John D. Rateliff's Blog, page 112
June 13, 2016
More on Dunsany as a characte
Having just received an interesting comment on an earlier post (the one about S. T. Joshi's novel THE ASSAULTS OF CHAOS), I thought I'd repost it here so it didn't just disappear into the ether:
Rat said...You may be amused to know (if you don’t already) that there was once a Japanese video game company called Sacnoth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacnoth), named in honour of just what it sounds like, which produced, among various other titles, a game called “Koudelka” which featured a young Edward Plunkett (the game was set in 1898 in Aberystwyth) as one of its three primary protagonists. Also featured were Roger Bacon, Madame Blavatsky, and the magic cauldron from the Mabinogion. A very unusual little piece of work, to say the least. Not to say that it was very good, or that it has aged well, but it’s worth looking up on YouTube, at least.
I had known there was such a company, but not that they had released a videogame in which Dunsany himself was a character; thanks for sharing.
Of the games known to me, the one in which Dunsany most prominently features was MYTHOS, Chaosium's ccg of the Cthulhu Mythos. Even there he's a minor character, one of the author allies that characters can bring into the game via the Europe expansion.
And speaking of Lovecraft-as-a-character, just today I found there's another novel out in which he features as a character: THE BROKEN HOURS by Jacqueline Baker. More on this one later, perhaps.
--John R
current reading: THE JOURNAL OF INKLINGS STUDIES (latest issue)
Rat said...You may be amused to know (if you don’t already) that there was once a Japanese video game company called Sacnoth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacnoth), named in honour of just what it sounds like, which produced, among various other titles, a game called “Koudelka” which featured a young Edward Plunkett (the game was set in 1898 in Aberystwyth) as one of its three primary protagonists. Also featured were Roger Bacon, Madame Blavatsky, and the magic cauldron from the Mabinogion. A very unusual little piece of work, to say the least. Not to say that it was very good, or that it has aged well, but it’s worth looking up on YouTube, at least.
I had known there was such a company, but not that they had released a videogame in which Dunsany himself was a character; thanks for sharing.
Of the games known to me, the one in which Dunsany most prominently features was MYTHOS, Chaosium's ccg of the Cthulhu Mythos. Even there he's a minor character, one of the author allies that characters can bring into the game via the Europe expansion.
And speaking of Lovecraft-as-a-character, just today I found there's another novel out in which he features as a character: THE BROKEN HOURS by Jacqueline Baker. More on this one later, perhaps.
--John R
current reading: THE JOURNAL OF INKLINGS STUDIES (latest issue)
June 9, 2016
Keeping it close to his chest . . .
So, I'm currently reading on what I think must be the best kept secret of the last few years in Tolkien studies: Raymond Edwards' new [2014] biography of Tolkien. This came out a while ago (2014) and seems to have sunk without a trace, despite being, so far at least, the best Tolkien biography since Carpenter. I saw a favorable mention on Wayne & Christina's site, but it didn't really register for me till a friend recommended it last week (thanks, Bill).
I'll hold off discussing the book as a whole until I've had time to finish it, but I was amused by the short final chapter on the films, which has every sign of being added at the publisher's behest (and of having been written before the final HOBBIT film was out). While admitting he's "not a fan" of the LotR films, aside from the first one, his criticisms are generally well-stated and restrained, until he gets to the part where he memorably describes Lee Pace's Thranduil as "distressingly reminiscent of Caligula as he might have been played by David Bowie in his cross-dressing phase". He concludes of the HOBBIT films as a whole "not as bad as it might be, and the dragon is splendid" (p.288)
More on this one later.
--John R.
current reading: TOLKIEN by Raymond Edwards, roundtable discussion of the Lindop Ch.Wms. biography in the newest issue of THE JOURNAL OF INKLINGS STUDIES (p.127-166).
I'll hold off discussing the book as a whole until I've had time to finish it, but I was amused by the short final chapter on the films, which has every sign of being added at the publisher's behest (and of having been written before the final HOBBIT film was out). While admitting he's "not a fan" of the LotR films, aside from the first one, his criticisms are generally well-stated and restrained, until he gets to the part where he memorably describes Lee Pace's Thranduil as "distressingly reminiscent of Caligula as he might have been played by David Bowie in his cross-dressing phase". He concludes of the HOBBIT films as a whole "not as bad as it might be, and the dragon is splendid" (p.288)
More on this one later.
--John R.
current reading: TOLKIEN by Raymond Edwards, roundtable discussion of the Lindop Ch.Wms. biography in the newest issue of THE JOURNAL OF INKLINGS STUDIES (p.127-166).
June 2, 2016
Inquiries while at Marquette
So, having received some queries re. various points in the manuscripts since I was last here, I brought along a short list of things to look up if I had time. In case anyone else out there might be interested in the same points, I thought I'd post the results.
#1. Andrew F. queried a line in THE HOBBIT (Chapter IV, second paragraph), where the published text reads
'a crooked way and a lonely and a long'
Checking the manuscript page of this passage (Ms. 1/1/3), I find it seems to have originally read
a crooked way and a lonely way and long before being changed to a crooked way and a lonely and long *
In the typescripts (TS 1/1/54 and TS 1/1/35) this is changed to
'It was a hard path and a dangerous path, a crooked wayand a lonely and a long.'
