Parma-kenta: 2015

Sunday, 13 December 2015

November 2015

All the usual disclaimers apply about newness, completeness and relevance (or any other implication of responsibility) :-)

These transactions are posted on my blog, Parma-kenta (Enquiry into the books) and on the Tolkien Society web-site.

This month it has suited my purposes to sort the contents under the following headlines:
1: News
2: Events
3: Essays and Scholarship
4: Commentary
5: Reviews and Book News
6: Interviews
7: Tolkienian Artwork
8: Other Stuff
9: Rewarding Discussions
10: Web Sites
11: The Blog Roll
12: Sources

Tuor
by Jenny Dolfen
Available this month in high resolution at Patreon.com for Jenny's patreons.

Daniel Helen, The Tolkien Society, Tuesday, 3 November 2015, ‘Collection of Tolkien family letters and photographs on sale’
For a collector with a quarter of a million pounds to spare ...

The Independent, Saturday, 7 November 2015, ‘At Dixie Forum, Dr. Bradford Lee Eden discusses J. R. R. Tolkien’
Quoting from this article, “During his Dixie Forum presentation, Eden will not only discuss Tolkien in relation to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings but will also look at Tolkien’s work as a medievalist and philologist and examine his theory of sub-creation. Additionally, Eden will talk about the concept of music throughout Tolkien's writings.”

Shaun Gunner, The Tolkien Society, Monday, 16 November 2015, ‘The Hobbit is one of the most expensive first editions’
With The Hobbit coming in third and The Lord of the Rings coming in sixth. And these are, presumably, not even special first editions ...

Alexandru Micu, ZME Science, Friday, 20 November 2015, ‘Cave dwelling arachnid named after Tolkien's character’
On the naming of a new species of harvestman found in a cave in Brazil, Iandumoema Smeagol.
See also David Bratman, The Tolkien Society, Monday, 23 November 2015, ‘seeking rapport with Colbert’
Stephen Colbert, host on The Late Show, criticised the naming of the harvestman, showing the limits of his Tolkien knowledge in the process. David Bratman is careful to point out where Mr Colbert is wrong.

Events

Reports from past events
10 - 13 September 2015, St Antony's College, Oxford, ‘ Oxonmoot 2015’, The Tolkien Society
Daniel Helen, The Tolkien Society, Sunday, 8 November 2015, ‘Oxonmoot 2015 in Videos’

29 October 2015, Weston Library, Oxford, ‘Tolkien's Legacy’
Daniel Helen, The Tolkien Society, Wednesday, 11 November 2015, ‘Video of “The Lord of the Rings: Tolkien's Legacy” event released’
MUST SEE!

6-8 November 2015, Maritim Hotel, Bonn, Germany, ‘RingCon 2015’, RingCon
Incidentally, it seems that there will be no RingCon in 2016.
Jenny Dolfen, Monday, 9 November 2015, ‘Ring*Con 2015’

14 November 2015, University of Leicester, ‘60 Years of The Lord of the Rings, and Panel Discussion: ‘What's the Point of Fantasy Fiction?’’

Info on upcoming events (as of 1 December)
5 December 2015, Birmingham, ‘Yulemoot 2015, The Tolkien Society
Shaun Gunner, The Tolkien Society, Tuesday, 6 October 2015, ‘Join the Tolkien Society for Yulemoot 2015 – 5th December in Birmingham’

Nerdanel
by Jenny Dolfen

3 January 2016, International, ‘Tolkien Birthday Toast 2016’, The Tolkien Society – save the date!!

8-10 January 2016, Madingley Hall, Cambridge, ‘Tolkien's amazing world: understanding Middle-earth and how it came to be’, University of Cambridge, Institute of Continuing Education
Daniel Helen, The Tolkien Society, Monday, 9 November 2015, ‘Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education running Tolkien course this January’

5 March 2016, Pembroke College, Cambridge, UK, ‘Minas Tirith Smial Annual Dinner’, Minas Tirith, the Cambridge Tolkien Society

21 - 25 March 2016, Seattle, WA, USA, ‘PCA/ACA National Conference, PCA/ACA’

24 March 2016, Oslo, Norway, ‘ArtheCon 2016’, Arthedain

25 March 2016, Worldwide, ‘Tolkien Reading Day, The Tolkien Society’

8–9 April 2016, University of Vermont, USA, ‘Tolkien in Vermont 2016’, Tolkien Club of University of Vermont
Anna Smol, Monday, 19 October 2015, ‘CFP: Tolkien in Vermont 2016’

28 May 2016, East Yorkshire, ‘Tolkien Tour: East Yorkshire’, The Tolkien Society

17 - 19 June 2016, Leiden | Den Haag, ‘Lustrum 2016: Unlocking Tolkien, Unquendor – The Dutch Tolkien Society’

18-20 July 2016, University of Bamberg, Bavaria, Germany, ‘International Conference on Medievalism – 2016: Tradition or Myth’, International Society for the Study of Medievalism &ndash: I am not sure if there will be anything specifically Tolkienian at this conference, but looking at the theme of the 2016 conference, I would very much expect that Tolkien will be mentioned ... more than once.

September? 2016, Oxford, ‘Oxonmoot 2016’, The Tolkien Society — an Oxonmoot will be held ...

Essays and Scholarship

Jyrki Korpua, Tuesday, 3 November 2015, ‘Constructive Mythopoetics in J. R. R. Tolkien's Legendarium’
A doctoral dissertation from the University of Oulo, which “discusses constructive mythopoetics in J. R. R. Tolkien’s legendarium, the mythopoetic logics and elements on which Tolkien’s texts and his fantasy world are constructed. I would love to have been able to say more than what is in the readily available abstract (see the linked site above), and the full dissertation can indeed be downloaded from this site, but my time has not allowed me to go through the dissertation yet.

Faramir
by Jenny Dolfen

Robin Anne Reid, Wednesday, 4 November 2015, ‘Praising or Burying Tolkien’
Reacting to the on-line publication of an essay by Ursula K. Le Guin (given as a talk in 2000), Robin Reid takes a look at the positive aspect of the critical (in the broad sense) treatment of Tolkien in particular and science fiction and fantasy in general. Both views are, in a sense, true, and neither aspect can be ignored in any attempt at a balanced treatment of the history of the critical and academic treatment. Make sure to also read the comments, which are unusually good.

Karl E.H. Seigfried, Friday, 6 November 2015, ‘The Battle of Maldon’
A translation of the poem into prose by Karl Seigfried. The poem is the basis for both Tolkien's own alliterative poem, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son (which deals with the aftermath of the battle), and for his essay on ofermod. Having a modern translation and explanation readily available may be a good companion to the explanation available in e.g. Tree and Leaf.

David Bratman, Saturday, 7 November 2015, ‘Report from Gondolin’
Bratman explains about a theory on the history of arts, a theory which he calls ‘the hidden city’. This post appears to be, at least in part, a reaction to the post by Robin Reid referenced above, with Bratman attempting a more balanced view.

Daniel Helen, The Tolkien Society, Tuesday, 10 November 2015, ‘Tolkien's annotated map of Middle-earth transcribed’
Following up on last month's news about a copy of the Middle-earth map annotated by both J.R.R. Tolkien and Pauline Baynes for the use of Baynes when she made her own Middle-earth map, here is a high-resolution transcribed version of the map.

Haleth
by Jenny Dolfen

Norbert Schürer, Los Angeles Review of Books, Friday, 13 November 2015, ‘Tolkien Criticism Today’
In this article, Norbert Schürer critiques current Tolkien criticism, claiming that “the field of Tolkien studies is in a sad state.” Having introduced the field as caught between two views of Tolkien (that are presented at somewhat opposing or inconsistent), “the difficult litterateur and the successful populist”, Schürer moves on to more specific criticism through the vehicle of exemplifying his views by exemplifying from seven recent works in the field.
Schürer points out that while “[m]uch criticism features weak, underdeveloped arguments or poor writing,” other work make convincing arguments, but fail in making it clear why the critical analysis is significant – it fails to enhance our understanding of Tolkien and / or his work (Schürer mentions Tolkien's work, the addition of the author himself is mine). Schürer also points out some of the areas of Tolkien studies, such as e.g. comparison and influence studies, as having traps that many scholars fall into, making it necessary to be extra aware when working in these areas. But it is not all bad; besides the greats (both in terms of individual scholars and publications such as Mythlore and Tolkien Studies), Schürer also finds much to commend in some of the recent work, most significantly in Lee's (ed.) Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien and in parts of Tolkien: The Forest and the City (Conrad-O'Briain & Hynes, eds.), which, in Schürer's mind may indicate a future of Tolkien studies that is “not entirely bleak.”
Naturally, Schürer's critical review has caused some consternation in Tolkienian circles, but without committing to a view of Tolkien studies as a whole, I have to agree with much of the criticism Schürer offers – we do see far too much criticism that is weak and undedeveloped; or doesn't enhance our understanding (or appreciation) of Tolkien or his work; or tries to monopolise Tolkien for a specific cause; or merely tries to use Tolkien to preach to the choir. I would also agree with Schürer that these problems are particularly prominent within the areas that he identifies. Part of the problem may also be that the field is not just an academic field – amateurs (including myself!) contribute to the body of Tolkien studies, and while some of this is on par with the best of academic work (I need only mention the likes of Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond), most is not. This sets up a situation where the larger field is bottom-heavy in terms of quality, which may influence also the academic sub-set of the field.
See also Luke Baugher, Tom Hillman & Dominic J. Nardi, Jr., Mythgard Institute, Wednesday, 18 November 2015, ‘Tolkien Criticism Unbound: A response to Norbert Schürer’
Unfortunately this response in itself demonstrates some of the problems that Schürer points out simply by missing the point. This does not necessarily mean that the points the authors raise are false, but they do not address the criticism that Schürer raises.

