John D. Rateliff's Blog, page 159
July 15, 2013
And the Winner Is . . .
Verlyn Flieger!
Or, to be more accurate, Verlyn Flieger's latest book, GREEN SUNS AND FAERIE, just won the Mythopoeic Award last night as the year's best work in Inklings Scholarship.
Competition was stiff: Corey Olsen's new book on THE HOBBIT, Jason Fisher's collection on Tolkien's sources, Rbt Boenig's book on CSL as medievalist, and Jn Bremer's rather eccentric book on CSL's not being a war poet.
Congratulations to all the finalists, and especially to Verlyn.
--John R.
current audiobook: McGrath's CSL biography (still; getting near the end)
July 13, 2013
A Possible Riddle-Source ("Time")
So, most of the riddles that make up Bilbo and Gollum's famous exchange have long since had their source(s) plausibly identified. But one exception to this general rule has been the "Time" riddle. Various possible sources have been suggested, but none quite seemed to give that ah-ha! feel of a compelling match. I did come across another possibility recently (while reading the discussion of THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE in Boenig's book on C. S. L.) that I thought I'd add to the mix. In the description of an allegorical depiction of Old Age, the author (Guillaume de Lorris), writes
Time, who goes away night and day, without restand without interruption, who parts from us andsteals away so quickly, seems to us to be alwaysstopped at one place, but he never stops there atall. He never ceases passing away, so that no man,even if you ask learned clerks, can tell you whattime it is that is present, for before he had thought,three moments would already have passed. Time, who cannot stay, but always goes without return-ing, like water which is always descending, neverreturning a drop backward; Time, before whom nothing endures, not iron nor anything howeverhard, for Time destroys and devours everything;Time, who changes everything, who makes all growand nourishes all, who uses all and causes it to rot;Time, who made our fathers old, who ages kingsand emperors and will age us all, unless Deathcuts us off; Time, who has it in his power to age all mankind . . .
--THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE, by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, tr. Charles Dahlerg (1983), p. 35-36, about lines 360 to 385?
Here's how Chaucer rendered the passage in his own (Middle English) translation:
The Tyme, that passeth nyght and day,And restelees travayleth ay,And steleth from us prively,That to us seemeth sykerlyThat it in one point dwelleth ever,And certes, it ne resteth never,But goth so faste, and passeth ay,That ther nys man that thynke mayWhat tyme that now present is --Asketh at these clerkes this;For er men thynke it redilyThre tymes ben ypassed by.
The Tyme, that may not sojourne,But goth and may never retourne,As water that downe renneth ay,But never droppe retourne may.There may nothyng as Tyme endure,Metal nor erthely creature,For al thing it fret and shal.The Tyme, eke, that chaungeth al,And al doth waxe and fostred be,And al thyng distroyeth he.The Tyme that eldeth our auncestoursAnd eldeth kynges and emperours,And that us al shal overcomenEr that Dethe us shal have nomen.The Tyme that hath al in weldeTo elden folk had maad hir elde . . .
ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE, lines 369-396Fisher's COMPLETE POETRY AND PROSE OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER, second edition, p. 587
Could this be a contributing source for Tolkien's Time riddle? I think it v. likely, given the bits about "iron" and "king" and "devours". And we have a strong connection between Tolkien and Chaucer, in that JRRT spent several years putting together a Chaucer anthology, THE CLARENDON CHAUCER, which wd have made a nice companion volume to the Tolkien/Gordon SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT and Sisam FOURTEENTH CENTURY VERSE AND PROSE (to wh. Tolkien contributed).* But the passage lacks too many elements (stone, town, mountain), I think, to have been the main or only source.
So: not the crown jewel we've been looking for, but an addition, I think, to the pool of time-riddles and time-poems and time-characterizations.
--John R.
just finished: Joseph Pearce's book on THE HOBBIT
current reading: Edward Rice's biography of Captain Richard Burton
*Lewis's work on THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE, while significant, came too late to have influenced Tolkien
Time, who goes away night and day, without restand without interruption, who parts from us andsteals away so quickly, seems to us to be alwaysstopped at one place, but he never stops there atall. He never ceases passing away, so that no man,even if you ask learned clerks, can tell you whattime it is that is present, for before he had thought,three moments would already have passed. Time, who cannot stay, but always goes without return-ing, like water which is always descending, neverreturning a drop backward; Time, before whom nothing endures, not iron nor anything howeverhard, for Time destroys and devours everything;Time, who changes everything, who makes all growand nourishes all, who uses all and causes it to rot;Time, who made our fathers old, who ages kingsand emperors and will age us all, unless Deathcuts us off; Time, who has it in his power to age all mankind . . .
--THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE, by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, tr. Charles Dahlerg (1983), p. 35-36, about lines 360 to 385?
Here's how Chaucer rendered the passage in his own (Middle English) translation:
The Tyme, that passeth nyght and day,And restelees travayleth ay,And steleth from us prively,That to us seemeth sykerlyThat it in one point dwelleth ever,And certes, it ne resteth never,But goth so faste, and passeth ay,That ther nys man that thynke mayWhat tyme that now present is --Asketh at these clerkes this;For er men thynke it redilyThre tymes ben ypassed by.
The Tyme, that may not sojourne,But goth and may never retourne,As water that downe renneth ay,But never droppe retourne may.There may nothyng as Tyme endure,Metal nor erthely creature,For al thing it fret and shal.The Tyme, eke, that chaungeth al,And al doth waxe and fostred be,And al thyng distroyeth he.The Tyme that eldeth our auncestoursAnd eldeth kynges and emperours,And that us al shal overcomenEr that Dethe us shal have nomen.The Tyme that hath al in weldeTo elden folk had maad hir elde . . .
ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE, lines 369-396Fisher's COMPLETE POETRY AND PROSE OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER, second edition, p. 587
Could this be a contributing source for Tolkien's Time riddle? I think it v. likely, given the bits about "iron" and "king" and "devours". And we have a strong connection between Tolkien and Chaucer, in that JRRT spent several years putting together a Chaucer anthology, THE CLARENDON CHAUCER, which wd have made a nice companion volume to the Tolkien/Gordon SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT and Sisam FOURTEENTH CENTURY VERSE AND PROSE (to wh. Tolkien contributed).* But the passage lacks too many elements (stone, town, mountain), I think, to have been the main or only source.
So: not the crown jewel we've been looking for, but an addition, I think, to the pool of time-riddles and time-poems and time-characterizations.
