Saturday 25 August 2012

The Return of the Ring

I've been writing about The Return of the Ring at the LotR Plaza and the Tolkien usenet newsgroups, and I thought I'd share my report here as well.


Thursday

Thursday was arrival day, which of course gave a bit of extra hassle. I had found that renting a car at Heathrow would not be much more expensive than taking the train, but on arriving I found that I had to part the car a goodly way from accommodations and the events of the conference. Still, I checked in to a student room and got myself ready to four days in something close to a Tolkien geek's idea of paradise.

At the gatherings of the whole event, it was obvious that many people know each other from countless Oxonmoots and what-have-you in the Tolkien Society, but there was also a significant amount of 'good to finally meet you in the flesh' going on between people who have interacted — sometimes for a very long time — on the internet.

There were two lecture sessions yesterday, and for the first session I had chosen to go to a couple of talks on 'Philosophy and Ethics . First up was a professor from an American university, Laura Miller-Purrenhage, ‘Teaching Leadership and Ethics through Tolkien’, who spoke on how she had constructed a course on Tolkien by focusing on creating objectives in the subjects leadership and ethics. It was an interesting approach to a literature class (one often gets the impression that ‘reading Tolkien’ would be the normal answer to the objective of a Tolkien class). Fortunately the subject on how to construct a good course on Tolkien's work becomes more and more relevant to more and more people, but I will admit that I had a hard time relating to a number of the problems and issues that she was talking about — a result of never having been in her situation, nor being likely ever to do so.

The second speaker was Franco Manni from Italy who spoke on ‘Tolkien versus the History of Philosophy’ how Tolkien related to a list of specific philosophers starting with Plato and ending with a number of twentieth century relativist philosophers. The paper was very interesting and engaging, and Franco Manni spoke with an obvious passion for his subject. To put it very shortly, Manni's thesis was that Tolkien reacted positively to (parts of the works of) most ancient and medieval philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Boëthius, Aquinas. Tolkien also, according to Manni, reacted to some of the nineteenth century romantic philosophers, but only indirectly as these philosophers reached him by the way of the great philologists. Finally Manni found that Tolkien mostly ignored most twentieth century philosophers, having no use for their ideas.

After a short break the second round of sessions was due. For that I had chosen a session on ‘Tolkien's Sources’. The first speaker, Allen Jenkins, ran a comparitive study between Tolkien and the native American authoer, Sherman Alexi titled ‘Of Elves and Indians: The Aboriginal Outsider’. He drew up a number of interesting parallels, in particular between the situations of Tolkiens' Elves and the reservation Indians in Sherman Alexi's books, and he believed that the idea of peoples under threat (Tolkien's Elves under threat from the Age of Man) was the common denominator that brought them together.

The rest of this session was an hour-long panel on Tolkien and ‘Source Criticism’. Chaired by Verlyn Flieger and with participation from Tom Shippey, Mark Atherton, Renée Vink and Alex Lewis, this was a lively panel with a good interaction with the audience and discussions covered many interesting corners. Tom Shippey crying out that ‘Authors lie!’ and telling us in no uncertain terms that Tolkien did so too is a memory that stands out, but it was certainly not the only memorable point that was made. In the end it was proposed that source criticism is one of the tools we have to try to understand the mental landscape in which Tolkien's stories grew, and I think I can subscribe to that as a worthwhile endeavour (more than trying to show where Tolkien got his ideas from or ‘how he worked’).

Exhibition & Dealers' Room
Photo: Andrew Wells
In the late afternoon there was an opening ceremony with various dignataries appear, two of them appearing in a video: Alan Lee and John Howe sent a video greeting, though most of the talking was being done by some short bloke from New Zealand. In the evening we had an opening party, which was mostly a good excuse for some socializing, where I ended up having some very intersting discussions with Shaun Gunner, Emil Johansson and Marcel Aubron-Bülles.

Friday

Friday dawned brightly . . . I'm sure, though I cannot really say as I was still in bed at the time.

Having got to bed after midnight, I decided to do breakfast late and then go to the first session, but a minor confusion about the location of the breakfast venue meant that I skipped breakfast.

My first session today was with Alex Lewis and titled ‘The Lost Arthur’. Alex Lewis is writing a book on Arthurian influences on Tolkien, and made a rather intersting point by saying that the unpublished (for almost a year more) The Fall of Arthur acted as a filter through which the matter of Britain influenced Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. To some extent this plays into John Rateliff's idea of Tolkien borrowing from himself more than anything else — from the Arthuriana to Tolkien's Fall of Arthur and from there to Middle-earth. Another essential point that Lewis made in his presentation was about viewing these source studies (or the game of what influences what — actually Lewis was talking about how Tolkien's texts influenced each other) as caleidoscopic: each perspective adds to our understanding, but none of them is the complete picture. All in all it was an enjoyable presentation, though I think Lewis fired his best shots in the beginning (defining LotR as ‘mythic history’ and talking about the ‘Tolkien Conundrum’ — that much of Tolkien's writings were unfinished, that they were very much in flux and even the published writings cannot be considered as Tolkien's last thought on the matter).

In the second time slot, I went to a session titled ‘Biography’. The first speaker was José Manuel Ferrández Bru who gave a talk titled ‘J.R.R. Tolkien's second father: Fr. Francis Morgan and other non-canonical influences.’ For the most part this talk covered some of the same ground as Bru's article in Tolkien Studies VIII, but this time with the addition of illustrations which at some points brought Bru's points out better than the article (pictures of letters, for instance). This time round, I was also more intrigued by Bru's suggestion that the inspiration for the wind-riddle in The Hobbit should be sought in a Spanish poem by one of Fr. Francis' family members, which stood in Fr. Francis' library. Towards the end, Bru suggested, half-jokingly I think, that there might be some echoes of Fr. Francis' influence on Tolkien in some specifics of Tolkien's fiction — apart from the wind-riddle, the Barrels out of Bound chapter might reflect also Fr. Francis' family's involvement with the sherry business, Minas Tirith may derive some qualities from a Spanish town (white houses, mountainous location), and the scouring of the Shire may owe something to the Spanish casting out Napoleon.

Bru was followed by Colin Duriez who spoke on ‘The origins of the Inklings.’ Some of the things that I took away from this was related to specifics of the history of the Inklings: when were they meeting in what way, the differences between the reading-sessions in (mostly) C.S. Lewis' room in Magdalen and the pub-meetings, the informal and unstructured nature of the club and the centrality of C.S. Lewis.

Charlie Ross
Photo: Andrew Wells
After a lunch cut short, most of us worked our way to the Barrow Hall to experience Charlie Ross perform his ‘One-man Lord of the Rings’. The show is based on Jackson's film trilogy, but it is still very funny and he adds a number of references to the book (I shan't say if performing before an audience of which half were in costume at a Tolkien Society event made him add a few extra book-references). Unfortunately I was rather tired and suffering from a headache (and the sound was very loud), so there were a number of jokes that went past me witout me noticing (not until everybody else were laughing, which is always a bit too late ...). Memorable moments include the attempt to read the Elvish script on the One Ring (“One for the money, two for the show, three for . . . no, wait, Elvish script, you say? One Ring to rule them all . . .”) and Gimli at the Council of Elrond promising Frodo his beard (“Because I broke me bloody axe”) and Legolas announcing “You have my hair!” Overall I am glad that I got the chance to see this show.

Taking a short break to lie down for half an hour made a big difference for my readiness for the video of Tom Shippey's talk at the 6th Lustrum, ‘The Ancestors of Hobbits - strange creatures from English Folklore’. At this event Tom Shippey spoke about a number of the creatures mentioned in the Denham Tracts, explaining what is known about them etc. The main point was to highlight that the Denham Tracts carries a suggestion of what he called ‘the lost world of English folklore’ — the indication that the lower mythology of England had not always been the poor and watered-down affair that the folklorist found once they finally got round to write things down: the hint of a much richer English folklore hiding just a few hundred years before the texts were written down.

Tom Shippey lecturing
Photo: Andrew Wells
The real treat of the day was the live talk by Tom Shippey on ‘Tolkien on Leadership’. I had never before seen Tom Shippey live, though of course various reports and video clips have filtered down, but he really is a fantastic lecturer (and an entertainer as well), capable of captivating his audience completely. Shippey thought that Tolkien appears not to have thought much about leadership as such before The Lord of the Rings (claiming that the leaders shown in the earlier works are actually quite bad leaders). Then he looked at leaders in LotR and grouped them in six categories with one or two examples in each: the sacrificial leader (Théoden), the suicidal leader (Denethor), the persuasive leader (Saruman), the counsellor leader (Elrond & Galadriel), the loyal leader (Faramir — loyalty here mainly meaning upwards), and the ideal leader (Aragorn). The Orkish leader, Uglúk, with his order-keeping abilities was also noted and duly admired. Shippey found that Tolkien's position on leadership could be summed up in three pieces of advice: 1) be visible 2) don't publishise yourself too much to others, and 3) any decision is better than no decision. Shippey admits to not being an expert on leadership, and I think that more work could be done in this topic (some has already been done by a Finnish scholar of business management, though only in Finnish), but I would agree with Shippey that these three seem to be important elements in Tolkien's portrayal of a good leader.

