Monthly Archives: October 2023

Tolkien Gleanings #132

by futurilla

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.

Retiring to the ‘castle…

by futurilla

Good to hear that Newcastle-under-Lyme made the “top 12 places to retire”. This was run by the UK’s trusted Which? magazine, rather than some headline-grabbing estate agency. North Staffordshire can rival the Outer Hebrides, Exeter, and the High Peak as a retirement spot. While being far more central and with better long-distance transport connections (e.g. direct train from Stoke to Birmingham International airport).

I image the presence of the massive university hospital at Hartshill gave the town a boost? But perhaps not, since Which? were scoring at the local Council data level…

Which? gave each local authority a score out of 10 for healthcare, happiness, green space – specifically parks and playing fields – and also considered house price affordability.

Since the hospital is actually in Stoke-on-Trent, it presumably wouldn’t have counted towards the Which? score…

No mention of one of the biggest and best hospitals in the UK and Europe, in the press-release…

Newcastle-under-Lyme was one of the highest-scoring English local authorities for green space, scoring 9.6 out of 10. The area is home to 7.4 parks and playing fields within [a 15 minute walk] on average. It was also rated the joint-happiest English local authority based on data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), tying with the High Peak. The ONS also reported it has an overall score of 7.9 for health and well-being.

And, as I found a few weeks ago in my photo-report, Newcastle-under-Lyme town centre is looking distinctly better than it was a decade ago. Though the lockdowns did cause the closure of the town’s second-hand bookshop.

What to do with HS2?

by futurilla

It does look like HS2 from Birmingham to Manchester is set to be either cancelled or heavily delayed for a decade or more, regrettably. Or just ‘not high speed’ north of Birmingham and running on the regular West Coast lines from Birmingham to Manchester (which may even give Stoke a look-in, once a day?).

If there’s to be a decade long delay then, in the meantime, how about using the purchased route for a superb (if temporary) Birmingham – Stafford – Stone – Crewe bicycle ‘motorway’? That shouldn’t cost too much, I’d imagine. Just six strips of tarmac, all the way, presumably. Three going north, three south. Boy-racers and electric-bikes in the ‘fast’ lane, slow ‘trundlers and tots’ in the slow lane.