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.”

Tolkien Gleanings #134.

* A new official website for Tom Shippey. The site made me aware of his interesting-sounding book Hard Reading: Learning from Science Fiction (2016).

* Here are transcriptions of two of the questions and answers which followed the recent Tom Shippey talk titled “Sixty Years of J.R.R. Tolkien”…

Q: What question would he have liked to discuss personally with Tolkien?

A: I’d have liked to talk to him about the nature of dialect studies. I think we now know a lot more about dialect than Tolkien did. [Based on the evidence then available, he would have thought] that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight came essentially from the county of Chester. I would have liked to say to him, ‘Excuse me Professor but I think that’s wrong. Actually it’s not Chester at all, is it?’. Chester was a very funny and strange county with special privileges in the middle-ages, and that meant its neighbours didn’t like it at all. Indeed they fought a battle over it. No, actually surely the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight came from the neighbouring county of Staffordshire. And I think Tolkien would have been pleased to have heard this argument, partly because Staffordshire was one of his ‘home counties’. There are three counties which meet in Birmingham — Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Staffordshire — and those I think were the counties that Tolkien thought were his counties. And [as such] he would have been very pleased to have me argue that the great works of medieval literature in English all came from the West Midlands… and especially from those three counties.

Q: What gaps still need work, in Tolkien studies?

A: Well, I think that there are perhaps two great gaps. One is that we know that Tolkien spent a great deal of time and thought on producing a work called “The Lost Road”, but of course he never got round to doing it [i.e. to completion]. We do know quite a lot about what he intended, but it would be good to have a better theory of what he meant to do. And I think there are some hints and indications. But of course the only answer can be speculative… and academics don’t really like speculation. […] I made a start on it by writing a piece in the [2022] memorial volume for Christopher Tolkien [The Great Tales Never End: Essays in Memory of Christopher Tolkien], in which I discuss a poem by Tolkien which I think he intended to work up as part of “The Lost Road”. The other [gap] is that we now have a great mass of early material edited by Christopher Tolkien, and I think Tolkien critics have rather fought shy of studying this. Because there’s so much of it, and it’s so difficult and it’s so tangled. But I think it would be interesting once again to try to [use this material to] get back to the original sources… no, not to the original sources… to Tolkien’s original intentions.

* Currently on eBay, another copy of the very rare book Wheelbarrows at Dawn: Memories of Hilary Tolkien, with a number of sample images.

* In Italy on 14th October 2023, a scholarly Workshop: ‘Tolkien and the Arthurian Myths: in honor of the 50th anniversary of Tolkien’s death’… “This workshop is open to all Tolkien enthusiasts, literature students, budding writers and anyone who wishes to deepen their knowledge of Tolkien’s works and the Arthurian myths. Places are limited to a maximum of fifteen participants.”

* New to me, a book of Italian essays on Tolkien titled Albero di Tolkien. Topic titles, in approximate English translation, include among others…

   – The name of Snorri.
   – Walking through Oxford.
   – The use of traditional symbols in J.R.R. Tolkien.
   – Tolkien’s polytheistic sentiment.
   – Tolkien, life, death and immortality.
   – The figure of the hero in Tolkien.
   – Music and Middle-earth.
   – Tolkien and the figurative arts.

* On YouTube, the October 2023 Update for the Digital Tolkien Project.

* Tolkien’s Philology: General Works (1923-1925). Being a new Archive.org PDF compilation of his authoritative “The Year’s Work in English Studies” surveys for 1924, 1925 and 1926. These are also on Archive.org in their original format and context.

* And finally, the latest edition of the UK’s The Critic magazine reviews The Globe, a new book offering an entertaining brisk tour of the history of the ‘flat Earth’ fallacy. This book also touches on the use by Tolkien…

The book ends as rapidly as it began, with an account of the flat literary worlds created by the medievalists-turned-fantasy authors C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. [But] Hannam’s narrative is at its most illuminating when discussing the wide acceptance of the spherical earth theory in the European Middle Ages. Far from [being] drooling, dogma-blinded pantomime bigots […] mediaeval thinkers were keen cosmologists who by and large had read their Aristotle. Some, such as Bede in the 7th century, arrived at similar conclusions on their own.