Commentary

Sarah Galo, The Guardian, Monday, 9 November 2015, ‘Margaret Atwood: 'In Tolkien, there are hardly any women at all'’
A pity, really, that a few brief lines should be elevated to the headline of an interview that is really about Atwood's own authorship. I do wonder which two of the female characters of The Lord of the Rings Atwood remembers – there are quite a few more than the two she remembers (besides Shelob). I have speculated about the conundrum of Tolkien's female characters; while commenters very often exaggerate (like Atwood), the gender imbalance is real (just see the statistics page at Emil Johansson's LotR Project site), and it seems to me that Tolkien often either idealises or trivialises his female characters, whereas the male characters (possibly because there are so many more of them) also get to show a more realistic kind of heroism.

Michael Martinez, Thursday, 26 November 2015, ‘Taboo Tolkien: The Nordicist Claim on Middle-earth Refuted’

Concerning Hobbits
by Joe Gilronan

In his update to this post, Martinez makes the purpose of the post very clear: “to produce an article that would rank highly in search results for queries about Tolkien and Nordicism.” This purpose has been achieved – at the moment of writing (2015-12-13) the post at the top of the search results on Google and third on Yahoo and Bing. The post also puts a selection of Tolkien's actual words in a top-ranking search results, which is a good thing. It is a pity that this seems to have been achieved at the cost of a coherent and well-developed argument (he acknowledges himself that it is digressive), but such may be the needs of search-engine optimisation, of which Martinez is certainly an expert.

Anna Smol, Friday, 27 November 2015, ‘Tolkien's nod to the medieval homage ritual in LotR’
Anna Smol wanted to post some of the images, she had used for her paper at the Tolkien 2005 conference, not least in relation to the current sale of the proceedings (see below). Smol of course also takes the opportunity to say a bit more about the topic, and to expand on parts of the imagery, invoking a medieval homage ritual.

Reviews and Book News

Shaun Gunner, The Tolkien Society, Monday, 2 November 2015, ‘Now available for £10: Celebrating 50 years of The Lord of the Rings’
The proceedings from the 2005 conference, The Ring Goes Ever On is now being sold for only £10 from the Tolkien Society. In addition to the many excellent papers by respected scholars, one of the great things about such proceedings as these is that they bring together a large variety of approaches and perspectives on Tolkien and his work. This is well worth the price – including overseas postage!
See also Francesca Barbini, Sci-fi & Fantasy Network, Tuesday, 3 November 2015, ‘Tolkien 2005: The Ring Goes Ever On’
Anna Smol, Sunday, 8 November 2015, ‘Tolkien 2005 Proceedings on sale’

Jason Fisher, Wednesday, 4 November 2015, ‘A new review of my book — from a surprising reviewer!’
Jason Fisher's book (as editor), Tolkien and the Study of His Sources, has been reviewed in The Journal of Inklings Studies (Vol. 5, No. 2, October 2015). What Fisher finds surprising is a combination of a very well-written review and it being written by an unknown undergraduate. Like Fisher, I will look forward to, hopefully, seeing more work in and on Tolkien studies from Faith Liu.

Samwise the Gardner
by Joe Gilronan

John D. Rateliff, Journal of Tolkien Research, Saturday, 7 November 2015, ‘The Hobbit Party (2014) by Jonathan Witt and Jay W. Richards’
Regular readers will know that I have discussed this book previously – not because I have read the book, but because I have read what the authors have written on-line, describing their work and conclusions. Based on this, I have not been kind, but have accused the authors of trying to press-gang Tolkien into supporting their own political agenda. Having said this (perhaps even repeated it too often), I admit that I am thankful to see that conclusion shared by John Rateliff in this review of the actual book. He does find som small lights in the darkness (my phrase), but these seem unrelated to the points the authors wish to make. This is not Tolkien research, or Tolkien studies, or Tolkien scholarship of any kind – this is mere political propaganda attempting to hijack Tolkien (again, this is my phrasing, not Rateliff's).

Anna Smol, Wednesday, 11 November 2015, ‘Approaches to Teaching Tolkien's LotR has arrived (for real this time)’
On the arrival of the book, Approaches to Teaching Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and other works edited by Leslie Donovan. Smol has an essay in part two of the book, but she also provides an overview of the contents as well as scans of the full table of contents. Very interesting book!

John Houghton, Journal of Tolkien Research, Friday, 13 November 2015, ‘Tolkien's Intellectual Landscape (2015) by E.L. Risden’
Another excellent review in the open, on-line Journal of Tolkien Research
. This time John Houghton has reviewed the recent Tolkien's Intellectual Landscape by E.L. Risden. Despite a few weaknesses, Houghton finds the book “easy to commend” and is “glad to own” it. An excellent review, and certainly one that puts the book on to my wish list.

Helcaraxë
by Jenny Dolfen

Daniel Helen, Friday, 13 November 2015, ‘Volume 5 of Journal of Inklings Studies published’
Announcing volume 5 of the journal and listing the contents, while noting pieces with a direct relation to Tolkien. The latter category includes works by Nelson Goering (on the metre of three of Tolkien's alliterative poems) and William Simpson (on Saruman's science), and the review by Faith Liu of Tolkien and the Study of His Sources mentioned by Jason Fisher (see above).

Wayne Hammond, Sunday, 15 November 2015, ‘Oxford Companion to Children's Literature’
Wayne Hammond reviews the new edition of The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature. In addition to more general comments (and citing other reviews), Hammond comments more extensively on the entries on Pauline Baynes, Arthur Ransome, and J.R.R. Tolkien, all of whom Hammond is an expert on.

Medievalist.net, Sunday, 15 November 2015, ‘Why Tolkien's Beowulf is an ‘amazing book but a terrible translation’’
Reporting, quoting, and paraphrasing the current Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, Andy Orchard, this article summarises from a talk Orchard gave in Toronto on ‘Tolkien’s Beowulf and Lessons from History’ where Orchard called Tolkien's prose Beowulf, which was published last year, ‘a horrible, horrible, horrible translation’, while insisting also that the notes published alongside Tolkien's translation are ‘brilliant’.

Interviews

Nellas is Brought Before Thingol
by Jenny Dolfen

Patrick Curry, Journal of Tolkien Research, Wednesday, 4 November 2015, ‘Patrick Curry interview with Tom Shippey’
description

Lauren Sarner, Inverse, Tuesday, 24 November 2015, ‘Jane Johnson, publisher of Tolkien and George R.R. Martin’
Jane Johnsen has, among many other things, been at George Allen & Unwin Publishers, where she became the editor with special responsibility for the Tolkien list. In this interview, she describes her career, including a number of experiences with more or less direct relations to Tolkien.

Tolkienian Artwork

Joe Gilronan, Monday, 2 November 2015, ‘Goodbye Gandalf’
This must surely be Bilbo leaving Bag End and saying goodbye to the old wizard.

Joe Gilronan, Tuesday, 10 November 2015, ‘The Road to Bree’
I rather like the mixture of the familiar Shire-holes with something else in this picture, though I am not entirely sure what Middle-earth location it is supposed to depict ... presumably somewhere in Bree-land.

Ted Nasmith, Tuesday, 10 November 2015, ‘Autrou and the Woods Witch’
And illustration of a scene from Tolkien's Lay of Aotrou and Itroun. It is absolutely wonderful to see illustrations of more of Tolkien's non-Middle-earth works. Thank you, Ted Nasmith, for this!
for this, ‘Itroun Waits in Vain’
And for this, still from the same day: ‘Aotrou Pursues the White Deer’

Joe Gilronan, Monday, 23 November 2015, ‘Concerning Hobbits’
description

Old Tom Bombadil
Had a Merry Wedding
by Jenny Dolfen

Joe Gilronan, Tuesday, 24 November 2015, ‘A Visit From Gandalf’
Gandalf and Bilbo in the Shire.

Tomás Hijo, Tuesday, 24 November 2015, ‘‘The Battle of the Pelennor Fields’ is ready’
The large printing of Tomás Hijo's Battle of the Pelennor Fields is now available ... it certainly looks a wonderful piece of Tolkienian art!

Joe Gilronan, Tuesday, 24 November 2015, ‘Hobbiton’
“The Shire looking toward Bag End”

Other Stuff

Dimitra Fimi, Sunday, 29 November 2015, ‘Recent Tolkien events and publications – Autumn 2015’
This post by Dimitra Fimi is so crammed full of all kinds of good stuff that I couldn't decide where to put it, and therefore it has ended up here. The post summarises Fimi's own recent activities as well as the more significant events in academic Tolkien studies in the autumn of 2015 – conferences, papers, books, articles and more. A must read summary!

Rewarding Discussions

LotR Plaza, ‘Tolkien and the Myth of Britain’
Some interesting bits about the sense of identity and place in Tolkien's work with particular emphasis on the idea of Britain.

rec.arts.books.tolkien, , ‘Tolkien and Romance’
A discussion about how to understand The Lord of the Rings (yes, again :-) )

Web Sites

Wheaton College, Tolkien Database
This has, of course, been around for a while, but I wanted to recall it to everyone as it is a most excellent resource for searching for papers on Tolkienian matters.

Hobbiton
by Joe Gilronan

The Blog Roll

These are blogs you really should be following yourself if you're interested in Tolkien ...
Contents from these blogs will only be reported here if there is something that I find particularly interesting, or posts that fit with a monthly theme. However, you will find below links to monthly archives of posts for months where the blog has featured interesting posts with at least some Tolkien connection. In some cases you may find a headline for a post, if I wish to recommend it particularly.

Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, ‘Too Many Books and Never Enough’
Archive of posts from November 2015

Dimitra Fimi, ‘Dr. Dimitra Fimi’
Archive of posts from November 2015

Jason Fisher, ‘Lingwë -- Musings of a Fish’
Archive of posts from November 2015

John D. Rateliff -- ‘Sacnoth's Scriptorium’
Archive of posts from November 2015

David Bratman, ‘Kalimac's Journal’
Archive of posts from November 2015

Jenny Dolfen, ‘Jenny's Sketchbook’
Archive of posts from November 2015

Anna Smol, ‘A Single Leaf’
Archive of posts from November 2015

Various (Bradford Eden, ed.) Journal of Tolkien Research (JTR)
Archive of contributions for the on-going volume 2, issue 1

Various, The Tolkien Society (TS)
Archive of posts from November 2015

Southfarthing Mathom
Archive of posts from November 2015

Michael Martinez, ‘Middle-earth’
Archive of posts from November 2015

Copperhead
by Jenny Dolfen

Grey Havens Group, ‘The Grey Havens Group’
Archive of posts from November 2015

Bruce Charlton, ‘Tolkien's The Notion Club Papers’
Archive of posts from November 2015

Various, ‘Middle-earth News’
Archive of posts from November 2015

Sources

New sources in November 2015

For older sources, see http://parmarkenta.blogspot.com/p/sources.html

Saturday, 7 November 2015

Tolkien Transactions LXIII

October 2015

October has been a busy month, and November isn't shaping up to be much better, so my commentary is a bit reduced – and in some cases links to interesting articles are just given without commentary.

These transactions are posted on my blog, Parma-kenta (Enquiry into the books) and on the Tolkien Society web-site.

This month it has suited my purposes to sort the contents under the following headlines:
1: News
2: Events
3: Essays and Scholarship
4: Commentary
5: Reviews and Book News
6: Interviews
7: Tolkienian Artwork
8: Other Stuff
9: Rewarding Discussions
10: Web Sites
11: The Blog Roll
12: Sources

Smaug leaves the mountain
by Joe Gilronan

News

Ian Spittlehouse, Thursday, 1 October 2015, ‘Tolkien links with Leeds in 2015’

Germain Lussier, io9, Friday, 16 October 2015, ‘Vin Diesel Explains How J.R.R. Tolkien's Silmarillion Shaped His Views on Death’
Mostly about Diesel's own upcoming film, but it's interesting that the Tolkien connection is the one to steal the headline.

Lily Rothman, Wednesday, 21 October 2015, ‘See the J.R.R. Tolkien Fan Letter That Changed Middle-Earth Mythology’
A follow-up on last month's story about the letter that presumably documents the moment of the invention of Meriadoc Brandybuck's wife. A bit of overselling in the headline, but with a high-resolution scan of the text.

Éowyn
by Jenny Dolfen

Alison Flood, The Guardian, Friday, 23 October 2015, ‘Tolkien's annotated map of Middle-earth discovered inside copy of Lord of the Rings’
To the best of my knowledge, it was Alison Flood's article in The Guardian that broke the story about the discovery of the Lord of the Rings map (the large Map of the West of Middle-earth) that Tolkien annotated for Pauline Baynes when she was about to do her own Middle-earth map, and which she herself further annotated. As David Bratman points out on his blog, we have long known the correspondance that Tolkien had with Baynes, but the actual map is new.
I assume that the story is sufficiently well-known to all, so that any precis I might do would be superflous. After, the story has been repeated in dozens of outlets.
See also Daniel Helen, Saturday, 24 October 2015, ‘Map annotated by Tolkien found in Pauline Baynes's copy of The Lord of the Rings’
This one has pictures of each corner of the full map, making it possible to read most of the annotations. I will just point out that Tolkien's notes makes it obvious that the latitude references he gives is for Pauline Baynes to be able to better judge the climate and the flora and fauna of the locations, and this says absolutely nothing about whether he was in any other ways inspired by these locations.
For anyone interested in looking at the huge amount of articles and posts about this, try looking at this Google News search ...

Eriq Gardner, The Hollywood Reporter, Wednesday, 28 October 2015, ‘Warner Bros. Can Sue Tolkien Estate For Breaching 'Hobbit' Contract’
The latest development in the long history of legal harrassments, counter-harassment, counter-counter-harassment, and counterⁿ-harassments that surround particularly the rights held by Middle-earth Enterprises (they have often been very keen to sue – most of the infamous threats to inns, pubs, sandwich-bars etc. come from Middle-earth Enterprises and Warner Bros). Though I very much like to play Lord of the Rings On-line (albeit I don't have the time for it that I'd like to have), my sympathies are very much with the Tolkien Estate in this case.

Events

Info on upcoming events (as of 1 November)
14 November 2015, University of Leicester, ‘60 Years of The Lord of the Rings, and Panel Discussion: ‘What's the Point of Fantasy Fiction?’’ – This event is free and open to the public! (But PLEASE make a report and send me the link for inclusion in my transactions.)

5 December 2015, Birmingham, ‘Yulemoot 2015, The Tolkien Society
Shaun Gunner, Tuesday, 6 October 2015, ‘Join the Tolkien Society for Yulemoot 2015 – 5th December in Birmingham’

5 - 7 December 2015, ‘Italian Ringers Con 2015’

Crossing the Helcaraxë
by Jenny Dolfen

2016 Events 3 January 2016, International, ‘Tolkien Birthday Toast 2016’, The Tolkien Society – save the date!!

21 - 25 March 2016, Seattle, WA, USA, ‘PCA/ACA National Conference, PCA/ACA’

25 March 2016, Worldwide, ‘Tolkien Reading Day, The Tolkien Society’

8–9 April 2016, University of Vermont, USA, ‘Tolkien in Vermont 2016’, Tolkien Club of University of Vermont
Anna Smol, Monday, 19 October 2015, ‘CFP: Tolkien in Vermont 2016’

28 May 2016, East Yorkshire, ‘Tolkien Tour: East Yorkshire’, The Tolkien Society

17 - 19 June 2016, Leiden | Den Haag, ‘Lustrum 2016: Unlocking Tolkien, Unquendor – The Dutch Tolkien Society’

September? 2016, Oxford, ‘Oxonmoot 2016’, The Tolkien Society — an Oxonmoot will be held ...

Essays and Scholarship

Tommy Kuusela, Approaching Religion, Vol 4, No 1 (2014), ‘In Search of a National Epic: The use of Old Norse myths in Tolkien’s vision of Middle-earth’
In the article / paper, Kuusela investigates “some aspects of Tolkien’s work with regard to his relationship to folklore and nationalism”. Excellent article!

Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull, Wednesday, 7 October 2015, ‘Tolkien Notes 12’
With notes on The Art of The Lord of the Rings, on Tolkien spoken word recordings, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, and on Tolkien's letters to Sterling Lanier.

Éowyn (at the Houses of Healing)
by Joe Gilronan

Andreas H. Jucker, Thursday, 8 October 2015, ‘Courtesy and Politeness in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’
An analysis based on the language of the Middle English poem.

Jason Fisher, Wednesday, 21 October 2015, ‘Scattered Leaves’
Jason Fisher shares some results of his excavations into the contents of Tolkien's library, much of which is scattered in various libraries – with some of the books in Oxford having been scanned and put on-line. Though there are also many of Tolkien's books, which are in private collections, getting some kind of overview of what is assessible to scholars, and where, is an indispensible resource. Thank you Jason!

Charlotte and Denis Plimmer, The Telegraph, Wednesday, 21 October 2015, ‘JRR Tolkien: ‘I never expected a money success’’
Originally published on 22 March 1968 as ‘The Man Who Understands Hobbits’, The Telegraph has re-released the original interview that the Plimmers did with J.R.R. Tolkien. Re-reading the letter Tolkien sent to the Plimmers after being sent a draft of this (no. 294 in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, ed. by Humphrey Carpenter) might be a good way to get some perspective, though it does seem that the Plimmers did, in the end, address a number of the points that Tolkien raised.

Commentary

Linda Bridges, National Review, Thursday, 3 September 2015, ‘Tolkien, Lewis, and the Great War’

Michael Witwer, TOR.com, Monday, 12 October 2015, ‘The Bane of Banality: Frodo Baggins’
I don't really know what to make of this, which, of course, in itself makes me find it interesting.

Reviews and Book News

Jenny Dolfen, Sunday, 18 October 2015, ‘Songs of Sorrow And Hope – Artbook available for pre-order!’
See also Shaun Gunner, The Tolkien Society, Sunday, 25 October 2015, ‘Jenny Dolfen announces new Tolkien art book’

Daniel Helen, Thursday, 8 October 2015, ‘“The Art of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien” published’
Announcing the publication of The Art of the Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull.

The Vanyar Leave for War
by Jenny Dolfen

Andrew Higgens, Journal of Tolkien Research, Friday, 9 October 2015, ‘A Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien, ed. Stuart D. Lee, reviewed by Andrew Higgins’
Andrew Higgens delivers a thorough and very positive review of the 2014 Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Stuart D. Lee. I still wish that the price would be lower, for I do very much want to get this volume!

Thomas Honegger, Journal of Tolkien Research, Wednesday, 14 October 2015, ‘"The Hobbit" and Tolkien's Mythology (2014), ed. Bradford Lee Eden’
Thomas Honegger's review of “The Hobbit” and Tolkien’s Mythology: Essays on Revisions and Influences by Bradford Lee Eden (ed.) finds a variable quality, and some texts with “too many typos and formatting slips”. Still, it would seem that this book would be worthwhile to get out of the library for at least some of the papers there.

Daniel Helen, The Tolkien Society, Tuesday, 20 October 2015, ‘60th Anniversary of The Return of the King’
Perhaps hardly news as such, but still …. :-) Congratulations to the world of readers!

Teemu Laaksonen, Monday, 26 October 2015, ‘The career of author J. R. R. Tolkien started from the tragic Finnish hero Kullervo’
An article from the Finnish national radio and TV, YLE, essentially giving us a Finnish perspective on Tolkien's inspiration from the Kalevala, and his Story of Kullervo.

Interviews

John D. Rateliff, Sunday, 4 October 2015, ‘The Best Tolkien Interview, Ever’
Referring to the 1965 radio interview with Denis Guerolt that is available on-line on the BBC web-site.

Vivian Hughbanks, Thursday, 8 October 2015, ‘Robert Hardy on Lewis, Tolkien, and World War II’
An interview with the actor, Robert Hardy, which includes a nice little anecdote about Tolkien.