--John R.
just finished: Joseph Pearce's book on THE HOBBIT
current reading: Edward Rice's biography of Captain Richard Burton
*Lewis's work on THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE, while significant, came too late to have influenced Tolkien
July 11, 2013
Lembas Tea Latte
So, the following map may not be your cup of tea (so to speak) but I thought it was a hoot. Thanks to Janice for the link:
http://www.savagechickens.com/2012/09/middle-earth.html
--John R.(posting from Starbucks in Enumclaw)
http://www.savagechickens.com/2012/09/middle-earth.html
--John R.(posting from Starbucks in Enumclaw)
July 10, 2013
McGrath (interrum report)
So, I'm now a third of the way through the audiobook of McGrath's new biography of C. S. Lewis, and I must say I'm impressed. Whether it establishes itself as the standard biography (displacing the current trifecta of Green and Hooper, Sayer, and Wilson*) I don't know, but I cd see that happening. It'll certainly be a strong contender for book of the year next time nominations for the Mythopoeic Award come round.
This biography is primarily based on the massive 8,000 page three-volume COLLECTED LETTERS, supplemented as needed by other sources, and also lays stress on Lewis's northern-Ireland background, which the author thinks established the default landscapes in most of Lewis's work. No major revelations or recasting of the familiar narrative so far, but a number of small points tell in McGrath's favor.
First off, he doesn't have a cow over the idea that Lewis actually sometimes did chores at the Kilns. Warnie Lewis considered it monstrous that he, a retired officer, sometimes had to walk the dog, and his brother on occasion even had to take out the trash. McGrath doesn't think that makes Mrs. Moore a monster or Lewis a battered spouse: he thinks it's perfectly normal. Score one for McGrath.
Second, he suggests that Lewis and Paddy Moore might actually have been quite close (there's some evidence that Lewis tried to get assigned to the same military unit as Paddy), an idea some dismiss without even considering seriously.
Third, he suggests that Lewis was the love of Arthur Greeves' life. Greeves confessed his homosexuality to Lewis, who made it clear he did not reciprocate Greeves' feelings; the two agreed to remain friends. That's interesting, and so far as I know, new.
Fourth, Mrs Moore. McGrath's mind doesn't boggle at the idea of CSL falling in love with an older woman. This sets him ahead of those who can't understand a young man falling in love with a much older woman (Janie M.) but have no problem believing that same man cd later fall in love with a much younger woman (Joy G.). Also, McGrath understands that it's not fair to collapse descriptions of Janie M. from a quarter-century later as a sick old women suffering from Alzheimer's with the way she was when Lewis fell in love with her -- an elementary point that's eluded most.
Fifth, he makes it clear that Lewis treated his father badly during the last decade of the latter's life, though McGrath is inclined to give him a break on this (far more than I personally would; I agree w. CSL himself that it's the most shameful episode in his life).
Having gotten to the point in the narrative where CSL has just met Tolkien and the Lewis-Moore family has just bought the Kilns, I'll be v. interested to see if McGrath gets another important point right. The odd idea has grown up that CSL had an affair with Mrs. Moore that lasted a decade or so, but broke it off when he converted to Xianity. There's no evidence for this sudden celibacy at all, other than an assumption that Xian Lewis of the 1930s and 40s wd behave differently than the highly moral but non-Xian Lewis of the 1920s;** instead it seems clear she remained his common-law wife (and he her common-law husband) till her death.
We'll see if he continues as well as he's begun.
--John R.
current reading: BILBO'S JOURNEY by Joseph Pearce [2012]
also: CAPTAIN SIR RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON (biography) by Edward Rice [1990]
current audiobook: C. S. LEWIS: ECCENTRIC GENUIS, RELUCTANT PROPHET by McGrath [2012]
*Wilson is on record saying he believes McGrath's to be a better biography than his own -- a rare level of endorsement among biographers, I shd think.
**dubious, given CSL's later attempts to convince the Bishop of Oxford that the Anglican ban on marrying a divorcee shdn't apply to him.
This biography is primarily based on the massive 8,000 page three-volume COLLECTED LETTERS, supplemented as needed by other sources, and also lays stress on Lewis's northern-Ireland background, which the author thinks established the default landscapes in most of Lewis's work. No major revelations or recasting of the familiar narrative so far, but a number of small points tell in McGrath's favor.
First off, he doesn't have a cow over the idea that Lewis actually sometimes did chores at the Kilns. Warnie Lewis considered it monstrous that he, a retired officer, sometimes had to walk the dog, and his brother on occasion even had to take out the trash. McGrath doesn't think that makes Mrs. Moore a monster or Lewis a battered spouse: he thinks it's perfectly normal. Score one for McGrath.
Second, he suggests that Lewis and Paddy Moore might actually have been quite close (there's some evidence that Lewis tried to get assigned to the same military unit as Paddy), an idea some dismiss without even considering seriously.
Third, he suggests that Lewis was the love of Arthur Greeves' life. Greeves confessed his homosexuality to Lewis, who made it clear he did not reciprocate Greeves' feelings; the two agreed to remain friends. That's interesting, and so far as I know, new.
Fourth, Mrs Moore. McGrath's mind doesn't boggle at the idea of CSL falling in love with an older woman. This sets him ahead of those who can't understand a young man falling in love with a much older woman (Janie M.) but have no problem believing that same man cd later fall in love with a much younger woman (Joy G.). Also, McGrath understands that it's not fair to collapse descriptions of Janie M. from a quarter-century later as a sick old women suffering from Alzheimer's with the way she was when Lewis fell in love with her -- an elementary point that's eluded most.
Fifth, he makes it clear that Lewis treated his father badly during the last decade of the latter's life, though McGrath is inclined to give him a break on this (far more than I personally would; I agree w. CSL himself that it's the most shameful episode in his life).
Having gotten to the point in the narrative where CSL has just met Tolkien and the Lewis-Moore family has just bought the Kilns, I'll be v. interested to see if McGrath gets another important point right. The odd idea has grown up that CSL had an affair with Mrs. Moore that lasted a decade or so, but broke it off when he converted to Xianity. There's no evidence for this sudden celibacy at all, other than an assumption that Xian Lewis of the 1930s and 40s wd behave differently than the highly moral but non-Xian Lewis of the 1920s;** instead it seems clear she remained his common-law wife (and he her common-law husband) till her death.
We'll see if he continues as well as he's begun.
