John D. Rateliff's Blog, page 152

Tolkien Day

Happy Tolkien's Birthday, all.

I celebrated by ordering myself a copy of a new book about Tolkien I just learned about yesterday (this one's about his being influenced by Abyssinia) and began to plan when I might see the new HOBBIT movie a fourth time.

For a quicker gratification, here's a little piece from today's Huffington Post only half-seriously comparing JRRT with R.R.Martin:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/noble-smith/the-lord-of-the-rings-game-of-thrones_b_4532480.html

My own take on Tolkien vs. Martin? Tolkien is a great author. Martin isn't.

   --John R.

current reading: CADMEAN LETTERS by Martin Bernal [1990]

The Cat Report (W.1/1/-14) UPDATED

UPDATE 1/3-14: And just a day later (Thursday), Zippy Zoe got adopted to a home of her own. What a great way to start off the new year in the Cat Room. --JDR


What a month for adoptions it's been. Sweet little Pepe and sassy Bentley, and before that Annette's turn come at last, and before that Spidge, and then Runa after waiting so long, not to mention in-and-out in a flash Chipotle plus Hilo and Ducky. And off-site alumni like Luna and Mr. Ashwyn. It feels good to have so many happy endings in such a short time.

With all this adoption activity, we're down to four cats: ZIPPY ZOE, SCRAPPY, MONDO MAX and SHORTY.  Which means everyone has room to come out of their cages and explore a bit without crowding each other. I know it can't last for long, but the cats sure are enjoying it while they can.
We started off the day with a walk for Zoe, who didn't enjoy being out much but did enjoy lots of attention once we were back in the room. What she loves best of all is a massage along her back, combining petting and back-scratching and lots of attention. I even gave her a quick towel-bath, running a damp cloth along her back and sides to get loose fur off. She also enjoyed her string game and the gopher game. She's quite interested in the laser pointer but disinclined to get up and chase it once she's in her favorite comfy spot atop the cat-stand near the door. Don't know what her original home was like before she was found as a stray, but she clearly wasn't a stray for long, given how she loves to alternate between getting lots of attention and sitting on her own in the high place of her choosing. Hope she finds a good home soon.
The ironically named Scruffy, who's always careful to keep his fluffy fur well-groomed, declined a walk (just putting the leash on upset him, so decided to call the whole thing off). He did enjoy the laser game, and the string game (at one point he and Zoe were tugging on different ends of the same string). He accepted some petting but mostly wanted to enjoy hanging out near the door on his own. 
Mondo Max got his medicine, thanks to Cher's dropping by and her skill at pill-delivery. He was very active today, prowling quite a lot. Doesn't seem to be a cuddler, or maybe I'm just catching him at the wrong time. He does love his catnip. He picked on Scruffy a little, which I just chalked up to dominance games. He was up on the cagetops some but didn't really settle up there. I'd brought in a cardboard box thinking he might enjoy it, but instead he territorially marked it (or so my cats informed me when I got it back home), so don't think I'll try that again.
And that just leaves shy Shorty, who lay low most of the morning. She did come out and explore when she thought no one was looking, but spent most of her time in her own cage. She welcomed being petted, so long as it was in her safe zone. She also allowed me to pick her up when it was time to cage-clean: I put her in one of the baskets on the bench and her brother in the other facing her, and she accepted this and stayed there until end of my shift, when I broke out the spoonful of wet catfood apiece. Since there were so few cats, and it was holiday season, I gave them each two spoonfuls, which pleased them greatly.
We did have some onlookers and one couple who were clearly in the early stage of looking for a new cat; suspect they'll be back again.
And that's about it for Wednesday.
--John R.

The Cat Report (W.1/1/-14)

What a month for adoptions it's been. Sweet little Pepe and sassy Bentley, and before that Annette's turn come at last, and before that Spidge, and then Runa after waiting so long, not to mention in-and-out in a flash Chipotle plus Hilo and Ducky. And off-site alumni like Luna and Mr. Ashwyn. It feels good to have so many happy endings in such a short time.

