John D. Rateliff's Blog, page 40

The Gulf Stream shutting down

So, the most alarming story I've seen in a long time appeared in THE GUARDIAN last week: The Gulf Stream is becoming unstable --slowing down, cooling down.

This wd bring, in the words of their reporter,  "catastrophic consequences around the world".

I think its importance is shown by the immediate response it got from the first three people I shared it with: 

            Oh my God.

Here's the link:

https://www.theguardian.com/environme... 

--John R.

current reading: 

THE WORM OUROBOROS (1922)

 Eaves & Kimpel's Introduction to Richardson's PAMELA (1741)

and (taking lots of notes) the preview of Carl's new book THE NATURE OF MIDDLE-EARTH (2021)

Preview of the new Tolkien book

 So, thanks to friend D. for letting me know about the just-released preview of THE NATURE OF MIDDLE-EARTH, ed. Carl Hostetter (and thanks to T.O.R. for providing the link.  For those of us who can't wait till September, here's a thirty-five page sampling from the book.

https://preview.aer.io/The_Nature_of_Middleearth-NDAxNzU2

I know what I'll be reading on tonight.

--John R.

MFA finalists

So, the Mythopoeic Society has now announced the five finalists for this year's Mythopoeic Award in Inklings Studies:

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inklings StudiesJohn M. Bowers,  Tolkien’s Lost Chaucer  (Oxford University Press, 2019)
Oronzo Cilli,  Tolkien’s Library: An Annotated Checklist  (Luna Press, 2019)
John Garth,  The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien: The Places That Inspired Middle-earth  (Princeton University Press, 2020)
Catherine McIlwaine, ed,  Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth  (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, 2018)
John D. Rateliff, ed,  A Wilderness of Dragons: Essays in Honor of Verlyn Flieger  (Gabbro Head, 2018)

That's an impressive array of interesting books, each of which makes a significant contribution to Tolkien studies, and I'm pleased that a work I contributed to made the list.

For more information, including the nominees for the awards in fantasy studies, fantasy fiction, and fantasy fiction for young readers, see

http://www.mythsoc.org/news/news-2021-08-01.htm

--John R.

--current (re) reading: THE WORM OUROBOROS by E. R. Eddison

Re-Reading Twain

Re-Reading Twain

So, it shd be easy to spot the theme that links my recent reading:

 

TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE

TOM SAWYER ABROAD

HUCK FINN & TOM SAWYER AMONG THE INDIANS
SCHOOLHOUSE HILL

 

I'd read the first two of these years ago, probably not long after I bought a paperback copy combining the two (on Sunday January 12th 1986). I didn't think much of TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE then and don't think much of it now, though the trial scene at the end is interesting to the extent that it shows how far back the 'Perry Mason' tradition (Defense Counsel Explains All) goes. At any rate it's better than the two other detective stories by Twain I've read, "A Two Barreled Detective Story" (which includes a parody/pastiche of Holmes, whom Twain hated, as a character) and PUDD'NHEAD WILSON (which starts with a good idea --twins separated at birth, one raised 'white' and the other 'black'--and utterly fails to do anything with it).

ABROAD isn't much better, but at least it links Twain up with the Poe-Verne runaway balloon tradition.

The third entry, HUCK FINN AND TOM SAWYER AMONG THE INDIANS, I read years ago (as in decades). Back when I was in high school or junior high this is one of the many, many books I read while working as a shoe shine. The edition I hunted down for reading now, on Kindle, prints the start of the novel by Twain which then segues into a much longer continuation and conclusion by a Western writer I've never otherwise heard of: Lee Nelson. His contribution, while interesting for its historical backdrop (something Twain tended to keep vague), isn't anything I'll be needing to read again. The same applies to Twain's fragment as well -- although Twain is my favorite American author* there's a smattering of works by him I've never read, and I'd rather read on them and re-read some favorites than to give this one an undeserved third try.