--John R.
current reading: BILBO'S JOURNEY by Joseph Pearce [2012]
also: CAPTAIN SIR RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON (biography) by Edward Rice [1990]
current audiobook: C. S. LEWIS: ECCENTRIC GENUIS, RELUCTANT PROPHET by McGrath [2012]
*Wilson is on record saying he believes McGrath's to be a better biography than his own -- a rare level of endorsement among biographers, I shd think.
**dubious, given CSL's later attempts to convince the Bishop of Oxford that the Anglican ban on marrying a divorcee shdn't apply to him.
July 7, 2013
Adjusting the Shelves
So, the past few days I've been moving a lot of book around. The Tolkiens (by and about) are up here in my office, of course, but there's now a backlog of recent books about THE HOBBIT that I need to find places for on my shelves. And there are some Tolkien-related books that reside downstairs in the box room (quizbooks, parodies, and other peripheral material of the sort), along with non-Inklings books by Carpenter and a few by Pearce, works by minor Inklings (e.g. Coghill and Cecil), and associated figures (e.g., the Unwins).
The problem is that the Lewis books are divided between a bookcase in the dining room (by, some about) and those same shelves in the box room (more about), since the top shelf of that bookcase is devoted to Barfield, leaving no room for all the Lewises (by and about) to be shelved together. The Ch. Wms books were similarly divided, and most of Warnie was in the box room as well. I tried moving the Barfield to my grandfather's old walnut bookcase (also in the dining room), thus dispossessing all the VIIs and currently-checked-out library books. That fixed the Lewis problem, but not v. satisfactorily.
That's when Janice stepped in, seeing the books stacked here and there, and suggested converting one of the two large bookcases up in her office to OB, CSL, et al. So yesterday all the books on those shelves came off (religion, biography, archeology and paleontology, native american (Mayan, Caddo, et al), antarctic disasters, conspiracies and crank theories, et al.), resulting in a sea of books all around the room (soon to be taken off to new homes in the dining room and box room, minus a few culls). And today the new residents moved in. Top shelf is now Barfield. Second and third shelves are CSL (by) followed by CSL (about). Fourth and final shelf is Wms and Warnie.
One result of this sort-out is the discovery of some duplicates and the decision that a few books can be gotten rid of for one reason for another. Accordingly, the following books all up for grabs to good homes:
1. PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS by CSL, ed. Patricia S. Klein. I've had this book for eight years, having picked it up on an impulse. Since I haven't read it in all that time, I'm not likely to anytime in the foreseeable future either. Esp. given that I prefer reading Lewis's books the way he wrote them than a selection of excerpts, as here.
2. C. S. LEWIS: THE AUTHENTIC VOICE by Wm Griffin. I had to order this one to track down a quote in my "Missing Women" piece. Turns out it's just a re-issue of his CSL: A DRAMATIC LIFE under a different title. Since the latter is readily available, shd I decide I want to read it, this one can go.
3. C. S. LEWIS AND NARNIA FOR DUMMIES by Richard Wagner. This one must have seemed a good idea at the time. I not only bought it but read it and marked it up. The best parts are probably the cartoons by Tennant, who clearly knows nothing about CSL, making for an amusing disjunction.
4. A POCKET COMPANION TO NARNIA by Paul F. Ford. This looks like a wonderful little book for anyone doing work on Narnia; a sort of CSL edition of Rbt Foster's ever-useful GUIDE TO MIDDLE-EARTH. Since I've never made any use of it in the eight years I've had it, and hope never to have to work on Narnia, this really shd go to someone who'll make better use of it.
5. A SEVERE MERCY by Sheldon Vanauken. I don't know why I have two copies of a book I've never taken the time to actually read, but one of them can surely go
6. THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS by C. S. Lewis. The first Lewis book I ever read, and still one of my favorites. However, we can probably get by if we trim our three copies down to just two (preliminary to deciding which of those two ultimately stays and which goes).
7. A PREFACE TO PARADISE LOST by C. S. L. Again, this is a duplicate: I'm keeping the hardcover and letting the (trade) paperback go.
There would have been an eighth book, Taum Santoski's copy of THE C. S. LEWIS HOAX by Kathryn Lindskoog, but glancing through it I found that I'd forgotten Taum had annotated it in some places, so I'll be hanging on to this one for a while.
One thing such a sort-out does is highlight a few things that I really shd get to fill some gaps: Lewis's book on Spenser, more of his literary essays (alas that REHABILITATIONS and the ESSAY COLLECTION are alike outside my budget), his first book SPIRITS IN BONDAGE (probably in one of the print-on-demand reprints, now that I know they exist), the volume of Joy Gresham letters, and (when opportunity offers) the recent Boenig book on CSL AND THE MIDDLE AGES. Similarly, I have all but two of Warnie's books, and really shd get the ones I'm missing, having enjoyed those I read of his quite a lot.
And now, back to more sorting and re-arranging; first of the displaced books, and then of the Tolkien shelves.
--John R.
current reading: THE FALL OF ARTHUR, Walter Raleigh on Blake.
current audiobook: McGrath's biography of CSL
The problem is that the Lewis books are divided between a bookcase in the dining room (by, some about) and those same shelves in the box room (more about), since the top shelf of that bookcase is devoted to Barfield, leaving no room for all the Lewises (by and about) to be shelved together. The Ch. Wms books were similarly divided, and most of Warnie was in the box room as well. I tried moving the Barfield to my grandfather's old walnut bookcase (also in the dining room), thus dispossessing all the VIIs and currently-checked-out library books. That fixed the Lewis problem, but not v. satisfactorily.
That's when Janice stepped in, seeing the books stacked here and there, and suggested converting one of the two large bookcases up in her office to OB, CSL, et al. So yesterday all the books on those shelves came off (religion, biography, archeology and paleontology, native american (Mayan, Caddo, et al), antarctic disasters, conspiracies and crank theories, et al.), resulting in a sea of books all around the room (soon to be taken off to new homes in the dining room and box room, minus a few culls). And today the new residents moved in. Top shelf is now Barfield. Second and third shelves are CSL (by) followed by CSL (about). Fourth and final shelf is Wms and Warnie.
One result of this sort-out is the discovery of some duplicates and the decision that a few books can be gotten rid of for one reason for another. Accordingly, the following books all up for grabs to good homes:
1. PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS by CSL, ed. Patricia S. Klein. I've had this book for eight years, having picked it up on an impulse. Since I haven't read it in all that time, I'm not likely to anytime in the foreseeable future either. Esp. given that I prefer reading Lewis's books the way he wrote them than a selection of excerpts, as here.