In the post-talk discussions, I managed to get a little better insight into Shippey's dissatisfaction with Tolkien's analysis of Maldon — my problem being that we have in current use in Denmark the word overmod which has a meaning very close to that which Tolkien assigns to O.E. ofermod in his treatment of the Maldon (‘The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorthelm's Son’ and the related essay ‘ofermod’). Possibly because I was managing to look very fan-boyish, I was very kindly invited to share a beer with Shippey and Ronald Hutton before dinner.

Saturday

Friday was the day where I went to bed three times — the first time shortly after midnight and the last time about 11PM. The result is that I approached Saturday feeling considerably more sprightly than Friday, which was certainly a good thing. However, after this I got rather busy, so you'll hopefully forgive me for not continuing the tale until now, when I have returned to that spot of Middle-earth that I call home.

In the first time-slot, I went to a session on the Ainulindalë. This was lead off by Peter Gilliver (one of the authors of The Ring of Words), who spoke on ‘Making the Music, a possible source for the Ainulindalë.’ The premise of this talk was a very striking correspondence in both imagery and wording in Gerald Manley Hopkins' ‘notes on Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises’ to imagery and phrasing in Tolkien's Ainulindalë. However, though written in 1881, these notes remained unpublished until 1937, far too late for them to have influenced imagery and phrases in The Book of Lost Tales, and while possible connections could be made, these were all much too tenuous for anyone to assert a source. Gilliver had then looked at other texts containing the image of a creator having angels sing for him and a musical rebellion leading to a fall of angels, and had found two cases (one of these an interesting Babylonian text), but ultimately the consensus was that it seemed more likely that there was a general idea floating about in the Oxford Catholic circles (in 1919 there were about 100 Catholic students in Oxford) regarding a musical interpretation of the rebellion of (some of) the angels.

After this came Reuven Naveh who spoke on ‘The Ainulindale and Tolkien's Approach to Modernity.’ Naveh suggested that the descriptions of the Discord of Morgoth are consistent with early receptions of atonal music emphasizing dissonance. While Naveh used Arnold Schönberg as his example, this was not because he felt that Tolkien's words' necessarily were a reaction to Schönberg in particular, but to his ‘type of music’ more generally. This took Naveh on to Tolkien's general reaction against modernism, of which Naveh perceived a strong rejection by Tolkien. One of the interesting points that Naveh made was that Tolkien seemed to have been rooted in tonal music and it's emphasis on harmony that even Wagner's play with a greater element of dissonance (though still within context of tonal music) may have felt, to Tolkien, for that very reason, ugly and incomprehensible.

At this point, I took a break, so that the next couple of time-slots were kept empty. I did, however, have a nice chat with David Doughan (whom I've met on-line), who had also attended the morning session on the Ainulindalë and who had some very interesting further comments on the musical talk (David clearly being far more knowledgeable than I about what might broadly be termed ‘classical music’). Also I took the time to enjoy the exhibition of Tolkien-inspired artwork. There was an impressive list of artists who exhibited their work at the conference, and while I do not as a rule get the vivid images while reading that I understand many do (and I believe Tolkien did), I can certainly enjoy good art. I found something enjoyable in nearly all of the artists works, and for a few of the artists, I found most of their work enjoyable (no one mentioned, and thus none forgotten), though even among these well-loved artists, the all-pervasive imagery of the Jackson films could not be wholly escaped: there was a blue Galadriel that seemed to me inspired more by Jackson's vision than by Tolkie's words, just as there were more than one depiction of Viggo Mortensen (who is, I am sure, a very nice man who deserves every portrait) that claimed to depict Aragorn / King Elessar. The dealers' stalls were dangerous waters for me — the temptation to over-spend on the many interesting books there was great, and perhaps I should be grateful that the Tolkien Society Trading's stall only had two different volumes of Tolkien Studies on their ‘½ price’ shelves (none of which I had — the past tense being important here . . . )

David Doughan
Photo: Andrew Wells
In the last of the day's multi-track time-slots, I went to a session on The Notion Club Papers, which should be found in an Oxford bin this year (I wonder if some faithful Tolkienists have been trawling the colleges' waste bins this summer?). First up was David Doughan speaking simply about ‘The Notion Club.’ The aim of the talk seemed make people interested in this piece of Tolkien's writings and make them think about it. To that end Doughan had picked a series of interesting facts about the Notion Club Papers, including the identity game (matching aspects of the fictional club members to aspects of the members of the Inklings), a history of the idea of time-travelling through dreams and visions and (especially) the connections to the linguistic work, The Drowning of Anadûne, and The Lord of the Rings.

The second presentation of this session was ‘From 2012 to Atlantis and back again. Tolkien's Time-Travelling and the Notion Club Papers Mystery’ by Xavier de la Huerga. Weaving a thread through Tolkien's Notion Club Papers, ideas of (biologically) inherited memory, Mayarin calendars and meteorological phenomena, de la Huerga gave me the impression that he wanted me to believe in some kind of mysticism (though he didn't exactly say it in that many words), and as a physicist I have to admit that I resented this feeling, and though it is possibly completely unintended, possibly a complete misunderstanding on my part, it did prevent me from connecting to the presentation as I would normally do.

From the Notion Club session, we hurried on to hear Verlyn Flieger speak in the big auditorium where Tom Shippey had entertained on Friday. Verlyn Flieger didn't entertain (though she did use humour), but instead she provoked: her talk on ‘Tolkien's French Connection’ was thought-provoking in the very best sense of the word, and despite a very different lecturing style from Tom Shippey, she had the audience every bit as much in thrall as he. Starting out from Tolkien's use of the French words aventures and quest in his essay ‘On Fairy-Stories’, Flieger took us through the magical forest of Broceliande, where Knights Errant went for simple aventures (as recounted e.g. by Chrétien de Troyes) and to the noble nights in Le Morte d'Arthur of which some (like Gawain) went on aventures while others went on quests. These she compared convincingly to Bilbo's [u]adventures[/u] (teaching us to say the word with her as she read all the, IIRC, eleven occurrences of the word in the description of the first day (Tuesday) in The Hobbit ). Though it is not repeated as many times, Frodo's story is clearly about a quest, and Flieger showed how the distinction and the two types of stories were tied up with a French romance tradition.

Torchlight procession
Photo: Lindon
After an enjoyable evening with more friends, new and old, it was time for first the Masquerade. Unfortunately the day was so hot and the room so packed that I couldn't stand it, and so I ended up outside, sharing the beer I had brought from Denmark. It was originally bought for Jason Fisher, when I thought he was coming, but I thought I'd bring it anyway. The beer was Bøgebryg from the brewery Skovlyst, and the name of the brew translates to ‘beech brew’. The beech has also given us the words book = bog (Danish) = Buch (German), because the habit of inscribing runes on staves of beech. From there we also, in German and Danish have our ‘beech-staves’, die Buchstaben, bogstaver, which are our names for the letters. So in a way I was bringing ‘book-beer’ to a Tolkien Conference, which seemed highly appropriate, and I was very pleased that both beer and pun were well received. The Masquerade, and hence our pun-beering, ended with a torchlight procession, which featured a distinct lack of something — either some pitchforks and a monster (and a barn to torch), or some ships to burn (so we could prevent that self-important usurper from following! Helcaraxë take him!)

The last item on the Saturday agenda was the auction. In addition to various donations from attendees and others (including four boxes of the ‘Mines of Moria’ Lego set and some wonderful artwork by attending artists), there were a lot of old fanzines on auction. This being because the Tolkien Society has closed it's lending library and now only maintains an archive (from which members can get photocopies of articles for their research), so they were selling out of their doubles (or triples or whatever). The words in The Hobbit about the prices at auctions applies here, with early issues of obscure smial journals fetching several tens of pounds. I got myself a Mallorn 43 and a Mythlore 12 for a total of £6.50 — mostly for the fun of being a part of it. And it certainly was great fun.