With all this adoption activity, we're down to four cats: ZIPPY ZOE, SCRAPPY, MONDO MAX and SHORTY.  Which means everyone has room to come out of their cages and explore a bit without crowding each other. I know it can't last for long, but the cats sure are enjoying it while they can.
We started off the day with a walk for Zoe, who didn't enjoy being out much but did enjoy lots of attention once we were back in the room. What she loves best of all is a massage along her back, combining petting and back-scratching and lots of attention. I even gave her a quick towel-bath, running a damp cloth along her back and sides to get loose fur off. She also enjoyed her string game and the gopher game. She's quite interested in the laser pointer but disinclined to get up and chase it once she's in her favorite comfy spot atop the cat-stand near the door. Don't know what her original home was like before she was found as a stray, but she clearly wasn't a stray for long, given how she loves to alternate between getting lots of attention and sitting on her own in the high place of her choosing. Hope she finds a good home soon.
The ironically named Scruffy, who's always careful to keep his fluffy fur well-groomed, declined a walk (just putting the leash on upset him, so decided to call the whole thing off). He did enjoy the laser game, and the string game (at one point he and Zoe were tugging on different ends of the same string). He accepted some petting but mostly wanted to enjoy hanging out near the door on his own. 
Mondo Max got his medicine, thanks to Cher's dropping by and her skill at pill-delivery. He was very active today, prowling quite a lot. Doesn't seem to be a cuddler, or maybe I'm just catching him at the wrong time. He does love his catnip. He picked on Scruffy a little, which I just chalked up to dominance games. He was up on the cagetops some but didn't really settle up there. I'd brought in a cardboard box thinking he might enjoy it, but instead he territorially marked it (or so my cats informed me when I got it back home), so don't think I'll try that again.
And that just leaves shy Shorty, who lay low most of the morning. She did come out and explore when she thought no one was looking, but spent most of her time in her own cage. She welcomed being petted, so long as it was in her safe zone. She also allowed me to pick her up when it was time to cage-clean: I put her in one of the baskets on the bench and her brother in the other facing her, and she accepted this and stayed there until end of my shift, when I broke out the spoonful of wet catfood apiece. Since there were so few cats, and it was holiday season, I gave them each two spoonfuls, which pleased them greatly.
We did have some onlookers and one couple who were clearly in the early stage of looking for a new cat; suspect they'll be back again.
And that's about it for Wednesday.
--John R. 

Nori

So, thanks to now having further explored a link someone sent me in a comment (thanks Allan), I not only discovered a fellow fan of the great but underappreciated ADandD modules L1 (The Secret of Bone Hill) and L2 (The Assassin's Knot) but also came across an amusing solution to the too-many-dwarves problem.

One of the things both Tolkien, in writing THE HOBBIT, and Peter Jackson's scriptwriters, in adapting it, has to deal with is the problem of a having a dozen or so similar characters: the dwarves. Tolkien solves this by giving them a sort of corporate identity; there are plenty of places in the narrative where they speak in plural (some said . . . others argued . . . ). This he leavens by highlighting a few among them: Thorin, Balin, and Bombur, mainly, plus to a lesser degree Dori and the pairs Fili-Kili and Gloin-Oin. Dwalin, Ori, Nori, Bifur, and Bofur pretty much fade into the background.

Now along comes Timrod, aka the "Unfrozen Caveman Dice Chucker, who proposes, only half-seriously, that maybe there's no Nori at all. That is, when Gandalf or Thorin or somebody is taking rollcall, Ori puts up his hand when his name is called, and then again a moment later puts up his other hand when "Nori" is called out, his goal being to get an extra share of the treasure, extra rations, or what-not. Here's the link:

http://unfrozencavemandicechucker.blogspot.com/2013/11/nori-thief.html


Sad to say this ingenious proposal breaks down when you look at the text of THE HOBBIT closely enough (Nori and Ori appear side-by-side in the two-dwarves-at-a-time approach to Beorn's house in Chapter VII: Queer Lodgings). What's amazing, though, is that there's actually precedent for something like this in Tolkien's own work.

