Tolkien Gleanings #140.

* Appearing on the latest Catholic Culture Podcast, Holly Ordway talking about “Tolkien’s hard-won faith” and her new book. Also available on YouTube.

* In Russian with a long English abstract, a freely available article on the translation of Tolkien’s ‘The Song of Earendil’ into Russian. This compares various Russian translations, with special reference to attempts to retain some of the original poetic form.

* The opening event of the Italian Tolkien exhibition in Rome now has a list of speakers, and the launch event will be webcast live on YouTube on 8th November 2023.

* Also in Italy, many Tolkien events at the big multi-day Lucca Comics 2023 festival:—

    – A panel talk and presentation on 1st November: “The history of Middle Earth. The translation into Italian of The History of Middle-earth continues apace. [Here] the Bompiani translators present the fifth volume, a particularly difficult work because it also contains essays on the languages ​​and dialects of Middle-earth and an ‘etymological dictionary’ with an extensive account of Elvish vocabularies.”

    – A workshop on 2nd November. An “in-depth study of the writer’s texts led to the creation of an artbook published by Eterea Edizioni, in which traditional, illustrated digital and 3D modelling techniques intertwine”, to depict the “White City, the hidden kingdom of the Elves of Gondolin. This meeting will explore digital painting and the software used to create the artbook, sculpted in 3D block-out and then digitally painted.” The technique of manually overpainting 3D renders from Blender has now been made somewhat obsolescent by AI, but it may still interest some. The authors say… “we have just opened pre-orders for this artbook.”

    – Then a Quenya speaking workshop; a calendar launch; a launch of another Middle-earth artbook (see the cover below); a panel on “Horror in J.R.R. Tolkien” followed by a workshop on “The representations of horror in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien”; and finally perhaps the ultimate horror… a look at a Disney-fied Tolkien, apparently soon set to become a graphic novel.

* A warm review of the premiere of the Lewis and Tolkien stage show in Los Angeles, USA…

“Author/director Dean Batali has crafted a fascinating ‘what-if’ scenario in which two literary luminaries [meet in later life and] get into rousing and humorous debate as they start to learn the value of their friendship, a friendship [by then] almost lost to time and situation. Kudos to Beattie and Crowley, who do an excellent job of portraying the famed writers, warts and all. Congratulations are also in order for the production team, including Joel Daavid for his outstanding set design, so cozy and pub-like. Vicki Conrad’s costumes, Martha Carter’s lighting, and Chris Moscatiello’s sound set the scene for this absorbing slice of history.”

* There’s also another review of Lewis and Tolkien at the Noho Arts website…

“The performances are exquisite. I felt as if I were genuinely in the presence of these magical men. I felt their connection, their regrets and their love for one another. Sitting in the darkness of this wonderful space, watching them move through their troubles, their relationship and the play was a rare delight.”

* And finally, a speaker in southern England is able to travel to give a two-part illustrated talk on the “Art of Tolkien: Artistic Interpretations of Middle-earth”.

Tolkien Gleanings #139.

* The new book Many Times & Many Places: C.S. Lewis and the Value of History (August 2023) examines the value that Lewis placed on the study of history, and on its established divisions. The book’s blurb suggests it may also discuss the scholarly methods used by Lewis and his generation in truth-sifting regarding the past, and the flipside of this in the form of their historical imagination. Thus the book may also be of some relevance to understanding Tolkien. Possibly even a shelf-companion to the forthcoming book The Literary Role of History in the Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien (December 2023)?

* New and freely available in the HCommons repository, “J.R.R. Tolkien at the University of Leeds”. Being… “the English-language original of the article published [in Japanese in the journal] Eureka: Poetry and Criticism” for November 2023.

* New and freely available in The European Conservative, “The Apocalypse According to J.R.R. Tolkien”, a long article focussing on the… “profound questions about the fate of the world” that troubled the Christians of Tolkien’s generation.

* Running online during November 2023, the Signum University short course Tolkien and the Romantics: Imagining and Dreaming.

* Two further “The History of Middle-earth Box Sets” have now appeared on Amazon UK as listing pages. It looks like the History re-issue will now be four, rather than two, sets of boxed hardcovers. Set 3 is pencilled in for September 2024, followed by Set 4 in November 2024.

* And finally, two weeks to the opening of the medium-sized Tolkien show at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome. The official website fails not only in its grinding slowness (over 100 x 1.8Mb background panel images arranged in a grid… what on earth are their web designers and museum managers thinking of?), but also fails to inform about the coming-soon Tolkien show. Yet one can at least determine that day-tickets for the museum are 13 euros per person. The price seems to include all shows and galleries.

Tolkien Gleanings #138.