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.

Tolkien Gleanings #131.

* Now freely online in English, the book chapter “Tolkien’s Great Escape and its Role in the Harry Potter Series: How the Concept of Death Shapes J.K. Rowling’s Novels” (2019). Specifically, Tolkien’s concept of death. Presented at a Czech conference in 2017, and presumably later published in the conference book.

* Freely online at the Valar Guild, the detailed essay “Concerning Estel: Who Foretold What, When; or The Strange Case of Foresight’s First Formulation” (June 2023).

* A free online talk by a PhD student, for the William Blake Society, “The Edge of Human Experience: Blake and Tolkien’s Art”. Set for 11th October 2023.

* How different is Tolkien in Chinese translation? Set for publication in spring 2024, the new book Reading Tolkien in Chinese: Religion, Fantasy and Translation (Perspectives on Fantasy series) is set to give the answers. I’m guessing there may also be self-censorship at play among translators and publishers, given the nature of the Chinese regime. And perhaps also fan-project counter-responses to that?

* A new open-access medieval journal, Eventum: A Journal of Medieval Arts & Rituals. The first issue has been published, themed ‘The Arts and Rituals of Pilgrimage’.

* Due before Christmas, according to Amazon UK, the book Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival: A Critical Anthology…

If a literary movement arises but no one notices, is it still a movement? […] this anthology collects for the first time over fifty speculative poets. […] Alongside such established names as C.S. Lewis, Patrick Rothfuss, Edwin Morgan, Poul Anderson, Jo Walton, P.K. Page, and W.H. Auden, this anthology also includes representative texts from cultural movements such as contemporary neo-paganism and the Society for Creative Anachronism.

No Tolkien mentioned, but perhaps that’s because the Estate refused?

* A new podcast series will be discussing the history of fresh produce, and the presenters may be interested in some pointers from Tolkien scholars. Since they say…

“we might even try to understand the produce of Middle-earth”.

* And finally, the New Zealand Saturday Evening Post recounts a tale of going “Hiking with Hobbits”…

“In New Zealand, place-names drip [as if] from J.R.R. Tolkien’s fountain pen — Elfin Bay, Lake Truth, Mount Aspiring, Demon Trail, The Tower — and Lord of the Rings fans now pilgrimage to [these] sets for Middle-earth.”

Tolkien Gleanings #130.

* Kristine Larsen’s Oxonmoot 2023 keynote conference address has been released as an open-access paper. “Everything I Ever Needed to Know About the North Pole I Learned from Father Christmas (and Karhu the Polar Bear [and Ilbereth the Elf])”. This… “investigates the Father Christmas Letters through a world-building lens”. Also with a weather-eye on the North Pole, as understood by science in the 1909-1939 exploration period.

* “The Words. Or Holes. Or Both: Writing as an Integrative Methodology for Trauma, an August 2023 PhD thesis for the University of Denver. Has an early chapter discussing Tolkien’s use of fantasy in relation to trauma and loss. The record-page only offers a free PDF preview.

* The French Tolkiendil Association and the French Universite Paris-Creteil have a pleasing new poster for their joint conference ‘Journees de Recherche et Rencontres sur Tolkien’. The event is set for 6th – 7th October 2023, at the University of Paris. It will focus on “issues relating to translation” and also the new scholarly understandings emerging from the growing awareness of Tolkien’s life and surroundings. The latest programme listing is in Italian here.

* Ad Fontes magazine has a lengthy new multi-book review this week, freely available, “The Whole Lewis”. This reviews a three volume biography (2019-2022)…

“Harry Lee Poe is to be praised and thanked for this outstanding biographical achievement of over one thousand pages in three volumes on the life of C.S. Lewis. It is to date the most extensive study on the development of Lewis’s life, written with a synoptic eye toward the primary sources — the Lewis family papers, Warnie’s memoirs, Jack’s letters — many of which were unavailable to the earlier Lewis biographers, and largely remain unavailable to the general readership. In this trilogy, Poe unfolds Lewis’s life like an accordion…”

* Diary dates for the UK’s Tolkien Society’s AGM and SpringMoot 2024. 12th – 14th April 2024 at Jesus College, Cambridge University.