2. C. S. LEWIS: THE AUTHENTIC VOICE by Wm Griffin. I had to order this one to track down a quote in my "Missing Women" piece. Turns out it's just a re-issue of his CSL: A DRAMATIC LIFE under a different title. Since the latter is readily available, shd I decide I want to read it, this one can go.
3. C. S. LEWIS AND NARNIA FOR DUMMIES by Richard Wagner. This one must have seemed a good idea at the time. I not only bought it but read it and marked it up. The best parts are probably the cartoons by Tennant, who clearly knows nothing about CSL, making for an amusing disjunction.
4. A POCKET COMPANION TO NARNIA by Paul F. Ford. This looks like a wonderful little book for anyone doing work on Narnia; a sort of CSL edition of Rbt Foster's ever-useful GUIDE TO MIDDLE-EARTH. Since I've never made any use of it in the eight years I've had it, and hope never to have to work on Narnia, this really shd go to someone who'll make better use of it.
5. A SEVERE MERCY by Sheldon Vanauken. I don't know why I have two copies of a book I've never taken the time to actually read, but one of them can surely go
6. THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS by C. S. Lewis. The first Lewis book I ever read, and still one of my favorites. However, we can probably get by if we trim our three copies down to just two (preliminary to deciding which of those two ultimately stays and which goes).
7. A PREFACE TO PARADISE LOST by C. S. L. Again, this is a duplicate: I'm keeping the hardcover and letting the (trade) paperback go.
There would have been an eighth book, Taum Santoski's copy of THE C. S. LEWIS HOAX by Kathryn Lindskoog, but glancing through it I found that I'd forgotten Taum had annotated it in some places, so I'll be hanging on to this one for a while.
One thing such a sort-out does is highlight a few things that I really shd get to fill some gaps: Lewis's book on Spenser, more of his literary essays (alas that REHABILITATIONS and the ESSAY COLLECTION are alike outside my budget), his first book SPIRITS IN BONDAGE (probably in one of the print-on-demand reprints, now that I know they exist), the volume of Joy Gresham letters, and (when opportunity offers) the recent Boenig book on CSL AND THE MIDDLE AGES. Similarly, I have all but two of Warnie's books, and really shd get the ones I'm missing, having enjoyed those I read of his quite a lot.
And now, back to more sorting and re-arranging; first of the displaced books, and then of the Tolkien shelves.
--John R.
current reading: THE FALL OF ARTHUR, Walter Raleigh on Blake.
current audiobook: McGrath's biography of CSL
A Vision of C. S. Lewis
So, thanks to 'Brer' (Rabbit? Fox? Bear?), I now have the source for the story of CSL's punitive posthumous miracle: A. N. Wilson's 1992 biography (p. 305-306). Wilson in turn takes it from Canon J. B. Phillips' RING OF TRUTH (1967), which I don't have. But as 'Brer' points out, the episode is also referenced in Warnie's diary (entry for Th. Dec 5th 1968), which reproduces the original version of Phillips' account ("I Saw a Spirit") from that month's Parish Magazine (presumably the December 1968 issue).
Since my own recollection was so faulty, it seems appropriate to print Phillips' own account here. And, since Wilson's biography is easier to find than Warnie's diaries, I've provided the less-accessable account here, taken from an editorial footnote provided by the editors to Warnie's diaries:
"Many of us who believe in what is known as the Communion of Saints must have experienced the sense of nearness, at some time, of those we love after they have died. This has happened to me several times. But the late C. S. Lewis, whom I did not know very well and had only seen in the flesh once but with whom I had corresponded a fair amount, gave me an unusual experience. A few days after his death, while I was watching television, he appeared sitting ina chair within a few feet of me, and spoke a few words which were particularly relevant to difficult circumstances through which I was passing. He was ruddier in complexion than ever, grinning all over his face and positively glowing with health. The interesting thing to me was that I had not been thinking about him at all. And I was neither alarmed nor surprised. He was just there. A week later, when I was in bed reading before going to sleep, he appeared again, even more rosily radiant than before, and repeated to me the same message, which was very important to me at the time. I was a little puzzled by this, and mentioned it to a certain saintly Bishop. His reply was: 'My dear J, this sort of thing is happening all the time.' The reason I mention this personal experience is that although 'Jack' Lewis was real in a certain sense it did not occur to me to reach out and touch him. It is possible that some of the appearances of the risen Christ were of this nature, being known as versidical visions."
--BROTHERS AND FRIENDS, p. 288-289
Warnie's response was a mix of incredulity with despair. On the one hand, while not doubting Phillips' sincerity he wondered if he'd just "dreamt the whole thing", particularly since the vision spoke, wh. is not usually the case ("so far as I can recollect it is contrary to all stories of revenants, except the Witch of Endor; speaking ghosts are normally to be found only in literature or on the stage"). More bitter was the thought that his brother was able to manifest after death but not to him:
"why, oh why, if able to do so, should [he] never have come to me in the lonely study some evening with a word of comfort and good cheer? Is it that I am of such an earthly nature that to make contact with me is impossible for him? Perhaps he has so far outstripped me that I shall never see him again -- a horrible thought . . . Whatever the communication it seems to have been relevant and sensible, not the sort of slush by any means which is dealt out by mediums" (ibid.)
All in all, thin stuff to build a case for sainthood from, particularly since Phillips wdn't reveal the message. But in such matters it's often the case that those who want something to happen are far more dedicated and tenacious than those who don't want it, so I guess we'll see.
-JDR
Brer said...This sounds like the story told by Canon J. B. Philips, in which he says Lewis actually appeared and spoke to him (incident related in A. N. Wilson's biography of Lewis). Warren Lewis, C.S.'s brother, wrote in his diary (Brother's and Friends, Thursday 5th December 1969) of reading the story and being disturbed and depressed by it for several reasons.
