John D. Rateliff's Blog, page 175

Me at Marquette (October 3rd)

So, here's some other big news I'm a bit late in sharing: next week I'm giving a talk on THE HOBBIT at Marquette University, as well as an informal presentation earlier the same day with a class studying THE HOBBIT there*

Here's a link to the official announcement of the event:

http://www.marquette.edu/library/news/2012/Rateliff.shtml

Unlike most of my talks, which are heavily footnoted, this will be more of an 'oral history' or anecdotal account, passing along stories about the twists and turns of how the manuscripts of Tolkien's most important works happened to wind up in a city he never visited at a university with which he had no previous ties. If you're in the area, come join us -- the more the merrier.

And, I shd note: this is just the first of three events Marquette is hosting to celebrate THE HOBBIT's seventy-fifth anniversary year: A month later (November 8th), Wayne and Christina are giving a presentation about Tolkien's Middle-earth Art, focusing no doubt on their recent excellent THE ART OF THE HOBBIT (which I saw in Blackwells on our recent Oxford trip, but wh. I don't think is out yet over here). Wish I cd go to this;** I've heard them talk on the subject before, but they're constantly finding new things to say about it and it's always worth hearing them again

Then in February (I nearly typed "next spring", but Febr. is still deep winter in Milwaukee) they're hosting A ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION OF PETER JACKSON'S THE HOBBIT, with Robin Reid, Yvette Kisor, Edward Risden, and Richard West: all people I know from Kalamazoo (Richard of course I've known far longer than that: he was best man at my wedding!) and, coincidently, all four are contributors to a book I just finished co-editing, and all five of us contributed to Jan and Phil's book on the earlier Peter Jackson movies (PICTURING TOLKIEN). This is another event I'd like to attend but probably won't be able to manage, given the two thousand miles separating me from it.

So, this year is a good time to be a Tolkienist living in or near Milwaukee. Not to mention the year-round attraction of having the Tolkien manuscripts there and available for study.



* my topic there is 'how to become a Tolkien scholar'.

**unfortunately, after the family crisis trips in January, the non-crisis family + Leocon/Austin trip in April, Kalamazoo in May, Pennsylvania in June-July, England in September, and Marquette/Rockford in October, and one more family trip to come before the end of the year, I'm pretty well tripped out to for 2012. Here's hoping 2013 includes more staying at home with the cats (all three are sharing the room with me as I type this, keeping me in their sight in case I try to slip off again)

Well, that went well

So, last night I used Skype for the first time* to deliver a brief lecture, followed by an hour and more of questions & answers, to Corey Olsen's class studying THE HOBBIT [cf. The Tolkien Professor and Mythgard Institute].  My topic was 'the origin of THE HOBBIT', and I talked about the two competing origin stories -- the myth of an oral hobbit preceding the one we have today contrasted with the documented account describing the creation of the written tale wh. I give in the introduction of my book ("The Chronology of Composition"). As part of the preparation for this, I went back and listened again to Michael Tolkien's wonderful talk to the Tolkien Society back in 1977 where he discussed the Hobbit apocrypha he and his siblings created deriving from their father's tale, as well as a briefer account he gave to a local radio station (don't have a date for this one; think it was either 1975 or 1977): wonderful stuff. The students had a lot of really interesting questions, some of which I didn't have answers for, and some I hope they follow up on and write-up into articles of their own (like the role of the FCL in Tolkien's development as a writer, or the origin of wizards in his works).

Being new to Skype (thanks to Janice for getting it all set up for me), I was amazed how smoothly it all went. Me, here in west coast Pacific time (6.30 pm), giving a talk co-ordinated and moderated by someone in east coast Eastern time (9.30 pm), with one of the participants who lives in England having sat up late in order to be able to take part (hi Andrew!), despite its being 2.30 am (Greenwich time) for him.

I give another talk there on Thursday night (6.30 my time; 9.30 Eastern). This time we'll be looking at the outlines or Plot Notes for THE HOBBIT -- not just for what they tell us about JRRT's compositional method (something well worth studying in its own right) but also for the glimpses they give us into alternate worlds, different ways THE HOBBIT could have come out. Some v. different indeed. I'm looking forward to it.

And, before I forget: congratulations to Corey for the publication this past weekend of his new book: EXPLORING J. R. R. TOLKIEN'S THE HOBBIT, just out from Houghton Mifflin (or Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, as I suppose I shd call them). I think this marks the vanguard of a whole wave of HOBBIT-themed books we'll be seeing over the next two-three years, and we're off to a good start.

--John R.



*aside from a test run a few weeks ago, just before we left for England, to see how it actually worked. (Hi,  Mary!), and a brief test with Corey to make sure All Was Well.

Tonight, I Lecture

So, tonight's my first lecture to the Mythgard Institute's HOBBIT course, at 6.30 Pacific Time (9.30 East Coast time zone). I'll be talking about the origins of The Hobbit.

The second lecture comes on Thursday (Sept 27th; same time), when I talk about Tolkien's outlines for The Hobbit and the different directions the story might have taken.