Both typescripts have the exact same reading, which seems to confirm that Tolkien wanted it this way. I noticed this while putting together MR. BAGGINS and consider it one of several cases in THE HOBBIT where Tolkien choses an evocative slightly nonstandard usage (in this case, an elliptical ending) for effect.
#2 through #5 come from Andrew McC via comments on my blog (cf. the entry for Feb. 15th). One query concerns Hama, the other three all pertain to Pippin's meeting with Gwinhir [Bergil]
#2 The Ale of Hama. (VIII.236 & 264).In the manuscript, the passage in question falls on the last sheet of Marq. 3/7/8. ('This is not the House of Eorl'), and reads
and theale aleof Hama and all who fell
The illegible word lacks a descender and hence cannot be 'birg' (A.McC.'s suggestion, which I found ingenious). Whatever it is, it begins (probably) and ends (definitely) with an ascender and is about four letters long. One possibility is hard, though that seems a little unsatisfactory.
#3 of the Nine; Pippin & Gwinhir #1 (MT II.026). A.McC. suggests that the illegible word in the following passage might be Band:
of whom ^your lord Boromir was one,of the of the Nine I should say
The question mark here is in the original (pencilled over the word), but 'ring' seems fairly clear, if indiscreet of Pippin to mention.
#4 balled fists? Pippin vs. Gwinhir #2 (MT II.027)Come on good ferret, bite if you like. and he made for up his fists
Pencilled over the illegible word: 'bent?'That more or less looks right but doesn't make sense. Whatever the word, its first letter is an ascender (and thus 'b' is possible). Its last letter is an ascender. There's no ascender in the middle (thus it's not 'balled', A.McC's suggestion). There's no descender at all (thus it's not 'put' or something along that line). Consider me stumped as to this one.
#5 But do not speak so darkly; Pippin vs. Gwinhir #3.MT II.028. HME.VIII.285 (& .293, Nt26).Here the illegible passage comprises the last three words of the fifth line and the first word of the sixth line.
while the sun still shines. and light.....
The first illegible word looks like Stands but is slightly longer.The second illegible word is about three or four letters long.Of the two words between, one is definitely and and the other probably lightSo think we're a little closer on this one but not there yet.
Hope this helps.
--John R.
*the details are slightly more complicated; I can provide them if anyone's interested
#1. Andrew F. queried a line in THE HOBBIT (Chapter IV, second paragraph), where the published text reads
'a crooked way and a lonely and a long'
Checking the manuscript page of this passage (Ms. 1/1/3), I find it seems to have originally read
a crooked way and a lonely way and long before being changed to a crooked way and a lonely and long *
In the typescripts (TS 1/1/54 and TS 1/1/35) this is changed to
'It was a hard path and a dangerous path, a crooked wayand a lonely and a long.'
Both typescripts have the exact same reading, which seems to confirm that Tolkien wanted it this way. I noticed this while putting together MR. BAGGINS and consider it one of several cases in THE HOBBIT where Tolkien choses an evocative slightly nonstandard usage (in this case, an elliptical ending) for effect.
#2 through #5 come from Andrew McC via comments on my blog (cf. the entry for Feb. 15th). One query concerns Hama, the other three all pertain to Pippin's meeting with Gwinhir [Bergil]
#2 The Ale of Hama. (VIII.236 & 264).In the manuscript, the passage in question falls on the last sheet of Marq. 3/7/8. ('This is not the House of Eorl'), and reads
and the
The illegible word lacks a descender and hence cannot be 'birg' (A.McC.'s suggestion, which I found ingenious). Whatever it is, it begins (probably) and ends (definitely) with an ascender and is about four letters long. One possibility is hard, though that seems a little unsatisfactory.
#3 of the Nine; Pippin & Gwinhir #1 (MT II.026). A.McC. suggests that the illegible word in the following passage might be Band:
of whom ^your lord Boromir was one,of the of the Nine I should say
The question mark here is in the original (pencilled over the word), but 'ring' seems fairly clear, if indiscreet of Pippin to mention.
#4 balled fists? Pippin vs. Gwinhir #2 (MT II.027)Come on good ferret, bite if you like. and he made for up his fists
Pencilled over the illegible word: 'bent?'That more or less looks right but doesn't make sense. Whatever the word, its first letter is an ascender (and thus 'b' is possible). Its last letter is an ascender. There's no ascender in the middle (thus it's not 'balled', A.McC's suggestion). There's no descender at all (thus it's not 'put' or something along that line). Consider me stumped as to this one.
#5 But do not speak so darkly; Pippin vs. Gwinhir #3.MT II.028. HME.VIII.285 (& .293, Nt26).Here the illegible passage comprises the last three words of the fifth line and the first word of the sixth line.
while the sun still shines. and light.....