Since my own recollection was so faulty, it seems appropriate to print Phillips' own account here. And, since Wilson's biography is easier to find than Warnie's diaries, I've provided the less-accessable account here, taken from an editorial footnote provided by the editors to Warnie's diaries:
"Many of us who believe in what is known as the Communion of Saints must have experienced the sense of nearness, at some time, of those we love after they have died. This has happened to me several times. But the late C. S. Lewis, whom I did not know very well and had only seen in the flesh once but with whom I had corresponded a fair amount, gave me an unusual experience. A few days after his death, while I was watching television, he appeared sitting ina chair within a few feet of me, and spoke a few words which were particularly relevant to difficult circumstances through which I was passing. He was ruddier in complexion than ever, grinning all over his face and positively glowing with health. The interesting thing to me was that I had not been thinking about him at all. And I was neither alarmed nor surprised. He was just there. A week later, when I was in bed reading before going to sleep, he appeared again, even more rosily radiant than before, and repeated to me the same message, which was very important to me at the time. I was a little puzzled by this, and mentioned it to a certain saintly Bishop. His reply was: 'My dear J, this sort of thing is happening all the time.' The reason I mention this personal experience is that although 'Jack' Lewis was real in a certain sense it did not occur to me to reach out and touch him. It is possible that some of the appearances of the risen Christ were of this nature, being known as versidical visions."
--BROTHERS AND FRIENDS, p. 288-289
Warnie's response was a mix of incredulity with despair. On the one hand, while not doubting Phillips' sincerity he wondered if he'd just "dreamt the whole thing", particularly since the vision spoke, wh. is not usually the case ("so far as I can recollect it is contrary to all stories of revenants, except the Witch of Endor; speaking ghosts are normally to be found only in literature or on the stage"). More bitter was the thought that his brother was able to manifest after death but not to him:
"why, oh why, if able to do so, should [he] never have come to me in the lonely study some evening with a word of comfort and good cheer? Is it that I am of such an earthly nature that to make contact with me is impossible for him? Perhaps he has so far outstripped me that I shall never see him again -- a horrible thought . . . Whatever the communication it seems to have been relevant and sensible, not the sort of slush by any means which is dealt out by mediums" (ibid.)
All in all, thin stuff to build a case for sainthood from, particularly since Phillips wdn't reveal the message. But in such matters it's often the case that those who want something to happen are far more dedicated and tenacious than those who don't want it, so I guess we'll see.
-JDR
Brer said...This sounds like the story told by Canon J. B. Philips, in which he says Lewis actually appeared and spoke to him (incident related in A. N. Wilson's biography of Lewis). Warren Lewis, C.S.'s brother, wrote in his diary (Brother's and Friends, Thursday 5th December 1969) of reading the story and being disturbed and depressed by it for several reasons.
July 6, 2013
Was Tolkien "An Inveterate Meddler"?
So, for part of the research for my Kalamazoo piece on Tolkien and women's higher education, I had the library call up the 1984 volume of PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY from offsite storage at the Baker Auxiliary Stacks so as to be able to read the obituary of Dorothy Whitelock contained therein. The obit turned out not to be particularly helpful, though I'm glad I did the due diligence of checking it, since I thereby found an interesting article in that same volume: "Unideal Editing of Old English Verse", the 1984 Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture by E. G. Stanley.
I had long been aware, Medieval being one of my three periods when studying for the doctorate at Marquette,* that around 1983 there'd been an uproar in Old English scholarship whereby many standard assumptions were challenged and re-thought (similar to the debate about 'Celtic' origins going on today). Many of the ideas Tolkien had held were being overturned, or at least called into question -- such as BEOWULF's being an early work preserved through some two centuries of manuscript transmission before the copy that's come down to us was made, or the near-universal assumption that the scribes who wrote down the OE verse that comes down to us were careless and ignorant, knowing less about Old English prosody than the nineteenth and twentieth century scholars who were editing them. But I'd thought those making such arguments, such as Kevin Kiernan (BEOWULF AND THE BEOWULF MANUSCRIPT, 1981) were lone voices crying in the wilderness, iconoclasts v. much out of the mainstream.
Perhaps not so much, I'm now coming to realize. Stanley's piece looks at changing editorial practices on editing OE verse, w. particular attention to BEOWULF, and charts an early period where the general trend was reluctance to editorially change what was in the actual manuscript, to a middle period (of which Tolkien was very much a part) where editorial changes became more and more intrustive, sometimes leading to re-arrangement of verses, editorial creation of new passages, insertions of proper names into the text (e.g., Eomer) or re-spelling names found therein (e.g. Hunferth > 'Unferth'). Finally, the recent trend is back to greater respect for the manuscript evidence and less editorial reworking of what's found therein. The rise and fall of the Sievers system,** which constructed a prescriptive prosody for OE verse and then advocating re-writing the verse to match the theory, was particularly illuminating.
I'd like to say that, having surveyed the problem and various scholars' contributions and practices (both those he approves of and those he does not), Stanley reaches some sort of useful conclusion, but he basically ends by taking the position that editors shd edit just enough, and no more; that they shd make the right decisions; that the more important the passage, the less they shd edit it. All true, no doubt, and a tribute to Pope-ian moderation, but decidedly unhelpful as a practical guide. In the end, Stanley is so concerned to be even-handed that he fails to make his point, or indeed any point, strongly. Perhaps that was his goal, and he wanted merely to survey and not to judge.
The reason all this is of interest to me in the here and now is that Tolkien comes up several times in Stanley's piece; Stanley uses him as a convenient figure exemplifying the now-descredited Old Way of Doing Things. In this, JRRT is partnered with Sisam, whose essays are cited as having provided rationale for carrying editorial interference to an excessive degree. As for Tolkien himself, his OLD ENGLISH EXODUS (ed. Joan Turville-Petre, 1981) provides a good example of changing editorial practices, the work having been done in the 1930s and 40s (when editorial interference was at its height) but not published until the 1980s (when the pendulum was starting to swing the other way). Tolkien even moves around sections of the poem to produce a more effective arrangement, on the assumption that he understands the poem better than the person who wrote it down -- which may be true, but is obviously open to all kinds of abuse. His was a tradition of intuitive sympathy, of engaging with the text the way a modern-day editor might when editing the work of a contemporary (e.g. Ezra Pound's editing of T. S. Eliot's THE WASTELAND). Hence the phrase "inveterate meddler", which according to Stanley comes in a 1983 NOTES AND QUERIES review of Tolkien's EXODUS.*** Despite which, Stanley repeatedly praised Tolkien's translation of EXODUS found in the same volume, calling it "elegant" and "highly satisfying". In fact, in a way that's exactly the problem: an editor of genius with a real feel for Old English poetry, like Tolkien, can produce a "correction" that's better than what the Old English poet actually wrote.