Tolkienian Artwork

Joe Gilronan, Monday, 5 October 2015, ‘Smaug leaves the mountain’

Tomás Hijo, Tuesday, 6 October 2015, ‘The Chieftain flies right now to meet his wonderful new owner....’

Jenny Dolfen, Thursday, 8 October 2015, ‘Crossing the Helcaraxë’
Wow! Just wow!

Tomás Hijo, Friday, 9 October 2015, ‘Hey! It looks like my Prancing Pony is the next image cover for Mallorn’
Looking forward to receiving the 2015 issue of Mallorn ...

Lynn Edwards, Miruvor, Saturday, 10 October 2015, ‘Idril Celebrindal’

Jenny Dolfen, Tuesday, 13 October 2015, ‘Calendars for 2016!’
Jenny now also offers calendars for 2016

Tomás Hijo, Tuesday, 13 October 2015, ‘Sketch for 'The Battle of the Pelennor Fields' ready!’

Tar Mairon
by Jenny Dolfen

Graeme Skinner, Wednesday, 14 October 2015, ‘Away with the fairies’
A nice faerie ring ... “with a clear light for eyes to see that can.”

Jenny Dolfen, Saturday, 17 October 2015, ‘The Vanyar Leave for War’

Jenny Dolfen, Thursday, 22 October 2015, ‘Éowyn’

Joe Gilronan, Friday, 23 October 2015, ‘Éowyn (at the Houses of Healing)’
In a curious coincidence, the same subject, albeit in another scene, published just a day after Jenny Dolfen's picture.

Joe Gilronan, Friday, 23 October 2015, ‘Merry and Pippin Deeper Into Fangorn’

Joe Gilronan, Tuesday, 27 October 2015, ‘Samwise the Gardner’

Other Stuff

Andrew Wells, Saturday, 10 October 2015, ‘A lucky find’
Proving that even in 2015 you can get lucky in an antiquarian bookshop ...

Tolkienseminariet, October 2015, ‘Four meetings’
I have previously praised the high quality reviews and comments that are gathered from Tolkienseminariet in Stockholm. For most of my readers, it is of course a shame that they are in Swedish, but for those who can read this language, they are still very highly recommended. In October 2015, reports have been posted of four meetings: 15 May 2014, 23 October 2014, 20 November 2014, 7 May 2015, and 15 October 2015

Rewarding Discussions

LotR Plaza, ‘Thread: How Tall Were Orcs?’
A curious thread, but with some interesting investigations of the textual evidence (despite my own insistence on intruding statistics on the proceedings).

Web Sites

Histography
And now for something completely different, but since I know that many Tolkienists also have a great interest for history, I wanted advertise this site. An interactive timeline of Time, covering time from the Big Bang to the current year, and based on historical events recorded in Wikipedia, from where it is updated daily.

The Blog Roll

Merry And Pippin Deeper Into Fangorn
by Joe Gilronan

Sources

No new sources in October 2015

For older sources, see http://parmarkenta.blogspot.com/p/sources.html

Sunday, 4 October 2015

Tolkien Transactions LXII

September 2015

The Tolkienian month of September starts with the anniversary of Tolkien's 1973 death on September 2^nd. It's a moment for reflection, but it also quickly gives way to the anticipation for the Tolkien Society Oxonmoot and the joint birthday of Bilbo and Frodo (not going into the discussion of proper calendric translation here) on what is becoming known as ‘Hobbit Day’. The celebration in Bri, the Copenhagen Tolkien Society, was already on the 13^th, and together with my daughter I partook in a very fine seven-course medieval / renaissance dinner on that day.
On Hobbit Day, the chairman of the Tolkien Society posted to list some of the good reasons for joining the society. There are more, of course, but you can't list everything ...
Shaun Gunner, Tuesday, 22 September 2015, ‘Why you should join the Tolkien Society’
Needless to say, the Mythopoeic Society in the US has many of the same kinds of offers, though the names differ.

An Elf in the Fields
by Jenny Dolfen
Available as a wallpaper to Jenny's patrons at patreon.com.

Of course, as usual, all the standard disclaimers apply about newness, completeness and relevance (or any other implication of responsibility) :-) Given that I have been quite busy with Scouting in September, the disclaimer about completeness is probably even more relevant than usual as much has been sorted out.

These transactions are posted on my blog, Parma-kenta (Enquiry into the books) and on the Tolkien Society web-site.

This month it has suited my purposes to sort the contents under the following headlines:
1: News
2: Events
3: Essays and Scholarship
4: Commentary
5: Reviews and Book News
7: Tolkienian Artwork
8: Other Stuff
9: Web Sites
10: The Blog Roll
11: Sources

News

Richard Kreitner, Wednesday, 2 September 2015, ‘September 2, 1973: J.R.R. Tolkien Dies’
A reprinting from, and of, Edmund Wilson's scathing 1956 review of The Lord of the Rings. Using the anniversary of Tolkien's death for this may seem slightly inappropriate, but sometimes it is good to remind ourselves that there are others, who do not like what we like (even if most of the specific complaints can be rejected, there remains a matter of taste, though at times Wilson reads almost as if wishing to purge himself of an unwelcome attraction to the work).

Nicole Levy, DNAinfo, Thursday, 10 September 2015, ‘'Orcs of New York' Parodies 'Humans of NY' With Tolkien Creatures’
One among many stories about this new Facebook page, Orcs of New York that has sprung up in August. See also the treatment under ‘web sites, and the articles below.
Kimberley Yam, Huffington Post, Friday, 11 September 2015, ‘'Orcs Of New York' Is The 'HONY' Parody Even Sauron Would Adore’
‘Stubby the Rocket’, Friday, 11 September 2015, ‘Orcs of New York Will Restore Your Faith in Orc-Kind’
Myla Malinalda, Middle-earth News, Wednesday, 16 September 2015, ‘Get to Know the Orcs of New York’
J.e. Reich, Tech Times, Thursday, 17 September 2015, ‘Humans Of New York Parody 'Orcs Of New York' Puts Mordor In The Big Apple’
Shaun Gunner, The Tolkien Society, Monday, 21 September 2015, ‘“Orcs of New York” Parody Facebook page’

Daniel Helen, The Tolkien Society, Monday, 28 September 2015, ‘Letter explaining creation of Estella Brandybuck up for auction’
On a typed letter by his secretary, Baillie Knapheis, Tolkien added a handwritten note about Merry's wife which later would lead him to add Estella Bolger (a sister of Fredagar Bolger) to the Hobbit family trees in The Lord of the Rings along with her marriage to Merry. This letter is now up for auction and estimated to collect at least £1,500.

Events

Reports from past events
2 - 26 September 2015, Sheffield, UK, ‘Artshow: Evil in the Shining Light’
Francesca Barbini, 26 September 2015, ‘Evil In The Shining Light Exhibition’
John Cockshaw (curator of the exhibition), 29 September 2015, ‘Evil in the Shining Light art exhibition’

5 - 6 September 2015, Sarehole, Birmingham, ‘Middle Earth Festival 2015’
Formerly known as ‘Middle-earth Weekend’
Francesca Barbini, 2 September 2015, ‘Middle Earth Festival 2015’
Shaun Gunner, Friday, 4 September 2015, ‘Middle-earth Festival Returns to Sarehole Mill this Weekend’

5 - 6 September 2015, Barletta, Italy, ‘Hobbit Village 2015’
Aubron-Bülles, Sunday 6 September, ‘Impressions from Hobbit Village 2015 in Barletta, Italy’

10 - 13 September 2015, St Antony's College, Oxford, ‘ Oxonmoot 2015’, The Tolkien Society
Andrew Wells, 12 September 2015, ‘Oxonmoot’
Dimitra Fimi, The Tolkien Society, 20 September 2015, ‘Dimitra Fimi - Constructions of Childhood in Tolkien's Legendarium’ — video (1h 4m) of Dimitra Fimi's lecture at OxonMoot 2015.
Michael Flowers, 20 September 2015, ‘Oxford Weekend’ — with beautiful photos from the tour of Oxford.
Francesca Barbini, 21 September 2015, ‘Oxonmoot 2015 – What You Have Missed!’ — Oh, great, Francesca ... just rub it in, will you ;-)
Dimitra Fimi, 27 September 2015, ‘Oxonmoot 2015 and forthcoming Oxford event’

22 September 2015, worldwide & on-line, ‘Hobbit Day’
Shaun Gunner, The Tolkien Society, 22 September 2015, ‘Events to celebrate Hobbit Day’
Anna Smol, 22 September 2015, ‘Happy Birthday, Bilbo and Frodo! #HobbitDay’

26 - 27 Septeber 2015, Castle Keep and Black Gate, Newcastle, UK, ‘Tolkien Weekend at Newcastle Castle’

Info on upcoming events (as of 1 October)
9 - 12 October 2015, Hotel Maya, Alicanta, Spain, ‘Mereth Aderthad’

14 October 2015, Brisbane, Australia, ‘An Evening in Middle-earth’
29 October 2015, Weston Library, Oxford, ‘Tolkien's Legacy’
See also the description of the event on the Tolkien Society web-site, ‘The Lord of the Rings: Tolkien’s Legacy’.
Dimitra Fimi, 27 September 2015, ‘Oxonmoot 2015 and forthcoming Oxford event’ —

5 - 7 December 2015, ‘Italian Ringers Con 2015’

2016 Events 21 - 25 March 2016, Seattle, WA, USA, ‘PCA/ACA National Conference, PCA/ACA’
Anna Smol, Tuesday, 30 June 2015, ‘Call for papers: Tolkien Studies at PCA/ACA, March 2016’

25 March 2016, Worldwide, ‘Tolkien Reading Day, The Tolkien Society’

17 - 19 June 2016, Leiden | Den Haag, ‘Lustrum 2016: Unlocking Tolkien, Unquendor – The Dutch Tolkien Society’

September? 2016, Oxford, ‘Oxonmoot 2016’, The Tolkien Society — an Oxonmoot will be held ...