The first illegible word looks like Stands but is slightly longer.The second illegible word is about three or four letters long.Of the two words between, one is definitely and and the other probably lightSo think we're a little closer on this one but not there yet.
Hope this helps.
--John R.
*the details are slightly more complicated; I can provide them if anyone's interested
May 31, 2016
Charles Williams in the TLS
So, thanks to David Doughan for letting me know about a letter to the editor regarding Charles Williams that appeared in a recent issue of the TLS (TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT). The letter itself wasn't available through the online TLS at their website (that is, not to non-subscribers), so I put off posting about this till I had time to go down to Suzzallo-Allen and make a copy of the piece. Having done so, but before I got around to posting anything re. it to the blog, I discovered that there'd been not one, not two, but three follow-up letters, plus (what I had not known before) that the original letter was in response to the cover story of a previous issue. So here's the whole sequence:
(1) Geoffrey Hill's cover-story review of Grevil Lindop's new biography THE THIRD INKLING [March 25th, cover + pages 3-5]
(2) letter from Olivia Byard re. Anne Ridler [April 8th, p. 6]. This is the original letter David D. drew to my attention.
(3) letter from A. N. Wilson objecting to Hill's review and Byard's letter [April 15th, p. 6]
(4) letter from Andrew McCullach praising Ridler [also from April 15th]
(5) letter from Andrew Anderson praising Wms' poetry and expressing puzzlement at Hill's review [April 22nd]
Of all of these, by far the weirdest is the original article. I'm not familiar with Hill's work, but a little checking revealed he's a distinguished figure, the former Professor of Poetry at Oxford (a title Wms coveted but that eluded him). And yet what he writes here seems to me to be willfully obtuse.
First and foremost, Hill objects strongly to the 'Third Inkling' in the book's title -- yet surely the only reason anyone reads or has even heard of Wms today is through his links with the Inklings; it's pretty much the only thing that has kept him from sliding off into oblivion. Hill values Wms chiefly as a critic --which I think as eccentric a view as saying CSL shd be remembered primarily as a poet. He focuses his discussion of Wms' writings on a single unfinished and unpublished poem, passing breezily over the novels -- the works by wh. Wms is best known today -- and I don't think even mentioning that Wms was a playwright (a part of his work so important to him that his persona in his next to last novel is universally recognized as the great playwright of his day). Instead Hill wanders off into discussions of Coventry Patmore and Walter Landor, Robert Lowell and Ford Madox Ford; anything, it seems, to avoid discussing Wms himself. Insofar as Hill has any thesis, I think it's that he sees a spark in Wms that, had he followed up on it rather than get distracted by all that Arthurian business, might have led to his becoming a poet Hill wd have found interesting.
I think I'll file this one under damning with v. faint praise.
Two tangential points: Hill repeats, without much comment, the famous story of Wms' lecture on chastity. I have to say that my sympathies here have always been with the students, who thought they'd come for a lecture and wound up getting preached at for an hour (or howeverlong an Oxford lecture of the day was). I've been in classrooms like that, and can imagine the sinking feeling when it sunk in to one and all that they weren't getting any answer that wd help on their exams.
And secondly, I was surprised to see that Lindop's book has achieved the feat of getting Wms's picture on the cover of the TLS -- something I'm pretty sure Wms never pulled off in his lifetime. A pity their caricaturist made him look exactly like T. S. Eliot, whom he really didn't resemble at all.
Next up were the letters. First Olivia Byard had a piece ("Anne Ridler and Charles Williams") that essentially argues that Rider was a promising young poet who was captured by Wms to her own detriment. Byard reveals what I had not known before, that Ridler was another of the young women with whom Wms engaged in dodgy practices: "[she] had a ten-year romantic relationship with Williams from the age of eighteen on. It was never completely consumated, but she describes long years of titillation, secret meetings and control -- something she thought she would never escape, until Vivian Ridler came into her life". Essentially Byard advocates a new appraisal of Ridler's work, independently of the shadow her involvement with Wms cast across her life and works.
This strongly worded piece called forth two responses under the shared header "Anne Ridler and Charles Williams". The first is a defense of Wms by A. N. Wilson, who had written glowingly of Wms a few months back in his own review of Lindop's book. Wilson describes Byard's letter as "mean-spirited" and praises Wms' poetry, theology, and novels. The second letter, by Andrew McCulloch, devotes his letter to praising Ridler and her poetry.
Finally (so far as I know) came a letter ("Charles Williams") from Andrew Anderson, expressing his puzzlement at the review and his own personal enjoyment of Wms' Arthurian poems. So the somewhat fractious sequence came to a quiet end in appreciation of a poet little-read today but of whom Lindop has written hoping to revive some interest therein. He's certainly succeeded in raising Wms' profile after many years of his drifting toward oblivion, or at least settling into a very small and out of the way niche. Now the interesting thing will be to see if it takes.
--John R.
current reading: this and that (Lovecraft's Letters; THE RETURN OF THE SHADOW; bits of Lewis & Currie's pseudo-biography of JRRT.; bits of Tolkien Mss; &c)
(1) Geoffrey Hill's cover-story review of Grevil Lindop's new biography THE THIRD INKLING [March 25th, cover + pages 3-5]
(2) letter from Olivia Byard re. Anne Ridler [April 8th, p. 6]. This is the original letter David D. drew to my attention.