So, an interesting piece, and one that discusses an aspect of Tolkien that's badly neglected (JRRT as an editor and translator of medieval works), and a rare discussion of one of his lesser-known works (the edition and translation of THE OLD ENGLISH EXODUS). And a piece that places Tolkien within the context of his time, and casts light on his work as an enthusiastic transmitter of medieval works. For those not interested in reading Stanley's entire (forty-two page) lecture, with its overextensive footnotes (sometimes the 'footnotes' take up over half the page; in one extreme case, they cover four-fifths, leaving only a bare seven lines of text atop the page), the references to Tolkien come on pages 239-240, 252-254, 267, and 269. Enjoy!
--John R.
current reading: THE WEB OF EASTER ISLAND by Donald Wandrei (Arkham House, 1948) -- not worth reading. does contain the 'green sun' story written twenty years earlier, embedded as Chapter XIII ['A Dream'] of this rambling short novel)
current audiobook: McGrath's new C. S. Lewis biography
*the other two being Modern (twentieth-century British), so I cd study Tolkien's contemporaries and also Woolf, and Nineteenth Century British, wh. included Austen. That third one wd have been Nineteenth Century American, including Twain and Poe, but Marquette's rules required two of yr periods be contiguous, so 19th British it had to be.
**summarized with great skill by JRRT in his Introduction to the Clark-Hall BEOWULF.
***I have not yet had time to search out this review (by P. J. Lucas) myself, but plan to do so this next week
ADDENDUM THE WIFE SAYS:
Footnotes!Pot!Kettle!Black!
I had long been aware, Medieval being one of my three periods when studying for the doctorate at Marquette,* that around 1983 there'd been an uproar in Old English scholarship whereby many standard assumptions were challenged and re-thought (similar to the debate about 'Celtic' origins going on today). Many of the ideas Tolkien had held were being overturned, or at least called into question -- such as BEOWULF's being an early work preserved through some two centuries of manuscript transmission before the copy that's come down to us was made, or the near-universal assumption that the scribes who wrote down the OE verse that comes down to us were careless and ignorant, knowing less about Old English prosody than the nineteenth and twentieth century scholars who were editing them. But I'd thought those making such arguments, such as Kevin Kiernan (BEOWULF AND THE BEOWULF MANUSCRIPT, 1981) were lone voices crying in the wilderness, iconoclasts v. much out of the mainstream.
Perhaps not so much, I'm now coming to realize. Stanley's piece looks at changing editorial practices on editing OE verse, w. particular attention to BEOWULF, and charts an early period where the general trend was reluctance to editorially change what was in the actual manuscript, to a middle period (of which Tolkien was very much a part) where editorial changes became more and more intrustive, sometimes leading to re-arrangement of verses, editorial creation of new passages, insertions of proper names into the text (e.g., Eomer) or re-spelling names found therein (e.g. Hunferth > 'Unferth'). Finally, the recent trend is back to greater respect for the manuscript evidence and less editorial reworking of what's found therein. The rise and fall of the Sievers system,** which constructed a prescriptive prosody for OE verse and then advocating re-writing the verse to match the theory, was particularly illuminating.
I'd like to say that, having surveyed the problem and various scholars' contributions and practices (both those he approves of and those he does not), Stanley reaches some sort of useful conclusion, but he basically ends by taking the position that editors shd edit just enough, and no more; that they shd make the right decisions; that the more important the passage, the less they shd edit it. All true, no doubt, and a tribute to Pope-ian moderation, but decidedly unhelpful as a practical guide. In the end, Stanley is so concerned to be even-handed that he fails to make his point, or indeed any point, strongly. Perhaps that was his goal, and he wanted merely to survey and not to judge.
The reason all this is of interest to me in the here and now is that Tolkien comes up several times in Stanley's piece; Stanley uses him as a convenient figure exemplifying the now-descredited Old Way of Doing Things. In this, JRRT is partnered with Sisam, whose essays are cited as having provided rationale for carrying editorial interference to an excessive degree. As for Tolkien himself, his OLD ENGLISH EXODUS (ed. Joan Turville-Petre, 1981) provides a good example of changing editorial practices, the work having been done in the 1930s and 40s (when editorial interference was at its height) but not published until the 1980s (when the pendulum was starting to swing the other way). Tolkien even moves around sections of the poem to produce a more effective arrangement, on the assumption that he understands the poem better than the person who wrote it down -- which may be true, but is obviously open to all kinds of abuse. His was a tradition of intuitive sympathy, of engaging with the text the way a modern-day editor might when editing the work of a contemporary (e.g. Ezra Pound's editing of T. S. Eliot's THE WASTELAND). Hence the phrase "inveterate meddler", which according to Stanley comes in a 1983 NOTES AND QUERIES review of Tolkien's EXODUS.*** Despite which, Stanley repeatedly praised Tolkien's translation of EXODUS found in the same volume, calling it "elegant" and "highly satisfying". In fact, in a way that's exactly the problem: an editor of genius with a real feel for Old English poetry, like Tolkien, can produce a "correction" that's better than what the Old English poet actually wrote.
So, an interesting piece, and one that discusses an aspect of Tolkien that's badly neglected (JRRT as an editor and translator of medieval works), and a rare discussion of one of his lesser-known works (the edition and translation of THE OLD ENGLISH EXODUS). And a piece that places Tolkien within the context of his time, and casts light on his work as an enthusiastic transmitter of medieval works. For those not interested in reading Stanley's entire (forty-two page) lecture, with its overextensive footnotes (sometimes the 'footnotes' take up over half the page; in one extreme case, they cover four-fifths, leaving only a bare seven lines of text atop the page), the references to Tolkien come on pages 239-240, 252-254, 267, and 269. Enjoy!
--John R.
current reading: THE WEB OF EASTER ISLAND by Donald Wandrei (Arkham House, 1948) -- not worth reading. does contain the 'green sun' story written twenty years earlier, embedded as Chapter XIII ['A Dream'] of this rambling short novel)
current audiobook: McGrath's new C. S. Lewis biography
*the other two being Modern (twentieth-century British), so I cd study Tolkien's contemporaries and also Woolf, and Nineteenth Century British, wh. included Austen. That third one wd have been Nineteenth Century American, including Twain and Poe, but Marquette's rules required two of yr periods be contiguous, so 19th British it had to be.
**summarized with great skill by JRRT in his Introduction to the Clark-Hall BEOWULF.
***I have not yet had time to search out this review (by P. J. Lucas) myself, but plan to do so this next week
ADDENDUM THE WIFE SAYS:
Footnotes!Pot!Kettle!Black!
