John D. Rateliff's Blog, page 51

In Praise of Walter Hooper

So, today came the sad news that Walter Hooper, for many years the literary editor of the C. S. Lewis estate, has died. 

He led a good long life  --he was just a little shy of ninety-- and was one of those people whose work is also their advocation. 

No other single person had a greater effect on Lewis's posthumous publications, many of which Hooper edited. 

His passing marks a milestone, another loss in a year of losses. 

Here's a little poem I wrote in his honor several years back (2008) when he was given an lifetime achievement award by the Wade Center:

How pleasant to meet Walter Hooper

Whose editing work has been super

-lative. Eight thousand pages

Of the Magdalen sage's

Thoughts on paper, now preserved for the ages.

 

But oh how pleasant to sit over tea

And talk of good books and of good company

He, with his "soft-spoken Southern courtesy"†

And I, with ears wide open.

 

--JDR 

†the phrase is Tolkien's

  

BBC Lovecraft

So, thanks to Andrew Higgins for sharing the news that BBC Radio Four has been broadcasting adaptations of stories by H. P. Lovecraft. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06spb8w/episodes/downloads

They've adapted three stories so far under the general rubic 'The Lovecraft Investigation', each composed of eight to ten episodes:

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (November 2018, ten episodes)

The Whisperer in Darkness (November 2019, nine episodes)

The Shadow Over Innsmouth (November 2020, eight episodes, plus three bonus episodes)

 The set-up, from what I've listened to so far, is that our two main characters (editor Matthew Heawood and reporter Kennedy Fisher) investigate mysteries with sinister occult overtones. Their podcast, dubbed 'Mystery Machine', is made up of phone messages, audiotaped interviews, and bits of found footage. Purists shd note that the radio program freely adapts Lovecraft's stories, as well as recasting them into the modern era. Thus when Kennedy, one of our two heroes, goes looking for the site where the sinister Dr. Allen had carried out his experiments she finds not the ancestral Curwen Home but a derelict trailer park.

So far I've been enjoying these and I'm looking forward to hearing the rest. I'm curious what the next story adapted will be -- The Dunwich Horror, perhaps?

--John R.

--current reading: RIDERS ON PEGASUS (long poem, by Owen Barfield).

The Northmoor Road Project

 So, just as C. S. Lewis's home, The Kilns, has in recent years been turned into a residential hall and study center devoted to preserving the Lewis brothers' legacy, now it's Tolkien's turn:

https://www.projectnorthmoor.org

The idea of Tolkien's house being preserved is encouraging. And who wdn't want to have the opportunity to attend "a programme of retreats, writing seminars and other cultural events", either onsite or online?

The fear of course is that they'll go too cutesy, of which there are some hints in the initial announcement  (e.g. build yr own hobbit-hole in the garden). Though Tolkien himself might approve of the garden (yard) being restored (though it looks quite nice as is from the glimpses offered in the various views accompanying the online stories).

programme of retreats, writing seminars and other cultural events, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/03/campaign-to-buy-jrr-tolkien-house-backed-by-lord-of-the-rings-actors-ian-mckellen-martin-freeman

I was a little surprised that of the dozen people who show up in the promo film embedded in the link above I recognized only five: McKellan, Rhys-Davies, Freeman, Jacobi, and Lennox. The other seven I don't know, though the last of them seems to be children's author Julia Golding, who seems to be the driving force behind the project.

Also, I don't do much crowdsourcing (just the occasional Kickstarter), but isn't it unusual for a crowdsourcing project that doesn't make its goal to just keep what money they do raise? 

https://people.com/home/lord-of-the-rings-stars-quest-to-save-the-home-of-author-jrr-tolkien/?fbclid=IwAR2KeIoLb1exwugJBB000iRn1c5nfzHyBh1vwejhNupf8R4IplIkXt-8X8E

Thanks to Janice for the link.

--John R.

The Barfield Event

So, today Signum University hosted a 75 minute event celebrating the publication of a new collection of plays and long poems by Owen Barfield. The presenters include Barfield's grandson (whom I'd corresponded with but not met), who gave a fairly detailed outline of his grandfather's thought; Leslie A. Taylor and Jefferey H. Taylor, co-editors of the new book; David Blakeley, the book's publisher; and moderator Gabriel Schenk. 

The whole presentation is now up on You-Tube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhvYvHA-ArI

While the presentation seemed to me a bit unfocused I enjoyed it --there aren't many Barfield scholars out there and it's always interesting to find out what they've been working on.  Unfortunately, no doubt due to time constraints they discussed only the title piece.