Sunday

My presentation
Photo: Lindon
I got up a little late on Sunday (skipping breakfast) so as to get as much sleep as possible (the action had ended not long before 1 AM) before it was time for my own fifteen minutes (or rather thirty) in the spotlight. Having had my paper printed, I sat down to read it through critically for the first time, ending up with an insane amount of corrections, additions and deletions to keep track of, but in the end I think I got through reasonably well (i.e. without loosing my thread more than a couple of times). My paper, ‘"in the memory of old wives" - Old Tales and Fairy-stories in Middle-earth’ was based on the idea that Tolkien not only constructed The Lord of the Rings to be a highly successful fairy-story according to the principles he laid out in his essay ‘On Fairy-Stories,’ but that he also exemplifies several of his points by letting his characters experience the effects of metafictional fairy-stories.

I was followed by Maureen Mann, to whom I had afterwards to apologize, because it took me the first ten minutes of her presentation to get back to the here and now, and when I finally caught up with the thread of her talk on ‘"various queer things": The House of Tom Bombadil and Fairie,’ I realized that it was highly interesting, and that it took up very excellently where I had left off (had the programming been reversed, I would have just as smoothly taken up the thread where she had left it). Maureen Mann dealt with one episode from The Lord of the Rings that I had left out: Tom Bombadil's power of narrative enchantment, which she discussed in depth and in further context. Where I had merely skated the surface, barely scratching it, in my presentation of an overarching idea, Maureen Mann expertly drilled through the ice in one spot and drew from there crystal-clear waters. After getting back home I have been mailing with Maureen, and will very much enjoy getting to read her paper in my own time.

The last spot in our session was a talk about ‘Tolkien's Faerian Drama: Origins and Valedictions’ by Janet Brennan Croft. This took up the idea of the dream-vision as an example of Faërian drama, the enchantment Tolkien describes in ‘On Fairy-Stories,’ and investigated this topic with examples from other authors as well as from Tolkien. I very much enjoyed the presentation, particularly the attempt to extract some common characteristics of a Faërian Drama Dream-vision (which includes the meeting, the intersection, of aesthetic and ethic) based on examples ranging from medieval stories (such as Pearl) via Dickens to Tolkien. Going through my notes and writing up these comments, I come to wonder how she deals with Tolkien's rejection of dream-stories as proper fairy-stories (I can see at least a couple of possible routes, none of which might be the one that Croft would choose).

After lunch I went to another session on ‘Tolkien's Sources’, starting with Yoko Hemmi who spoke on ‘Tolkienesque Transformations: Post-Celticism and Possessiveness in ‘The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun’.’ The paper (at least as it seemed to me) had two main theses. One was the idea of ‘post-celticism,’ which, as I understood it, is created by adding ‘the fair elusive beauty that some call Celtic (though it is rarely found in genuine ancient Celtic things)’ (Letters, no. 131) to the authentically celticism of the ancient Breton lays, and the other was that Tolkien, in his Lay of Aotrou and Itroun also added possessiveness as a moral flaw (the following discussion also suggested a connection of possessiveness and the desire for immortality). The presentation as a whole followed very well on to Verlyn Flieger's presentation on Saturday, though I am afraid that this somewhat bland summary doesn't do it justice.

Next up was Gerard Hynes with a presentation that fell directly within one of the areas of Tolkien studies that I am very interested in. Speaking of ‘Tolkien’s Boethius, Alfred’s Boethius,’ Gerard Hynes argued that the changes made to the text in the Old English translation of Boëthius' Consolation of Prophecy attributed to King Alfred (Hynes called it a re-interpretation rather than merely a translation) makes the translated text a more likely source for Tolkien than the original Latin. Summarising Hynes' summary of the relevant differences, Alfred's version loosens causality, allowing a greater option for changing providence — the Latin version deals with the freedom to think, the Old English version with the freedom to act. Thinking of this presentation afterwards, this summary seems to me to match nearly perfectly the differences in the operation of free will between Men and Elves in Tolkien's world (as described by Verlyn Flieger, Charles Noad and myself — you have no idea what pleasure it gave me to write this comment :-) ): Elves following the model of the Latin Boëthius and Men following the model of the Old English Alfredian Boëthius. Such a model would seem also strangely appropriate in other ways (which is probably why I am at once attracted to it and reluctant to adopt it).

The last presention of this session on sources took moved the focus a few centuries forward to discuss ‘Tolkien and Romanticism.’ The basic idea of Anna Thayer (née Slack) was to place Tolkien in a Romantic tradition, though not quite as radical as the original romanticists, and I think the idea went down quite well. It does certainly seem straightforward that Tolkien incorporates a number of ideas / themes / images adopted from romanticism, though I would probably be more cautious about calling Tolkien a romanticist as such (a claim, it must be emphasised, that Anna Thayer did not make!). Ending with the image of the piercing beauty, and the consolation gained from the untouchability and eternalness of Sam's sighting of a star while in Mordor closed the loop nicely to several other presentations (including my own) touching on Tolkien's idea of Faërie.


The last of the day's multi-track sessions, I spent with a panel on ‘Tolkien Research’ chaired by Janet Brennan Croft (editor of Mythlore) and including Verlyn Flieger, Bob Blackham, John Garth, and Angie Gardner (note that only one of these was a university professor doing academic research on Tolkien). There were several very positive and inspiring things to get from this panel: it is possible to access most of the things if you have a good reason (and someone to recommend you in the case of the Bodleian), the exceptions being all the Silmarillion papers and the private papers (both in the Bodleian) that are controlled by the Estate. Part of what I took away from this panel is a list of libraries featuring important archives of Tolkieniana, including what they contain and how to get into them (though ‘present myself’ at the Marquette might present a bit of an obstacle, but only due to it being in Wisconsin, USA and my living in Denmark). Overall I found the session informative, inspiring and encouraging — what more can one hope for in a session focusing on the possibility for contributing to Tolkien studies by independent researchers and scholars.

Nancy Martsch
Photo: Andrew Wells
Actually the above wasn't really the last of the multi-track events. Just before dinner we had to choose again — this time between Nancy Martsch's ‘Thirty Years of Tolkien Fandom’ and the Christine Davidson Memorial Lecture, given by Ben Barootes titled ‘These Fading Days: Language, Loss, and Recovery in Tolkien's Legendarium.’ This was a tough choice, but I ended up listening to Ben Barootes, whom I had talked with over dinner one day (I had also spoken with Nancy Martsch, and I would have loved to hear her talk).

Ben Barootes, Christine Davidson Memorial Lecture
Photo: Lindon
I am not sure that I could do justice to Ben's presentation (there is a good reason why he won the award that was set up to let a promising young Tolkien scholar participate in the Return of the Ring conference and give this lecture). He took his outset in the narrator's comments on Frodo's vain attempt command the Ringwraiths at the Ford of Bruinen to go back to Mordor, ‘but Frodo had not the power of Bombadil,’ and then asked why? The answer to this question should, according to Ben Barootes, be found in Northrop Frye's model of evolution of language in three phases (see The Phases and Modes of Language). Ben Barootes wove, with great eloquence, ideas concerning language, word- and name-magic (and song-magic), ‘the long defeat’ and other ideas together to a tapestry of compelling force, and though I am not sure that I can walk the whole nine yards with Ben, I'll be there with him for the seven or eight of them, and I am impressed with the explanatory power of his model.

The final point on the agenda before the grand Banquet also covered thirty years with a relation with Tolkien's work. Having to call my wife (Sunday was, after all, her birthday), I missed the start, but still got to hear most of Brian ‘Sibley in Middle-earth: A Thirty-Year Ramble.’ Full of entertaining anecdotes, this ‘ramble’ (let's honour Brian Sibley by keeping his own name for it) also proved thought-provokingly interesting for me as a firm book-lover (who put any adaptation far below the original, and any narrative adaptation even lower . . .) — I have certainly learned a greater respect for adapting artists (regardless of whether or not I like their adaptation as an adaption).

Troels (me) at the banquet
Photo: Lindon
After hearing Brian Sibley, I had to rush back to my room to change for the banquet. Fortunately it was little delayed, so I was still in good time to enjoy the company at the table, which included Nils Ivar Agøy, Måns Björkman (Nils Ivar and Måns added August 30th — my apologies for forgetting them at first), Beregond (from Forodrim, the Stockholm Tolkien Society), Christopher Kreuzer, Allan Turner, Janet Brennan Croft, and the brothers Johan and Håkan Olin. For anyone who had previously been to events in the Tolkien Society the Standing Silence and the toasts to the Professor and to absent friends were of course expected and familiar as old friends, but though one has read about it, it is a different matter to actually be there and be a part of it. Rituals have the function of tying people together, of strengthening the sense of unity and common purpose and interests, and this sense of community is, at least for me, a very valuable addition to being a Tolkien enthusiast. As the food disappeared from plates and tables, the social aspect of course became more and more prominent. A number of participants went to the Q&A session with a couple of the people behind The Fellows Hip — a film celebrating gamer culture and The Lord of the Rings, while others chose to continue the socializing outside where the temperature was approaching comfortable levels (at least as perceived by this Dane).