(3) letter from A. N. Wilson objecting to Hill's review and Byard's letter [April 15th, p. 6]
(4) letter from Andrew McCullach praising Ridler [also from April 15th]
(5) letter from Andrew Anderson praising Wms' poetry and expressing puzzlement at Hill's review [April 22nd]
Of all of these, by far the weirdest is the original article. I'm not familiar with Hill's work, but a little checking revealed he's a distinguished figure, the former Professor of Poetry at Oxford (a title Wms coveted but that eluded him). And yet what he writes here seems to me to be willfully obtuse.
First and foremost, Hill objects strongly to the 'Third Inkling' in the book's title -- yet surely the only reason anyone reads or has even heard of Wms today is through his links with the Inklings; it's pretty much the only thing that has kept him from sliding off into oblivion. Hill values Wms chiefly as a critic --which I think as eccentric a view as saying CSL shd be remembered primarily as a poet. He focuses his discussion of Wms' writings on a single unfinished and unpublished poem, passing breezily over the novels -- the works by wh. Wms is best known today -- and I don't think even mentioning that Wms was a playwright (a part of his work so important to him that his persona in his next to last novel is universally recognized as the great playwright of his day). Instead Hill wanders off into discussions of Coventry Patmore and Walter Landor, Robert Lowell and Ford Madox Ford; anything, it seems, to avoid discussing Wms himself. Insofar as Hill has any thesis, I think it's that he sees a spark in Wms that, had he followed up on it rather than get distracted by all that Arthurian business, might have led to his becoming a poet Hill wd have found interesting.
I think I'll file this one under damning with v. faint praise.
Two tangential points: Hill repeats, without much comment, the famous story of Wms' lecture on chastity. I have to say that my sympathies here have always been with the students, who thought they'd come for a lecture and wound up getting preached at for an hour (or howeverlong an Oxford lecture of the day was). I've been in classrooms like that, and can imagine the sinking feeling when it sunk in to one and all that they weren't getting any answer that wd help on their exams.
And secondly, I was surprised to see that Lindop's book has achieved the feat of getting Wms's picture on the cover of the TLS -- something I'm pretty sure Wms never pulled off in his lifetime. A pity their caricaturist made him look exactly like T. S. Eliot, whom he really didn't resemble at all.
Next up were the letters. First Olivia Byard had a piece ("Anne Ridler and Charles Williams") that essentially argues that Rider was a promising young poet who was captured by Wms to her own detriment. Byard reveals what I had not known before, that Ridler was another of the young women with whom Wms engaged in dodgy practices: "[she] had a ten-year romantic relationship with Williams from the age of eighteen on. It was never completely consumated, but she describes long years of titillation, secret meetings and control -- something she thought she would never escape, until Vivian Ridler came into her life". Essentially Byard advocates a new appraisal of Ridler's work, independently of the shadow her involvement with Wms cast across her life and works.
This strongly worded piece called forth two responses under the shared header "Anne Ridler and Charles Williams". The first is a defense of Wms by A. N. Wilson, who had written glowingly of Wms a few months back in his own review of Lindop's book. Wilson describes Byard's letter as "mean-spirited" and praises Wms' poetry, theology, and novels. The second letter, by Andrew McCulloch, devotes his letter to praising Ridler and her poetry.
Finally (so far as I know) came a letter ("Charles Williams") from Andrew Anderson, expressing his puzzlement at the review and his own personal enjoyment of Wms' Arthurian poems. So the somewhat fractious sequence came to a quiet end in appreciation of a poet little-read today but of whom Lindop has written hoping to revive some interest therein. He's certainly succeeded in raising Wms' profile after many years of his drifting toward oblivion, or at least settling into a very small and out of the way niche. Now the interesting thing will be to see if it takes.
--John R.
current reading: this and that (Lovecraft's Letters; THE RETURN OF THE SHADOW; bits of Lewis & Currie's pseudo-biography of JRRT.; bits of Tolkien Mss; &c)
May 28, 2016
KEMEN, EAR, & MENEL
So, thanks first to Morgan* and then to Wayne and Christina themselves for forwarding to me the information that the original names for the Three Elven Rings of Power have in fact been published,
in Wayne & Christina's LOTR READER'S COMPANION, page 671. Now that it doesn't violate any protocol or copyright I can post them here:
KEMEN the Ring of Earth
ËAR the Ring of Sea
MENEL the Ring of Heaven
At least two out of these three are familiar through their usage elsewhere, namely in KEMENTARI, 'Lady of the Earth', one of the names of Yavanna the earth-mother goddess figure among the Valar, and the other in MENELTARMA, the name for the great holy mountain at the center of Numenor (and, later, the volcano in the sea in Imram and THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS).
By the way, I don't know how to insert a diaeresis into a blog post, so just in case that name of the Ring of Sea came through without one it shd be pronounced with two syllables not one: eh-ar not eer.