The passage in question comes in an odd passage Tolkien wrote late in life (1968 or ff) about the fate of Feanor's youngest sons, Amrod and Amras. Part of a larger unfinished piece on the various elven names of royal elven house called by Christopher Tolkien "The Shiboleth of Feanor", it was published in the last volume of The History of Middle-earth (Vol. XII: THE PEOPLES OF MIDDLE-EARTH -- cf, specifically HME.XII.352-355).

In this, it's revealed for the first time that one of Feanor's sons dies in the Ship-burning, without ever setting foot on Beleriand. Since Feanor forbids anyone to ever speak of his accidental murder of his son Amrod, the fiction is carried on throughout the next five centuries or so that Amras and Amrod, the twins, are acting as one in their various deeds in the wars of Beleriand -- when in fact it's only Amras, acting alone but crediting his deeds jointly in his name and in that of his long-dead brother. Quite possibly the most bizarre concept Tolkien came up with during those philological and metaphysic essays he sketched out late in life.

So, the idea of a faux-member of a largish homogenous group (Thorin's Company, the Sons of Feanor) does have genuine Tolkien precedent -- it's just not so in this particular case.

--John R.
current audiobook: MOCKINGJAY (just started)

The Desolation: New Faces

So, thing that surprised me most on a third viewing of the second HOBBIT movie (which I was able to enjoy on Thursday, in company with Anne and Sigfried) was the closing credits. I thought I'd spotted something here on the second viewing, and I was able to partially confirm it on the third: Martin Freeman didn't get top billing.
From my hastily scribbled notes, the top of the cast list went something like this:

1st. Ian McKellan (Gandalf)
2nd. Martin Freeman (Bilbo)
3rd. Richard Armitage (Thorin)
4th. Benedict Cumberbatch (Smaug and Sauron)
5th. Evangeline Lilly (Tauriel)*
6th Lee Pace (Thranduil the Elvenking)
7th ?
8th. Stephen Fry (Master of Lake-Town)


My first response: it just feels wrong, somehow, to not have the actor playing Bilbo, THE Hobbit, get top billing in a movie named THE HOBBIT.On the other hand, I can see the argument that if you've got Sir Ian McKellan playing a lead role in your movie, that's a Good Thing and you want to put that fact front and center.So I can see both sides of this, but it still struck me as a bit odd.
The second point that arises from this cast list sequence is how important the new characters are to this  second film.**  Most of the returning characters from the LotR films who helped anchor the first Hobbit movie to Jackson's earlier trilogy (Elrond, Galadriel, Saruman, Gollum) don't reappear in this second movie. Gandalf is really the only such figure to play a prominent role here. And of the important characters introduced in AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (essentially the fifteen members of Thorin and Company plus Radagast and Azog), all except Gandalf, Bilbo, and Thorin play smaller roles in this one, the second-tier roles essentially being reduced to make room for the new characters introduced in this second installment.  The high quality of some of the performances of characters introduced in Jackson's second LotR film (Theoden, Eowyn, Gollum) having been a major factor in that film's success, I thought it'd be good to take a look at this second HOBBIT film's equivalences.


*Thranduil (the Elvenking)
We'd glimpsed this character in the prologue/flashback at the beginning of AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, but we get to see much more of him now (plus, he gets to have more than one expression). First off, I was vastly relieved to find he's not another Denethor. Denethor was portrayed as a malevolent loon in Jackson's RETURN; by contrast, in the Elvenking we have an unsympathetic but well-motivated character, and smart to boot (he pretty much figures out Thorin's plan from the get-go). He's closer to the Elrond of the original movie trilogy (the Rivendell scenes in the first HOBBIT film having featured a kinder, gentler Elrond, more like the character Tolkien had described). He's an interesting character in that what he offers sounds reasonable on the surface, so that Thorin seems churlish to reject it with insults. But we're shown clear signs that Thranduil can't be trusted (as when he murders a prisoner he'd promised to release), signaling that Thorin was probably right not to make a deal with him; it wd be entirely in character for this Elvenking to renege on any agreement made "between kings" on the basis that Thorin is not, yet, a king. It's a particularly bad sign that in a sentence or two Thranduil echoes the Goblin King, right down to phrasing.
--the odd little scene in which Thranduil lost control and part of his face melted away puzzled me a bit, but I think Janice got it right when she said this was elven glamour that masked the Elvenking's true face slipping for a moment under stress. That makes sense, given the glamours we're shown in the book of elven feasting among the trees: what we see in Mirkwood and the wood-elves' realm isn't necessarily reality. The scars also help lend weight that he knows whereof he speaks when it comes to just how dangerous dragons are.