Monday — the last day.

Already from the morning there was a certain degree of closure and breaking up in the air. Over breakfast I finally got around to hear Andrew Higgins about his current work (he is working on a Ph.D. with Dmitra Fimi while at the same time doing his day-time job — impressive!) but in the various breakfast conversations one could also hear the consciousness of there being only a few hours until we would spread to all the corners of the world.

After breakfast I managed to nearly finish my packing before the first session, which was a panel called ‘Lifelong Learning Tolkien: Face-to-face and Online’ with Corey Olsen as chair, and Shaun Gunner (of the Tolkien Society and the Tolkien Gateway), Mick Ennis (of the Ironville & Codnor School Myth & Magic Reading & Language Group), Dimitra Fimi (of Cardiff Metropolitan University), and Christine Ahmed (LotR and the Scottish border). Corey Olsen's pages as the Tolkien Professor and his Mythgard Institute are (I hope) well-known, as is Dmitra Fimi's work (which also includes on-line Tolkien classes), and the Tolkien Gateway. Mick Ennis' story about the school-children and their travels moved me strongly — this group offers these kids a chance to grow and develop in so many ways; not just intellectually, but also socially, emotionally and in other ways. It's really amazing! Another highlight was the look on Shaun Gunner's face when he asked how many present had accounts on the Tolkien Gateway, and even Dmitra Fimi raised her hand . . . priceless! Overall the panel was good with its focus on the many ways to learn more about Tolkien that is available, but also with the ever-present warning to not trust the internet inherently: check up on everything if you can.

For the last session, I chose to go to a final session on ‘Tolkien's sources’. Andrew Morton started with a promise of explaining ‘Everything you need to know about the real Bag End’ — and then some. The presentation included a number of pictures of the real Bag End, where Tolkien's maternal aunt, Jane Neave, had lived and farmed. Tolkien is known to have visited the farm only twice: on reconvalescence in 1923 and later on with the whole family. The presentation contained a lot of visual evidence, without which a summary will merely appear bland. However, the pictures and related discussions spiced with a lot of interesting bits of information about his old house (a settlement at this place goes back to before the Norman period), and the family (including Jane and Mabel's father, John Suffield, and his love for his daughter's farm), made the talk quite interesting to follow.

The final bit of scholarly work that I got to enjoy at the conference was Dmitra Fimi's presentation on ‘Elves, Goblins and Other ‘Fairy’ Things in The Hobbit: Tolkien’s Victorian and Edwardian Inspiration’. This again relied on visual evidence — mainly Victorian images of faries, and discussed how Tolkien had relied on some of these Victorian faries, though the very petite creatures with wings that he came to resent so strongly, and how their influence can be traced quite a lot longer than I had previously thought: even after Tolkien had renounced them so strongly in his essay ‘On Fairy-Stories.’

After this, all that was left of this fantastic conference was the closing ceremony. Allowing us a last opportunity for cheering, this included some additional award-giving. First Nancy Martsch presented the Beyond Bree awards that are given ‘in recognition of outstanding contribution to the study of JRR Tolkien, from the Readers of Beyond Bree’. Unlike previous award votes, the readers had this time voted for a single clear winner, Mark Hooker. Honourary mentions went to Dinah Hazel (The Plants of Middle-earth: Botany and Sub-creation) and Phil Goss (the Compleat Gyde to Tolkien Calendars). Congratulations to all — the awards are well-deserved!

Finally the chair of the conference, Lynn Whitaker, took the stand for the closing words. All the people who had helped make the conference were duly thanked (including the participants), and of course the committee. In the middle of this, the chair of the Tolkien Society, Sally Kennett, had to take over in order to present the society's Gold Badge to the conference's booking's officer, Lyn Wilshire, after which she proceeded to present one also to the chair, Lynn Whitaker. When the cheering had finally subseded, that was it — the Return of the Ring was over, and all that remained was to check out of our rooms and go back each to our own corner of this middle-earth.

Additional thoughts

Weapens of la Compagnie du Dragon Vert
Photo: Lindon
Live re-enactment by la
Compagnie du Dragon Vert
Photo: Lindon
Writing in this diary-like form obviously skips over some things. Where, for instance, would I put something about la Compagnie du Dragon Vert (The Fellowship of the Green Dragon) — the French re-enactment group whose camp I passed several times per day and from whom I bought a Gondorian penny (or whatever the name of the Gondorian coin may be)?  Yet their presence was certainly very important to the atmosphere of the conference as a whole, and I enjoyed looking at their camp very much.

And what about the meals? Which day was it that a fortunate lack of space at other tables landed me in a very interesting conversation with Ben Barootes? I can't remember, but it was a very pleasant dinner. The same questions can be asked about other conversations — I also had a very interesting talk with Merlin DeTardo over a meal one day, but these things tend to blur a little and unless they're in the programme, I lose track of which day it was (I did keep copious notes from all the lectures, presentations, talks, lectures and panels that I went to, but for some reason I forgot to do the same for my meals — something I should perhaps remember next time . . . whenever that may be. 
Taking notes. I may not be looking intently at the speaker
(David Doughan), but that is because I am busy taking
notes in my book.
Photo: Andrew Wells


One of the points that Lynn Whitaker, the chair of the Return of the Ring, made at the closing ceremony was that it had been an aim of the conference to combine, put together and not least break down perceived barriers between fandom, entertainment and academia — a goal that I find that the Return of the Ring fulfilled, even to top marks! I never once perceived any kind of barriers, but rather often experienced people crossing freely where such barriers should have been, had they ever been erected. 

What is left to say? I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to come to this conference (in particular to my family for putting up with it — they are not Tolkien enthusiasts). Also I am grateful for the friendship that I've been shown both from people that I had met on-line before the conference and from new people, and I have been dumbfounded at the kind words about my presentation and what other things I've done in Mallorn and here. When we get right down to it, this is what is the true purpose of going to conferences like this: to meet people and connect in our shared love for professor Tolkien's work. 

The Professor! 

Friday 3 August 2012

Glorfindel(s) I miss you!

Under this title Shaun Gunner (a Tolkien Society trustee) makes a charming appeal in the latest issue of Amon Hen (the bulletin of the Tolkien Society).

Shaun wonders what happened to the ‘great debates’ — not just the question of Balrog Wings (we're all pretty much fed up with that), but also the question of one or two Glorfindels, Elven ears, the colour of Legolas' hair or the irredeemability of Orcs.


This of course raises the question of what constitutes a ‘great debate’? Reasonable criteria might include such as the number of people participating in the debate, the length of time over which the debate runs, the number of contributions both over time and per day, week or month etc. However, if we look at many of the debates that are typically listed as ‘great’ the strength of emotions also seems to be a common factor.


Shaun Gunner acknowledges that Tolkien Studies has become more ‘mature’ or ‘mainstream’ and that as a result of this issues such as source criticism and biographical history dominate the discussions.

A few of the debates have been definitely closed (there is not much point in discussing the number of Glorfindels after the publication of The Peoples of Middle-earth, is there), while others, perhaps particularly the infamous Balrog wings, have reached a state where just about everyone is fed up with them.

As a result it would unfortunately seem that the only great debate in Tolkien fandom these years is for or against the Jackson films — or about the ‘faithfulness’ of them. I admit that I am more than a little tired of these discussions — in the end we're all just trying to rationalize the gut feeling we had that first day in the theatre, and too often it ends in pointless reiterations of positions and ad Hominem attacks.



However, despite all this, I still think Shaun Gunner raises a good question — not so much about the specific debates he mentions (and I might be able to add a question or two to his list), but about the eagerness to discuss the story-internal issues. This may be geeky in nature, but I also think that these debates have a very legitimate place also in the more mature world of Tolkien studies.

One of the points that Jason Fisher makes strongly in his own contribution to Tolkien and the Study of His Sources is that the desire to understand how Tolkien worked is important for motivating source studies — he goes as far as to suggest that good source studies should, at least in some measure, attempt to uncover some corner of this. Well, I will argue that identifying the probable sources also requires a good understanding of how Tolkien's world works — it's inner reality. I have seen too many poorly thought-out attempts to justify a claimed source that have been based on a dubious interpretation of the inner reality of Tolkien's work.

This is also an important part of understanding the man himself, the biographical studies: in Tolkien's works, his personal world-view is built into the structure of the world he described. Frodo receives grace simply because Tolkien believed that grace works also in the real, primary, world. In may ways we can trace the evolution of Tolkien's fascinations, ideas and philosophical/ethical views through the evolution of his sub-creation.

