Eowyn's Healing Story

One of the things I don't like about the movie adaptations for The Lord of the Rings is their portrayal of Arwen. They moved too far from the distant, courtly love Tolkien portrays. In fact, the books include more about Sam and Rosie Cotton's love story than they do Aragorn and Arwen's. Arwen is always there in the background of everything Aragorn does--but she's not physically there much or even spoken of much. Thank goodness the filmmakers at least didn't go with their original idea to have Arwen join the battle at Helm's Deep. I always felt like, if they want a warrior woman, they have Eowyn--and yet they cut her story short.

Now I've realized why they may have truncated Eowyn's story. Of course I've always considered the practical reasons. The Return of the King already has multiple endings. So if you take the time to go on a tangent about Eowyn in the Houses of Healing and talking with Faramir and the two of them falling in love, it definitely shifts the focus from the march on the gates of Mordor and the final destruction of the Ring. I get why that's problematic to do in a movie. But I hadn't realized there may have been another reason.

Modern audiences love Eowyn's heroic stand. It's said that no man can kill the leader of the Nazgul, to which Eowyn replies, "I am no man," as she thrusts her sword into his formless skull. And everyone cheers for girl power. But that isn't really how Tolkien wrote the scene. Technically, yes, Eowyn points out that she's a woman and therefore she can do what no man can do. But you see, Eowyn went into battle not simply to "fight for those she loves." She went seeking death. When the Ringwraith tells her that he will kill her if she gets between him and Theoden's body, she isn't hindered not just because of her courage (which is notably great) but also because she wants death. That's why she laughs when she answers him; she's in what you might call a fey mood. She's motivated to protect the dignity of her dead uncle and king, yes, but she's also motivated to put everything on the line because she has no hope for her life and doesn't want to live anymore. That is what drives Eowyn into battle.

Breathing the "black breath" from the Ringwraiths puts both Eowyn and Merry into the Houses of Healing. But while Merry heals pretty quickly with typical hobbit resilience, Eowyn falters. Her physical wounds heal, but she can't find complete healing because her spirit was already broken before she even entered that battle field. Through her conversations with Faramir, Eowyn is able to see hope again. Agreeing to become his wife, she declares that she will be a shield maiden no more and instead love healing and all things that grow. Eowyn figuratively lays down her sword for classically feminine pursuits of nourishment and growth. It's a beautiful healing story. I haven't always liked Eowyn's character that much (Galadriel's my favorite), but I always come to like her more and more when I look at her healing story.

But how would that have looked in the film? (I'm not even addressing the deleted, extended edition scene because it just shows a brief look at Eowyn and Faramir falling in love. It's pretty, but it doesn't actually cover any real ground.) How could the audience have cheered at warrior Eowyn and then accepted her healing story of laying down her sword? Eowyn picks up her sword out of depression and hopelessness, not girl power. That's why she no longer desires battle once she finds healing in her spirit and moves out of that depression and desire for death. 

The Eowyn that Tolkien wrote isn't really a twist on classic femininity. Quite the opposite. Throughout the course of her emotional journey, we see Eowyn lose touch with her femininity in part due to Aragorn's lack of interest in her, and then we see her return to fully take on her femininity in the Houses of Healing. If you like classic femininity as I do, it's beautiful. If you don't, well, you can see why the movie would choose to focus on Eowyn's triumph in battle rather than on her healing story. 

The Young Tolkien

I do love the artist biopics (enough that I don't always allow myself to watch them because they can put me in weird moods if I watch them at the wrong times) and I do love Tolkien. So a movie called Tolkien about Tolkien's life? Why not just go see it opening night with the other dozen people who were there instead of at Avengers? And you know, sometimes you do have to catch these little movies right away otherwise they'll be out of theaters before you've even blinked an eye.

The movie focuses on the young Tolkien, the teenage orphan Tolkien who finds himself in his studies and his school friends and the college age Tolkien who excels at academia despite how his background differs from that of his peers. And Tolkien the young man who falls in love with Edith and who sees all the horrors of WWI. Funny, after the movie ended, I heard someone say how they hadn't been expecting that (they'd been moved by different things in the movie). But what had they been expecting? If you know anything about Tolkien's life, there wasn't really anything surprising in the movie. But I guess not everyone knows about Tolkien's life, hence biopics.