Thanks again to all who pointed out to me that this was, after all, in print, esp. Wayne and Christina for printing it in the first place. As I said in my response to their comment on the other post sharing the good news, their books may now be taking on that aspect of the collection as a whole: so many good things that no one can take them all in.
--John R.
*and also the person, whose name I don't know, who'd posted the information to the website where Morgan had found it.
in Wayne & Christina's LOTR READER'S COMPANION, page 671. Now that it doesn't violate any protocol or copyright I can post them here:
KEMEN the Ring of Earth
ËAR the Ring of Sea
MENEL the Ring of Heaven
At least two out of these three are familiar through their usage elsewhere, namely in KEMENTARI, 'Lady of the Earth', one of the names of Yavanna the earth-mother goddess figure among the Valar, and the other in MENELTARMA, the name for the great holy mountain at the center of Numenor (and, later, the volcano in the sea in Imram and THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS).
By the way, I don't know how to insert a diaeresis into a blog post, so just in case that name of the Ring of Sea came through without one it shd be pronounced with two syllables not one: eh-ar not eer.
Thanks again to all who pointed out to me that this was, after all, in print, esp. Wayne and Christina for printing it in the first place. As I said in my response to their comment on the other post sharing the good news, their books may now be taking on that aspect of the collection as a whole: so many good things that no one can take them all in.
--John R.
*and also the person, whose name I don't know, who'd posted the information to the website where Morgan had found it.
May 27, 2016
The Silmarillion at Marquette
So, I've been coming to the Archives, and working with the Tolkien manuscripts at Marquette, off and on since August 1981 -- thirty five years now. And I still get blown away by finding new things there, often by returning to something I've already seen before a long time ago.
The latest example: the Silmarillion material at Marquette. There's not a lot of this -- only five pages (two and a half sheets) -- and I've known about it for a long time, but I never really looked at it in detail before.
Basically, for those who don't know about this already, the material that came from Tolkien amounted to thousands of pages. A volunteer sorted it out into books not long after it arrived,* after which archivist Wm Ready put together a travelling exhibit of some more interesting pieces.** Then around 1978 two women re-processed the collection, establishing an exact count in which every draft of every chapter had its own folder and designator. And, in the process, they found two sheets of Silmarillion material that had somehow gotten in with the rest at least two decades before,, before it ever left England. And could now, after the publication of THE SILMARILLION itself the year before, be recognized for what it was. Taum Santoski got in touch with these two processors a decade or so later and tried to find out the location of these sheets within the LotR material but to no avail; while they'd been proud of the discovery they hadn't made any record of the details and no longer remembered where they'd been among those hundreds and thousands of pages.
As for the pages themselves, they were long ago identified as to which page belongs to which part of THE SILMARILLION by Taum, in his little 1983/84 Exhibition catalogue.
(1) The opening paragraphs of THE VALAQUENTA [SILM page 25]
[Marq. 3/9/36: 1a; item #44 in Taum's catalogue]
--the verso of this page (:1b) also contains Silm material, in this case drafting for disconnected individual lines about various of the Valar and a passing reference to AElfwine.
(2) The opening of Chapter III in THE SILMARILLION: "Of the Coming of the Elves"
[SILM page 47]
[Marq. 3/9/36: 2a & 2b; item #43 in Taum's catalogue]
--here we have two stages of drafting, one in ink and the other in pencil, both being variant texts of the same passage, curiously enough on opposite sides of the same piece of paper. Also odd is that the ink text looks to be the earlier, with the pencilled obverse version being closer to the text of the published book.
(3) a passage from "Of the Rings of Power" (the final section of THE SILMARILLION)
N.B.: This one I'd forgotten about, and didn't go and re-check today, so here I'm dependent on Taum's description of it and don't know what exact page of THE SILMARILLION this text corresponds to.
In any case, it's clear why this page wound up at Marquette: the back of this sheet features the scene in which Galadriel leads Frodo and Sam to her Mirror.
So there it is: only a fractional collection when considered against the great mass of LotR papers, yet a highly interesting little batch of documents. I'm glad to have the chance to see them again, after all these years.
--John R.
current reading: the same.
current research: the earliest LotR Mss.
*i.e, Book I of FR, Book II of FR, Book III of TT, &c.
**this circulated until around the time of Tolkien's death, I gather, at which time it was discontinued so Marquette cd better safeguard the Mss.
The latest example: the Silmarillion material at Marquette. There's not a lot of this -- only five pages (two and a half sheets) -- and I've known about it for a long time, but I never really looked at it in detail before.
Basically, for those who don't know about this already, the material that came from Tolkien amounted to thousands of pages. A volunteer sorted it out into books not long after it arrived,* after which archivist Wm Ready put together a travelling exhibit of some more interesting pieces.** Then around 1978 two women re-processed the collection, establishing an exact count in which every draft of every chapter had its own folder and designator. And, in the process, they found two sheets of Silmarillion material that had somehow gotten in with the rest at least two decades before,, before it ever left England. And could now, after the publication of THE SILMARILLION itself the year before, be recognized for what it was. Taum Santoski got in touch with these two processors a decade or so later and tried to find out the location of these sheets within the LotR material but to no avail; while they'd been proud of the discovery they hadn't made any record of the details and no longer remembered where they'd been among those hundreds and thousands of pages.