Tolkien studies and Tolkien scholarship has been blessed with a good relationship between the academic scholars such as Shippey, Flieger, Drout etc. and the community of Tolkien geeks, and I honestly believe that both parts have benefited from this relationship, and I am convinced that either side would suffer from the weakening of the other.


Fortunately I am not quite as pessimistic as Shaun Gunner. There are a lot of discussions about the story-internal aspects of Tolkien's world, but there are not many that would qualify as ‘great debates’.

We still see occasional earnest discussion of the Master Ring. Both the question of the actual agency of the Ring (its capacity for thought and free will) and the related question of how it corrupted its bearer and others (Saruman is apparently corrupted merely by the idea of the One Ring). These questions are also important for understanding Tolkien's ponerology — his metaphysical portrayal of the nature of evil: a question that is very relevant in Tolkien studies. That question is, in and of itself, actually a story-internal debate: what is the nature of evil and how does it work in Tolkien's world?

The same could be said about the nature and workings of free will in Tolkien's world — a question that is related to discussions about the Master Ring, about the nature and redeemability of Orcs and the role of the Music as fate.

Other story-internal discussions that are being taken up in the more academic discussions are the metafictional layers of Tolkien's stories: what is the exact transmission history of the many stories from the Ainulindalë to Findegil's additions to the Red Book? Does it make sense to claim a long series of copies of copies between Findegil and the book that Tolkien-the-translator had as the basis for his translation? These are inherently story-internal questions that are no less geeky than the question of Balrog wings (a question that might, at least in theory, be relevant for suggesting possible sources for the Balrogs).

I could mention many other story-internal discussions that bear on, or are actually themselves, current issues in Tolkien scholarship, but the thing is that they exist.


This leaves the question of why these do not emerge as ‘great debates’ such as we saw earlier. Here I think that Steuard's comments in the thread ‘What killed alt.fan.tolkien’ have some bearing on this as well. The dilution, or dispersion, of the on-line discussions has created a multitude of fora where discussions arise and die out. Though many of us are active in more than one forum, only a few of these discussions manage to be ported from one forum to another — possibly because many fora have their own profile that seems to dictate what discussions will be taken up eagerly.

Another problem might be that many of these discussions are more complex — in their origin the discussions of Balrog wings and Elven ears are quite easy to relate to (though they, too, got into fairly complex levels of textual analysis), but the transmission history of the Red Book quickly becomes more complex. This should, however, not detain us: the on-line Tolkien discussions are often dominated by highly intelligent people who are more than capable of understanding even far more complex issues (as witnessed by the complexities that has always crept into all the great debates).


Instead of asking what happened to the great debates of yesterday, I'd much rather ask what will become the next great story-internal debate? What question can raise sufficient intellectual interest and emotional engagement to engage the on-line community in sufficient numbers and over a sufficient length of time to deserve that title?  Any ideas?

Tolkien Transactions XXVII

Tolkien Transactions XXVII
July 2012

A busy month!

In my ‘spare time’ I have started in a new job and been to our national scout jamboree, Jamboree Denmark 2012, which has left me rather short of time for serious Tolkien work . . . ;-) (which also accounts for the delay in posting this)

August will see me travelling to Loughborough for The Return of the Ring — an event that I am looking very, very much forward to.


This month it has suited my purposes to sort the contents under the following headlines:
1: News
2: Essays and Scholarship
3: Reviews and Book News
4: Other Stuff
5: Interviews
6: Rewarding Discussions
7: In Print
8: Web Sites
9: Sources

= = = = News = = = =

Nathan Quevedo, Merced Sun-Star, Wednesday, 4 July 2012, "Merced County students to perform Tolkien's ‘The Hobbit’
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2012/07/04/2408582/merced-county-students-to-perform.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/cuncwv5
One more group of students performing The Hobbit as a stage play. Read the review here:
Merced Sun-Star, Thursday, 19 July 2012, ‘Merced County students bring Tolkien's ‘The Hobbit’ to life on stage’
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2012/07/19/2425396/merced-county-students-bring-tolkiens.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/c3lu97v

Lauren Davis, io9, Saturday, 7 July 2012, ‘Interactive_ Lord of the Rings_ timeline shows exactly where in Middle Earth Tolkien's adventures took place’
http://io9.com/5924185/interactive-lord-of-the-rings-timeline-shows-exactly-where-in-middle-earth-tolkiens-adventures-took-place
http://preview.tinyurl.com/c8kcy84
Do you remember the big family-tree project that got some attention a while back? Well, now it seems that the programmers have taken it a step further and created a timeline that will map some Second and Third Age events on an associated post-War of Wrath map. See link and more comments below.

Josh Vogt, Sunday, 8 July 2012, ‘The Tolkien Society announces this year's Oxonmoot’
http://www.examiner.com/article/the-tolkien-society-announces-this-year-s-oxonmoot
http://preview.tinyurl.com/c792am3
Oxonmoot is announced for the weekend of 21st through 23rd September, this year with ‘a little surprise for attendees in hounour of’ the 75th anniversary of The Hobbit which this year's Oxonmoot happens to coincide with.

Doug Kane, Saturday, 14 July 2012, ‘New Tolkien Studies co-editor’
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mythsoc/message/23183
Following Doug Anderson's exit from the group of editors of Tolkien Studies, it is now announced that David Bratman will take over as co-editor responsible for the reviews and Merlin DeTardo will take full responsibility for the Year's Work article. It is, I think, appropriate at this point to add some expression of gratitude for the work done by all involved, especially the editors of the journal (if we do single out Doug Anderson at this point, it is only because he has now left the editor group), and to congratulate David Bratman and Merlin DeTardo for their new responsibilities for which they are eminently suited.

DB, Saturday, 14 July 2012, ‘student of Tolkien’
http://kalimac.blogspot.com/2012/07/student-of-tolkien.html
David Bratman's own announcement of the changes in the Tolkien Studies editorship.

Nick Collins, The Telegraph, Wednesday, 25 July 2012, ‘Beowulf and Iliad 'more plausible than Shakespeare'’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/9423516/Beowulf-and-Iliad-more-plausible-than-Shakespeare.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/d58wskn
Using modern network theory, the researchers show that the networks portrayed in ancient legends and myths are more real than those described in fiction, including Tolkien's /The Fellowship of the Ring/. So, if you've ever felt that ‘this is not how friend networks work’ when reading Tolkien, Shakespeare or some other author, you were probably right ;-) See also
ANI, Wednesday, 25 July 2012, ‘Why Beowulf and Iliad are more plausible than Shakespeare's stories’
http://www.sify.com/news/why-beowulf-and-iliad-are-more-plausible-than-shakespeare-s-stories-news-international-mhzruehiecd.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/brokyn7

William Dove, International Business Times, Wednesday, 24 July 2012, ‘The Lord of the Rings as You've Never Read it Before’
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/366720/20120725/lord-rings-hobbit-history-middle-earth.htm
http://preview.tinyurl.com/c5a2tmy
In essence an invitation to go read the history of The Lord of the Rings in the The History of Middle-earth vols. 6 through 9. That invitation / suggestion is hereby passed on!

Robert T. Trate, Mania, Thursday, 26 July 2012, ‘The Hobbit Trilogy?’
http://www.mania.com/hobbit-trilogy_article_133719.html
Though I was personally more excited about other news towards the end of the month, the announcement that there will be three films based on The Hobbit has certainly received by far the most exposure on the 'net of any Tolkien-related story this month. Here are a links to a few, probably not representative, articles on the matter.
Brian Salomon, Forbes, Thursday, 26 July 2012, ‘'The Hobbit' As A Trilogy? Hollywood Has Jumped The Shark’
http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2012/07/26/the-hobbit-as-a-trilogy-hollywood-has-jumped-the-shark/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/c6ovcwc
SJ, Monday, 30 July 2012, ‘A 3rd Hobbit movie: Bad Idea’
http://steuard.livejournal.com/88412.html
Erik Kain, Forbes, Monday, 30 July 2012, ‘Peter Jackson Confirms ‘The Hobbit’ Will Be A Trilogy’
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/07/30/peter-jackson-confirms-the-hobbit-will-be-a-trilogy/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/bqlvbrz
SJ, Tuesday, 31 July 2012, ‘Why three Hobbit movies? Here's my guess.’
http://steuard.livejournal.com/88772.html
JDR, Tuesday, 31 July 2012, ‘Three Films’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.dk/2012/07/three-films.html

Josh Vogt, Examiner, Monday, 30 July 2012, ‘Guardians of Middle-earth developers explain why game isn't for Tolkien purists’
http://www.examiner.com/article/guardians-of-middle-earth-developers-explain-why-game-isn-t-for-tolkien-purists
http://preview.tinyurl.com/cldbkoc
Not exactly a surprise, is it? A game will also have to allow some level of ‘fairness’ — how well you're doing in the game should reflect your level of skill with the game rather than just the character you chose, so a certain (big) degree of levelling is quite natural. Whether I wish to play such a game does not really depend on how well it reflects Tolkien's intentions, but rather on the game play. It might annoy me, however, if the game designers were to claim that they were being completely faithful to Tolkien's work, so in that sense the honesty here is good.