Looks like a good group and a good course; here's hoping the lecture itself goes well.

More later.

--John R.

Back to London

So, another night's sleep under the effects of cold medicine, and I'm apparently no longer wearing my pitiful hat. Which is good.

Things are beginningto wind down now on our big trip. Today we left Newton House ( wh I recommend) and traveled by train back to London for a few days more at Celtic House. Spent the fternoon at th British Museum, wh we'd intended to visit a lot when in London bu only manged twice, due to their earlyish closing time. Janice feeling it'd be nice to see something non-Egpytian for a change, we visited their Assyrian rooms and took our time w their amazing displays of lion hunts, city sieges, and much more. Truly amazing stuff. After that we were running out of time, but briefly visited the Mesoamerican room (saw a precolumbian codex), the early life-in-England rooms (Beaker people, Celts, Roman Britains, et al). So vast are their riches that you run into the extraordinary in every room --- the Lindow Man here, the Lewis Chessmen there. Didn't have time to see the Sutton Hoo treasure; maybe another time.

After tht was laundry, and sipper at a v gd Turkish resaurant (Antalya, on Southampton Row), and then a quiet evening watching the new Hobbit trailer (about wh more later when I've had time to think about it and a chance to see it again) and read a little.

Only one more full day, then a travel day ending in home again. Do miss the furry little faces.

--JDR

Current reader: Who Owns Antiquity.   and. Verne's Hunt for the Meteor

Merton, Magdalen, and Ashmolean

So, today was our last full day in Oxford, and we got a lot in despite a late start and my being a slow-moving recooperee. First we went to the Ashmolean, which I never got to my last trip five years hence, where we not oly got to see Arthur Evans' Minoan exhibit, wh was great, but also their Old English room, with the Alfred Jewel. Dimitra and Andrew had highly recommended this display when we saw them on Sunday, and it lived up to their description. So there's something I first learned about and saw a picture of in that old Time-Life series about the ancient world when I was about ten or eleven that I never thought I'd see in person. They also had an item on display from the 'Thame hoard' -- shades of Farmer Giles? -- wh I'll have to find out more about.

Lost track of time among their Egyptian exhibit, and almost made us late for our lunch at Merton with Stuart Lee (editor of a forthcoming collection I'm contributing to) and his colleage Elizabeth Solopova (w whom he collaborated on a Tolkien book a few years ago, The Keys of Middle-earth), as well as John Garth, whom I'd gotten to meet when I was here lasr. See Merton's Senior Common Room was purely amazing, and we greatly enjoyed the guided tour thereafter, wh included seeing the medieval college library' a few of whose books are still chained. And it was moving to see the very street Tolkien walks down in Tolkien in Oxford.

After parting company after a v. Pleasant time, Janice and I walked down to Magdalen, where we strolled down Addison's Walk, saw the deer frolicking (that's really the only word for it), watched some brave but prudent souls go punting w a gondolier, and enjoyedbseeing three harts, one brown one dappled one black. Zulieka Dobson v much on our minds, what between seeing the Beerbohm Room at Merton and then shortly thereafter the river by Magdalen Bridge. Didn't get to climb the tower, wh is perhaps just as well, but I did point out to Janice roughly where CSL's rooms were where the Inklings met -- wh sparked the memory in me of someone else's showing me that, years ago, on my v first visit to Oxford. But I cdn't quite remember who -- was it Humphrey Carpenter? It must have been; another thing I wish I cd thank him for.

After that it was getting towards the time when things shut down (wh is earlier in England than the US), so as one last stop we went into Blackwell's to see it they had my book. They did. Yay, ego-boo. And, I might add, lots and lots of other books I'd have likedto make off w too, but end of vacation weight-limits and budgetarybrestraints kicked in here. That, and hopes I cd get some of these things -- like the 2013 hobbit calendar -- back in the US, if I'm patient enough.

Finally came a v gd dinner at a Jamie Oliver restaurant, a walk back to Newton House, and an early evening at the end of a great day. The vacation is winding down now, but it's been a great one.

--JohnR.

Oxford Castle

So, thanks to the help of nighttime knock-you-out cold medicine, followed today by walking-around cold medicine, I was ambulatory if far from my bet today. We scaled back plans accordingly to things that cd be taken at a stroll, with frequent stops for tea. Our first stop was the Ashmolean, but to no avail, as it turns out they're closed on Mondays. Second stop was Oxford Castle, wh Janice had found out about online. I'd been a bit puzzled by this, since on a previous trip someone had pointed out to me the green erthen mound, looking exactly like a great barrow, that I'd been told was all that remains of the castle from wh the local lords once oppressed the local population.

Turns out this is not quite true: the mound is what's left of the main tower, but a smaller tower and some dungeons remain. The whole had been converted into a gaol, wh was not closed until 1996! The cruelty and brutality of 18th and 19th century justice was horrifying, but the most fascinating thing we learned was that Geoffrey of Monmouth, the man who more or less invented the King Arthur legend, lived and taught here at a school that preceded the university by a century or so. That, and the fact that at least one chamber still survives with the old mound, which you can climb up to but not enter: a stone-lined well chamber that wd do M. R. James proud.

