{"id":19926,"date":"2026-11-12T20:36:33","date_gmt":"2026-11-12T20:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/?p=19926"},"modified":"2026-11-12T20:51:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T20:51:10","slug":"tolkien-gleanings-465","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/2026\/11\/12\/tolkien-gleanings-465\/","title":{"rendered":"Tolkien Gleanings #465"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tolkien Gleanings<\/a> #465<\/p>\n

* At The Tolkien Society website, David Bratman (1957-2026): In memoriam<\/a>. Also links to online obituaries.<\/p>\n

* Artist Matej Cadil considers “Poppies and Simbelmyne: Tolkien and the Many Meanings of Remembrance Day”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* Fellowship & Fairydust<\/em> posts an advance review of Tolkien and the Inklings: Men of the West<\/a><\/em>. The book is due in December 2026, although Amazon UK has January 2027… <\/p>\n

“While [Tolkien’s official biographer] Carpenter gives us a look at the Inklings through the eyes of C.S. Lewis, Bizer expands his focus to include not just the most well-known members such as Tolkien, Lewis, and Charles Williams, but also Lord David Cecil, Hugo Dyson, ‘Humphrey’ Havard, Nevill Coghill, C.L. Wrenn, and more, as we are transported to Oxford and academia before, during and after WWII. […] This is not a surface-level take on the Inklings, but an encompassing deep dive into these great men, their works, and their influences on each other. It provides the ins and outs of all one would desire to know about the Inklings and of Inklings scholarship to date.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* A new book from Germany, Die verzauberte Vernunft: Mythisches Denken und die Grenzen der Entzauberung. Levi-Strauss, Garcia Marquez, Tolkien<\/a><\/em> (2026). (‘Enchanted Reason: Mythical Thinking and the Limits of Disenchantment’). The four authors discussed…<\/p>\n

“… are united by a project older than all of them \u2014 the romantic demand for a ‘mythology of reason’. And they show that enchantment is not a regression behind reason, but one of its forms: a relationship to the world that Hartmut Rosa calls ‘resonance’ \u2014 and which, as the book ultimately asks, even a machine cannot simply produce.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* In the latest open-access Albertus Magnus<\/em> journal, “Tolkien y la superacion de la teodicea leibniziana: El Senor de los Anillos como teodicea poetica desde la Tierra Media”<\/a>. (‘Tolkien and the Surpassing of Leibnizian Theodicy: The Lord of the Rings<\/em> as a Poetic Theodicy from Middle-earth’). In Spanish with English abstract. The author discerns… “a theological narrative that illuminates the problem of evil, original sin, human freedom, and redemption” in The Lord of the Rings<\/em>, one that “transcends the rationalist explanation of Leibnizian theodicy”.<\/p>\n

* Elfenomeno<\/em> notes, in English, a new Spanish book on the forces of nature<\/a> as depicted in The Hobbit<\/em>…<\/p>\n

“Across its 216 pages, Simonson examines the storms of the Misty Mountains, the waters of Mirkwood, the darkness of the caverns and the intervention of the great eagles, relating these elements to ancient myths, literary influences and Tolkien\u2019s personal experiences.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sadly the link to the book on the publisher site is blocked by a “robot challenge”, but I find there’s a basic listing on the Spanish Amazon site<\/a>. I see that the author is the same as the author of the Walking Tree book The Lord of the Rings and the Western Narrative Tradition<\/em>, and the more recent The Woods and the World in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium<\/em>.<\/p>\n

* The Professor Kozlowski Lectures<\/a> podcast on British magic and magicians alights on “Magic in Tolkien” (8th November)…<\/p>\n

“In Tolkien’s work, as well as that of the other Inklings, magic was rarely something that humans could wield or control, and was instead something fundamental to the world itself. Using the story of Beren and Luthien from The Silmarillion (and Tolkien’s poem, “Mythopoeia”) as our guide, we’ll see how Tolkien understood magic, and how it differs from the other magicians in our study.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* Posthumously published in Italian, Tolkien Pagano<\/a><\/em> (‘Tolkien, Pagan’) is a new book by a man who was apparently one of Italy’s leading science-fiction authors. In it he discusses how…<\/p>\n

“pagan sacredness, the heroism typical of Nordic tradition, and the sense of destiny and cyclicality profoundly characterize Middle-earth”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* Also from Italy, a new Italian Kindle ebook Il femminile in Tolkien: Le donne nella Terra di Mezzo: regine, guerriere e custodi<\/a><\/em> (‘The Feminine in Tolkien: Women in Middle-earth: Queens, Warriors, and Keepers’). In a survey across the entire Legendarium, the author finds that…<\/p>\n

“Queens and warriors, mothers and daughters, immortal creatures and mortal women become pieces of a mosaic that extends from the cosmic dimension to everyday life. […] What emerges is a Tolkien far removed from more schematic readings: an author in whose work the feminine does not constitute a simple counterpoint to male heroism, but an essential component of history, mythology, and worldview.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* A snippet of information about what will be in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of J.R.R. Tolkien<\/em>. It will have a chapter surveying Tolkien\u2019s academic life<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* The new book The Worlds of Christopher Tolkien<\/a><\/em> is set for release in about a week, according to Amazon UK…<\/p>\n

“This brand new celebration of J.R.R. Tolkien’s son and literary executor, The Worlds of Christopher Tolkien sheds light on the worlds in which Christopher Tolkien lived and wrote, illuminated by essays from academics, colleagues, friends and family.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* On Reddit, A comprehensive listing of Christopher Tolkien’s admitted mistakes<\/a>, re: his father’s works. Being the places in his publications where he admits an earlier mistake of interpretation or scholarly sifting.<\/p>\n

* Elfenomeno<\/em> interviews artist Ted Nasmith<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* On YouTube Malcolm Guite appreciates the new artbook A Shire Walking Party<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

* And finally, the interior of Bodleian Library, as Tolkien would have know it. Painting by John Fullylove. Interesting to know that the windows had a view into the Fellows Garden of his Exeter College.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Possibly he had a view of the ‘Party Tree’ in the Garden?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tolkien Gleanings #465 * At The Tolkien Society website, David Bratman (1957-2026): In memoriam. Also links to online obituaries. * Artist Matej Cadil considers “Poppies and Simbelmyne: Tolkien and the Many Meanings of Remembrance Day”. * Fellowship & Fairydust posts an advance review of Tolkien and the Inklings: Men of the West. The book is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tolkien-gleanings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19926"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19936,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19926\/revisions\/19936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}