Tolkien Gleanings #132.
* In ‘The Archivist’s Nook’ this week, the article “‘The Road Goes On’ – The Making of the Tolkien Exhibit”…
“The exhibit can be seen in the main reading room on the second floor of Catholic University’s Mullen library throughout the Fall 2023 semester, but a digital version of the exhibit (which may include some ‘extras’ as all director’s cuts do!) can be accessed online.”
* In the latest Journal of Tolkien Research, a new review of the book The Road to Fair Elfland: Tolkien On Fairy-stories: An Extended Commentary (2022).
* A 100-minute interview in French, new on Archive.org, Tolkien, l’Europe et la Tradition (‘Tolkien, Europe and Tradition’). Note the English subtitles file, found under ‘SubRip Files’. Glancing at these they appear to be quite comprehensible, apart from some lack of capitalisation.
* Booking details for “A weekly series of free talks by Oxford staff”, intended to “commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of J.R.R. Tolkien”. Appears to be “Members of the University only”, though one can hope there will also be .MP3 recordings at some point.
* New to me, and now on Archive.org, the book A Tolkien treasury: stories, poems, and illustrations celebrating the author and his world (2000). A very mixed bag, by the look of it. But some may be interested in the reprinting of Auden’s original response to the then-new LoTR, and some factual essays found among the poems such as “The Coinage of Gondor and the Western Lands”.
* In Los Angeles, the Nova Forum is to host a short course running 24th-27th October 2023. Titled Tolkien and the Mystery of Literary Creation…
“Professor Pezzini is the author of a forthcoming monograph on Tolkien to be published by Cambridge University Press in early 2024, the first scholarly study of his literary theory.”
I’d imagine the course’s class titles give a flavour of his forthcoming book…
– The Cats of Queen Beruthiel: Linguistic Aesthetic and the Gratuitousness of Creativity
– The Authors of the Red Book: Meta-textual Frames and Writing as Discovery
– The Lords of the West: A Poetics of Cloaking and Freedom
– Beren and Frodo: Intra-textual Parallels, Internal Figuration, and the Universality of the Particular
– Gandalf’s Fall and Return: Sub-creative Submission and the Arising of Prophecy
– The Last Stage: the Death of the Author and the Effoliation of Creation
* Also forthcoming, the Bodleian Library is to issue a new book titled C.S. Lewis’s Oxford in summer 2024. Much of which I’d imagine will overlap with ‘Tolkien’s Oxford’. Looks like a sumptuous and thick hardback tour, but reasonably priced and also said to include… “a number of new archival discoveries, including letters, tutorial reports and even an unpublished poem”. Pre-ordering now.
* And finally, at The Lowry in Manchester, The Music of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Seemingly only on Sunday 14th April 2024, and with no symphony orchestra mentioned. It has a child-friendly time at 3pm, so it may just be a children’s event with recorded music. There are no other events of that name to be found in 2024, so it’s not a touring show. Anyway… it’s booking now.