The full contents of the book are three long poems (THE TOWER, THE UNICORN, and RIDERS ON PEGASUS) and four plays, three of them forming a trilogy called ANGELS AT BAY and the fourth a standalone piece called MEDEA. 

THE TOWER is a metaphoric one, neither the Dark Tower of Lewis's unfinished novel nor Tolkien's allegorical tower built of old stone. An ambitious undertaking on Barfield's part (originally written circa 1922, rewritten circa 1926-27), part autobiography I suspect and part his personal analogue to Wordsworth's THE PRELUDE. Unfortunately I don't think it fully came off. Of the two other long poems collected here,  I've read one: RIDERS ON PEGASUS, although the version I read was called THE MOTHER OF PEGASUS.* The other, THE UNICORN, is altogether unknown to me. On the whole I think Barfield's plays are better than his poems; he's better at dialogue than verse. ANGELS AT BAY I got to read years ago, thanks to the Wade Collection's Chris Mitchell, and quite liked. MEDEA Is the one I've been waiting for -- we've known for years that it was read to the Inklings back in 1944 (see LETTERS OF JRRT, p. 103) -- so I'm really looking forward to reading this one.**

So, it's rare that we get new never-before-published Barfield. To get such a substantial (over three hundred pages) collection is a boon to Barfield fans and shd interest those interested in the Inklings beyond just Lewis and Tolkien as well.

And now to read . . . 

--John R.

current reading: THE TOWER by Owen Barfield, ADRIFT ON THE HAUNTED SEAS by Wm Hope Hodgson, ed. Douglas A. Anderson.

*A bound photocopy of this book used to be on the available-for-checkout shelves of the Wheaton College Library; I suspect it had been created to be used in a class by Clyde Kilby. At any rate, when I discovered this I checked it out and photocopied the whole thing page by page, then spiral bound the results into a booklet that has been on my Barfield shelf ever since.

**For some reason the editors date this work to the 1970s

Richard West, R. I. P.

 One of my oldest and closest friends died today from the covid virus. 

A modest and kindly man, I don't think Richard ever realized that he was one of the best of the best of Tolkien scholars.

I will miss him terribly.

Rest in peace.

The Cat Report (Fr. 11/27-20)

Here's a quick update on our current crop of cats.
POPPY SEED and CHIA CAT, the bonded pair of half-grown kittens, are still with us. They’ve overcome most of their shyness and come out right away to make the place their own, playing every kind of game offered to them. POPPY SEED (the black one) loves to get his teeth in a toy and then drag it off to his lair. CHIA loves being petted almost as much as she enjoys playing with her sister. Both come and go in and out of Maya’s place without a second though.
The three new kittens (WALLY, GUS GUS, and FIONA) follow the recent pattern of arriving and being adopted within a day or two, so they were already gone off to their new homes. 
Mother cat MAYA (who’s only a year old herself) is adjusting to being on her own. She’s shy about coming out but loves being petted in her cage. It helps that she has the great big cage which offers lots of shelves to look out in several directions. She let me pick her up and carry her out of her cage but always went back in again when opportunity presented itself. Ninety minutes into my shift she came out to explore on her own and thoroughly checked out the inner room. She poked her head into the outer room a few times but declined to venture into the kitten-playing zone.

Nobody was up for a walk, but everyone got attention and a chance to stretch like only kittens and young cats can do and show off their pouncing.
—John R.

 

THE DARK TOWER and A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS

So, I've been reading (or more accurately re-reading) a number of books by  David Lindsay, whose first and most famous book, A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS, celebrates its centenary this year. And I was struck by something I had previously passed over without its drawing my attention: a striking parallel between  Lindsay's book and Lewis's THE DARK TOWER. Lewis openly confessed his debt to Lindsay, particularly to OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET, but I don't think I've seen anyone extend the influence to include the final, unfinished fourth book of the Ransom series. 

I'm all tied up with other projects right now, but if I were going to write this up I'd focus on one of the most striking things in A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS. Lindsay's work is famous for the way his protagonist grows new organs and appendages once he enters the alien world, the first of which is a breve, described as "something hard on his forehead . . . a fleshy protuberance, the size of a small plum, having a cavity in the middle, of which he could not feel the bottom" (VtA.44) 

This is strongly paralleled by what happens to Lewis's hero:  when Scudamour jumps through the chronoscope, switches places with his double, and arrives in the Otherworld, he acquires a sting growing out of his forehead: "It was broad at the base and narrowed quickly to its point, so that its total shape was rather like that of a thorn on a rose-branch . . . It was hard and horny, but not like bone . . . and . . . [d]ripping with poison" (DT.33). But where Maskull's breve granted him telepathy, The Stingerman's sting converts those he attacks with it into automatons. 