Tauriel
The most important character contending for Not-Appearing-in-the-Book is clearly Tauriel. I don't suppose her creation and insertion is a bigger departure than Elves-at-Helms-Deep, or for that matter Arwen's presentation as Arwen, Warrior Princess in the FELLOWSHIP film, but it's still the point at which purists are allowed to have their qualms. That said, if they were going to invent such a character, at least they did a pretty good job. For one thing, they gave her a reasonable outfit, which puts them ahead of most online fantasy games, many an rpg cover, and quite a significant percentage of fantasy book covers as well.
As a purist, I naturally prefer the film to follow Tolkien. But I find some departures bother me more than others. In particular, I think I'd prefer a new character be invented to fill some plot function in the movie than that a genuine Tolkien character be distorted beyond recognition (as with the TWO TOWERS' Faramir). Thus the introduction of a not-quite-as-good-as-Legolas elf-warrior doesn't particularly bother me, though I cd have done without the romantic subplot.


Beorn
After having been a bit put off by the character design, I found I rather like the movie's Beorn, though I thought this section was too brief. Maybe we'll see more here on the extended edition.

Bard
Here's a major character who looks rather like Inigo Montoya but is given a personality more like a combat-adverse Strider. That makes a certain amount of sense, since Bard and Aragorn are both rightful kings of fallen kingdoms. His sudden change from helping the dwarves to publicly hindering them was too abrupt for me, though I understood the logic of it. On the whole, good enough, though the jury's still out, depending on how well the character comes through in the third and final movie.

Bolg
Here's an odd case of Azog being given Bolg's role (in the book, where he's the commander of the goblin/warg army) while Bolg is given what had been Azog's role in the first movie (in charge of the pursuit and persecution of the Dwarvenking). Adequate, but not quite up to the standard of the orc-leaders in the LotR Jackson film trilogy.


Smaug
Enormously impressive, though I don't know why they altered Tolkien's character design to make Smaug look clumsier (Tolkien's Smaug doesn't have his forelegs attached to the wings, and thus was more sinuous and graceful). Much of Tolkien's original dialogue between Bilbo and Smaug made it in the famous talking-to-the-dragon scene, which is altogether a Good Thing. Cumberbatch did a great job with the voice. The whole running combat between the dragon and the dwarves went on much too long, but at least the Smaug scenes captured the dragon's power -- this is not a some garden-variety dime-a-dozen wormling but a truly impressive wyrm.


The Master of Lake Town (and sidekick)
What a wasted opportunity: the great Stephen Fry given little to do and doing little with it. His sidekick does his best Uriah Heep, but that best is not good enough. Pity.

Legolas
For a lot of movie fans of the LotR film trilogy, the reappearance of Legolas must mark a high spot in the HOBBIT films so far. For me, he almost took over the wood-elves, barrel-dwarves, and (new) combat-in-Laketown sequences, but not in a good way. In this film Tauriel serves as a sort of second-tier Legolas; I hope that's reversed in the next one, so that she's given a larger part than his.  We'll see.

And, of course, we've yet to learn what new characters may yet debut in the third and final film.

--John R.
current reading: TREE BY TOLKIEN by Colin Wilson [1974]
THE DESOLATIONS OF SMAUG VISUAL COMPANION by Jude Fisher [2013]



*my note for 5th place isn't particularly legible, what with the dark and 3Dglasses and haste and all, so it's possible that instead of "Lilly" I might have instead written down "Legolas". My memory says that Orlando Bloom (Legolas) came in the end-cap position on the top-cast list, but memory can be deceiving; this'll have to wait until another time to know for sure.

**as if to emphasize this point, the cover of the movie tie-in book THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG VISUAL COMPANION by Jude Fisher has Tauriel, Bard, and Bilbo on the front cover (along with some barrel-dwarves), while the back cover shows Legolas.


