, C. S. LEWIS AND HIS WORLD [1991], page 21. I'd been impressed by this book, which unlike most picture-heavy books actually included text that made a serious critique of Lewis's work instead of offering up the usual fluff, but what impressed me most was that he printed a photo of Tolkien I'd never seen before. In fact, I've been wondering in retrospect if I myself might have been Blackwelder's source, especially since it wasn't in the original version of his book, PHOTOS AND SKETCHES OF J. R. R. TOLKIEN [n.d. -- circa 1983?], which I also have a copy of.

Not so, it turns out, since his image (in the 1993 expanded edition, TOLKIEN PORTRAITURE) includes the original caption from its apparent first publication (wherever that was), while Barratt's reproduction has its own caption ("Professor J. R. T. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, in his study at Merton College, Oxford"). And, just for the record, Barratt in his Photograph acknowledgments credits BBC Hutton Picture Library for this image.

By the way, while searching for something else today on WorldCat, to my surprise I discovered a copy of Dr. Blackwelder's never-published book listed (the 1993 version, I think), w. myself given as one of the assisting authors:

http://www.worldcat.org/title/tolkien-portraiture/oclc/31179342&referer=brief_results

This turns out to be Marquette's copy, wh. Dr. Blackwelder would have given them along with the rest of his bequest. So I assume any researcher who visits the Special Collection there shd be able to consult it for themselves. Just don't be disappointed by the poor quality of the photocopy reproductions of the photos and drawings; the pictures are recognizable but much of the detail is lost, since this was just a working project, not anything finalized for publication.

Still, it's a handy referent, and shows how interesting a full-fledged book on the topic would be. I'd love to see a book someday similar to THE PORTRAITS AND DAGUERREOTYPES OF EDGAR ALLAN POE (by Michael J. Deas [1989]), which reproduces, in sequence, every known surviving photo or contemporary painting of Poe.* But I don't think we'll be getting one anytime soon.

In any case, as I said in my most recent Simon Tolkien post -- hooray! Today we get a new Tolkien photo!

--John R.

*a collection made all the more interesting by the little-known fact that Poe only grew his moustache the last four years of his life; before that he'd had sideburns.

New Simon Tolkien Interview

So, checking the morning news, I just discovered that up on Huffington Post/Books Simon Tolkien has a short piece about himself, and how he became a writer, and a few memories of his grandfather. Worth checking out:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-tolkien/jrr-tolkiens-grandson-in_b_550097.html

Also, even better, if you go to the Books mainpage (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/books/), you'll see a photo of JRRT with young Simon, a v. nice informal photo I've never seen before. Now if I cd only figure out how to make a photocopy of it from their header . . .

--JDR

The Tea Tree

So, for several years now I've thought it wd be nice to have a tea tree -- since I drink so much tea, and get so much enjoyment out of it, taking care of one just felt like nice payback. And now, thanks to a gift from Anne & Siegfried (many thanks!), I have one.*

To be specific, my new Camellia sinensis ('Chinese camellia') turns out to have been "grown from seed harvested in Sochi, Russia". I knew the Russians loved tea** but hadn't thought it grew so far north --though Sochi turns out to be about as far south as Russia gets (the Georgian coast of the Black Sea), and I only recently got some Turkish tea that said it'd been grown on the Black Sea, so I guess that all fits.***

In any case, it's currently a healthy-looking little shrub about two feet high, which I just repotted this morning into what was, last year, a tomato planter. I'll be curious to see if it eventually flowers once it gets established. Luckily, according to the label, and I quote, it's "plenty hardy". I don't know how big it'll get -- the two camellias (or 'winter roses', as I liked to call them) at Williamson Street, alas destroyed when the house was knocked down, had grown over the course of a half-century to be about eight feet tall, and there's a pair on an abandoned lot on Meeker Street in downtown Kent I sometimes walk past that must be thirty feet: by far the biggest camellias I've ever seen and larger than I thought they cd get. Our new friend's label says it cd grow to eight to ten feet, but I suspect that in a pot it won't reach anything near that height.

At any rate, it's nice to have a Tea Tree of our own at last. I think I'll name him 'Camel'.

And, coincidently enough, I also learned this weekend that someone has finally rebuffed the old canard that drinking tea dehydrates you:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5281046.stm

Given that they mention people over forty whose tea drinking makes up 70% of their fluid intake, I wonder what they'd make of someone who hits 100% on an average day?

--JDR

*my several attempts to grow one from seed having failed utterly.

**a fact I learned from the climax of a bad spy novel in Readers Digest years and years ago, where a clever Soviet spy gave himself away by accepting a cup of tea rather than asking for coffee, like a true-blue American wd have done. gah. But then, I learned about the Iron Crown of Lombardy from a Richie Rich comic; you just never know where you'll pick up something interesting from.

***And a quick check at wikipedia confirms that the NE coast of Turkey -- i.e., the part of Turkey closes to Georgia -- has been home to a Turkish tea industry since the 40s & 50s, including a "Tea Research Insitute" that's about the same age I am.

The Book of Jonah: Lost at Sea?

So, day before yesterday I got a notification from amazon.co.uk that they were canceling my pre-order of JRRT's THE BOOK OF JONAH, after having deferred shipping several times. Why? Because, according to amazon,

We are no longer able to offer this item for sale.

Our supplier has informed us that this item

has been discontinued and is no longer available.

Amazon.com here in the U.S. doesn't provide much more information, and I wasn't able to trace down anything useful on the publisher's website. So for now, I guess we'll wait and see. Pity; it sounded like quite an interesting book, and a light on Tolkien we don't usually see.

And I was wondering whether they wd bring in the 14th century GAWAIN-poet connection, with PATIENCE. Ah well.

--John R.