= = = = Essays and Scholarship = = = =

JDR, Sunday, 8 July 2012, ‘The New Arrivals (2nd of 2)’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2012/07/new-arrivals-2nd-of-2.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/bt3qk8w
John Rateliff, while searching for another issue, has found and bought a 1973 Tolkien memorial issue of Locus and in addition to describing it, he also quotes from some of the contributors.

BC, Tuesday, 10 July 2012, ‘Tolkien and Lewis's annus divertium of 1936: a catalytic role for Charles Williams The Place of the Lion?’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2012/07/tolkien-and-lewiss-annus-divertium-of.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/cwsxtbh
Bruce Charlton on the influence he perceives of Charles Williams on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien in 1936. Though I am at a disadvantage at not having read any Williams, I think Charlton exaggerates the influence on Tolkien, and also exaggerates the importance, for Tolkien, of The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers, none of which appear to me to have been truly pivotal or seminal to Tolkien's work.

JM, Thursday, 12 July 2012, ‘Tolkien's metaphysics of evil’
Part 53: ‘The good as the efficacy of evil’
http://jonathansmcintosh.wordpress.com/2012/07/12/the-good-as-the-efficacy-of-evil/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/bvkpwz8
This month has seen the final postings in Jonathan McIntosh' series on Tolkien's metaphysics of evil. He has some very interesting thoughts on how to understand the semblance of evil as an independent force. I am trying to understand it all, and while I am not sure that I can go the full nine yards with McIntosh (I am, for instance, not sure that his reading of Shippey is entirely fair, and I think that the difference may be smaller than he allows), I do think that McIntosh has some important points that should be considered when discussing the portrayal of evil in Tolkien's work.
Saturday, 21 July 2012, Finale: ‘Why Manichaeism doesn’t allow evil to be real enough’
http://jonathansmcintosh.wordpress.com/2012/07/21/why-manichaeism-doesnt-allow-evil-to-be-real-enough/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/d27ffvu

BC, Friday, 13 July 2012, ‘Why read Tolkien's Notion Club Papers?’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2012/07/why-read-tolkiens-notion-club-papers.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/clzzj9x
I almost said, ‘because it's a good and fascinating read’ — is there a need to say more? Bruce Charlton here reproduces his article from the July 2012 issue of Beyond Bree. I agree with Charlton in his descriptions, though I don't agree entirely with his conclusions about the importance of The Notion Club Papers in the evolution of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

JDR, Saturday, 14 July 2012, ‘A Brief Sad History, Revisited’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.dk/2012/07/brief-sad-history-revisited.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/cxlcxx4
A video of John Rateliff's guest of honour talk from MERP.con IV, ‘A Brief, Sad History of Tolkien Roleplaying Games’.

Ian Richard, Sunday, 22 July 2012, ‘An Analysis of Tolkien's Subterranean Realms within _The Hobbit_’
http://iantrichardblog.wordpress.com/2012/07/22/an-analysis-of-tolkiens-subterranean-realms-within-the-hobbit-book-four-of-the-subterranean-in-science-fiction-and-fantasy-series-by-ian-richard/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/d3mvqnr
A rather interesting analysis of The Hobbit that focuses on the use of subterranean settings and themes (darkness, secrecy etc.). This provides an interesting perspective on the book, which Richard makes the most of. As with many other attempts to analyse Tolkien's work from a single perspective, there is a sense of overreaching — of stretching the analysis further than the evidence can support. Here, however, there is a sense of playfulness over this, emphasized by the excessive and unnecessary repetitions of the word ‘subterranean’ — it's like the kid climbing out a limb until he falls into the water, only to emerge laughing to try the neighbouring branch for its strength. For me, this playful character has an ability to make the excesses more tolerable since it appears not to take itself entirely seriously (though I did get a bit tired of the 'sub'-word . . .).

JM, Monday, 23 July 2012, ‘The Metaphysics of the Music of the Ainur’
http://jonathansmcintosh.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/the-metaphysics-of-the-music-of-the-ainur/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/cqza9sa
Following his series on Tolkien's metaphysics of evil, Jonathan McIntosh starts a series of posts on the metaphysics of the Ainulindalë. So far four posts have been posted, which outline the intentions with the series and then moves on to look at some of the classic sources that pertain to this question.

JM, Wednesday, 25 July 2012, ‘Aragorn, King and Priest after the Order of Melchizedek’
http://jonathansmcintosh.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/aragorn-king-and-priest-after-the-order-of-melchizedek/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/c9gbucn
I am not sure if McIntosh is making a comparative study or suggesting a source here, but some of the parallels that he points out are quite interesting, though I think he takes it a step or two further than the evidence can really support. Still, he promises a continuation, so perhaps it is better to withhold judgement.

Alan Jacobs, The Atlantic, Friday, 27 July 2012, ‘Fall, Mortality, and the Machine: Tolkien and Technology’
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/fall-mortality-and-the-machine-tolkien-and-technology/260412/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/cfrk9hd
A very interesting article. Starting with Tolkien's ideas about ‘the Machine’ and its relation to magic, Jacobs investigates the use of technology in other fantasy novels, ending with the questions ‘Is fantasy intrinsically hostile to technology? That is, was Tolkien simply drawing out what is already there in the genre? Or has he limited it in unnecessary ways? What would a fantasy that embraces technology look like?’ Now that are some very good questions, and I would dearly like to see them addressed.

BC, Friday, 27 July 2012, ‘A Companion to JRR Tolkien's The Notion Club Papers by Bruce G Charlton’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/a-companion-to-jrr-tolkiens-notion-club.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/cpfrmxc
Charlton calls this ‘a set of rough notes, or a draft’ and notes that it is ‘drawn mainly from this blog but with some improvements in order and sequence.’ It runs in 25,000 words, and I will admit that I have not had time to read it all yet. I do, however, look very much forward to working my way through it: Charlton has some very interesting ideas about Tolkien's ‘Notion Club Papers’, and though I often disagree, I very nearly always find that I learn something from reading his pieces. I do hope that the ‘improvements in order and sequence’ may help bring out the ideas more clearly — who knows, perhaps I will even find myself agreeing with points I have previously found unsatisfyingly explained or argued.

MT, Tuesday, 31 July 2012, ‘Tolkien and the Illustrations of Robert J. Lee’
http://mythoi.tolkienindex.net/#post7
Morgan Thomsen has once more found a rare gem, this time a copy of The Children’s Treasury of Literature including the first chapter of The Hobbit illustrated by Robert J. Lee. Thomsen reproduces a few of the illustrations, and discusses the illustrations as well as Tolkien's comments to them.

= = = = Reviews and Book News = = = =

MediaConnection, Friday, 6 July 2012, ‘Dynamite Unveils 2013 Calendars’
http://mediaconnectiononline.com/?p=7431
I hope that I don't step on anyone's toes when saying that the choice of Cor Blok as the artist for the official Tolkien Calendar for the last two years has not been met with universal approval. It is, I think, possible that we may see a few extra Tolkien calendars on the market this year, and here we have the announcement that one of them will feature a re-release of the brothers Hildegard artwork used these many years ago. While I am not myself particularly attracted to the Hildegards' vision of Middle-earth, I do welcome a greater variety of imagery. See also
MediaConnection, Thursday, 12 July 2012, ‘The Hildebrants' Tolkien Returns’
http://mediaconnectiononline.com/?p=7589

PC, Tuesday, 10 July 2012, ‘Tolkien and Welsh, A Collection of Articles on J.R.R. Tolkien's Use of Welsh by Mark T. Hooker has been released’
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/1044_Tolkien_and_Welsh_Mark_Hooker.php?469
http://preview.tinyurl.com/d92dfmn
Information about Mark Hooker’ new book on Tolkien and Welsh, which seems to carry the promise of an interesting read; it is certainly making its way up on my wish-list.

PC, Wednesday, 11 July 2012, ‘Wagner and Tolkien: Mythmakers by Renée Vink’
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/1045_Tolkien_and_Wagner.php?470
http://preview.tinyurl.com/csrn6cl
That there is more to say about the relationship between Tolkien and Wagner than Tolkien's own comment that ‘both rings were round’ is obvious, but I tend to agree wholeheartedly with Tom Shippey that Tolkien is reacting against Wagner — possibly because I consider Wagner's mythopoesis to be extremely poor.