I would say the focus of the movie ended up being Tolkien's love for Edith and his way of dealing with or expressing what he saw in the war--and how both of these things interacted with his studies and writing. The way in which they added a touch of imagery corresponding to his fantasy writings was somewhat reminiscent of how they added the animal character imagery in Miss Potter. Obviously, the two are quite different, but the similarity was in that subtle touch; you don't want to overdue it because the story is about real life, not about the fiction itself. This would be opposed to something like Finding Neverland, where the lines are intentionally blurred more and the fantasy/animation is more pronounced.

It's easy to think of WWI when thinking of Middle-earth. But Tolkien's love for Edith is just as visible in his writing. Edith is everywhere. Most prominently, of course, in Luthien and then Arwen, but also in characters like Melian. I want to keep going and name all of the other female characters, like Galadriel and Varda, but those I think are more expressive of Tolkien's faith--specifically Catholic faith. Figures like Mary and the saints would also seem to be inspiration for many of Tolkien's characters. And yet this was the part that the film did not express.

Sure, it certainly mentioned that Tolkien was Catholic. But mainly the movie shows him at conflict with his guardian over Edith. Which was true. But he was also quite strongly Catholic. So I might have liked to see a little more of that faith in the movie. Not just drunk Tolkien shouting his broken heart on the campus grounds. They showed the hope existent in human relationships (love and friendship) but what about the hope coming from a greater power? Sure, we all know about Aragorn hoping to be with Arwen or Sam helping Frodo. But what about when Sam cries out to Galadriel from the fields of Mordor in what is essentially prayer (that Varda, presumably, answers with rain)?

They did, though, those human relationships nicely. It's tragic to see his schoolfriends that he formed such bonds with meet their young ends in brutal war. And it's . . . emotional to see the way in which he and Edith got through those years apart and then did end up together and happy their whole lives. I love that bit when his friend tells him about, essentially, the beauty of unrequited love. Ah, unrequited love. But it did end up being requited in the end--and that's the lovely part. (Side note: I don't know all the details of what was fact and what wasn't, but they certainly played with the timeline, didn't they? Tolkien was already married before he went to war.)

Main conclusion: it was a good couple hours' time. The journey was nice. But I won't be rushing out to watch the movie again, if I ever do at all. Maybe its best audience really will be people who are entirely unfamiliar with anything from Tolkien's life.

Beren & Luthien: The Heart of Tolkien

I am rather late to the party here. While I was extraordinarily excited to learn that a Beren and Luthien book was coming out this (past) summer, here I am not even getting to the book until fall. That, however, is the wonderful thing about fiction: it exists outside of time and the story is always there, replaying itself, ready for whenever you're ready.

The story of Beren and Luthien most Tolkien fans know from The Silmarillion. If you have never braved reading The Silmarillion (it can be intimidating to read for the first time), then the story of Beren and Luthien is a wonderful incentive: it's one of Tolkien's best stories, despite the fact that it doesn't appear in "full" form. That is, we don't have a novel about Beren and Luthien. And no, this new publication is not, like The Children of Hurin from a few years back, the story told in novel form.

As Christopher Tolkien writes, there is no new material in this book and most of it is previously published in things like The Silmarillion and The Book of Lost Tales. What the book is is a look at how Tolkien's handling of this story developed over time and in the various forms. So you get to see how he first wrote it and then later changed it and how he wrote it in verse and so forth. For Tolkien enthusiasts and also people interested in writing, the way that Christopher Tolkien has arranged this book is fascinating. I don't know, however, that this book, being more of a study than just a story, would be a good first introduction to the story for someone who hasn't read The Silmarillion yet. So bear that in mind.

The early version of the story is intriguing: it reads more like a fairy tale than like very specific "Tolkien fantasy" that we would all come to know. Beren becomes almost a Cinderella character, working in the kitchens of Melko (later Melkor, Morgoth). And if you've never read of Tevildo Prince of Cats (who later is, of course, completely removed from the story), that character alone makes this version of the story fun to read. The verse version is also quite nice to have. If it has been previously published, I don't know where that might be; it was new to me. Some of it is quite beautiful, displaying Tolkien's ability to describe images laced with nature and faerie. You could in fact, if you already know the tale of Beren and Luthien from other publications and you're not interested in reading about all of the details of the changes in the story, get this book just to read the verse form of the story.