Essays and Scholarship

Jane Beal, Medievalist.net, Saturday, 12 September 2015, ‘Teaching Tolkien's Translations of Medieval Literature: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Orfeo and Pearl’

Avari
by Jenny Dolfen

A description of a course that Beal teaches on Tolkien. The description is quite detailed, including thoughts on the metacognitive processes that Beal attempts to stimulate. Quite interesting to see how the teaching of Tolkien can be approached.

John Garth, Friday, 25 September 2015, ‘Tolkien's ‘immortal four’ meet for the last time’
Another piece of the story of the TCBS and the last meeting of ‘the immortal four’ on 25–26 September 1915 … a hundred years ago. Read Garth's excellent piece to learn why the discovery of the signatures of R.Q. Gilson and G.B. Smith in the guestbook at Samuel Johnson's birthplace in Lichfield is a testimony to the strength of the friendship in the core group of the TCBS.

Roy M. Liuzza, Saturday, 26 September 2015, ‘The Sense of Time in Anglo-Saxon England’
Many have commented on how Tolkien manages to create a sense of pre-history, perhaps especially in his Lord of the Rings, and here we have a scholar starting an article by stating that “One of the more impressive aspects of Beowulf is its rich sense of time.” and going on to assert that “Characters in the poem are constantly aware of past generations of ancestors and heroes.” This opens up to a new statement, saying that ”There is a kind of prehistory in the poem”. All of these statements might as well have been said of Tolkien's work as of the Beowulf poem.
Though at times rather technical, this article is quite interesting, and at the conclusion I was again reminded strongly of Tolkien's work when Liuzza explains what might be “the most profound difference between Anglo- Saxon time and our own: the sense that time is finite, and that it devolves as it approaches its destination.”

Commentary

Daniel E. Flores, The Valley Star, Friday, 11 September 2015, ‘Tolkien and the gold that does not glitter’
On the importance of the difference between Tolkien's (in the story actually written by Bilbo) version, “All that is gold does not glitter” and the normal proverbial version, “All that glitters is not gold”.

Lynn Forest-Hill, Wednesday, 30 September 2015, ‘Last meeting in September’
Discussing chapter 3 of book 3 of The Lord of the Rings, ‘The Uruk-hai’, and as always the discussions are well worth going over.

Reviews and Book News

Stuart Lee, Wednesday, 2 September 2015, ‘Is HarperCollins flogging a dead horse with latest Tolkien publication?’
Stuart Lee comes to a mixed conclusion with respect to the titular question, but overall finds that Tolkien readers now having access to the Kullervo and Kalevala texts, on balance, must be a good thing.

Douglas A. Anderson, Tuesday, 8 September 2015, ‘Smith of Wootton Major: Extended Edition (2015) by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Verlyn Flieger’
This first article of volume 2 of the Journal of Tolkien Research offers Douglas A. Anderson's review of Verlyn Flieger's 2015 edition of Smith of Wootton Major.
In this review, Douglas A. Anderson addresses various infelicitous errors and omissions in Verlyn Flieger's ordering and selection of the materials for this edition (and for the 2005 edition). Based on Anderson's explanations here, I join him in hoping “for a corrected and revamped edition in the future, one which better and more fully presents the archival materials.”

Lydia Willgress, Mail Online, Saturday, 12 September 2015, ‘Unfinished J.R.R. Tolkien work The Story of Kullervo 'to be published later this month'’
Reporting, on 12 September, that The Story of Kullervo will be (future tense) published by HarperCollins on 27 August, this article doesn't add anything, but I include it more to show how broad the interest in a new Tolkien title is.

Steve Hayes, Wednesday, 23 September 2015, ‘Inklings (book review)’
A review of the book Inklings by Melanie M. Jeschke. Not a biographical or otherwise critical work, but a work of, according to Hayes, rather poor fiction.

John D. Rateliff, Wednesday, 23 September 2015, ‘The New Calendar’
A look at the 2016 Tolkien calendar with illustrations by Tove Jansson.

Tolkienian Artwork

Tomás Hijo, Tuesday, 8 September 2015, ‘Smaug, hijo mío, lo tuyo es un no parar. Smaug prints’
Prints of Tomás Hijo's Smaug.

Jenny Dolfen, Friday, 11 September 2015, ‘Thranduil in Spring’
This third seasonal Thranduil follows the autumn and winter pictures of the Elvenking. Now we can just wait for the summer image ...

Jenny Dolfen, Thursday, 17 September 2015, ‘Avari’
Avari wandering the forests of Middle-earth ...

Shaun Gunner, The Tolkien Society, Friday, 18 September 2015, ‘Beyond Bree Calendar 2016’
Announcing the release of the 2016 Beyond Bree calendar.

Graeme Skinner, Wednesday, 23 September 2015, ‘Sir Gandalf of Valinor’
Having fun.

‘CG-Warrior’, Friday, 25 September 2015, ‘Gendalf’ [sic]
A portrait of Gandalf with his pipe

Other Stuff

Thranduil in Spring
by Jenny Dolfen

John D. Rateliff, Wednesday, 16 September 2015, ‘The Pope Likes Tolkien’
I agree with Rateliff that there is little evidence that Francis can be called ‘a Tolkien fan’, but that the evidence suggests a familiarity with at least The Lord of the Rings and a fondness of the book. And yes, the translation I provided at The Tolkienist is indeed very rough (having studied my Spanish in my teens and only used it very sporadically since).

Marc Vander Maas, Wednesday, 16 September 2015, ‘Video: Jonathan Witt On Tolkien's Vision Of Freedom’
As I have said before, I am deeply sceptical of the work by Witt and Richards in their Hobbit Party book. From what I have so far read and seen by the two authors, their work seems very strongly affected by confirmation bias – or, to put it more bluntly, they seem more concerned about analysing how Tolkien can be made to confirm their own views rather than providing an unbiased analysis of what Tolkien's views actually were. Although this video only confirms me in that assessment, I should probably also add that this does not mean that there is nothing worthwhile to find in their treatment, but one needs to approach it with caution.

Kelly cowling, Friday, 25 September 2015, ‘Building a Home for Fairies: A Changing Grey Havens Group’
About the Grey Havens Group, about making room and home for (as Tolkien would have put it) Faërie, and about the changing structuring of the community.

Myla Malinalda, Middle-earth News, Saturday, 26 September 2015, ‘The Lord of the Rings Dioramas’
About a group of German diorama-builders, who have been working on dioramas inspired by Jackson's films.

Bishop Robert Barron, Catholic Sentinel, Wednesday, 30 September 2015, ‘Colbert, Tolkien and gifts’
Taking his outset in the interview with Stephen Colbert (see last month's transactions for the quotations and a discussion of which letters Colbert was thinking of), Barron moves on to discuss where Tolkien might himself have learned this lesson, and how it might have been central at the Birmingham Oratory.

Anna Smol, Wednesday, 30 September 2015, ‘Eala! Unlock your word hoards!’
About a new journal, Eala, which intends to publish poetry in medieval Germanic languages such as Old English. Now to start composing (and remember to use the alliterative meter – end-rhymes has no place in such poetry!)

Web Sites

Harry Aspinwall, August 2015, ‘Orcs of New York’
The page parodies the blog ‘Humans of New York’ using Orcs instead of humans, and includes many references to The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.

The Blog Roll

These are blogs you really should be following yourself if you're interested in Tolkien ...
Contents from these blogs will only be reported here if there is something that I find particularly interesting, or posts that fit with a monthly theme. However, you will find below links to monthly archives of posts for months where the blog has featured interesting posts with at least some Tolkien connection. In some cases you may find a headline for a post, if I wish to recommend it particularly.

John D. Rateliff -- ‘Sacnoth's Scriptorium’
Archive of posts from September 2015

John Garth, ‘John Garth’
Archive of posts from September 2015

Marcel Aubron-Bülles, ‘The Tolkienist’
Archive of posts from September 2015

David Bratman, ‘Kalimac's Journal’
Archive of posts from September 2015

Jenny Dolfen, ‘Jenny's Sketchbook’
Archive of posts from September 2015

Anna Smol, ‘A Single Leaf’
Archive of posts from September 2015

Various (Bradford Eden, ed.) Journal of Tolkien Research (JTR)
Archive of contributions for the on-going volume 2, issue 1

Various, The Tolkien Society (TS)
Archive of posts from September 2015

Southfarthing Mathom
Archive of posts from September 2015

Taruithorn, the Oxford Tolkien Society, ‘’
Archive of posts from September 2015

Michael Martinez, ‘Middle-earth’
Archive of posts from September 2015

Grey Havens Group, ‘The Grey Havens Group’
Archive of posts from September 2015

Bruce Charlton, ‘Tolkien's The Notion Club Papers’
Archive of posts from September 2015

Sources

No new sources in September 2015

For older sources, see http://parmarkenta.blogspot.com/p/sources.html

Tuesday, 1 September 2015

Tolkien Transactions LXI

August 2015

This month started with the very sad news of the sudden and unexpected death at 55 of Jef Murray, artist and writer of mythopoeic art, not least drawings and paintings inspired by Tolkien's work, and very generously allowing me to use his Tolkien-inspired works to illustrate my posts on this blog.
My knowledge of Jef is from our rather limited on-line interactions, and though he always appeared to me kind and generous, I would have nothing to add to that. I was, however, quite moved by the nuanced reaction that Ted Nasmith posted on Facebook on 4 August 2015, and which he has kindly permitted me to reproduce here:

I've only just learned of the tragic passing of Mr. Jef Murray, a friend and respected artistic colleague. I've known Jef since the early 2000s when we met at The Gathering of the Fellowship II in Toronto. Jef and I, despite sharing a love of Tolkien, developed a wary relationship intellectually, finding ourselves on opposing sides of political discourse, and with lively differences on religion and social issues. In ongoing emails we struggled to reconcile our opinions and hash out understandings against the backdrop of today's overly poisonous social/political climate, but worked to reach gentlemanly solutions and at worst agreed to disagree if reconciliation was beyond us.
We saw in some ways mirror images of one another in ourselves; high strung, reactive, sensitive types, passionate about the societies we live in and the means to achieving meaning in our lives. Neither of us wished to suffer the other's foolishness gladly, but recognized that our conduct in managing that tension was of higher import than scoring points, and through it we forged a personal, if wary, bond which I believe we both valued and strove to protect.
In a time when we can retreat into our respective camps and find support easily within our own political or religious 'tribe', the ability to reach across the liberal-conservative divide (a truly stupid, futile, and unnecessarily toxic one as it's become!) is the more critical, forcing you to confront your prejudices and emotion-driven views and expand your insight into what motivates or troubles those in the opposing camp. I'm proud to call Jef a friend, fellow artist, scholar and colleague, and deeply mourn his loss. My deepest condolences to Lorraine and Jef's family and close friends. He was a very lively and dedicated voice and talent in our community, and he leaves an impressive legacy. I'm truly saddened that he has left us, it's simply too soon! I'd like to think he is now free to roam the width and breadth of Middle-earth and Valinor with his canvases and songs. May he arrive on those exalted green Shores under a swift sunrise. Farewell!