CORRECTION: Updated Th.12/26-13 to correct Inigo Montoya's name, as per the comment by Robert. Thanks for the correct, Rbt.

Smithsonian!

So, I'm now officially a Tolkien Expert, according to SMITHSONIAN.

As in, when they called and asked if I'd help them identify the sourcing of specific elements in Peter Jackson's new HOBBIT movie, THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG, I said 'yes'. This is of course something I'm quite interested in: which details of the films come from the original book (e.g., Bilbo's climbing up to see the butterflies), which are ported over from its sequel, THE LORD OF THE RINGS (e.g., Legolas), which are expanded or extrapolated from brief mentions in either of these two (Radagast), which come from elsewhere in Tolkien's writings (the merest wisps), and which are entirely of Jackson's invention (Tauriel).

last year's article: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/The-Tolkien-Nerds-Guide-to-The-Hobbit--185546102.html

Reading over the piece now, I find that I came across as more negative than I intended -- after all, I did enjoy the movie, very much, as a third viewing this past Thursday (with friends Sig and Anne -- hi Sig! hi Anne!) confirmed. Now that the suspense is over and I can see what got in, what of left out, what got changed and what got invented, it's easier for me to enjoy as a whole. This is still THE HOBBIT, even if it deviates more from the original than a purest like myself would want. But then, that's why we're purists: we want our Tolkien adaptations to be as close to Tolkien's originals as possible.

I was glad to see that Janice got cited as well (albeit only as "Rateliff's wife") for what I thought was an insightful observation linking the bewilderment of Mirkwood to enchanted woods like Melian's Doriath (N.B. also "The Sea-Bell" and, from the earliest stage of the mythology, the theme of Earendel's wanderings through enchanted isles meant to baffle all who would try to navigate past them.


So, many thanks to Rachel Nuwer, the article's author, for devoting a lot of time to trying to get the details right.
Here's the link.
http://bit.ly/J7TxOS


--John R.
current reading: bits and pieces


P.S.: For the record, I do not consider the Tolkien Estate 'libelous' or even particularly 'litigious'  -- I'd say 'vigilant' wd be a more accurate descriptor.

Stephen King, Tolkien Fan

So, recently I did something uncharacteristic: I read a Stephen King novel. Just as this is atypical o me, so too was this particular book atypical of him, a new hardboiled murder mystery called JOYLAND, part of a new series by various authors that tries to mimic and recapture the look-and-feel of pulp crime novels of the forties and fifties, complete with lurid covers (Donald Westlake being the author whose work they most want to emulate).

This particular example is set in a fading amusement park in the summer of '73, and works hard to capture the time and place. The main character, a college student, works a summer job at a small amusement park with one genuine ghost, though for most of the novel the hero is focused more on mundane things, like being dumped piecemeal and long-distance by his girlfriend, meeting a dying kid with what in another novel King called 'the shining', discovering the person behind an old murder, and finding he has a true talent for working with people.

All of this wd go down for me as just an enjoyable enough light read, were it not for a number of Tolkien references King works into the book. A New England guy stuck in small-town North Carolina, with a broken heart and only co-workers to socialize with, our hero occasionally feels the need to get away and spend time on his own. One of the things he does is obsessively listen to albums by The Doors. And the other is to read (or re-read) THE LORD OF THE RINGS.