And of course let's not forget about the beautiful illustrations from Alan Lee, whose work by this point feels so Tolkien to most of us that it feels like he is painting real images, not simply "his take" on the visuals of the text. Sadly, Christopher Tolkien writes that because he is now 93, this will probably be the last of the books of his father's writing that he edits. I had grown so used to new publications like this that this is a strange thought. Beren and Luthien, though, as he mentions, is indeed a fitting way to come to a close: these are the names that mark the graves of Tolkien and his wife, bringing fiction and real life to a meeting place.

The Story of Kullervo

Time for more Tolkien. While some people may find it silly that so many texts can still be published from a deceased author, what they have to realize is that often these are texts previously only available to certain scholars--and the rest of us want the opportunity to study them, too.

The Story of Kullervo, as you may or may not know, is a short text that Tolkien wrote around his early twenties; it's a reworking of a section from the Kalevala, that infamous Finnish text that I hear so much about and yet can't recall ever reading anything from myself. In itself, it's kind of interesting to read. But what is more interesting and what makes it worth reading is the connection to Tolkien's later works, namely of course the story of Turin.

There was a phrase that Verlyn Flieger (who edited this text and also provided commentary) used: "it is a significant step on the winding road from imitation to invention" ("Tolkien, Kalevala, & "The Story of Kullervo" 163). As a writer and a student of literature, that's what was most interesting. When you are young, you do draw more from what's around you as you're realizing what you like and what calls to you and trying to develop the way in which you'll use those influences while also adding in what is unique to you--it takes time to develop from inspiration into creation. When reading this text, a story that is not from Tolkien, it's easy to see what about it compelled Tolkien--because those are the things that he would later work into his own writings.

The actual text is quite short, only about thirty-five pages. I do recommend reading Flieger's Introduction; she does a good job of concisely explaining what the Kalevala is, how Tolkien came to be familiar with it, and whatever else the reader needs to know before going in. I didn't read her notes and commentary for now. There are also two essays by Tolkien; I skimmed those, as well as Flieger's accompanying essay at the back of the book. If I ever want to go back and read in detail, it's all still there--but for now this was enough.

That's about all that I have to say. I appreciate the publication of this text, I enjoyed reading it, and it makes for an interesting study of Tolkien's development as a writer and a creator.

Beauty & Battle

Tolkien created a wonderful thing in Middle-earth. He created a world so complete in every detail of mythology, history, culture, art, and geography. The different peoples he created differ from each other in just the right ways and are also so distinctly apart from our own world, even where there are parallels. Lately I've been noticing a certain duplicity in most of the Middle-earth cultures that is interesting to consider. I call it beauty and battle.

Most of the cultures of Middle-earth (at least, the ones that you would consider to be "cultures," not orcs or goblins or such) value beauty, though they each have their own ideas about what beauty is. The elves love trees and harmony with nature, flowing lines and radiant colors. The dwarves value the precious stones they mine from within the earth and the vast cities they carve out of stone. Men differ, depending on region and time period, but whether we're speaking of Númenor or Rohan or Gondor, they all have a certain adherence to style and form. Architecture as a form of art and a specific type of raiment, whether for daily use or for important or ceremonial positions, is important to all of these cultures. It makes them seem very high that they value beauty and art so much.

But they are also peoples of war. The elves have a complicated history with war. Some of them fought with each other, some of them only fought the evil foes, and some of them try and stay out of it all except when they have no choice. But elves are good at battle. Dwarves are pretty good, too, and they tend to value their warrior status pretty highly, too. Men, I think, are warriors more out of necessity. The men of Gondor (and Aragorn's scattered people) value many other things besides war but fight because there are foes, and so they try to make themselves good at war so that they will not lose. They are not savages, but still they fight.

Beauty and battle. The highest, aesthetic appreciation and the most base of actions. Beauty and battle. Do they fight to protect beauty, or do they create beauty because they must also fight? What is beautiful (and here I speak of more than just architecture) is worth protecting, and when one is forced to take part in war one likes to have something beautiful to think of and remember. Beauty and battle--they are both intelligent and efficient and they both have a profound impact on people's lives.

The Silmarillion Revisited

Goodness, how many years has it been since I first read The Silmarillion? Seven? Maybe even eight or nine? I used to judge people based on this book. If they said they liked The Lord of the Rings but hadn't read The Silmarillion, then they weren't really into Tolkien. Of course, since then I've learned that for many people, The Silmarillion is just the beginning of Tolkien lore. 