Drussy, Thursday, 12 July 2012, ‘The Fall of Arthur’
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mythsoc/message/23178
Once more, the Mythsoc list proved first with the news, and once more the source was French. This time the source was a page on the French site of on-line bookshop Amazon that listed a Deluxe edition hardcover book by J.R.R. Tolkien titled Fall of Arthur to be available in May 2013 (the date has since been removed). And again the news has spread like a wildfire:
JDR, Thursday, 12 July 2012, ‘The Rumor’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2012/07/rumor.html
The rumour has been confirmed by people closer than I to the Estate, and, yes, this is really the 954 lines unfinished, alliterative poem that is being released. See also the discussions of this month.
Demosthenes, Friday, 13 July 2012, ‘A new Tolkien Book looms on the horizon’
http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2012/07/13/58991-a-new-tolkien-book-looms-on-the-horizon/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/cjyw59j
Josh Vogt, Saturday, 14 July 2012, ‘Unpublished Tolkien poem rumored for official release’
http://www.examiner.com/article/unpublished-tolkien-poem-rumored-for-official-release
http://preview.tinyurl.com/87hhb7u

Harley J. Sims, Mythlore, Friday, 13 July 2012, ‘From Elvish to Klingon: Exploring Invented Languages’
http://www.mythsoc.org/reviews/from-elvish-to-klingon-mythlore/
This book, edited by Michael Adams and published by the OUP is, according to Sims, a ‘mixed bag’. He praises the intentions of the book, and not least the step towards establishing the study of invented languages as a legitimate scholarly study, but he is less generous towards the execution. Sims finds that the book ‘suffers from overextension’ — a problem that seems to particularly affect the chapter on Tolkien's languages, which tries to cover everything in too little space.

JF, Tuesday, 17 July 2012, ‘My book is a 2012 Mythopoeic Award Finalist!’
http://lingwe.blogspot.dk/2012/07/my-book-is-2012-mythopoeic-award.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/bw623ed
Congratulations to Jason Fisher — and to the other finalists, of course — on making it to this exclusive list. See also the announcement of the list in the transactions for May 2012 (no. XXV).

H&S, Saturday, 28 July 2012, ‘Die Kunst des Hobbit’
http://wayneandchristina.wordpress.com/2012/07/28/die-kunst-des-hobbit/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/d9nrxmj
The German edition of The Art of the Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien has been published.

JF, Monday, 30 July 2012, ‘A Festschrift for Tom Shippey’
http://lingwe.blogspot.dk/2012/07/a-festschrift-for-tom-shippey.html

Announcing a Festshrift in tribute of Tom Shippey to be released somewhere around the turn of the year (I suppose they'd like to make it for the Christmas shopping, but I'd be just as happy to start this on the occasion of the Birthday Toast or the Tolkien Reading Day). This tribute is of course so very, very richly deserved that my only concern would be whether the actual book would be a worthy tribute, but judging by the contents that Fisher lists, this book will indeed be a worthy tribute to one of the most influential, and rightly so, Tolkien scholars.

JF, Tuesday, 31 July 2012, ‘Tolkien Studies Volume 9’
http://lingwe.blogspot.dk/2012/07/tolkien-studies-volume-9.html
Jason Fisher lists the contents of the ninth volume of Tolkien Studies, announcing at the same time that this volume is now available at Project Muse, while those of us subscribing to the paper copy will have to wait for September . . . oh, the injustice! ;-)

= = = = Interviews = = = =

Vincent Ferré, Friday, 6 July 2012, ‘portrait / itw of Christopher Tolkien - Le Monde’
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mythsoc/message/23139
This was the first I saw about the Le Monde interview of Christopher Tolkien, ‘Tolkien, l'anneau de la discorde’ (Tolkien, the Ring of Discord), and at that point I was frustrated that I know no French at all. Fortunately that was later amended and a translation to English put on-line.
Others have reacted to this:
DAA, Wednesday, 11 July 2012, ‘A New Interview with Christopher Tolkien’
http://tolkienandfantasy.blogspot.com/2012/07/new-interview-with-christopher-tolkien.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/cfqzxdd
and
JDR, Wednesday, 11 July 2012, ‘Christopher Tolkien interviewed in LE MONDE’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2012/07/christopher-tolkien-interviewed-in-le.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/bnzl5ns
Both of these blogs posts have links both to the original French article and the English translation. See also this month's discussions.

PC, Monday, 9 July 2012, ‘Interview with Jay Johnstone and his Tolkien inspired art’
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/1043_Interview_Jay_Johnstone_Tolkien_artist.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/d65b2q2
A brief interview with Jay Johnstone, and a link to some of Johnstone's work. The work itself is very medieval in style and technique, which I find immensely appropriate for the subject, but it pains me to see that when working with The Lord of the Rings Johnstone's imaginary universe draws more from the New Line Cinema films than from Tolkien, often reproducing scenes from the films rather than from Tolkien's book.

= = = = Other Stuff = = = =

MD, Thursday, 5 July 2012, ‘Dobbie is FREEEEEEEEEEE!’
http://wormtalk.blogspot.dk/2012/07/dobbie-is-freeeeeeeeeee.html
I think it's fair to say that Michael Drout has felt that his term as chair of the English Department at Wheaton has been marked by some . . . frustration? I get the impression that he feels that his duties as chair have kept him from other things he would rather have spent his time on. While happy for Michael Drout that he can spend more time with family, I also can't help hoping that he'll find time for an extra Tolkien-related project here and there :-)

BC, Friday, 6 July 2012, ‘Charles Williams (probably) did not believe the devil is real’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2012/07/charles-williams-probably-did-not.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/bw8b6fe
Bruce Charlton continues his posts about Charles Williams, this time discussing an aspect of Williams' view of evil — particularly whether Williams believed in the existence of Satan and demons.

H&S, Sunday, 8 July 2012, ‘Bristol, May 2012’
http://wayneandchristina.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/bristol-may-2012/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/cdy4nnl
Christina Scull continues the story of hers and Wayne Hammond's trip to England in May 2012 with descriptions of the trip from Oxford to Bristol, research in the Penguin Books Archive, meals, hotels and the trip to London. The story is continued in later posts with an account of their stay in London.

DB, Wednesday, 18 July 2012, ‘a box’
http://kalimac.blogspot.dk/2012/07/a-box.html
Some musings on boxes and their uses (e.g. for review copies — earlier for the Year's Work for Tolkien Studies and now as their review editor) leading to some musings over the differences between Tolkien and Wagner. This post is a fine example of the dry wit that I find so enchanting about Bratman's writing style.

NMB, Wednesday, 18 July 2012, ‘Bilbo's Ride through Iceland’
http://nancymariebrown.blogspot.dk/2012/07/bilbos-ride-through-iceland.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/bl9yskn
Possibly the best review of Marjorie Burns' _Perilous Realms- that I have ever seen — except that it is no such thing, but rather a charming tale of the author's personal relationship with the Icelandic landscape, with Old Norse mythology, Tolkien's works and Burn's book on Tolkien.

DB, Thursday, 19 July 2012, ‘Mythcon statistic’
http://kalimac.blogspot.com/2012/07/mythcon-statistic.html
On the gender-distribution of the panels for the upcoming Mythcon. I wonder if the strong presence of women in the panels is a result of the broad range of interests of the Mythopoeic Society or if it also representative of the more narrow interests of e.g. the Tolkien Society? Hopefully the strong position of scholars such as Verlyn Flieger and Dmitra Fimi shows that Tolkien studies are not for men only.

CO, Friday, 27 july 2012, ‘Down the Hobbit Hole: Finding Connection in Online Learning: Corey Olsen at TEDxChesterRiver’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raTIg53ZA9w
Corey Olsen, a.k.a. ‘The Tolkien Professor’, speaks about the unexpected journey from a desire to reach out to fans outside the universities to an on-line university.

Becky Chambers, Monday, 30 July 2012, ‘That Time J.R.R. Tolkien Wrote a Short Story About Video Games’
http://www.themarysue.com/that-time-j-r-r-tolkien-wrote-a-short-story-about-video-games/
http://preview.tinyurl.com/c5cx3po
That short-story is ‘Leaf by Niggle’ and the connection is ‘flow’. It's interesting to see how Tolkien's work crops up in strange connections — and particularly when it is his lesser known works.

= = = = Rewarding Discussions = = = =

‘Fall of Arthur’
http://www.lotrplaza.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=244254
A discussion following the leak about the upcoming publication of Tolkien's The Fall of Arthur that also tries to list all that is currently known about the poem.