July 4, 2013
Canonizing C. S. Lewis
So, I've known for a good while now that there's a sort of movement underway to have C. S. Lewis canonized as an Anglican saint, having first learned of this through discussion w. some of Lewis's admirers during the planning for the 1998 Centenary Mythcon in his and Barfield's honor (I was on the con committee, focussing on making sure Barfield was represented and not lost in the Lewis-centric event). At first I assumed this was some kind of joke, since CSL, although devout, seemed as unlike a saint as cd easily be imagined, but it turned out to be quite serious; its advocates already had one potential miracle lined up,* and some explanations of how Anglican canonization, although rare, was still possible.
What I hadn't known, and only recently learned through reading Rbt Boenig's C. S. LEWIS AND THE MIDDLE AGES, is that Lewis himself was opposed to Anglican canonizations. The evidence comes in a letter Lewis wrote to THE CHURCH TIMES (October 24th 1952) in which he raises strong objections to a proposed system to canonize Anglican saints. His objections are essentially twofold: first, that this wd require sure knowledge that specific dead people are in fact in Heaven, knowledge which anyone among the living lacks; and second, that it wd compel veneration of specific individuals as part of every living Anglicans' duty. He strongly opposes any such scheme, and seems to feel that attempts to implement it might even result in schism. (COLLECTED LETTERS, Vol. III. 241-242).
What I'm curious about now is whether those who support the idea of a Lewis canonization are (a) aware of this letter, and (b) if they are, on what grounds they reject or set aside Lewis's own strongly stated opposition to the idea of newly canonized Anglican saints. The idea may have fallen by the wayside in the past fifteen years or so since I first heard of it -- though I rather doubt it, given the fast-tracking of canonizations that's been going on during the past thirty years among the Roman Church. Just got the new McGarth biography of CSL on audiobook yesterday; perhaps it'll at some point address, and answer, these questions.
--John R.
current book: THE WEB OF EASTER ISLAND by Donald Wandrei (1948, Arkham House)
current audiobook: THE JEFFERSON BIBLE
*I've forgotten the details, but the essential story was that someone who had known Lewis slightly said that, while deeply depressed and highly medicated, he suddenly had a feeling that CSL was in the room with him and everything was going to be alright (all this occurring several years after CSL's death). A bit dubious from my Calvinist perspective -- but then as an extreme Protestant I don't recognize most of the 'saints' already approved by the Anglican or Roman communions anyway, Francis of Assisi being the one exception I can think of.
What I hadn't known, and only recently learned through reading Rbt Boenig's C. S. LEWIS AND THE MIDDLE AGES, is that Lewis himself was opposed to Anglican canonizations. The evidence comes in a letter Lewis wrote to THE CHURCH TIMES (October 24th 1952) in which he raises strong objections to a proposed system to canonize Anglican saints. His objections are essentially twofold: first, that this wd require sure knowledge that specific dead people are in fact in Heaven, knowledge which anyone among the living lacks; and second, that it wd compel veneration of specific individuals as part of every living Anglicans' duty. He strongly opposes any such scheme, and seems to feel that attempts to implement it might even result in schism. (COLLECTED LETTERS, Vol. III. 241-242).
What I'm curious about now is whether those who support the idea of a Lewis canonization are (a) aware of this letter, and (b) if they are, on what grounds they reject or set aside Lewis's own strongly stated opposition to the idea of newly canonized Anglican saints. The idea may have fallen by the wayside in the past fifteen years or so since I first heard of it -- though I rather doubt it, given the fast-tracking of canonizations that's been going on during the past thirty years among the Roman Church. Just got the new McGarth biography of CSL on audiobook yesterday; perhaps it'll at some point address, and answer, these questions.
--John R.
current book: THE WEB OF EASTER ISLAND by Donald Wandrei (1948, Arkham House)
current audiobook: THE JEFFERSON BIBLE
*I've forgotten the details, but the essential story was that someone who had known Lewis slightly said that, while deeply depressed and highly medicated, he suddenly had a feeling that CSL was in the room with him and everything was going to be alright (all this occurring several years after CSL's death). A bit dubious from my Calvinist perspective -- but then as an extreme Protestant I don't recognize most of the 'saints' already approved by the Anglican or Roman communions anyway, Francis of Assisi being the one exception I can think of.
July 3, 2013
Picture of Me
So, for some reason I'm always surprised when I run across pictures of myself online, forgetting that the fact I have friends who blog means I v. occasionally show up in their blogs. Case in point: the following picture of me (I'm the decrepid-looking one), taken at Trout Lake during our recent vacation and get-together with some friends. Here's the link:
http://calimac.livejournal.com/667749.html
current audiobook: THE JEFFERSON BIBLE
currently reading: THE FALL OF ARTHUR (still)
http://calimac.livejournal.com/667749.html
current audiobook: THE JEFFERSON BIBLE
currently reading: THE FALL OF ARTHUR (still)
June 26, 2013
Helen Haines
So, as part of the work for my Kalamazoo piece ("The Missing Women: JRRT's Lifelong Support for Women's Higher Education"), I wrote up by way of contrast a short section depicting his friend C. S. Lewis's views towards women's higher education, insofar as they can be determined from comments in his letters, most significantly in his first letter to E. R. Eddison. Here he described the woman through whom he learned of Eddison's work as
"som poore seely wench that seeketh a B.Litt or a D.Phil, when God knows shad a better bestowed her tyme makynge sport for some goodman in his bed and bearing children for the stablishment of this reaulme or els to be at her beeds in a religyous house"
(CSL to ERE, Nov. 16th 1942; COLLECTED LETTERS Vol. II p. 535).
That's appalling enough. But when Eddison, in his response, asked the name of the person who'd written about him and the title of her book, Lewis professed ignorance, saying he'd forgotten both.
Thanks to the good work of Eddison scholar Paul Thomas, who shared his discovery with me, I now know both name and title: Helen E. Haines' WHAT'S IN A NOVEL (1942). Far from being a graduate student, Haines was seventy at the time, and a distinguished figure in the field of library science (a discipline she helped establish), making Lewis's dismissive comments all the more jarring (and thus relevant to my essay).
But now having gotten my own copy of her book (which was v. popular in its day, and hence easily available on abebooks or bookfinder.com), I find it interesting in its own right. For one thing, she does not just mention Eddison's WORM, as I'd assumed from Lewis's letter, but all three of Eddison's novels: THE WORM OUROBOROS, MISTRESS OF MISTRESSES, and A FISH DINNER IN MEMISON, the last of which having only been published the year before. The context, too, is significant: Haines, who's recommending books for the typical library, devotes an entire chapter to fantasy, called "Spells, Signs, and Symbols" and including therein science fiction, utopias, et al.
