John D. Rateliff's Blog, page 61

Literary Faces (VI)

So, the clue for this one is 'Gimli'.
--JDR

Kalamazoo ('Valinor in America')

So, today wd have been the first day of Kalamazoo,* had the pandemic not intervened and the Medieval Congress been deferred till next year. And I wd have given my presentation by now as part of the first set of sessions starting at ten o'clock this morning.

The title of the session I wd have been part of is

'Medieval World-Building: Tolkien, His Precursors and Legacies'

The papers making up this session, which wd have been moderated by Kristine Swank, were

• 'Tolkien, Robin Hood, and the Matter of the Greenwood' by Perry Neil Harrison
• 'Tolkien's Golden Trees and Silver Leaves: Do Writers Build the Same World for Every Reader?' by Luke Shelton,
• 'Infinity War of the Ring: Parallels between the Conflict within Sauron and Thanos' by Jeremy Byrum, and

• 'Valinor in America: Faerian Drama and the Disenchantment of Middle-earth' by myself.

I still need to do a lot on my piece, though I'd already written enough to fill my allotted time; when I get done with my current deadline I need to get back to work on this.


--John R.

*that is, not counting the Tolkien Seminar, held each year the Wednesday before the conference officially starts, adjacent to the official event but not part of it.

Literary Faces (V)

So, here's another. Possibly the best novelist of them all, yet shown here is one of only two contemporary depictions we have of her.

--JDR

3.06 am

So, last night (or early this morning, depending on how you look at it), Janice woke me to see the fire. Or, to be specific, the plume of smoke from the fire. It was a few blocks away and we were in no danger, but we cdn't tear ourselves away for the next ninety minutes or so, watching it through the upstairs windows and for  brief time out on the deck.

We didn't have a clear line of sight, so we didn't see the fire itself --that is, the flames-- only the smoke, illuminated by the lights from the fire trucks and first responders, the latter of whom twice walked the perimeter.* But there was a LOT of smoke, and it lasted a surprisingly long time. We weren't sure what building it was that was on fire, but eventually settled on one of the apartment buildings near the pond the other side of the elementary school as likeliest, or perhaps one of the school's outbuildings. If the latter, as Janice pointed out, it wd mean fewer people endangered or at risk of losing everything in their home.

It turns out it was the school after all, specifically, the gym, which is the part of Neely-O'Brien the furthest from our building.

https://komonews.com/news/local/2-alarm-fire-burns-gyms-roof-at-kent-elementary-school

Eventually we went to bed. It's not like we were blase, but it had quickly become clear we were in no danger, thanks to the large grassy field separating us from the school's playground, on the far side of which was the school itself. Plus there's only so long you can stand in the dark peering at something you can't see clearly. The cats, for their part, weren't upset by the activity or smell of smoke but clearly wondered wha we were doing up at such an hour, and followed us from room to room, keeping an eye on us to see what else we might do.

Today we took a walk by the site, and except for several emergency vehicles of various types and a hole in the roof at one place you cd go right by past it and never know about the previous night's excitement.

--John R.

*having seen how bright the fire fighters' flashlights were, we now have superbright flashlight envy.

Literary Faces (IV)

So, here's quite possibly the twentieth century's best novelist. At any rate she'd get my vote.







--JDR

My Favorite Crustacean

So, for a while there on our daily walks I've spotted at least one, and sometimes as many as three, roly-polies. I've always liked roly-polies: if I had a terrarium, that's what I'd have it in.






I recently found that (1) they're terrestrial crustaceans and (2) despite their similarity in appearance are not related to trilobites.

A close second would be crawdads, which wd require an aquarium, they being aquatic but freshwater crustaceans who mostly inhabited big, persistent puddles. I don't think they live in these parts --at least I don't see the little mudball towers they build to retreat to in dry weather.  I remember them best from our time at Fordyce (when I was in third grade).





It's be nice to have some around, but it wd be just asking for trouble to introduce an aquarium or terrarium into a household with two young, energetic, resourceful small predators (the cats).

--John R
current reading: LAVONDYSS by Rbt Holdstock (1988)

Literary Faces (III)

So, here's someone with a famous name but not a famous face.



--John R.

Literary Faces (II)

So, here's another photo of a famous writer. The last one got identified right away; I'm curious to see how long it'll take for this one.









--John R.

The New Arrivals (Vaninskaya and Doyle)

So, the newest Tolkien-related books to arrive are UTOPIAN AND DYSTOPIAN THEMES IN TOLKIEN'S LEGENDARIUM by Mark Doyle (on Th 4/15) and FANTASIES OF TIME AND DEATH: DUNSANY, EDDISON, TOLKIEN by Anna Vaninskaya (on Friday the 24th). Both are moderately pricey hardcovers, the Doyle from Lexington Books --their first Tolkien-themed title so far as I know, though they do have a call for papers out for a collection of essays on TOLKIEN AND THEOLOGY* --the Vaninskaya from Palgrave, which has what is by now a well-established line of Tolkien titles (Fimi, Chance, Rosebury, Coutras, Lee & Solopova).

I'm reading the Doyle now, after which comes the Eddison/Dunsany/Tolkien book. I found out not long ago that there's never been a book on Eddison, astonishing as that is; not even one of those little Borgo Press booklets. So here's hoping this volume may help fill that sizable gap in fantasy studies. And as a self-proclaimed Dunsany scholar (one of the few out there) I'm particularly interested in seeing what the TIME AND DEATH book has to say about Dunsany's work. Also, a quick glance at the Tolkien chapter --seventy-five pages pages of text of which fifteen are notes--suggests that she may be a kindred spirit to my own heavily noted style of scholarship.


ADDENDUM: While I was drafting this piece the Tupelo honey we'd ordered arrived --twenty pounds' worth, or about a year's supply.  So make that three new arrivals, not just two:








It joins the ten pounds' worth we still had in the cupboard left over from last year's stockpile. Pity it doesn't grow around here but it can only be found on and around the Florida panhandle.**

--today's music: ELO's "Suite for a Rainy Day"
--current reading: NET EFFECT (Wells), TREASURE ISLAND (Stevenson)


* https://popularcultureandtheology.com/2020/02/15/call-for-papers-theology-and-tolkien/

**for a little more about Tupelo honey, check out the L. L. Lanier website

https://www.lltupelohoney.com/ourproduct.cfm

Literary Faces (I)

Back in my Marquette days as a TA (Teaching Assistant) I used to enjoy putting pictures of famous writers up on my office door. I found it interesting to contrast my preconception of what the writer of some significant work looked like with what he or she really looked like.

So I thought it might be fun to post a series of photographs or portraits of famous writers to see if folks cd recognize who they were. Some will be obvious, others less so.

Here's writer #1:






I'll post the answer in a few days in the comments.

--JDR
--current reading: NETWORK EFFECT by Martha Wells (2020), UTOPIAN AND DYSTOPIAN THEMES IN TOLKIEN'S LEGENDARIUM by Mark Doyle (2020)