In addition to this major point of the appearance of otherworldly organs on the forehead, three other paralleled elements between Lewis's unfinished work and Lindsay's odd masterpiece might be worth exploring.

First,  the seance that opens Lindsay's book, along with the materialization of a being from the other world into our own, parallels the projection of images from another world that opens Lewis's. MacPhee even has an exchange with Orfieu about the validity or otherwise of psychical research.  

Second, there's the image of the Tower that so dominates Lewis's story, while a similar tower frames Lindsay's work, appearing first as the Observatory early in the book, then reappearing as Krag's tower at the story's climax, containing the long sought for route into the true world, Muspel. 

Third, it might be worthwhile to do something with the theme of doubles: Maskull and Nightspore in Lindsay's book (so that one cannot appear until the other is gone) and Scudamour/the Stingerman in Lewis's.

As I said, I'm too absorbed in something else to write this up and develop the argument. And besides, I've already had my say about THE DARK TOWER in my essay on the interrelations between Lewis's Ransom books, esp the first and fourth one) and Tolkien's two time travel stories.* And I've also already said pretty much what I had to say about A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS.**

On the other hand, if anybody has explored / developed the DARK TOWER / VOYAGE  TO ARCTURUS parallels and I just missed teir piece,*** I'd be happy if someone points me to it.

--John R.

*this appeared in TOLKIEN'S LEGENDARIUM, an unofficial festschrift for Christopher Tolkien (2000)

**in my online monthly column CLASSICS OF FANTASY: Lindsay's strange masterpiece was the focus of the sixth essay (January 2003). It's no longer up on the Wizard's site but can still be found online with a bit of internet searching

***I think I've read all the scholarship on DARK TOWER, but you never know

William Hope Hodgson: The RPG

So, here's something I had on Kickstarter which has now arrived: the new rpg based on the Sargasso Sea stories of Wm Hope Hodgson. Called GREY SEAS ARE DREAMING MY DEATH, it draws on such classics as "The Voice in the Night" and "The Derelict" to craft a horror-at-sea game. I've now skimmed this but haven't looked at it in detail because (a) I definitely want to play this but (b) one of the other people in my gaming group may opt to run it,* (c) in which case I wdn't want to know any spoilers. But (d) I may wind up running it if no one else wants to be Captain (i.e., DM).

It looks like one of those games with a v. narrow focus, which is what you want in a specialty themed rpg such as this one. I hope they've captured the theme of doomed pluck that is so distinctively Hodgsonian, while at the same time introducing some more readers and gamers to one of the greats (and one of the most overlooked of authors of his era who deserve to be called great).

It staggers me that forty-plus years on from D&D there's still no rpg based on Hodgson's masterpiece, THE NIGHT LAND.** They've borrowed a few monsters Hodgson's other works (HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND, the end-of-time NIGHT LAND); a closer look shd tell whether they've successfully integrated this into their late nineteenth/early twentieth century sea setting. One way or the other I'm looking forward to finding out.

--John R.

*This is made all the more probable when I found out tonight that three of the seven people in our Monday night game backed the Kickstarter.

**I initially thought DARK SUN wd be that world but was sadly disappointed to discover it was an uberConan setting instead. 

Modernism and the Kitten

So, a while back Janice shared the clip below with me, and I thought it encapsulated what T. S. Eliot was trying to say in the final section of THE HOLLLOW MEN (1925):

Between the idea 

And the reality

Between the motion 

And the act

Falls the Shadow

https://twitter.com/akkitwts/status/1302218632617844736?lang=en

--JDR

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid

 So, I had kind of tuned out news about the Tolkien tv series currently in the works, feeling detached from the project once I realized that I was not their target audience (as opposed to the Peter Jackson movies, which I followed closely from v. early on). Which is why I initially missed the announcement that the people working on the Amazon project are looking to hire extras "comfortable with nudity".*  And that they have hired an 'Intimacy Coordinator' to oversee sex-scenes to make sure actors and actresses appearing in them are treated respectfully.

Nude extras is one thing -- say for example a shot of the elves awakening at Cuivienen (I doubt if they were created fully clothed). Hiring an Intimacy Coordinator sends a different kind of message: that this series will be less Peter Jackson and more Game of Thrones. That's not surprising, but it is disappointing.

For a rumination on the issue of nudity in the new series, see the following post from www.theonering.net:

https://www.theonering.net/torwp/2020/10/06/108573-sex-sensibility-amazons-nude-take-on-tolkien/

--John R.

--current reading: LINDBURGH by Scott Berg, a light novel, and David Lindsay's THE WITCH

*BEYOND BREE, Nov. 2020 issue, page 10