". . . That was my year to embrace loneliness. I sometimes went to the movies in Lumberton or Myrtle Beach . . . but I spent most evenings in my room, re-reading The Lord of the Rings and writing letters . . . I also wrote a fair amount of poetry, which I am now embarrassed even to think about . . . I added a new and satisfyingly grim record to my / small collection -- The Dark Side of the Moon" (p. 136 / 137)
". . . it was still warm and breezy when I set off down the beach. On many of those walks back to town I liked to watch my long shadow on the waves, but that evening I mostly watched my feet. I was tired out . . . I'd go back to my room, settle into my chair by the window, and read me some Tolkien as I ate. I was deep into The Two Towers.   "What made me look up was the boy's voice . . . " (p. 148)
"I had the weekend free, and you know what happened. I guess the idea that it always rains on the weekends must be an illusion, but it sure doesn't seem like one; ask any working stiff who ever planned to go camping or fishing on his days off.   "Well, there was always Tolkien. I was sitting in my chair by the window on Saturday afternoon, moving ever deeper into / the mountains of Mordor with Frodo and Sam, when Mrs. Shoplaw [his landlady] knocked on the door and asked if I'd like to come down to the parlor and play Scrabble" (p. 163 / 164)
[After the game] "I returned to my room, sat in my chair by the window, and tried to rejoin Frodo and Sam on the road to Mount Doom. I couldn't do it. I closed the book and stared out through the rain-wavery glass at the empty beach and the gray ocean beyond. IT was a lonely prospect . . . " (p. 169)

I knew that King was a Tolkien fan from reading THE SHINING years ago and having concluded that the father of the family's scenes down in the boiler room were King's affectionate parody of Gollum in the Cracks of Doom. But it's nice to see some confirmation, and to see Tolkien used as a bit of local color, so to speak, for re-creating that era.

--JDR
current reading: Amarna book (Kemp) [slowly pressing forward; now about a third of the way through]
THE FIFTH BEATLE (graphic novel, the life of Brian Epstein) [just finished]
A LITTLE GOLD BOOK OF GHASTLY STUFF by Neil Gaiman [2011] -- my prize from the book exchange at yesterday's year's end gathering for our local fantasy reading group (Mithlond).

The Desolation

So, now I've seen the new HOBBIT movie (Friday morning, with JC and friends). And again (Friday evening, w. JC). And hope to again sometime in the next week or so. It's taking me some time to process my thoughts, so this will just be some first impressions. Warning: Spoiler Alert.

First off, I enjoyed the movie, though I wish there'd been more Tolkien in it. Up till now, there'd been two schools of thought about the Peter Jackson HOBBIT movies. Some people (mainly film critics and non-Tolkien fans) thought the first film, AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, was too slow. They complained about the flashbacks that explained what was going on, about the extended scenes of character development and interaction (the dwarves at Bag End, the meeting of the White Council). These folks wanted an action movie, pure and simple, and objected to the parts of the film that were faithful to the book.

At the same time, a separate group (mainly diehard grognard Tolkien fans) thought Jackson had turned the book they loved into an action movie. They complained, at length, and bitterly, about the tendency of orcs to show up every time acting started to break out and things were getting good, in some Middle-earth equivalent of the old crime novelist (Chandler?) who said that whenever things slowed down, he just had a guy come through the door holding a gun. They wanted the action sequences trimmed (or, in some cases, cut altogether) and the mood pieces with character interaction brought to the fore.

Jackson, of course, did both: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY included both the character interaction and the battle scenes. For the new film, THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG, he seems to have decided to listen to the movie critics and go the action movie route --understandable, as he has no doubt concluded (rightly, I think) that nothing will appease the purists and he might as well ignore them; there's no point of taking the irredeemably hostile into account when deciding how to present his version of Tolkien's story.

The best example of this is the barrel-rider scene. In both movie and the book, Bilbo lurks about the wood-elves caves, comes up with a clever scheme, frees the dwarves, gets them in barrel and the barrels (and himself) in the river. In the book, this is followed by a few scenes of Bilbo alone coping with the difficult journey atop a barrel down the Forest River; a nice character-building moment. I assumed it'd be cut down to one of Jackson's signature montages he does so well, of characters moving through spectacular New Zealand/Middle-earth landscapes. Instead, in the movie he decides that Dwarves hidden inside barrels where we can't see them isn't visually interesting; that having the dwarves riding in open barrels makes the scene more visually dramatic. Fair enough.

Except that being swept down the river and through rapids etc. isn't enough for Jackson: he adds a war-band of Orcs attacking the dwarves as they sail past. And then he has to trump this by having elves attack the orcs attacking the dwarves riding in barrels through rapids. The house that Jack(son) built, so to speak, turns out to have a frantic pace. One of the early reviews I saw of the movie praised it by comparison to the Indiana Jones films, and I think that's justified. It's just that this descriptor covers a lot of ground, from the freshness and excitement of the original RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK to the self-parody of INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, the hapless follow-up. Luckily I think Jackson delivers a superior grade action movie. It's just that THE HOBBIT is so much more than an action novel.