 

That just leaves SCHOOLHOUSE HILL, the only one of these I don't think I've read --though I've had the book it's in since August 18th 1979,** and despite the fact that I've marked up other sections of the book (which contains three variant texts of Twain's THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER. I was surprised by how good it is. After three duds I was prepared with lowered expectations, but he really came through. Pity he broke off and left this version unfinished.

So I'll certainly need to read the other two alternate versions of the story (posthumously assembled from his papers). I'll probably skim several more Twains I don't think I'll need to keep, I'll definitely be adding other Twains to the read-this-at-last shelves.

--John R.

current viewing; think now's a good time to dig out and re-watch Hal Holbrook's MARK TWAIN TONIGHT.

*some of my favorites of his works including THE LETTERS FROM THE EARTH, THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER, THE DIARY OF ADAM AND EVE, and of course stories like "A Day at Niagra", "His Grandfather's Old Ram",  and "Journalism in Tennessee", not to mention the lecture "Advice to Youth"

**only about a week after I graduated from Magnolia, moved to Fayetteville, and started graduate school:: clearly I picked it up pretty much the first time I was able to get into a bookstore

The Cat Report (Friday July 30th)

We have an especially engaging group of cats in the cat-room right now. In addition to our Two Grey Gentlemen (JEREMIAH and JESSE) we have our calico solitaire KATHERINE, three-month old bundle of energy REMY, and two two-month-old kittens CALLIE and ARIZONA.








I started by giving JESSE* his walk while Jeremiah got to roam around the floor and cat-stand areas inside the room. He did very well, having now mastered the essentials of being out on a walk. He even stayed claim when he had not one but incidents of dogs coming fairly close. It helped that the dogs were small and well-mannered. Then it was JEREMIAH’s turn, and while shy he too showed that he knew the rules and enjoyed the outing —even when in his case at one point he cd see a large (but again well-behaved) dog at the other end of an aisle. Both of our not-quite senior cats got a lot of attention from shoppers. One woman said she’d adopted her cat from Purrfect Pals eight years ago; his name was Silver.
I hadn’t been able to see it last week, but this time I did notice that Jeremiah’s right foreleg trembled when he was out on his walk. Didn’t seem to bother him, but might explain why he’s so cautious in unfamiliar territory. 
Having had about twenty minutes each being the only cat roaming around in the cat room while the other was out on his walk, then reversing that, at the end of about forty minutes Jeremiah and Jesse went back into their cages (a little grudgingly, but that’s not a surprise). 
Time to let the kittens out! Callie and Arizona don’t like being picked up but they love games. The string game was a favorite, though little Arizona came up with a new way  to play it — he pounced on it, bit down on the chain end, and pawed at the string end, all at the same time. Then he’d drag it off to his lair. Callie liked the string game as well but wd happily switch to something else rather than fight him over it. The feather duster, the bee on a wand, and the laser light all got thoroughly pounced on in turn. I experimented with catnip bubbles, which sent one scurrying (Callie?) and the other (Arizona?) interested but wary.
Finally it seemed high time I answered those piteous mews little REMY kept up. He was delighted to be out and playing and pouncy. He doesn’t like to be picked up but he really wants attention — not surprising, given how recently he was with siblings and mother. I split up the room so the two-month olds had the outer room to tear around in, which they did, and the three-month old had the inner room for his fun. He wd mew, purr, play a game, and pounce with apparently endless energy. He’s not so sure about catnip bubbles either. But his motto seems to be ’try every toy at least once’.
Think he and the younger/smaller kittens will find homes quickly.**
Katherine got some petting but didn’t come out. Think starting with her wd have worked better; I’ll give that a try next time around.
There was much mewing again when little Remy finally had to go back in.

—John R. 
*unless I’ve got mixed up who is who among the bonded pair, in which case swop out everything I said about Jesse with everything I say about Jeremiah and vice-versa.**as did Oscarina, Grayson, Hudson, and Imogen

  

Wilding the Dunsany Estate

So thanks to Doug A. for the news that the current Lord Dunsany (the twenty-first baron, great-grandson of the great writer) is  'rewilding' a sizable chunk of Dunsany Castle's extensive grounds. Hence 700 acres of the 1700 acre pasturage is now growing up with trees and native grasses, providing habitat for a wide range of wildlife, from birds to rare Irish bees to badgers. While the baron has banned not just pesticides but also fertilizer and even paths within the Dunsany Natural Preserve, he has allowed a film shoot for a film he has directed, THE GREEN SEA.