* Announced via an Amazon listing, another Tolkien map book. To be titled Maps of Tolkien’s Middle Earth and currently set for 9th April 2024. No details, but my guess would be it’s an expanded re-issue of the Brian Sibley map-box/book The Map Of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth (1994) and his subsequent The Maps of Tolkien’s Middle-earth (2003). The latter was expanded and inside were… “Tolkien’s Maps of The Hobbit, Beleriend and Middle-earth beautifully presented in an exquisite box-set”. Its special edition also had “a unique map of Numenor”. So my guess is the forthcoming 2024 item will at least be a reprint and perhaps another expansion, possibly with a few more maps?

* Also noted on Amazon UK, The History of Middle-earth Box Set in hardcover, set for a staggered release in mid January and then in mid March 2024.

* A new Mythlore (Fall/Winter 2023) has appeared. Among other items of interest in the journal are…

   – “Otherworldly but not the Otherworld” (Tolkien may have drawn on Lanval and Sir Orfeo in building his depiction of Lothlorien).

   – “The Sun, the Son, and the Silmarillion“ (a new Kristine Larsen paper drawing as usual on astronomical lore and science, and interestingly noting Tolkien’s hints at life on other planets).

   – A review of the book ‘Uncle Curro’: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Spanish Connection (interesting to know that Hilary Tolkien served as a bugler in the First World War, re: “the horns of the morning”).

* The Imaginative Conservative briefly reviews the new Holly Ordway book Tolkien’s Faith (2023).

* On YouTube, a 30 minute conference talk on ‘Tolkien, Heroic Christianity and the Dangers of Neo-Paganism’ (September 2023). Makes many interesting points, not least that many inclined toward the mish-mash of neo-paganism might do well to investigate instead the many aspects of pagan beliefs and symbolism which were long-ago successfully absorbed by Christianity.

* New from Vernon Press, the academic book Weaving Words into Worlds (September 2023). Has the chapter “The Ecological Christian Labyrinth and the Significance of Trees in The Lord of the Rings”. This appears to try to link Tolkien’s uses of trees, within his labyrinthine LoTR narrative, with historical Christian uses of labyrinths and mazes.

* Call for papers: The Middle Ages in the 20th and 21st Centuries at the University of Stavanger in Norway. Deadline: 31st January 2024.

* And finally, a major joint three-society Literature and Science conference at the University of Birmingham, set for 10th-12th April 2024. The wide ‘literature and science’ theme is left open and thus suggests possibilities for a Tolkien topic, especially so in his home city of Birmingham. Tolkien was taken to the Great Hall of the University (then serving as a hospital) on being brought back from France, and this might suggest a paper on the Houses of Healing in LoTR and the value of traditional oral lore for rediscovering potent healing plants (“Ioreth, men will long remember your words”). The call for papers deadline is 1st December 2023.

Tolkien Gleanings #137.

* Tolkien’s Oxford Eagle and Child pub is sold and saved, having being purchased by billionaire Larry Ellison’s Ellison Institute of Technology, which is also establishing a new science campus. The “renowned architect Norman Foster will renovate” the venue beloved of Tolkien and his friends, keeping it as a pub — but also adding a study space for “Ellison Scholars and EIT Oxford faculty” together with a new restaurant.

The pub in the late 1970s.

* The seventh PDF issue of my Tolkien Gleanings ‘zine is now freely available at Archive.org.

* Joseph Pearce reflects on “50 Years with J.R.R. Tolkien”.

* Quillette has an article musing on “Misreading Middle-Earth: Tolkien and the Contemporary Reader”…

“it is difficult to imagine [The Lord of the Rings] being written today. From the subtlety of its symbolism to the profoundly Catholic character of the prose, with its pseudo-Biblical narrative and baroque embellishments, many aspects of Tolkien’s style and storytelling would be unpalatable to most modern publishers”.

* Freely online, an undergraduate survey of “The nature of evil in Catholicism as represented in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien” (2022).

* The table-of-contents for Amon Hen #302 (August 2023). Has a book review of The Battle of Maldon together with The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, and articles including “Loose Lips Cost Lives” — which at a guess is likely about the need for caution when conveying information in Middle-earth.

* New on YouTube, Paolo Nardi and Alena Afanasyeva talk about “Tolkien in Russia”. “Discussing Tolkien’s reception in the Soviet Union and Russian-speaking countries. The Lord of the Rings was banned by the regime…”. 90 minutes, not in English. Appears to be popular both in terms of views and comments.

* The annual German language Tolkien Times PDF ‘zine / brochure, now available for free download (scroll down the page). Also has a review of Garner’s Treacle Walker in its German translation.