After that we strolled about some until it was tea-time, when we met up w Walter Hooper, the man who's devoted forty-eight years (and counting) to edited C. S. Lewis and knows more about him than anyone else alive. It was a most pleasant meeting. After wards, we strolled about the town some more (down the Broad and bck up the High) until it was time for supper and an early to bed.

And now for more nighttime cold medicine and hopes of a less sniffly tomorrow.

--John. R.

Highclere, Windsor, and Pizza House

So, yesterday's visit to Lord Carnarvon's house was great -- the man himself reminded me a bit of Dunsany's father, and who cd resist the dragons carved everywhere. Though we were a bit puzzled by two matching carvings on our way out, each of a little curled dragon munching a severed human hand in its jaws. Never did get to see what bird was calling in the huge old pines: we overheard someone saying the crows had fought it out with the ravens, and the ravens won, but we never saw anything bigger than purple martins.

Today was another trip out to another castle, this time Windsor. Staggeringly huge, with a proper moat (now dry but still daunting), arrow slits, multiple wards, et al. Much impressed with the books. In the queen's doll house, and picked up a(n enlarged) replica of one, a witty little fairy story from the 1920s. Among the many impressive things we saw were the tombs of King George V &Queen Mary, of Edward IV and Henry Vi (whom he deposed and vice-versa), of Edwards VII and Q. Alexandra (and their son, one of the least likely 'Jack the Ripper' suspects ever put forward), and a vault said to include H.VIII and  Charles I

As if these were not enough, we toured the State Apartments, which were quite nice, but what really blew me away was seeing the famous portraits of Henry VIII and Richard III (whose gravesite some historians say they are close to locating), Henry V and his father, James I and his son Charles I and the latter's family. Not to mention Rembrant's Self Portrait. Wow. They'd had a bad fire in this area a few years ago, but you'd never know that now. The only disappointment was not seeing the old, old trees -

Cathedral, London Stone, and Mandir

The trip continues, with a gathering with some old friends, a visit to St. Paul's Cathedral, stopping by to pay our respects at the London Stone (and pick up the latest TLS, which has a great article about a previously unknown Tolkien artist Tolkien much admired), and going way out to north London to see a Hindu mandir.

Today we moved on to Oxford, and had a great lunch with two more Tolk folk, but since I've got a cold and just took some nighttime cold medicine, I'll stop now before it . . .

and London again

Wend. marked our last morning in Bath, wh. we spent having a pleasant walkaround, first along the Avon on a shady bike path (passing some honeysuckle along the way), then along the Crescent again (where to my surprise we saw a magnolia tree --thought I'd seen three poss. ones before, but this one in bloom and close up confirmed it), then the Circus w. its five great old trees, and finally a sit down for a cup of tea at 'Boston Tea Party' before heading back to grab our bags and check out. To the station, and back to London.

After returning to Celtic House, we went and did laundry, during wh. Janice (bless her) sent me off to Skoobs Book store while the washers washed. Found four books there: one by Christopher Tolkien (a collaboration w. Nevill Coghill I've been looking for for a long time), one by Joseph Wright, a Flann O'Brian, and a Wodehouse (the book I've been trying to read on Kindle proving discouragingly skewed).

That night was a Jack thr Ripper walking tour, wh. was interesting but during wh. we got soaked in a sudden downpour



And today was a trip down to Highclere House, home of Lord Carnarvon, patron of Howard Carter's King Tut excavations. Everyone talks about how sad it was that he died just after his years of trying finally paid off: think how sad if he'd died the year before, rather than the year after!

John R.

Bath

So, I've now back in Bath, wh. I've not visited since 1985, when I came to try to persuade Elizabth Holland (of The Shores of Middle Earth fame/infamy) of the error of her ideas while she tried to convince me of the errors of mine. We neither of us succeeded, but it was a pleasant memory, and returning all these years later we fd Bath a pleasant. Place to stay. Sunday we saw a steam fair (but alas not a steam punk fair) -- familiar carnival rides w. old fashioned sideshow booths of the sort always showing up in manga. Then we saw the Crescent (where we looked so much like tourists that we were asked to pose as some), and the circus (not at all like you're prob. thinking).

Next day we went to Stonehenge, and Salsbury Hill, and Avebury, as well as stops by two villages, Lacock and Castle(less) Combe. One of the best days of my life. Finally getting to see Stonehenge, and spend an hour walking about it, was even better than I cd have imagined. Made mr wonder if if we're poss., in this lifetime, to see the Pyramid and the Sphinx; one trip of a lifetime at a time.

Today had tea at the Jane Austen House (wh. is not, it turns out, in Jane Austen's house -- and bit ironic, given that she disliked Bath), went to the Roman Baths, drank the water (I had three cups), had Tea in the Pump Room, and climbed the Tower of Bath Abbey, wh. was hard for an acrophobiac but worth it to see the bells.

Tomorrow it's back the London, and on to the next stage of the trip.

More later.

--JDR

Current reading:Around the World in Eighty Days (Verne).