Last year, someone got the illustrated edition for me. This is the book that I used to pore over at Barnes & Noble, staring into Ted Nasmith's paintings in awe and wonderment. So to finally own this book and its gorgeous illustrations was quite a big deal. Eventually I decided to read through the book again using this copy. First the plan was just to read a chapter every so often when I felt like it. But then, a couple chapters in, something happened that I hadn't expected.

I got interested.

You see, I was still fairly young when I read The Silmarillion the first time around. That was years before I read Heart of Darkness or Paradise Lost or Moll Flanders or As I Lay Dying. While I loved the language of The Lord of the Rings back then, The Silmarillion was still a challenge. This book is the mythology of Middle-earth, told more like a history than a novel. Each chapter could be its own novel, if it were told in full detail. So there are so many names, so many places, so many characters, and so very many descriptions of geography to keep track of--all with only so much of the usual excitement and such that a novel would bring. It was a hard book to get through, and I was expecting it to be that way again.

But this time it was easier for two reasons. One, the names and events were already familiar to me. It was easier to distinguish Yavanna from Varda or to kind of keep straight Finrod, Fingolfin, Fingon, and all the other names beginning in "F." I could easier follow one plot line because I knew already how it connected to what was coming next. The other reason that it was easier was that I have grown as a reader. I've probably read hundreds more books since the first time I read this one. I've read things that were hard to understand or slow to get through--things that, for all my effort, I didn't even end up liking, anyway. But The Silmarillion does not fit into this group.

This time, I really enjoyed this book. For all that it is told like a history, the language remains beautiful. It's stunning, like the best passages of the King James Bible mixed with an epic romance (and by romance I don't necessarily mean love story). The language is sweeping and bold, so magnificent in the way that it speaks of other worlds and yet so very approachable in its expressions of joy and sorrow. And the characters, oh, I like them a thousand times more than the Greek gods and goddesses. 

Tolkien's awesome, and Ted Nasmiths' illustrations for The Silmarillion are equally awesome. 

Beowulf & Beewolf

I know, I know, I was so excited about Tolkien's translation of Beowulf being published and then it took me over a month to get through it. But you know, for being a translation of what is not a hugely long poem, this is a thick volume. It's over 400 pages, being composed of: the Preface, the Introduction to the Translation, the translation itself, Notes on the text of the Translation, Introductory note to the Commentary, Commentary, Sellic Spell, and The Lay of Beowulf. It isn't just one read: it's a lot of material. 

I've found that what interested me most when I moved through everything was not the translation. The three times that I read Beowulf in college, it was Seamus Heaney's version--and I think that one was, in a way, a more pleasant read than Tolkien's. But, of course, Tolkien never published his translation--and he did most of it when he was still fairly young; so, as Christopher Tolkien constantly asserts, you can't just look at it on its own. What I enjoyed most was finding parallels to his Middle-earth writings, whether in content, approach, or language. And it was a change from Heaney's version to see how Tolkien wrote in prose while still maintaining something of the beat or flow of words from the old manuscript. Anyway.

I didn't read all of the commentary. Sorry, I'm still enjoying being out of school so I didn't quite feel like going through all of it--plus, I never studied Old English, so much of the material regarding the translation is sort of beyond my scope. But when I got over to Sellic Spell towards the end, oh, that was when I got happy. Sellic Spell was Tolkien's way of imagining what the Beowulf story would have been like closer to its original form, back when it was still a folk tale. It's about 26 pages of straightforward language, and it is fantastic. 

Sellic Spell concisely brings in the significant portions of Beowulf's story. Beowulf (renamed Beewolf) becomes a hero all over again, someone admirable and courageous and strong and noble. The action becomes perilous and exciting. The monsters, they're good. And if your interest is in crossovers with Middle-earth, you'll find some. The inklings of Theoden and Rohan and Eowyn, Wormtongue and Gollum and the Black Riders, Aragorn in his isolation and in all his glory. Oh, yes, and then there is The Lay of Beowulf. The two poems bring back memories of Tolkien's poems about Nimrodel and Amroth, Gil-galad, and the others. My college professor who taught the Beowulf and Lord of the Rings classes must be having a field day.

Radagast & Tom Bombadil

It has always seemed to me that the omission of Tom Bombadil from Peter Jackson's movies is one of the least-minded changes. Out of all the characters in The Lord of the Rings, he is the one who, intentionally, fits in least with the rest. He's a great character and his section is in fact very moving in the book--but he's hard to imagine onscreen. Bright blue jacket, yellow boots, and singing half-random songs all the time? Yeah, maybe it's better to leave him out of the movie and leave him to imagination.