The part of the article that interested me most was the bit about his planting trees:

 

 “I walk around today and see large trees planted by someone who never got to see them grow. And in turn, I’m planting trees today that I will never see grow.

“But these trees are not for me, these trees are for the young people around us. 

Partly this moved me because if I had land that's what I'd do with it (mimosa, magnolias, and willows), and partly because the time I got to visit Dunsany Castle back in 1987 the road or drive up to the house was lined with beautiful old trees.* When I praised them, Lord Dunsany (Captain Randal, the nineteenth baron), who was driving, commented that they'd been planted two hundred years before, I think it was, and wd be fully grown in about another twenty years. Americans just don't think in those terms.

Here's the link:

https://www.independent.ie/life/there-have-been-many-death-threats-but-ill-never-stop-randal-plunkett-baron-of-dunsany-on-rewilding-his-family-estate-40672241.html

--John R.

P.S.: One minor correction: while Sir Horace Plunkett is as important as they say, and probably more so, he was not an ancestor of the current baron but his great-grandfather's uncle. 

*my memory says chestnuts, but I don't think that's possible, unless Irish chectnuts survived the blight that wiped out the American chestnut.

Do Wolves Eat People? revisited

 So, in the mini-essay on wargs (wolves) in MR. BAGGINS, part one of THE HISTORY OF THE HOBBIT (2007), I did a little mythbusting:

"Wolves do not, of course, eat people. But legend and folk-belief has maintained otherwise from time immemorial, from Aesop's fable of 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf' [sixth century BC] through fairy-stories like 'Little Red Riding Hood' [seventeenth century French] and 'Peter & the Wolf' to the modern day (Saki's 'Esme' and 'The Intruders', Willa Cather's My Antonia , Bram Stoker's Dracula, and any number of Jack London stories). Perhaps the most famous literary account of a wolf-attack prior to Tolkien's occurs in Defoe's Robinson Crusoe [1719] . . ."       page 216

". . . unlike wolves and eagles, bears really DO eat people -- a fact of which Shakespeare was well aware, hence his famous stage direction for one doomed character: 'Exit, pursued by a bear' (A Winter's Tale, Act III scene iii), followed by a gruesome off=stage mauling as the character is torn limb from limb. The largest land predators, bears maul people every year even today."   page 256

I have recently heard that I may well be in error. According to French Tolkien linguist Damien Bador, and quoted from a recent email with his permission:

There is one point where I need to mention that I believe you’re clearly mistaken. On several occasions, you take pains to stress that wolves only attack people in fairy tales, not in reality. As far as I’m aware, this is quite true for the American wolf, but not so much for the European (and Asian) one. Wolf attacks have been rather well documented in Western Europe since the XVIIth century at least and up to the early XXth century (in fact, France is probably the country with the best historical records, stretching from the 1300s up to 1920 and involving nearly 7600 fatal attacks, according to Wikipedia). In a large number of cases, this was linked to the wolf being rabid (which entirely removes its fear of humans), but there were also a large number of non-rabid wolf attacks recorded. Most victims were isolated children and women, especially during the summer, when people encroached upon the wolves’ territories during their pastoral or agricultural activities. What is probably the most well-known series of attacks involved the “Beast of Gévaudan” in mountains in Central France, which involved roughly a hundred fatal attacks from June 1764 to June 1767. While they might have been caused by several animals, most specialists still consider they were performed by wolves, or possibly wolf-dog hybrids (see the very detailed WP page in French on this topic: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%AAte_du_G%C3%A9vaudan).  

So, it seems that I may have overstated the case. 

Unless Americans are just less tasty than Europeans. 