As for the pages themselves, they were long ago identified as to which page belongs to which part of THE SILMARILLION by Taum, in his little 1983/84 Exhibition catalogue.
(1) The opening paragraphs of THE VALAQUENTA [SILM page 25]
[Marq. 3/9/36: 1a; item #44 in Taum's catalogue]
--the verso of this page (:1b) also contains Silm material, in this case drafting for disconnected individual lines about various of the Valar and a passing reference to AElfwine.
(2) The opening of Chapter III in THE SILMARILLION: "Of the Coming of the Elves"
[SILM page 47]
[Marq. 3/9/36: 2a & 2b; item #43 in Taum's catalogue]
--here we have two stages of drafting, one in ink and the other in pencil, both being variant texts of the same passage, curiously enough on opposite sides of the same piece of paper. Also odd is that the ink text looks to be the earlier, with the pencilled obverse version being closer to the text of the published book.
(3) a passage from "Of the Rings of Power" (the final section of THE SILMARILLION)
N.B.: This one I'd forgotten about, and didn't go and re-check today, so here I'm dependent on Taum's description of it and don't know what exact page of THE SILMARILLION this text corresponds to.
In any case, it's clear why this page wound up at Marquette: the back of this sheet features the scene in which Galadriel leads Frodo and Sam to her Mirror.
So there it is: only a fractional collection when considered against the great mass of LotR papers, yet a highly interesting little batch of documents. I'm glad to have the chance to see them again, after all these years.
--John R.
current reading: the same.
current research: the earliest LotR Mss.
*i.e, Book I of FR, Book II of FR, Book III of TT, &c.
**this circulated until around the time of Tolkien's death, I gather, at which time it was discontinued so Marquette cd better safeguard the Mss.
May 25, 2016
HERUMILLION and the Ring of Earth
So, I'm now on the third day of a two-week research visit to the Marquette archives, and enjoying it immensely. This time I'm centering on the very early manuscripts of LotR (by and large those covered by Christopher Tolkien in HME.VI: THE RETURN OF THE SHADOW. CT did a superlative job presenting those texts, printing the most interesting ones and briefly summarizing or excerpting from others when, as was frequently the case, there was no room to print them all in full; plus providing his usual incisive commentary pointing out links between various drafts and outlines. Somehow, though, I'm starting to get the impression that folks are forgetting about the material Christopher didn't cover.
A case in point: you'd think HERUMILLION, the Elvish name for THE LORD OF THE RINGS, would be better known. After all, it appeared in print as long ago as 1983/84 in Taum's catalogue to go with the exhibit at the Marquette Tolkien conference, and was reprinted less than a year ago by Wayne and Christina in their ART OF 'THE LORD OF THE RINGS'.
And yet HERUMILLION deserves to be better known, because of its obvious parallelism to SILMARILLION: The story of the Silmarils (SILMARILLION) and The Story of the Rings (HERUMILLION). The paired titles even help reinforce Tolkien's conception that THE SILMARILLION and THE HERUMILLION were companion books: two parts of a single mythology.
Less significant perhaps, but still important enough that you'd think it'd be well-known by now, are the elvish names for the Rings of Earth, Sea, & Heaven.* The Three Rings themselves are mentioned several times in published texts: cf. HME.VI.260, where they are called "the Three Rings of earth, air, and sky". But so far as I known their elvish names only appear once (Marq. 3/1/12:3) and, again so far as I know, haven't been published.
Which just goes to show, I guess, how rich an archive the Marquette Tolkien manuscripts are: going on sixty years now of folks coming in and poring over them, and there's still a hoard of treasure there left to find.
Excelsior!, as they (used to) say.
--John R.
current reading: THE RETURN OF THE SHADOW (naturally). Also just starting the Derleth chapter of THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS (My, Mr. Joshi dislikes Mr. Derleth with a deep and abiding dislike).
*Which, unfortunately, I can't give here because that would be unauthorized publication. Maybe someone'll do a piece one day on the significance of the shift for Galadriel's ring from the Ring of Earth (perhaps meant to link her to Palurien?) to the Ring of Water.
A case in point: you'd think HERUMILLION, the Elvish name for THE LORD OF THE RINGS, would be better known. After all, it appeared in print as long ago as 1983/84 in Taum's catalogue to go with the exhibit at the Marquette Tolkien conference, and was reprinted less than a year ago by Wayne and Christina in their ART OF 'THE LORD OF THE RINGS'.
And yet HERUMILLION deserves to be better known, because of its obvious parallelism to SILMARILLION: The story of the Silmarils (SILMARILLION) and The Story of the Rings (HERUMILLION). The paired titles even help reinforce Tolkien's conception that THE SILMARILLION and THE HERUMILLION were companion books: two parts of a single mythology.