The Wanderer
by Jef Murray

In addition to Ted Nasmith's words of farewell, Jef's wife has posted on the Georgia Bulletin web site. Lorraine V. Murray, Thursday, 20 August 2015, ‘Journey to the land beyond time’

Many will also have known the former Tolkien Society Treasurer, Rikki Breem, who died on Wednesday 12 August after a long illness. An obituary is available on the Tolkien Society website.

These transactions are posted on my blog, Parma-kenta (Enquiry into the books) and on the Tolkien Society web-site. They are my highly personal view of what I have found the most interesting to report, and is obviously a reflection of my own tastes, interests, and network.

This month it has suited my purposes to sort the contents under the following headlines:
1: News
2: Events
3: Essays and Scholarship
4: Commentary
5: Reviews and Book News
6: Interviews
7: Tolkienian Artwork
8: Other Stuff
9: Rewarding Discussions
10: In Print
11: Web Sites
12: The Blog Roll
13: Sources

News

David Oberhelman, Sunday, 2 August 2015, ‘Mythopoeic Awards: 2015 Winners Announced’
The award that interests me, personally, the most is, of course, the Mythopoeic Award in Inklings Studies. Here Robert Boenig won the award with his book, C.S. Lewis and the Middle Ages (Kent State Univ. Press, 2012). Among the finalists to this award were three Tolkien-related books: Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey edited by John Wm. Houghton, Janet Brennan Croft, Nancy Martsch, John D. Rateliff, and Robin Anne Reid (McFarland, 2014, John Garth's Tolkien at Exeter College: How an Undergraduate Created Middle-earth (Exeter College, 2014), and Christopher Tolkien's edition of Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, Together with Sellic Spell by J. R. R. Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin, 2014). Perhaps it wouldn't be quite fair to give the award to an Inkling who has edited a book by another Inkling ... :-)

Mythgard Institute, Monday, 3 August 2015, ‘Introduction to Anglo-Saxon’
A class on Anglo-Saxon (or Old English) taught by Michael Drout and Nelson Goering. Remember that members of The Tolkien Society get a deduction on the course price at Mythgard Institute.

Mythgard Institute, Monday, 3 August 2015, ‘Tolkien's Wars and Middle-earth’
Taught by John Garth, this class investigates the relations between Tolkien's works and the two world-wars that he lived through and served in (at the Somme in WWI and at home in WWII).

Daniel Helen, The Tolkien Society, Tuesday, 4 August 2015, ‘Tolkien artist Jef Murray has died’
Arwen, Tuesday, 4 August 2015, ‘Tolkien Artist Jef Murray Passes Into the West’
Mark Sommer, Thursday, 6 August 2015, ‘Tolkien fans morn loss of Middle-earth artist Jef Murray’
MrCere, Friday, 7 August 2015, ‘Tolkien artist Jef Murray: March 17, 1960 – August 3, 2015’

The Noontide of Valinor
by Jenny Dolfen

Sam Matthew, Daily Mail, Friday, 7 August 2015, ‘Don't call it a Hobbit house! Tolkien lawyers threaten couple over campsite advert’
This story has been in a number of media this month. In essence, a couple tried first to launch a ‘hobbit hole’ experience in ‘Middle-earth’ with all the usual Tolkienian trappings. When approached by lawyers representing the two sides owning the rights (Middle-earth Enterprises and Warner Bros on one side, and the Tolkien Estate on the other side), the couple changed to advertising a ‘poddit hole’ in ‘Centre-earth’. The current incarnation uses ‘poddit hole’ and sports the name ‘Podditon’ referring to ‘halflings’ with map imagery that is very obviously inspired by the maps created for the New Line Studio films (which was again inspired by the maps created by the Tolkiens). Though it now speaks of Anglo-Saxon inspiration, the attempt to profit from the popularity of Tolkien's work is nonetheless glaringly obvious.
Sadly the Tolkien Estate steals the headline, despite the fact that it was lawyers for Middle-earth Enterprises and Warner that have been the most heavy-handed, trying to get Kickstarter to close the crowd-sourcing campaign.

TOR.com, Friday, 7 August 2015, ‘“Say goodbye to your Sam.” Watch Stephen Colbert's Glorious Lord of the Rings Goodbye to Jon Stewart’
A nice reference, and one that displays a bit of actual insight into the story. And, yes, I think Jon Stewart has been absolutely brilliant in The Daily Show.

Shaun Gunner, The Tolkien Society, Friday, 21 August 2015, ‘New Tolkien Journal – Waymeet’
About the new on-line resource for teaching Tolkien – see also my comments last month.

Shaun Gunner, Tuesday, 25 August 2015, ‘A new chapter: Tolkien Society and Sarehole Mill’
Announcing a new partnership between the Tolkien Society and Birmingham Museums Trust about Sarehole Mill. Great work!

Events

Reports from past events
13 June 2015, Baruch College, New York, ‘New York City Tolkien Conference’, Northeast Tolkien Society
4 July 2015, Leeds, ‘Tolkien Society Seminar 2015’, The Tolkien Society
Theme: ‘One Hundred Years of Middle-earth’
Shaun Gunner, Wednesday, 19 August 2015, ‘2015 Tolkien Society Seminar a huge success’

6 - 9 July 2015, Leeds, ‘International Medieval Congress 2015’
Dimitra Fimi, Wednesday, 5 August 2015, ‘Two books, two conferences, and other news’

31 July - 3 August 2015, Colorado Springs, Colorado, ‘ MythCon 46’, Mythopoeic Society
David Bratman, Saturday, 1 August 2015, ‘Mythcon, part 1’
David Bratman, Monday, 3 August 2015, ‘Mythcon, part 2’
David Bratman, Tuesday, 4 August 2015, ‘Mythcon, part 3’
David Bratman, Wednesday, 5 August 2015, ‘Mythcon supplemental’
John D. Rateliff, Thursday, 6 August 2015, ‘Back from Mythcon’

Info on upcoming events (as of 1 September)
2 - 26 September 2015, Sheffield, UK, ‘Artshow: Evil in the Shining Light’
Marcel Aubron-Bülles, Sunday, 30 August 2015, ‘Evil in the Shining Light: Tolkien exhibition in Sheffield, Sept 2-26, 2015’

3 - 4 September 2015, Budapest, Hungary, ‘5th International Tolkien Conference in Hungary’, Hungarian Tolkien Society

5 - 6 September 2015, Sarehole, Birmingham, ‘Middle Earth Festival 2015’
Formerly known as ‘Middle-earth Weekend’

10 September 2015, On-line, Mythgard Institute, ‘Tom Shippey: Myth in Modern Fantasy’
Free on-line lecture with Professor Tom Shippey.

10 - 13 September 2015, St Antony's College, Oxford, ‘ Oxonmoot 2015’, The Tolkien Society
Shaun Gunner, Tuesday, 11 August 2015, ‘10 reasons why you should attend Oxonmoot’
Next year ... I promise! :-)

19 September 2015, Champaign, IL, USA, ‘Urbana Theological Seminary's Fourth Annual Tolkien Conference’

26 - 27 Septeber 2015, Castle Keep and Black Gate, Newcastle, UK, ‘Tolkien Weekend at Newcastle Castle’

9 - 12 October 2015, Hotel Maya, Alicanta, Spain, ‘Mereth Aderthad’

14 October 2015, Brisbane, Australia, ‘An Evening in Middle-earth’

5 - 7 December 2015, ‘Italian Ringers Con 2015’

2016 Events

And he knew he had tarried overlong
by Jenny Dolfen

21 - 25 March 2016, Seattle, WA, USA, ‘PCA/ACA National Conference, PCA/ACA’
Anna Smol, Tuesday, 30 June 2015, ‘Call for papers: Tolkien Studies at PCA/ACA, March 2016’

25 March 2016, Worldwide, ‘Tolkien Reading Day, The Tolkien Society’

17 - 19 June 2016, Leiden | Den Haag, ‘Lustrum 2016: Unlocking Tolkien, Unquendor – The Dutch Tolkien Society’

Essays and Scholarship

Michael Martinez, Tuesday, 4 August 2015, ‘The Curious Case of Cerin Amroth’
A discussion of possible sources of inspiration for the idea of Cerin Amroth with its two circles of trees with a single, huge, tree in the centre, and also for the image of the mallorn. While the idea of a hill-top surrounded by a circle of trees may not be so extraordinary as to raise questions about sources, the image of a hilltop crowned by two concentric circles of trees, and with a remarkable tree in the centre, might be special enough to warrant a search for possible sources, though one should, of course, never preclude invention by Tolkien – possibly a mere matter of expanding the older image of a circle of trees (for which Tolkien had a word, gorin → gwarin in the Gnomish Lexicon, The Book of Lost Tales 1, p.257, entry for ‘korin’)

Commentary

Joseph Pearce, The Imaginative Conservative, Wednesday, 15 July 2015, ‘Chesterton, Tolkien and Lewis in Elfland’
It is well established that Tolkien and Lewis were in some ways inspired by Chesterton, and this interesting article by Pearce attempts to investigate that inspiration. Pearce does, however, seem to me to rather overreach his evidence, at least where Tolkien is concerned. When an argument is introduced with ‘evidently’ it does, in my experience, rarely mean that the thing is evident, but merely that the author wishes you to think so, and the same applies here: the claim that Tolkien's use of the prison metaphor in his essay On Fairy-stories was inspired by Chesterton's use of another prison metaphor seems to me to be not at all evident.