* Advance notice of a new book Theology and Tolkien: Constructive Theology, “coming early 2024”. The book appears set to be a shelf companion to the just published multi-author academic collection Theology and Tolkien: Practical Theology (September 2023). For which I see there’s now a £35 Kindle ebook edition listing on Amazon UK. This appears to be due to be sent on 2nd October 2023. At which time the table-of-contents will be viewable, as part of the 10% free sample.

* And finally, new to me, the Tolkien Music List website. With a discography of ‘Tolkien tribute’ popular music of all types. Though with lots of metal bands listed, as you’d expect.

Tolkien Gleanings #129.

* New in a peer-reviewed medical journal is the article “Why Psychiatrists Should Read (and Watch) Lord of the Rings” ($ paywall)… “Stories have considerable impact on our psychological health […] [Drawing on LoTR] six lessons will be discussed.” I’d add that there is also a newer media form, perhaps more psychologically potent in the long-term than either book or movies. The full-cast full-SFX unabridged audiobook with music. Such as that created for LoTR by Phil Dragash using Howard Shore’s music, and voices closely patterned on the excellent voice-work done for the LoTR movies.

* Coming in a few months in the Manchester University Press ‘Medieval Literature and Culture’ book series, Fantasies of Music in Nostalgic Medievalism. I’d imagine that music in Tolkien will be discussed, along with the Shore soundtrack. The book is set to ship on 19th December 2023, barring the inevitable postal and rail strikes, says Amazon UK. It’s an £85 single-author academic book and focuses on… “musical performance, [medievalist fantasy] literature, cinema and their reception […] in the period between the Second World War and the present”.

* A major exhibition titled ‘Fantastic Animals’ at the Louvre-Lens in France. It has one of those museum websites which tells you everything except what the clueless Brit wants to know: “is Lens a place, and if so is it easy to access from the UK?”. Google Maps eventually obliges… it’s a town 30 miles inland from the major and well-known passenger port of Calais. The show opens 27th September and runs until 15th January 2024, exhibiting… “more than 250 works – sculptures, paintings and objets d’art, as well as films and music — ranging from antiquity to the present day”.

* Another review of the new book Twenty-first Century Tolkien (2023), at The Notion Club Papers…

“the core problem of this book [is that the author] seems to like and approve-of — or at least take seriously as valid options — a great deal of what seems to me the most ignorant, incompetent and crass interpretations [of Tolkien’s work]”.

Alternative title on some listings, Twenty-First-Century Tolkien (added hyphen) or Tolkien in the Twenty-First Century (hardcover). Not to be confused with the recent academic collections Tolkien in the 21st Century: Reading, Reception, and Reinterpretation (2022) or Twenty-first Century Receptions of Tolkien: Peter Roe Series XXI (2022).

* A new report of a rural footpath walk in England, titled “Hunting Hobbits in Lancashire”. With excellent pictures. Though the author concludes that, while looking rather pretty, this local trail is probably not so ‘Tolkien’ as it claims to be…

“the big question: ‘how much truth is there in the assertions behind the Tolkien Trail?’. I’m no expert, and we can never know for sure, but it all looks rather flimsy to me.”

* New on Archive.org, a long run of Dungeon magazine, 1986-2010. Also new is a run of one of the main official news ‘zines for RPGs from 1981 to 2004. These may be of interest to those seeking to detect Tolkien themes, or to find Tolkien-influenced illustrations, in older D&D RPGs and their ephemera. May also interest role-playing gamers seeking certain types of older material.

* And finally, coming before Christmas, The Fellowship of the Knits: The Unofficial Lord of the Rings Knitting Book. A 208 page book, with what looks like high production values, and from… “the author of nine knitting books and over 500 published knitting designs”.