Going through Weta's books on the adaptations of The Hobbit, I noticed something about the way the teams were describing their treatment of Radagast the Brown. Radagast, as you know, is barely described by Tolkien, but they made him a fully-developed character for the movies. So many of the people who helped design Radagast said they really loved his character, and while some moviegoers liked him, others called him a great mistake. Someone even called him the Jar Jar Binks of this franchise.

I don't know. I'm mostly neutral to how they dealt with Radagast, given that Tolkien really didn't describe him much and also given that The Hobbit, stylistically, is a children's story where The Lord of the Rings isn't. But then the similarity between Peter Jackson's Radagast and Tom Bombadil struck me. Radagast has the bird nest in his hat instead of blue boots and he talks to animals instead of wandering the woods singing, but do you see the similarity in eccentricity? Both characters' eccentric traits are, further, connected to their relationship with nature. Both characters exist in nature instead of in society, and that is why they develop habits that outsiders find odd.

While the movies for The Lord of the Rings kept out the odd Tom Bombadil, The Hobbit brought in the odd Radagast. And I find that interesting.

Tolkien's Arthurian Poetry

You know what one of the great things is for Tolkien fans? Despite it only being forty years since the Professor's departed this world, we already have a great deal of his writings in publication. This past year, I was reveling in all the Charlotte Brontë writings that had been published only in fairly recent years, even though she died over a century before Tolkien did.

So while things like The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún may not always appeal to the casual reader, for a hardcore fan or semi-scholar, they're treasures. This is apparent simply in the way that The Fall of Arthur, published earlier this year, is put together. Although the unfinished poem is only forty slim pages, the book is a hardcover filled with commentary on the poem's writing, context, and meaning. In these writings, Christopher Tolkien not only describes when Tolkien was working on this poem and such, but also how it relates to his Middle-earth writings. Note that I did not read all of this commentary, only glanced through it. I'll save a more thorough reading for later.

For myself, the value I gained was in connecting imagery and language to Middle-earth. Although this poem concerns the world of King Arthur, that subject material is not wholly unlike Tolkien's own legends. There is still much imagery of Nature and its power and beauty. The flow of poetry, rich but not heavy with alliteration, is reminiscent of the poetry that fills the pages of The Lord of the Rings. What scholarly treasures the Tolkienians continue receiving.

Food of Middle Earth

As long as I'm on the topic of food, let me share some silliness. The time before last that I was at Whole Foods, I bought some sort of tomato sauce/pasta sauce base and this last time, I bought a loaf of rustic bread. They look innocent enough, right?

But on closer look, you'll see why I chose this tomato product:

That's right, Middle Earth! Goodness, how silly--though I'm sure they didn't have Tolkien's Middle Earth in mind, but still. The odder thing was that I didn't notice that the bread was ridiculous, too, until I brought it home. Mediterra? If you didn't know before how to translate that, it should be obvious now. I think intuition must have led me to this bread, though I didn't notice its name at the store (I was too busy looking at the ingredients list and the city it was from . . .).

Oh, wacky Tolkienians who see his world even in their food.

The Hobbit Production Video #7 Reaction

It's wonderful to be able to watch Peter Jackson's production videos for The Hobbit: the videos released online for The Lord of the Rings were before I had discovered Tolkiendom. But now I can join in on the excitement and anticipation along with everyone else. Before you keep reading, you can watch the latest production video here.

What I've been enjoying about these videos is that, since they can't show too many spoilers, it often ends up being the craftsmanship and the many crew members that get the focus. We see a little filming, but we also get to see the wardrobe department, the computer work that goes on, even the people who handle the paperwork.

It reminds me a bit of the stories of how Walt Disney worked back in the day: it wasn't so much about people's titles, but about their roles. Everybody had a role to play, and anybody could have a good idea or a better idea. That kind of attention to every detail is what made Disney/land become what it is today, and is what made everyone (well, most people) respect what Peter Jackson did with The Lord of the Rings.

So go and keep watching the production videos to get teasers for the movie but also to appreciate the collective effort that it takes to get a movie done. That's what I find fascinating about moviemaking.

"Modern Fairy Tales"

It seems everywhere I turn lately, I see another trailer for Snow White and the Huntsman. It has me thinking about the general idea of modern interpretations of a fairy tales.