Thanks to Damien for the corrective.

--John R.

My Favorite Writers Who Aren't Tolkien

So, last week David Bratman had an interesting post on his blog:

https://calimac.dreamwidth.org/1058496.html

The two questions being asked are

(1) who is your second-favorite fantasy writer after Tolkien? * 

(2) who are your two or three favorites among fantasy writers who came after Tolkien ( post-LotR)?

My answer to Question Number One is LORD DUNSANY, without a doubt.

My answers to Question Number Two wd be THE FACE IN THE FROST by John Bellairs, WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams, and I think THE BRIDGE OF BIRDS by Barry Hughart.

If you'd pick a different author or book, feel free to share in the comments

--John R.

current viewing: McCARTNEY 3 2 1

current reading TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE

   *this assumes your next-favorite is fantasy, which is not necess. the case. It also assumes Tolkien is yr favorite, which again may not be the case.

The Ice Cream War

So, I wdn't have guessed that the latest bone of contention to play a part in the slow-motion war in Israel-Palestine would be . . . ice cream?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/20/israel-pm-aggressive-action-ben-jerrys-ban-ice-cream-naftali-bennett-occupied-territories-unilever

--John R.

Brown C-crown Fedoras

So, last week I gave away eleven hats, eight of them brown c-crown fedoras, the other three straw hats (two being fedora-style, the third a wide-brim 'plantation hat*'). I've worn hats for as long as I can remember, and my hat of choice has long been the fedora. I remember being glad when the Indiana Jones movies came out, because they made it easier to find the kind of hat I like (though his are wider of brim than my preferred style). The reason I had so many is that when a hat wears out I retire it and get a new one. Over the years I had built up a considerable stack of old hats atop a row of bookcases down in the boxroom; hats I no longer wear but cdn't bring myself to get rid of.  Janice had suggested donating them to one of the area's theatrical troups for use as props in plays, but then the pandemic hit, complicating everything. In the end, a friend volunteered to take them for use as props in a party game for an end-of-fiscal-year organization. I hope they contribute to an enjoyable event.

It has been interesting just looking over these old hats. The boxes that each hat was stored in bear witness, from the names on the sides, to the sad fact that like a favorite restaurant, a hat shop is not a permanent thing. I had a hat from Donge in Milwaukee's on Old World Third street,** hats from Sacred Feather on State Street in Madison. And I had quite a few hats from Bernie Utze, my favorite of them all, here in Seattle downtown near the Pike Place Market.  

When the last of these went out of business a few years ago I planned ahead and bought three hats, which I thought shd last me a long long time: a hat I wear as my daily hat, a hat to wear when it's raining, and a back-up pristine hat I put aside to take the place of my everyday hat when it wore out somewhere down the line. Beyond that it seems likely that any future hats will probably be selected on-line --not a preferred method but hopefully workable.

Even though I gave away eleven hats, all in one fell swoop, I'm not exactly bereft of hats. In addition to the three Bernie Utz hats described above,  there's my fedora-style straw hat, which is getting a lot of use in this hot, dry summer. There's the straw hat I bought in Hawaii when we visited the rainy part of the Big Island, which endured trips to a volcano, a mountain top, and turtle beaches; one of my most durable hats. There's the handmade crafted hat bought on impulse during a visit to Trout Lake, which looks more like a Shire Hobbit hat and which we haven't actually worn in the year or so since we got them. And finally there's the old brown fedora, one of my all-time favorites, which during all this recent sorting out I decided I'd retired too soon and brought back into service. So that's seven hats I'm keeping.***

Janice, by the way, prefers collapsable hats: easy to carry and put on if the weather changes.

--John R. 

current reading:: Lindop

current viewing: McCartney 3 2 1

 

*a great hat, but not a style I can really pull off.

**where I had the worst shopping experience of my life, after which I quit going there. Janice, who witnessed it as a kind of innocent bystander, said it was funny.

***there's also the Fez, but it's more a roleplaying game prop than a hat I'd actually wear outside, where people might see me.