‘The Ring of Discord’
http://www.lotrplaza.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=244218
A discussion of the interview with Christopher Tolkien that was published in Le monde. While I'd agree that the reverence shown Christopher Tolkien can sometimes become a bit too much, I am more surprised when people choose to judge the man by malicious third-party reports in media rather than by his (documented) actions and his own words: that Christopher Tolkien chooses to remain silent doesn't mean that his accusers are correct.

= = = = In Print = = = =

Beyond Bree July 2012
Opening with Bruce G. Charlton's article on why one should read ‘The Notion Club Papers’ (see above), Beyond Bree moves on to Dale Nelson's discussion of ‘Other Anniversaries’, meaning the fiftieth anniversary of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and the forty-fifth of Poems and Songs of Middle-earth, The Road Goes Ever On and Smith of Wootton Major, all of which are discussed in some detail with an addendum on Donald Swann's The Road Goes Ever On. The rest of the newsletter is made up of the letters, reviews, notes and comments that are often the true gems of Beyond Bree, but which will be too much for extensive commentary. I will, however, mention specifically Geoff Davies' reply, ‘On ‘Grace’ in _The Hobbit_’ in which Davies comments with insight on an the application of grace in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Amon Hen no. 236, July 2012
Amon Hen is the bulletin of the Tolkien Society, and as such is the primary carrier of the everyday communications of the society: the calls for volunteers, news from the smials, news on various events, the password for the members-only section of the home page, new members etc. etc. It also habitually carries various artwork among which Jef Murray's often features prominently such as the lovely drawing, Gandalf and Bilbo, on the front cover of this issue. Of other interesting items in this issue, Ian Spittlehouse provides new information on the progress of the Leeds Blue Plaque, Christine Ahmed writes about Tolkien's paternal aunt and her husband, Grace Bindley Tolkien and William Charles Mountain, suggesting that Saruman may owe some small parts to this old Newcastle industrialist. Jim Allen continues a discussion about some claims made in an earlier issue by David Doerr. Anne Marie Gazzolo offers a commentary on ‘The Sacrifice of Frodo’, which I find has some interesting perspectives, but takes the ideas much too far (in my opinion she extrapolates the evidence beyond breaking point). Shaun Gunner deplores the absence of the old story-internal debates — the Glorfindels, the elven-ears, the irredeemability of Orcs and the nature of Tom Bombadil . . . I would rather ask 'what are the new debates'? Finally there is an interesting (but all too short) article by Dale Nelson that looks into the possible influences of the Kibbo Kift movement, to which Tolkien Society founder Vera Chapman belonged in the twenties and early thirties.

Mythprint vol.49 no.6/7, June/July 2012, whole no. 359/360
The bulk of this issue of Mythprint is made up of three reviews. First a long and enthusiastic review by Douglas C. Kane of Verlyn Flieger's recent collection of essays, Green Suns and Faërie, which praises Flieger's writing as being ‘as clear as it is insighful’ and speaks of the ‘joy it is to read’ the book. For my own part I have only had time to browse the book a little, but it is at the top of my ‘to read’ list. Edward Kloczko uses far less space to review Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull's The Art of the Hobbit, but he also gives this book a sound recommendation — and it reappears on the next page in the list of finalists for the Mythopoeic Scholaship Award in Inklings Studies (also mentioned elsewhere). The final review is of a book on Neil Gaiman's work edited by Anthony Burdge, Jessica Burke and Kristine Larsen, all of whom are known also in a Tolkien connection. Hugh Davis reviews their book, The Mythological Dimensions of Neil Gaiman, giving it a sound recommendation.

= = = = Web Sites = = = =

Bill Cater, The Telegraph, 4 December 2001, ‘We talked of love, death and fairy tales’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4726863/We-talked-of-love-death-and-fairy-tales.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/crn6yo4
Bill Cater was allowed to interview J.R.R. Tolkien in the sixties, and later he spoke with Tolkien at several occasions. In this old piece he shares some of what he learned about and from the old master along with some thoughts on his contacts with Christopher Tolkien.

The LotR Project
http://www.lotrproject.com/
The LotR project so far contains the original family tree, though in a much developed version (this is where land when following the link above), where you can look at an impressive number of characters; a map showing some Lord of the Rings characters' movements at http://lotrproject.com/map/, and a timeline at http://lotrproject.com/timeline/ that will link some events from the Third and Second Ages to a map.
All of this is a nice enough entertainment tool, but I must admit that I have some serious misgivings about the project. The worst bit is that there are no references (links to the Tolkien Gateway that may, or may not, list proper references is not enough), but the attempt to present any of this, whether the family trees or the time line, as a single coherent truth is, in my opinion, a gross misrepresentation of the actual texts. Adding characters that have nothing to do with Tolkien but are the invention of adaptations for games or cinema is just to add insult to injury (even if these are marked as such). All in all I think this web-site may provide a bit of amusing entertainment, but it appears to be useless for any serious Tolkien-related studies.

Tolkien, l'anneau de la discorde
http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2012/07/05/tolkien-l-anneau-de-la-discorde_1729858_3246.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/789s3dt
The original French version of the interview with Christopher Tolkien.

Christopher Tolkien interviewed by Le Monde
http://sedulia.blogs.com/sedulias_translations/2012/07/was-first-felt.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/cn5qlmk
An English translation of the interview with Christopher Tolkien.

God of Wednesday
http://nancymariebrown.blogspot.com
Nancy Marie Brown's blog on various Icelandic and Norse topics — be sure to read the older posts on Snorri Sturlason's influence on modern English literature.

Strings, Rings, and Other Things
http://steuard.livejournal.com
Steuard Jensen is a long-time resident of the Tolkien usenet newsgroups and the current steward (pun intended) of the FAQs. Most of his blog entries are about physics, but you should read those as well: I've always felt that bringing a solid dose of the scientific method of the natural sciences to the study of Tolkien's work is an advantage — a view that is strengthened by seeing the solid grasp of the strength of her evidence that is displayed by Kristine Larsen.

= = = = Sources = = = =

John D. Rateliff (JDR) — ‘Sacnoth's Scriptorium’
http://sacnoths.blogspot.com

Jason Fisher (JF) — ‘Lingwë — Musings of a Fish’
http://lingwe.blogspot.com

Michael Drout (MD) — ‘Wormtalk and Slugspeak’
http://wormtalk.blogspot.com/

Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull (H&S) — ‘Too Many Books and Never Enough’
http://wayneandchristina.wordpress.com/

Pieter Collier (PC) — ‘The Tolkien Library’
http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/

Douglas A. Anderson (DAA) et Al. — ‘Wormwoodiana’
http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com

Corey Olsen (CO), ‘The Tolkien Professor’
http://www.tolkienprofessor.com

David Bratman (DB), ‘Kalimac’
http://kalimac.blogspot.com/
and the old home:
http://calimac.livejournal.com/

Larry Swain (LS), ‘The Ruminate’
http://theruminate.blogspot.com

Andrew Wells (AW), ‘Musings of an Aging Fan’
http://wellinghall.livejournal.com

Various, ‘The Northeast Tolkien Society’ (NETS), ‘Heren Istarion’
http://herenistarionnets.blogspot.com

Bruce Charlton (BC), ‘Tolkien's The Notion Club Papers’
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/

Andrew Higgins (AH), ‘Wotan's Musings’
http://wotanselvishmusings.blogspot.com

Various, The Mythopoeic Society
http://www.mythsoc.org

Henry Gee (HG) ‘cromercrox’, ‘The End of the Pier Show’
http://occamstypewriter.org/cromercrox/

Jonathan S. McIntosh (JM), ‘The Flame Imperishable’
http://jonathansmcintosh.wordpress.com/

Morgan Thomsen (MT), ‘Mythoi’
http://mythoi.tolkienindex.net

Steuard Jensen (SJ), ‘Strings, Rings, and Other Things’
http://steuard.livejournal.com

John Howe (JH)
http://www.john-howe.com

Nancy Marie Brown (NMB), ‘God of Wednesday’
http://nancymariebrown.blogspot.com

David Simmons (DS), ‘Aiya Ilúvatar’
http://www.aiyailuvatar.org/

Michael Martinez (MM), ‘Tolkien Studies Blog’
http://blog.tolkien-studies.com/

Michael Martinez (MM), ‘Middle-earth’
http://middle-earth.xenite.org/

Troels Forchhammer (TF), ‘Parmar-kenta’
http://parmarkenta.blogspot.com

Mythprint — ‘The Monthly Bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society’
http://www.mythsoc.org

Amon Hen — the Bulletin of the Tolkien Society
http://www.tolkiensociety.org/

Beyond Bree — the newsletter of the Tolkien Special Interest Group of the Americal Mensa
http://www.cep.unt.edu/bree.html

- and others