If the barrel-riding scene is good Indiana Jones, then bad Indiana shows up in the long sequence of The Dragon That Cdn't Shoot Straight. The decision by the dwarves that, rather than die of starvation cowering in some hole, they're going to make a good-faith effort to kill the dragon and give it their all is a good one in that it makes perfect sense in terms of the story as they're telling it. But the fact that the most powerful non-god creature on Middle-earth can't even wound a single dwarf no matter how many times he tries broke secondary belief for me: I quickly realized that for purposes of this scene all the dwarves and Bilbo were immortal and invulnerable, which drained it of all drama. From then until Smaug's departure from the mountain it was just a matter of watching pretty special effects. And they were mighty impressive: no one does this kind of thing better than Weta Workshop. But that's not what I go to movies to see.


Which is not to say there's not much to admire here. Once again Martin Freeman delivers a phenomenal performance as Bilbo. McKellan has said that, as a fellow actor, one of the things he most admires about Freeman is the way he portrays what a character is thinking by the changing expressions on his face (or sometimes just by body language), and that is on display to good effect in several scenes here. Then too, to have a movie in which one of the greatest actors of our times, Sir Ian McKellan, plays one of the great characters of all time, Gandalf the Grey, is something to be cherished. And I have to say that Armitage's Thorin is growing on me, and that I prefer the dwarves in their more disheveled mode (beards and hair braidings coming undone) as they are here in the post-barrel scenes. But I'm sorry that the individual dwarves have less to do, even in background scenes. Of my three favorites, only one (Balin) gets a good amount of screen time; Bofur is less prominent than in the first film, and Bifur vanishes into the background, his quirky little bits being almost entirely omitted.


Hence, although I enjoyed the film, I wanted more Tolkien: more wonder and less action. 

More later on the new characters introduced in this middle film of the series.

--JDR

In Praise of Elliott Bay Books

So, for my birthday Monday  (I'm now old enough that I actually qualify for some senior discounts. Gah.), Janice took me up to Elliott Bay Books, Seattle's best independent bookstore, and let me have a good pokearound. Two hours is about right to prowl through their various sections and see what interesting books have come out that I didn't know about. I enjoyed seeing the latest by authors I like but am falling a bit behind on --Guy Gavriel Kay, Neil Gaiman, Patricia McKillip, Terry Pratchett-- as well as have a look-see at various books I'd heard about but not seen (e.g., The Folgio's Girl Genius novel) and to find out about others just by seeing them on the shelf (e.g., a new biography of Edward VII, an underrated king).

Of course, it wdn't be a visit to Elliott Bay if I didn't go by their archeology section, where I tend to find interesting books I didn't know existed until walking up and finding them on the shelf. I wanted to pick up one as a birthday gift to myself, and in the end it came down to three contenders: a book on Ahknaten's city, Amarna; a book on Neanderthals, taking into account the many new discoveries; and a book on Stonehenge, again taking into account recent excavations of the riverside and processional. I wound up opting for the Egyptian one, which'll go nicely with the one on Abydos I bought on a previous birthday visit three years ago (that occasion being the first time I'd been to what had been a favorite store's now new location*) and also with all the great Egyptian exhibits we got to go to last year. It's a fairly slow read, being an awkward size (to allow for more pictures, which are great, as is usual with a Thames and Hudson book), but I've made a good start and it looks to be an interesting read overall. We'll see. And I'll have to plan things better so as to make it back to Elliott Bay more often, if only to pick up those other two books at opportune times.

--JDR
current reading: THE CITY OF AKHENATEN AND NEFERTITI: AMARNA AND ITS PEOPLE  by Barry Kemp [2012]



*Elliott Bay Books is now no longer on Elliott Bay, but up on Capitol Hill (so named because Seattle's founding fathers thought the state capitol wd be up there. It wasn't.)