There are different ways that these interpretations can work. They can try and tell the story in its original way. Or they can add twists like this movie will be doing, or like Ever After does. Or they can be removed to a different time and setting, like Enchanted or the ten movies named some variation of Another Cinderella Story. The latter two ways are something like inverted the fairy tale.

I say this because fairy tales represent aspects of their cultures, maybe in more or less abstract ways and often in changing ways. Snow White can stand for a complacent woman waiting for the marriage that will define her life, or she can be a patient and ingenuous person maintaining hope for better times. The fairy tale acts as a kind of carrier for ideas like this. But when we reinterpret fairy tales, we pull out certain aspects of it and put those into a new picture. Probably we are taking out from the original the pieces that feel most applicable to ourselves, but still we are not really making another fairy tale. It's still just inspired by a fairy tale. It has something of the abstract nature of fairy tales taken away, and it didn't form as part of a natural process (that no one remembers). We can track the progress of the creation of Snow White and the Huntsman or Enchanted, but not of the original Snow White or Cinderella tales (maybe of recordings of them, but their actual first origins).

But I don't mean to say that fairy tales are never intentional. It's a complicated thing to define a fairy tale; Tolkien, though, describes them quite well in his article "On Fairy-Stories."

I think my main point is that "modern fairy tales" aren't so much stand-alone fairy tales as they are conversations with the collective body of fairy stories. They're one person's (or one group's) take on what all these stories or versions of stories say, mean to say, should say, or could say.

The Hobbit is Coming

In case you haven't seen the new trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, you can take a look at it here.

I was a little startled this morning when I when on TheOneRing.net to check for news; it had been a while wince I visited the site, and I was reminded to only because I had seen a movie poster on someone's Tumblr for the first time. Instead of seeing more movie posters, of course, I found the trailer that came out yesterday. Seeing it one day isn't bad, but my, did that make me feel behind in news.

Initial thoughts on the trailer are positive, though there is still plenty we haven't seen. The dwarves look strangely unlike dwarves at times, but then, they are in Bilbo's small house most of the time. The use of the song for the trailer was nice: it adds that unique touch that standard-type trailer music wouldn't give. And I love the placement of Gollum at the end: I think we're all curious how Gollum is going to look this time around, and the "Riddles in the Dark" chapter is a favorite in the book. That also seems to show that the movie will, in fact, split quickly after that scene; tonally, this should be a good spot.

I had to smirk at the shot showing Gandalf and Galadriel together; were they hoping that casual filmgoers wouldn't notice so much who the characters are, but would instead think there's a love story involved in the movie?

Especially in the first half of the trailer, I can sense the lighter mood that The Hobbit has in general versus The Lord of the Rings. Bilbo also seems to have that same itchy kind of energy he had in the trilogy.

Hmm, the more I think about this, the more I realize that much indeed is kept from us in this trailer. Sure, it's only for the first half, but we still have no glimpse of the trolls or the goblins/orcs or really much at all from the travels outside of Rivendell (Edit: I was wrong about this--we do see a little of the trolls). I imagine that not only do they want to keep some things secret for now, but these are also the scenes that need heavy CG work, so I'm sure they're not ready to be viewed yet. I'm expecting all the computer work to be polished, polished, polished.

It'll be curious to see how the rest of the marketing material works out in the next year. This trailer gave something of a sense of going back for a little visit to the place you loved, implying a degree of familiarity but also newness and lightheartedness but also with depth of its own.

Fear of Hobbits

A most turbulent weekend I have had, though it has nearly all been spent chained to my desk: it is of the turbulence of words that I speak. Yesterday, I read The Tower of Beowulf for a good deal of the day, interrupted by fifty pages from The Book of Margery Kempe and the watching of the 1977 animated The Hobbit. This morning, I read the last twenty-four pages of The Book of Margery Kempe, following with some extra material for and the first third of the text of Peter Pan, then the last section of The Tower of Beowulf. After taking a break just now, I will return to read as much of Dracula as I can--I have only read seventy pages of it, but need to have it finished by Tuesday. Having so many intersecting stories is very emotionally draining--I don't know how English Lit. majors aren't any stranger than we already are.

But that's not what I want to talk about. I was spurred on by that 1977 movie to put into words what are my fears or concerns about the upcoming two-part version of The Hobbit by Peter Jackson.