Dan Hennessy, Finger Lake Times, Friday, 7 August 2015, ‘A WELL-ROOTED PERSPECTIVE: Fantasy of Tolkien, Lewis teaches historic lessons’
I do hope that Mr Hennessy got more out of reading the Zaleskis' book on the Inklings that what is presented here, but it does illustrate one problem (in my opinion) with this kind of treatment: the protrayal of the Inklings as having a coherent common goal with their art, something which I think is contradicted by their disagreements (including of rather profound aesthetic disagreements – Tolkien is, for instance, known to have strongly disliked the Narnia books, and to have disliked all of Williams' work). Much is made in these religiously pluralistic times of them all being Christian, but we also tend to forget that they represented a diversity in their religious beliefs and observances that was greater than we might expect given their time and place.

Lynn Forest-Hill, Saturday, 8 August 2015, ‘First meeting in August’
Follow the Southampton Tolkien Reading group down The Great River, Anduin, from Lothlórien to Amon Hen through the Breaking of the Fellowship. The following post then takes them into book III and the Three Hunters to their meeting with The Riders of Rohan.

Lauren Steussy, Monday, 10 August 2015, ‘George R.R. Martin: Here's where Tolkien failed’
Martin's critique of Tolkien's story (which he is known to like, so let's not take it more seriously than that) has been making the rounds. In essence, Martin finds that Tolkien should have said more about the details of Aragorn's rule – explaining his tax policies, or the functioning of the economy, for instance (the latter does seem a tall order, seeing how poorly the cadres of economists are doing with the Primary World economy ...).
Personally, I think that such elements as Martin appears to find missing in The Lord of the Rings would feel grotesquely misplaced in Tolkien's work. The narrative aesthetics of Tolkien, in my opinion, simply do not work with that kind of petty details. Pratchett manages to include such elements in a clever and witty way in his Discworld books, but Pratchett's narrative aesthetics (or style, if you prefer) are very different from Tolkien's.

Nancy Marie Brown, Tuesday, 25 August 2015, ‘Did Tolkien Ever Go to Iceland?’
As Brown clearly points out, the answer to the rhetorical question of the headline is, no, Tolkien did not go to Iceland ... and yet he was certainly inspired by Iceland – or, perhaps rather, by Icelandic culture, folklore, and history. In this place Iceland is quite different from many place that Tolkien did visit (or might have visited), but which didn't inspire anything in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings.

Gerard K Hynes, Monday, 31 August 2015, ‘A Philologist's Tale: J.R.R. Tolkien's The Story of Kullervo’
In this excellent introduction to Tolkien's newly published Story of Kullervo, Hynes summarises the plot and discusses how the story relates to Tolkien's own life, to his Silmarillion mythology, and to The Lord of the Rings.

Cuiviënen
by Jenny Dolfen

Reviews and Book News

Bradley J. Birzer, Wednesday, 22 July 2015, ‘J.R.R. Tolkien & The Fall of Arthur’
“A circuitous review”, Birzer calls this, and in this circuitousness there is much to agree with, but also some that I have to express disagreement with. I share Birzer's enthusiasm for The Fall of Arthur and the other works brought out by Christopher Tolkien, as well as his gratitude towards Christopher Tolkien. My primary disagreement is with the view of the history of Tolkien studies that is presented, but I also would not go so far as to claim that “Christopher's voice is becoming indistinguishable from his father's”; I rather think that Christopher Tolkien, as any conscientious editor, carefully makes that distinction quite clear. Of course, Birzer may mean that Christopher Tolkien's writing style is, in every way, very close to that of his father, and I'd be inclined to more agree with that, though the forty-two years that have passed since the death of JRRT have not passed over the son without leaving a mark, also on his writing style.

Tom Shippey, Saturday, 1 August 2015, ‘Deep Roots in a Time of Frost (2014) by Patrick Curry’
A review of Patrick Curry's book, Deep Roots in a Time of Frost – Essays on Tolkien. Unlike the traditional template for reviews, by which the majority of the review is a summary of the contents of the book, Tom Shippey engages with Curry's book, discussuing the themes of Curry's book, and at places discussing with Curry's book. My overall impression is that Shippey finds Curry's book to not be entirely satisfactory, but still very much worth engaging with (and that is, I suppose, not a bad thing for literary criticism).

Dimitra Fimi, Wednesday, 5 August 2015, ‘Two books, two conferences, and other news’
Though this post is also listed for the report on the International Medieval Congress at Leeds, it also needs to be highlighted here for the information on the upcoming edition of Tolkien's A Secret Vice – edited by Andrew Higgins and Dimitra Fimi herself. This post also contains various other bits of news that will be of interest.

Deirdre Dawson, Journal of Tolkien Research, Sunday, 9 August 2015, ‘Perilous and Fair: Women in the Works and Life of J.R.R. Tolkien (2015) ed. Janet Brennan Croft and Leslie A. Donovan’
Dawson gives a very positive review of this collection edited by Janet Brennan Croft and Leslie Donovan. The book has long been on my list, but a review such as this makes it climb further up.

Kwame Opam, The Verge, Monday, 10 August 2015, ‘One of J.R.R. Tolkien's unfinished stories will finally be published this year’
This has been the month when various news-outlets have picked up on the impending publication of Tolkien's The Story of Kullervo edited by Verlyn Flieger. Most articles seem to merely rewrite the press release from HarperCollins, including the claim that this has never been published before, but I have here collected four pieces that seem to get their basic facts right.
For certain information about contents, see the reviews elsewhere ...
Alison Flood, The Guardian, Wednesday, 12 August 2015, ‘JRR Tolkien's first fantasy story to be published this month’

Katia Hetter, CNN, Wednesday, 12 August 2015, ‘Early J.R.R. Tolkien work to be published’
Husna Haq, Christian Science Monitor, Thursday, 13 August 2015, ‘Hitting bookstores soon: J.R.R. Tolkien's first fantasy story’
The Telegraph, Wednesday, 26 August 2015, ‘JRR Tolkien's first story is ‘undeniably his darkest work’ say experts’
Hannah Sanders, BBC, Thursday, 27 August 2015, ‘Kullervo: Tolkien's fascination with Finland’ (including video of Verlyn Flieger and interview with John Garth)

Jamie Crick, BBC Oxford, Thursday, 27 August 2015, ‘Drivetime’
Featuring audio from the video with Verlyn Flieger and an interview with Dimitra Fimi. The section on Tolkien's Kullervo starts at about 1:22:50 and lasts for some 6 minutes.

John D. Rateliff, Saturday, 29 August 2015, ‘Kullervo’

Nienna
by Jenny Dolfen

Shaun Gunner, The Tolkien Society, Monday, 31 August 2015, ‘New Society publication: Journeys & Destinations’
A new Peter Roe booklet, Journeys & Destinations is now available from the Tolkien Society. The bookliet is the proceedings from the 22nd Tolkien Society Seminar (2009). The booklet will soon be available also as an e-book.

Jason Fisher, Monday, 31 August 2015, ‘A standalone edition of The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun – in Serbian!’
About Tolkien's poem, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun and its recent publication in a bi-lingual Serbian / English publication. Besides the poem itself, this includes an extensive essay by the editor, Aleksandar Mikić, which Fisher describes as “probably the most thorough the lay has ever received in a long but often overlooked life.”.

Interviews

Curtis, Mythgard Institute, Friday, 14 August 2015, ‘Interview: John Garth on Tolkien's Wars and Middle-earth’
An interview with John Garth, who will, when I post this, have started teaching his on-line classes on ‘Tolkien’s Wars and Middle-earth’ for Mythgard Institute. The classes sound very interesting, indeed – not least the promise of “examining Tolkien’s responses to 1930s totalitarianism, the Spanish Civil War, and the alteration of the urban and rural environment under the demands of war and of returning servicemen.”

Curtis, Mythgard Institute, Tuesday, 18 August 2015, ‘Interview: Nelson Goering on Anglo-Saxon’
Another interview with one of their up-coming teachers, Nelson Goering, who is teaching ‘Introduction to Anglo-Saxon’ together with Michael Drout. The interview touches on the love for language and words – philo-logos – and for the study of languages and words, philology.

Francesca Barbini, Scififantasy Network, Thursday, 20 August 2015, ‘Shaun Gunner On The Tolkien Society’
An interview with Shaun Gunner about the Tolkien Society. Kudos to Shaun for his efforts to improve the Tolkien Society's on-line, and especially social media, presence. There is one quotation in particular that seems to me to hit the nail right on:

It's important to remember that the Society is not anti-film, just very very pro-book! As such, the Society's future will be determined by Tolkien and his books, rather than Jackson and his films.

No matter what we, as individual members, may think of any film (I think it's a pity that so many people these days tend to forget that there have been numerous film-adaptations of Tolkien's work, many of which are no worse than Jackson's in terms of representing Tolkien's story), the Tolkien Society as a body does not have any opinion on them – because, in my opinion, they are in no way what we are about.

Francesca Barbini, SciFiFantasy Network, Thursday, 27 August 2015, ‘The Art Of Fabio Leone’
An interview with Fabio Leone, whose painting Ulmo appears before Tuor won the Tolkien Society award for best artwork in 2015.

Francesca Barbini, Monday, 31 August 2015, ‘The Lord of the Grins’
An interview with Mark Egginton, who has written a Lord of the Rings parody called The Lord of the Grins that has been published for Kindle, and which will later appear in paperback from Oloris Publishing. While I have never really been attracted to parodies of Tolkien, Mark is a great guy and, of course, a member of the Tolkien Society.