The Cat Report (W. 12/11-13)

With poor Chipotle laid low and new kittens Hilo and Ducky enjoying an evening at home with their foster-er, it was surprising how full the room seemed with just seven cats: RUNA, ZIPPY ZOE, ANNETTE, SPIDGE, BENTLEY, little PEPE, and newcomer SCRUFFY. Given that five out of seven are black cats, the sixth mostly black, and the seventh white-with-black, I found I kept doing double-takes to identify who was who: noticing details like Spidge's silvery-grey mane overtones, Bentley's crooked tail-tip, Runa's I'm-the-boss attitude, Annette's smooth fur and Scruffy's spiky bits. At least little Pepe and Miss Zoe are easy to keep track of.

Started off with four walks: Runa, Zoe, Annette, and Mr. Scruffs, and ended the shift with another walk for Runa, because she asked for it so beseechingly. RUNA and ZOE did pretty well. ANNETTE did better, aside from a tendency to go in circles (turn right, turn right, turn right, turn right, turn right . . . ). Somewhat to my surprise Mr. SCRUFF did best of all: he set out to explore and learn about his new surroundings. Think he's a smart cat from the way he was mapping it out and taking it all in.
Once walks were over it was time for everybody to come out. I put MR. SCRUFFS up on the cage-tops, where he first spent time fussing with the little wicker bed, then buried himself inside a large paper bag that'd obviously been placed up there for him. He stayed up there pretty much the whole morning, coming out from the bag after the first hour or so; at noon he came down with no trouble at all. A cat with personality. Be interesting to see what happens when (and if) he decides to engage with the other cats.
I wanted to see if I could get ANNETTE to enjoy herself without hiding, so placed her atop the cat-stand by the door (Zoe's usual spot). She was greatly pleased, enjoying a petting session before stretching out for a glorious snooze. Unfortunately, ZOE was much put out by having her spot taken. Twice she jumped up there, had a hissy fit to find it occupied, and jumped back down again. Finally about mid-morning I gave in and moved Annette over to the top of cat-stand #2, by the cabinet. She and Zoe both settled down after that, but each seemed a bit grumpy. Did console Zoe by giving her a good scratching/petting/massage, starting at the base of her spine and working forward; she surrendered herself to it with enthusiasm. 
RUNA was in observer mode today -- spent some time in the basket on the bench, and also came out from time to time to see what the younger cats were up with, but didn't interact with them much today. She did make an exception when the laser pointer came out, though.
SPIDGE and little PEPE really went at it today, wrastling on and off. Spidge plays hard, so I had to break them up once or twice, but Pepe mostly seemed to hold his own. I'd brought in crinkly paper AND a (catnip-laced) box, which between them kept the younger generation entertained. In addition to playing all morning , both came up every so often to touch bases with me: get some attention and a little petting before going back to their games. Bentley and Runa mostly watched the boys playing from a safe distance. At one point, Spidge managed to get his head through a tear in the paper, which then turned into a makeshift cape that sent him scampering back and forth before he ripped his way out of it and taught it a lesson. Pepe was fascinated, and helpfully jumped on the paper to keep it from escaping.
BENTLEY kept more to herself, hanging out around the base of the cat-trees near the door. Occasionally Spidge decided he needed to reduce Bentley to minion status, but she wasn't having any of it. She got curious and friendly when it came time to clean out cages on her end of the room; she went in each and inspected my work in progress.  She seemed pleased when her own cage got cleaned, last of all, and made no fuss about going in.
Quite a few visitors, but none who came into the cat room. Did talk to a man who turns out to be Bonnie's husband: he reports that Mr. Brothers still gets his daily coffee and that Sammy is also still doing well (as is their third cat, whose name I forget, the only one of the three not from Purrfect Pals). Good to hear that a great cat/person match-up is still going strong.
We now have a good age distribution: two senior cats (Zoe [14] and Annette [13]), two mid-age cats (Runa [5] and Mr. Scruffy [7]), two half-grown cats (Bentley and Spidge [6 months each]), and one out-and-out kitten (Pepe [three months]).
health concerns: has little Pepe always had a pink spot on his nose, or did someone scratch him right on the tip?Poor Chipotle!

--John R.