* And finally, scenes from Tolkien as Byzantine paintings.

The seventh PDF issue of my Tolkien Gleanings ‘zine, now freely available at Archive.org.

Tolkien Gleanings #136.

* Freely available in the latest newly-started issue of the Journal of Tolkien Research, “The Hen that Laid the Eggs: Tolkien and the Officer Training Corps”. Discusses how the young Tolkien’s OTC… “experience underlies the importance of military preparedness and the consequences of lack of preparedness among the free peoples of Middle-earth”. Expands on the author’s… “2011 paper in Tolkien Studies“.

* Freely available and new in English in the Hungarian journal Orpheus Noster, “Tolkien, the Practicing Catholic: The Early Letters”. May complement Holly Ordway’s recent book, since the author finds that Tolkien’s…

“actual religious practices of his everyday life have [not yet been] uncovered. This paper attempts to provide a brief glance into these by examining Tolkien’s early Letters”.

* The new long blog post “Space travel in The Notion Club Papers by “Incarnation. By being born” – What does Tolkien mean?.

* In the re-titled open access journal Archaeoastronomy and Ancient Technologies (now Cultural Heritage and Modern Technologies), the new journal article “The symbol of the crescent moon with a star on ancient and medieval coins” (2023)…

“In ancient times, the symbol of the crescent moon with a star may refer to a female divinity. […] Probably on medieval coins the crescent moon with the star was initially coined as a symbol of the Virgin Mary”.

Newly “coined”, or appropriated?

“In ancient times Venus took care of mariners, because she was supposed to be born of the sea; because she has ceased to take Care, the Virgin Mother is [now, as Mary] substituted to this Mother.” — Erasmus.

* Now apparently under Creative Commons on Archive.org, the PhD thesis Asgard Revisited: Old Norse mythology and national culture in Iceland, 1820-1918 (2017).

* And finally, a set of Jim Kirkwood re-releases sounds rather enticing…

“Announcement of these reissues has generated no small degree of excitement among fans of synthesizer music, especially those in the dungeon synth scene. […] Although held in high esteem by the dungeon synth scene, Kirkwood’s own output feels more in line with the British progressive rock and [1970s and early 80s] Berlin-school style of synth music that inspired him.”

Remastered re-issues of Kirkwood’s rare “Tolkien-focused” LP’s are set for release on 1st December 2023. For those interested there’s also a 1992 LoTR inspired sampler LP, and a higher-quality version which can be purchased to help support South Essex Animal Hospital.

Tolkien Gleanings #135.

* New to me, the long “Saving the Shire: Ascetic Renunciation and Love of Home in J.R.R. Tolkien”. Being the text of the… “Inklings lecture delivered by Richard Rohlin at the sixth annual Inklings Festival in October of 2020”.

* This week La Libre has an article on the new Lord of the Rings in French. Apparently with “previously unpublished illustrations by Tolkien”…

A [one-volume] version [of the Lord of the Rings] more in line with Tolkien’s wishes. The new complete edition, revised, corrected and expanded, is published on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the author’s death. This is one of the editorial events of the Autumn” [being] “the new French translation” [of that] “already revised in 2014 by Daniel Lauzon [and which has here been] further refined by the translator” […] “It is based on the latest version of the English text, revised by Christopher Tolkien based on indications left by his father. It offers previously unpublished illustrations by Tolkien, and is supplemented by an index that Tolkien had wished to include during his lifetime, but did not have time to provide for the first publication of the trilogy in 1954-1956.

The article also notes that the character names are no longer French-ified for a French audience. The La Libre writer has actually seen a copy and pronounces the book, printed in Italy, of sumptuous quality. Said to be a “limited edition”, officially published on 19th October 2023.

* In open access, the Masters dissertation “Textual Conventions and the Encoded Reader in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Translation of Beowulf“ (2023).

* Due at the end of October 2023, the German book Aure entuluva! – Der Tag soll wieder kommen. J.R.R. Tolkien zum 50. Todestag. Ten essays from writers and thinkers for whom Tolkien was their path to Christian belief.

* Now on YouTube, the recent presentation to the Blake Society titled “The Edge of Human Experience: Blake and Tolkien’s Art”.

* And finally, “Exhibition celebrates works of Narnia and Tolkien illustrator Pauline Baynes”. Though it appears to be over already…

“Farnham Town Council was privileged to display a large collection of her work, generously provided by her relative Alberto Ceceatelli who brought the collection over from Italy for this very special occasion. The exhibition opened with a private view and during opening hours the council chamber was crowded with visitors until it closed at mid-day the following Monday. This was the first time the collection had been seen in [the UK] and it created a great deal of interest.”