You see, I have never had an over-abundant love for The Hobbit; it is in The Lord of the Rings that my true liking lies, and so I have never spent as much time in the pages of The Hobbit. But this semester, I read the annotated version of the book (for the same class that I watched the movie, of course). That was an absolutely great experience, highly recommended for Tolkien admirers. The brief study of this book also made me appreciate certain elements in it, like its heavy Anglo-Saxon inspiration. Now my concerns about the movie are still there, but perhaps different than before.

Before, I was filled with opposing things. The Hobbit has a definite "children's story feel" at most times, and I had trouble seeing this translate onscreen. I worried to see just a water-down Lord of the Rings landscape that didn't stand well as much on its own. But then I also thought that maybe an adaptation that drifted from the book would also drift from what I found less interesting in the book. Maybe, in other words, if it was not so much like the book, I would like the movie more.

I also had (and still have) concern over the two movie thing. There is such a trend of Part 1/Part 2's going on right now. The first installment of them with Deathly Hallows showed to me what can be problematic in this splitting. The first movie of that pair felt, to me, like it was lacking something; the second was mostly just one big finale. That doesn't mean they were terrible; it just means that their stand-alone, withstanding-time, rewatchability value changes. I have become convinced that the similar splitting of Breaking Dawn will not be the best thing, either.

I'd like to say the same for The Hobbit. HOWEVER, I have finally noticed that there is a definite change in tone halfway through this book. . . this will perhaps lend itself to the two-part format. But still, how will that work? Will we have a slight "children's story feel" Part 1 and a hearkening to The Lord of the Rings Part 2? Will the movies be very different or simply continuations of each other?

The Hobbit is, after all, probably very hard to adapt, as most good children's stories tend to be, in fact. There are so many balances to get right. I admit that I shuddered during most of the 1977 movie. Bilbo's eyes were disturbingly too large, the wood elves looked like some strange cross between apes and bugs (not to mention the king's constantly changing accent), and the music all sounded like the same seventies lilt, despite the setting. I say with a sigh (and I may have to force myself to remember this later) that whatever I end up thinking about it, Peter Jackson's The Hobbit should be the best adaptation so far. At least it should do justice to the original, treat it with some respect and understanding.

But the more appreciation I gain for the original book, the more I fear that it can never appear onscreen in quite the same way that it does on page.

Lullaby By Tolkien

I forgot to mention a book I finished about a month ago: another of the posthumously published Tolkien works, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun. Written entirely in verse and based on Norse mythology versus the medieval nature of The Lord of the Rings, it was something I was slow to buy. Also slow because of the high price tag it had when it first came out, but eventually I was able to get it for $3 (new) on Amazon. Can't beat that.

Even Christopher Tolkien (in the introduction) admitted that certain parts of this book are next to impossible to understand, which is why he added in pages of commentary for each section. I didn't feel like reading those, though certainly not because I felt like I didn't need to: he was very correct in his statement. But rather than thinking about all of the plot details, I focused more on the poetic structure, the rhythm of the words. The lines are all very short, making for a format that looks simple yet is complicated. I read the book in the evening, letting the cadence of the words fall like a lullaby in my head.

It's definitely an experience I would recommend for fans of Tolkien (or of poetry). It's a chance to look at more from the man who placed songs of Luthien and Nimrodel and Gil-Galad inside of the text of The Lord of the Rings. It's, to me, a work from Tolkien the linguist.

Bookmarks!

(Um, yeah, you do remember the randomness I warned you about, right?)

Okay, so maybe bookmarks aren't that random. But they are important. If you didn't use a bookmark, you'd run the risk of opening up to a page further on and seeing a spoiler.

But I don't usually like bookmarks that they sell. They're too big or they have too many pictures or I just don't see the point in paying money for them. Yet neither do I like to use old receipts like some people.

What I use depends on what I'm reading. If I'm reading something with a touch of some form of suspense, I use a piece of white cardstock (cut just smaller than an index card.) That way, I can cover up the lines I haven't read yet to keep myself from skipping ahead in excitement. I used to use ribbons a lot, which was kind of nice because you could twist or chew them nervously while you waited to find out if Sam was going to win the fight with Shelob. (You should know this, but if you don't, that's from Tolkien's The Two Towers.)

Third option: a small rectangle of green cardstock. I have a few of these that I decided to recycyle as bookmarks instead of throwing them away. Oh, and let's not forget the handy already-present ribbons of the old Barnes and Noble classics!