Of modern fantasy writers, she says two stand out: James Branch Cabell and E. R. Eddison. After discussing Cabell's Poictesme novels and ERE's three books, she immediately segues into Rbt Nathan, who shd probably be considered the third in her unofficial pantheon at the core of modern fantasy -- not at all a bad choice, though I wd have included Dunsany. His being sidelined (appearing only in the opening paragraph to this chapter in her general overview of the field's range, and in a line about his minor late novel MY TALKS WITH DEAN SPANLEY in her penultimate paragraph) shows just how much his star had fallen since his glory days in the late teens.
So far, so good. Yet it's that penultimate paragraph that ultimately turns out to be the most interesting thing about her whole book.* As she's wrapping up, she pauses at the end to single out two bright young talents: T. H. White's THE SWORD IN THE STONE** and J. R. R. Tolkien's THE HOBBIT. I've asked around, and so far as I've been able to find out so far, this marks the first critical discussion of THE HOBBIT in a book, all previous known references having been in book reviews and the like. So Haines is near the well-head of Tolkien criticism. And let's not forget that her book was popular, widely read and widely influential. Her praise of JRRT no doubt helped spread word that here was a good book you ought to consider having in your town library.
Here's what she has to say about Tolkien:
. . . the whole sequence [by T. H. White] is a unique,many-faceted commentary on Arthurian legend andon the deep-rooted, traditional English way of life. To many readers they may seem books for children,but in reality they are full-fledged fantasy at play for old as well as young. So is The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again, that adventure into the land of Faerie, where dragons, elves, goblins, dwarves, and creaturesof magic still challenge the dominion of men. Written by J. R. R. Tolkien, professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford,for his own children, it fuses legend, tradition, and the dim beginnings of history into a robust imaginativecreation that mingles homely simplicity, humor,drama, pictorial beauty, and a truly epic quality.
--Haines, p. 217
I think that holds up pretty well, seventy-odd years later. Now I'm curious what Haines has to say about other genres and categories of fiction, such as the detective novel, the subject of her next chapter, "The Lure of Crime" (curiously enough, she credits Woodrow Wilson with a role in its rise to popularity).
--John R.
current reading: C. S. LEWIS AND THE MIDDLE AGES by Boenig (2012)
*caveat: at least as much as I've read of it so far.
**and its first two sequels, which again were v. recent books at the time Haines was writing, the three volumes having been published in 1938, 1939, and 1940, respectively.
"som poore seely wench that seeketh a B.Litt or a D.Phil, when God knows shad a better bestowed her tyme makynge sport for some goodman in his bed and bearing children for the stablishment of this reaulme or els to be at her beeds in a religyous house"
(CSL to ERE, Nov. 16th 1942; COLLECTED LETTERS Vol. II p. 535).
That's appalling enough. But when Eddison, in his response, asked the name of the person who'd written about him and the title of her book, Lewis professed ignorance, saying he'd forgotten both.
Thanks to the good work of Eddison scholar Paul Thomas, who shared his discovery with me, I now know both name and title: Helen E. Haines' WHAT'S IN A NOVEL (1942). Far from being a graduate student, Haines was seventy at the time, and a distinguished figure in the field of library science (a discipline she helped establish), making Lewis's dismissive comments all the more jarring (and thus relevant to my essay).
But now having gotten my own copy of her book (which was v. popular in its day, and hence easily available on abebooks or bookfinder.com), I find it interesting in its own right. For one thing, she does not just mention Eddison's WORM, as I'd assumed from Lewis's letter, but all three of Eddison's novels: THE WORM OUROBOROS, MISTRESS OF MISTRESSES, and A FISH DINNER IN MEMISON, the last of which having only been published the year before. The context, too, is significant: Haines, who's recommending books for the typical library, devotes an entire chapter to fantasy, called "Spells, Signs, and Symbols" and including therein science fiction, utopias, et al.
Of modern fantasy writers, she says two stand out: James Branch Cabell and E. R. Eddison. After discussing Cabell's Poictesme novels and ERE's three books, she immediately segues into Rbt Nathan, who shd probably be considered the third in her unofficial pantheon at the core of modern fantasy -- not at all a bad choice, though I wd have included Dunsany. His being sidelined (appearing only in the opening paragraph to this chapter in her general overview of the field's range, and in a line about his minor late novel MY TALKS WITH DEAN SPANLEY in her penultimate paragraph) shows just how much his star had fallen since his glory days in the late teens.
So far, so good. Yet it's that penultimate paragraph that ultimately turns out to be the most interesting thing about her whole book.* As she's wrapping up, she pauses at the end to single out two bright young talents: T. H. White's THE SWORD IN THE STONE** and J. R. R. Tolkien's THE HOBBIT. I've asked around, and so far as I've been able to find out so far, this marks the first critical discussion of THE HOBBIT in a book, all previous known references having been in book reviews and the like. So Haines is near the well-head of Tolkien criticism. And let's not forget that her book was popular, widely read and widely influential. Her praise of JRRT no doubt helped spread word that here was a good book you ought to consider having in your town library.
Here's what she has to say about Tolkien:
. . . the whole sequence [by T. H. White] is a unique,many-faceted commentary on Arthurian legend andon the deep-rooted, traditional English way of life. To many readers they may seem books for children,but in reality they are full-fledged fantasy at play for old as well as young. So is The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again, that adventure into the land of Faerie, where dragons, elves, goblins, dwarves, and creaturesof magic still challenge the dominion of men. Written by J. R. R. Tolkien, professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford,for his own children, it fuses legend, tradition, and the dim beginnings of history into a robust imaginativecreation that mingles homely simplicity, humor,drama, pictorial beauty, and a truly epic quality.
--Haines, p. 217
I think that holds up pretty well, seventy-odd years later. Now I'm curious what Haines has to say about other genres and categories of fiction, such as the detective novel, the subject of her next chapter, "The Lure of Crime" (curiously enough, she credits Woodrow Wilson with a role in its rise to popularity).
--John R.
current reading: C. S. LEWIS AND THE MIDDLE AGES by Boenig (2012)
*caveat: at least as much as I've read of it so far.
**and its first two sequels, which again were v. recent books at the time Haines was writing, the three volumes having been published in 1938, 1939, and 1940, respectively.
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