Tolkienian Artwork

Jenny Dolfen, Sunday, 2 August 2015, ‘The Noontide of Valinor’
In the middle, the Two Trees, in the frame, eight Valar (yes, Jenny, I still think the male Valar should have been beardless, but I do like it anyway :-) )

Jenny Dolfen, Wednesday, 5 August 2015, ‘And he knew he had tarried overlong’
Tuor and the swans ...

Graeme Skinner, Wednesday, 5 August 2015, ‘A Hobbits Deco Pipe’
A fine way to enjoy your favourite pipeweed.

Jenny Dolfen, Monday, 17 August 2015, ‘Cuiviénen’
Finwë and Miriel and other of the Unbegotten in the starlight at the shores of Cuiviénen.

Wendy Pini, ElfQuest® the official page, Thursday, 20 August 2015, ‘Goldberry from LOTR, 1972. #TBT’
A portrait of Goldberry in an early version of the characteristic style that would become famous by the Elfquest comic books.

Three Hobbits A Fox And Supper
by Joe Gilronan

Joe Gilronan, Thursday, 20 August 2015, ‘Three Hobbits A Fox And Supper’
The scene with the much-debated thinking fox from ‘Three is Company’ (LotR, book I, ch. 3)

Jenny Dolfen, Friday, 21 August 2015, ‘Nienna’
The weeping Valië

Morgan Feldman, Miruvor, Sunday, 23 August 2015, ‘A Lament for Tolkien's Tree’
A different kind of art, but art nonetheless. A lament for the Pinus Negro from the Oxford Botanic Gardens that had to be cut down last year.

Jenny Dolfen, Tuesday, 25 August 2015, ‘Brothers’
Maedhros and Maglor riding through ... Beleriand?

Claire Wilkinson, Tuesday, 25 August 2015, ‘Fire and Water’
Smaug ... Long Lake ... the Lonely Mountain in the background.

Jenny Dolfen, Saturday, 29 August 2015, ‘Youtube, Twitter, and Periscope, oh my’
Because you'll want to follow Jenny Dolfen on all the possible channels, of course. ... yes, you will :)

Jenny Dolfen, Monday, 31 August 2015, ‘Gold leaf, copper, and a redhead’
Jenny has been experimenting with copper leaf ... on Maedhros. The result is certainly enjoyable.

Other Stuff

Joel Lovell, Monday, 17 August 2015, ‘The Late, Great Stephen Colbert’
The point where this interview gets interesting (at least from a purely Tolkienian perspective) is near the end, when Colbert and Lovell discuss Colbert's faith, and moves on to the loss of his father and brothers. Colbert speaks of “a very healthy reciprocal acceptance of suffering” and about loving “the thing that [you] most wish had not happened.” When asked for explanation, Colbert cites Tolkien saying “What punishments of God are not gifts?” Though the letter Colbert refers to as the context is probably no. 153 to Peter Hastings (draft), this bit is probably a paraphrase from another letter, no. 212 (a draft continuation of a letter, no. 211, to Rhona Beare): “A divine ‘punishment’ is also a divine ‘gift’, if accepted, since its object is ultimate blessing, and the supreme inventiveness of the Creator will make ‘punishments’ (that is changes of design) produce a good not otherwise to be attained”. But this is in any case well remembered by Colbert.
See also Bishop-elect Robert Barron, Tuesday, 25 August 2015, ‘Stephen Colbert, J.R.R. Tolkien, John Henry Newman, and the Providence of God’

Simon Cook, Wednesday, 19 August 2015, ‘Albus Novus’
Just a short note on the random meeting of ideas in three short pieces of text

Miruvor, Tuesday, 25 August 2015, ‘Taruithorn Songbook’
Ahh ... filks :-) That brilliant old tradition.

John Rateliff, Thursday, 27 August 2015, ‘Tolkien & Lewis on BOOK-TV’
I think Rateliff sums it up quite well when he says that “The best thing about this, from my point of view, is that Tolkien and Lewis now have a high enough profile that a book about them merits more than an hour on C-SPAN.” On the other hand it would have been preferable if the occasion had been a book of a higher standard.

Skye Sonja Rosetti and Krisho Manoharan, Saturday, 29 August 2015, ‘Simply Walking into Mordor: How Much Lembas Would The Fellowship Need?’
Referring on to an article in Journal of Interdisciplinary Science Topics, Vol.4 (2015), from the University of Leicester.
I know that this may seem a little silly – and perhaps it is; it certainly doesn't tell anyone anything useful about Tolkien's work, nor does it tell us anything relevant about nutrition, but it does show how Tolkien's work can be used as a useful model for student exercises in science (and one that is really good fun to work with, too!).
In many ways, I think this is relevant also to the way we might see Tolkien's work on a more serious basis – you might say that Tolkien himself treated his own sub-created world as a model: a model in which he could try out new ideas on aesthtics (and not just linguistic aesthetics), ethics, theology, etc. Christopher Tolkien, in the foreword to The Silmarillion writes that his father's legendarium “became the vehicle and depository of his profoundest reflections. In his later writing mythology and poetry sank down behind his theological and philosophical preoccupations: from which arose incompatibilities of tone.” To me, this reflects quite precisely the way we might use a model in the sciences: a representation of reality that is suitably simplified to allow a study of a few interactions, and I see no reason to limit this understanding to the interactions of the natural world that are studied by our natural sciences.

Rewarding Discussions

Brothers
by Jenny Dolfen

LotR Plaza, ‘Are the Dwarves in The Hobbit really poorly developed or is my impression?’
A discussion about the premise expounded in the headline, but also touching on various interesting side-tracks from this.

LotR Plaza, ‘Orcs and Goblins?’
In origin a question about the difference, if any, between Orcs and Goblins in Tolkien's legendarium, but getting into many intersting

In Print

Beyond Bree, August 2015
In this issue, I was interested to see the fifteenth instalment in Dale Nelson's on-going series, ‘Days of the Craze’, this one promising to put ‘The 1965 Ace Books Reprint in Context’. It is curious that the Ace affair can still be a cause of some strife these thirty years later. Dale Nelson, however, avoids the contented questions, and speaks of the general book-reading climate of the time. Another interesting item is Kate Ebneter's honest and precise review of Alex Lewis' and Elizabeth Currie's attempt to turn the biography of a fantasy author into a fantasy itself, J.R.R. Tolkien: Codemaker, Spy-master, Hero. One sentence sums it up nicely: “Ultimately the entire foundation of the book is a straw man of the authors' creation”. Beyond Bree still retains the fanzine charm of diversity – moving between carefully set out analyses and comments displaying more enthusiasm than analytic (or even rational) faculty.

Web Sites

As I have discovered no new and fantastic Tolkienian web sites in August, I thought I might advertise a bit for the three best Tolkienian reference sites:

Tolkien Gateway
The best all-round Tolkienian reference-site available on the internet. This is very much due to the efforts of a group of dedicated admins, who have turned a usual fan-wiki (more enthusiasm than rigour) into a great resource, where new articles have proper citations, and where old articles are being upgraded to the newer standards.

The Tolkien Meta-FAQ
Don't despair of the URL, this meta-FAQ compiled by Steuard Jensen is beyond a doubt the best Tolkienian FAQ available anywhere. Even if most of the entries are becoming dated, the treatment is still first-class. FAQs usually also attempt to give a good answers as possible to questions for which a proper answer (of the kind that can be printed in a reference work) cannot be found. This makes it possible to address a number of questions that cannot be dealt with e.g. in the Tolkien Gateway wiki.

FAQ of the Rings
The last site I will advertise is Stan Brown's FAQ about the Rings of Power. This one dedicated to a specific topic within Tolkien's legendarium is quite thorough in its approach, and like other FAQs it deals also with speculation, and like the meta-FAQ this one includes sources for the speculations.

The Blog Roll

These are blogs you really should be following yourself if you're interested in Tolkien ...
Contents from these blogs will only be reported here if there is something that I find particularly interesting, or posts that fit with a monthly theme. However, you will find below links to monthly archives of posts for months where the blog has featured interesting posts with at least some Tolkien connection. In some cases you may find a headline for a post, if I wish to recommend it particularly.

Jason Fisher, ‘Lingwë -- Musings of a Fish’
Archive of posts from August 2015

Douglas A. Anderson, ‘Tolkien and Fantasy’
Archive of posts from August 2015

John D. Rateliff -- ‘Sacnoth's Scriptorium’
Archive of posts from August 2015

Marcel Aubron-Bülles, ‘The Tolkienist’
Archive of posts from August 2015

David Bratman, ‘Kalimac's Journal’
Archive of posts from August 2015

Jenny Dolfen, ‘Jenny's Sketchbook’
Archive of posts from August 2015

Various, The Mythopoeic Society
Recent news

Various (Bradford Eden, ed.) Journal of Tolkien Research (JTR)
Archive of contributions for the on-going volume 1, issue 1

Various, The Tolkien Society (TS)
Archive of posts from August 2015

Simon Cook, Ye Machine
Archive of posts from August 2015

Southfarthing Mathom
Archive of posts from August 2015

Taruithorn, the Oxford Tolkien Society, ‘’
Archive of posts from August 2015

Michael Martinez, ‘Middle-earth’
Archive of posts from August 2015

Grey Havens Group, ‘The Grey Havens Group’
Archive of posts from August 2015

Sources

No new sources in August 2015

For older sources, see http://parmarkenta.blogspot.com/p/sources.html

Regarding Pictures

All pictures that are displayed on this blog appear with the kind permission of the artist, for which I am exceedingly grateful. Please do not copy or reuse them without permission, and please recall to always give credit where it is due.

Pictures that are not my own photos, are linked to lead to the artist's page – please click through and visit their page. You support them already by showing an interest, but please consider supporting them also financially – buying some of their works, or otherwise.

The artists that have allowed me to use their images are

Tsvetelina ‘Elmenel’ Krumova

Katarzyna ‘Kasiopea’ Chmiel-Gugulska

Graeme Skinner

Before his untimely death in August 2015, I had a similar arrangement with Jef Murray.