Less significant perhaps, but still important enough that you'd think it'd be well-known by now, are the elvish names for the Rings of Earth, Sea, & Heaven.* The Three Rings themselves are mentioned several times in published texts: cf. HME.VI.260, where they are called "the Three Rings of earth, air, and sky". But so far as I known their elvish names only appear once (Marq. 3/1/12:3) and, again so far as I know, haven't been published.
Which just goes to show, I guess, how rich an archive the Marquette Tolkien manuscripts are: going on sixty years now of folks coming in and poring over them, and there's still a hoard of treasure there left to find.
Excelsior!, as they (used to) say.
--John R.
current reading: THE RETURN OF THE SHADOW (naturally). Also just starting the Derleth chapter of THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS (My, Mr. Joshi dislikes Mr. Derleth with a deep and abiding dislike).
*Which, unfortunately, I can't give here because that would be unauthorized publication. Maybe someone'll do a piece one day on the significance of the shift for Galadriel's ring from the Ring of Earth (perhaps meant to link her to Palurien?) to the Ring of Water.
May 24, 2016
620 East Knapp Street
So, yesterday after wrapping up the first day's session at Marquette, I made a little pilgrimage to a literary spot. Or at least that was my intent; in practice it became more like a bit of literary tag.
Years ago, when I was reading through Lovecraft looking at Dunsany connections, I was bemused to discover that Robert Harrison Blake, the hapless protagonist of HPL's last tale, THE HAUNTER IN THE DARK, lived at 620 E. Knapp Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin -- this being in fact Robert Bloch's home, Bloch having been the model for Lovecraft's character. I'd made an attempt at the time to locate the address, only to find that whatever house once stood there had long since been knocked down to clear the margins of the highway. Too bad, but so it goes.
Except that Monday evening I noticed that I'd made a small but significant mistake: I'd gone to West Knapp Street, not to the actual address east of the river. So while making a run to buy some groceries to tide me over the next two weeks I parked the car and walked to E. Knapp to see what might be there.
The answer is: nothing that dates back to Bloch's day. Whatever house or apartment building Bloch once lived in, that street address has now vanished and the spot is now covered by block-long apartment complex, I think designated as housing for the elderly (though that may have only applied to the building across the street). Pity there's no little blue historical marker for the author of PSYCHO, or for its fictional significance through its use in Lovecraft's story. Had there been an oldish house still there I think I'd have spun a CALL OF CTHULHU scenario out of the idea that, just as part of the Haunter makes its way into Blake's consciousness in the latter's final moments, so too some part of Blake must have gone into the creature, so that it might later be found haunting the spot where Blake had once lived before his ill-fated journey to New England.
--JDR
current reading: THE RETURN OF THE SHADOW (re-reading; excellent!); THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS (resumed)
Years ago, when I was reading through Lovecraft looking at Dunsany connections, I was bemused to discover that Robert Harrison Blake, the hapless protagonist of HPL's last tale, THE HAUNTER IN THE DARK, lived at 620 E. Knapp Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin -- this being in fact Robert Bloch's home, Bloch having been the model for Lovecraft's character. I'd made an attempt at the time to locate the address, only to find that whatever house once stood there had long since been knocked down to clear the margins of the highway. Too bad, but so it goes.
Except that Monday evening I noticed that I'd made a small but significant mistake: I'd gone to West Knapp Street, not to the actual address east of the river. So while making a run to buy some groceries to tide me over the next two weeks I parked the car and walked to E. Knapp to see what might be there.
The answer is: nothing that dates back to Bloch's day. Whatever house or apartment building Bloch once lived in, that street address has now vanished and the spot is now covered by block-long apartment complex, I think designated as housing for the elderly (though that may have only applied to the building across the street). Pity there's no little blue historical marker for the author of PSYCHO, or for its fictional significance through its use in Lovecraft's story. Had there been an oldish house still there I think I'd have spun a CALL OF CTHULHU scenario out of the idea that, just as part of the Haunter makes its way into Blake's consciousness in the latter's final moments, so too some part of Blake must have gone into the creature, so that it might later be found haunting the spot where Blake had once lived before his ill-fated journey to New England.
--JDR
current reading: THE RETURN OF THE SHADOW (re-reading; excellent!); THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS (resumed)
May 22, 2016
A picture from Kalamazoo
So, thanks to Merlin de Tardo for the following picture of our 'Asterisk Tolkien' panel, and thanks also to Deidre Dawson for sharing. I'm the one in brown.
It was a good panel, and a good series of Tolkien sessions overall. As usual, it's not just the presentations but the people that make me look forward and want to come again next year. And it came as a nice surprise when Jane Chance quoted from my "The Missing Women" piece during her plenary lecture -- v. nice of her.
In other news, it looks like the revisions to my essay on Tolkien's FALL OF ARTHUR (presented at Kalamazoo a few years ago) have proved acceptable, so that shd be coming out later this year if all goes well.
Now I need to polish my Nodens piece --writing out all the endnotes, putting together the bibliography, reading several pieces folks brought to my attention that may be relevant to my piece., revising a thing or two I got wrong (or at least not as right as it shd have been). And of course there's also the festschrift: should have the working Table of Contents posted here within a few days.
But first, there's Milwaukee. More on this soon.
Here's the picture:
--John R.
(at the airport, en route)
It was a good panel, and a good series of Tolkien sessions overall. As usual, it's not just the presentations but the people that make me look forward and want to come again next year. And it came as a nice surprise when Jane Chance quoted from my "The Missing Women" piece during her plenary lecture -- v. nice of her.
In other news, it looks like the revisions to my essay on Tolkien's FALL OF ARTHUR (presented at Kalamazoo a few years ago) have proved acceptable, so that shd be coming out later this year if all goes well.
Now I need to polish my Nodens piece --writing out all the endnotes, putting together the bibliography, reading several pieces folks brought to my attention that may be relevant to my piece., revising a thing or two I got wrong (or at least not as right as it shd have been). And of course there's also the festschrift: should have the working Table of Contents posted here within a few days.
But first, there's Milwaukee. More on this soon.
Here's the picture:
--John R.
(at the airport, en route)
May 21, 2016
Vaughn is my Hero!
So, the Friday night of Kalamazoo I was upset to find that sometime during that day I'd lost my lucky coin.
To appreciate the magnitude of that disaster, you'd have to know that it was bought for me by my father, back when we were living in Little Rock, when I was in second grade (about seven), from a coin shop on University Avenue. And that I've carried it with me most days since, serving as a worrystone. It's one of the few things I have from my father, and the only one I carry around with me on a daily basis. I lost it once for about a year and a half, back when I was in high school, only to have it turn up in the end having worked its way down inside some furniture (in the way that coins have a way of doing), during which time I found a replacement, but it was never quite the same.
It's gotten misplaced for a day or two from time to time. But losing it this time, in the middle of a conference in another state and only noticing it at the end of a long day with much back-and-forthing between presentations in different buildings, the odds of finding it again seemed slim.
Which is why I was more than surprised, almost stunned, when my friend Vaughn plopped it down next to me the next morning with a certain panache. I'd gone out to dinner with Verlyn and Vaughn and several other Tolk folk the night before, and since a bunch of us had crammed together in the back seat I'd thought it just possible it'd slipped out then and sent him an email late that evening asking if he could look for it in the back seat. Sure enough, it was there.
So, it's safely back home again where it belongs, in my pocket. And just in case anyone is interested, I'll try to post a scan of what it looks like. I didn't know much about it when I first got it; I now know it's about a hundred and fifty years old (from the 1870s) and Japanese, from some islands (not the main four). It's bronze and used to have a lovely dark patina, but in recent years that has worn off from its constantly being carried. Thanks to Janice for help with the scan, and to Vaughn for rescuing it.
--John R.
--back from Kalamazoo, leaving tomorrow on the next trip: two weeks' research among the Tolkien papers at Marquette.
--current reading: Jared Lobdell's essay on Coghill in the collection FORGOTTEN LEAVES: ESSAYS FROM A SMIAL (2015)
To appreciate the magnitude of that disaster, you'd have to know that it was bought for me by my father, back when we were living in Little Rock, when I was in second grade (about seven), from a coin shop on University Avenue. And that I've carried it with me most days since, serving as a worrystone. It's one of the few things I have from my father, and the only one I carry around with me on a daily basis. I lost it once for about a year and a half, back when I was in high school, only to have it turn up in the end having worked its way down inside some furniture (in the way that coins have a way of doing), during which time I found a replacement, but it was never quite the same.
It's gotten misplaced for a day or two from time to time. But losing it this time, in the middle of a conference in another state and only noticing it at the end of a long day with much back-and-forthing between presentations in different buildings, the odds of finding it again seemed slim.
Which is why I was more than surprised, almost stunned, when my friend Vaughn plopped it down next to me the next morning with a certain panache. I'd gone out to dinner with Verlyn and Vaughn and several other Tolk folk the night before, and since a bunch of us had crammed together in the back seat I'd thought it just possible it'd slipped out then and sent him an email late that evening asking if he could look for it in the back seat. Sure enough, it was there.
So, it's safely back home again where it belongs, in my pocket. And just in case anyone is interested, I'll try to post a scan of what it looks like. I didn't know much about it when I first got it; I now know it's about a hundred and fifty years old (from the 1870s) and Japanese, from some islands (not the main four). It's bronze and used to have a lovely dark patina, but in recent years that has worn off from its constantly being carried. Thanks to Janice for help with the scan, and to Vaughn for rescuing it.
--John R.
--back from Kalamazoo, leaving tomorrow on the next trip: two weeks' research among the Tolkien papers at Marquette.
--current reading: Jared Lobdell's essay on Coghill in the collection FORGOTTEN LEAVES: ESSAYS FROM A SMIAL (2015)
John D. Rateliff's Blog
- John D. Rateliff's profile
- 38 followers
John D. Rateliff isn't a Goodreads Author
(yet),
but they
do have a blog,
so here are some recent posts imported from
their feed.
