Monday, 30 December 2019

A Middle Earth Traveller - by John Howe (2018)

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A Middle Earth Traveller: sketches from Bag End to Mordor . John Howe. HarperCollins, 2018. 192 pages, large format.   John Howe has be...
Saturday, 23 November 2019

Love among the Inklings

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To what extent were the Inklings a group bound together by Love? The answer is; to a much greater extent than is usual for such intellectual...
4 comments:
Thursday, 29 August 2019

The human condition and the Riders of Rohan

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One of the loveliest, most skilful and poignant passages of Lord of the Rings is easily skimmed-over; coming on the journey of Gandalf, Arag...
9 comments:
Tuesday, 30 July 2019

John Fitzgerald on Charles Williams

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John Fitzgerald has posted a wide-ranging review of Lindop's biography of the Inkling Charles Williams (my own stab at the business is ...
5 comments:
Monday, 29 July 2019

Tom Bombadil and Final Participation

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If you don't already know them; I would highly-recommend The Letters of JRR Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter (1981) which are absol...
Monday, 22 July 2019

Humphrey Carpenter's The Inklings - 1978

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  The paperback version I owned until it fell to pieces from frequent use I first read Humphrey Carpenter's The Inklings more than...
9 comments:
Monday, 10 June 2019

Master and Mister - The Shire 'class system'?

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At the beginning of the Lord of the Rings (LotR) - and despite the absence of a King - the Shire is divided into Gentry and commoners. The G...
7 comments:
Friday, 7 June 2019

Your story of discovering Tolkien and Lewis

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William Wildblood tells an unusual and interesting story about how he came to read Tolkien and Lewis as a child: I was a bookish child and...
22 comments:
Wednesday, 5 June 2019

Prologue - Concerning Hobbits - First impressions on reading Lord of the Rings

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I have previously written a post on the impressions created from reading the beginning of Chapter One of Lord of the Rings; and I would gue...
3 comments:
Sunday, 19 May 2019

Video interview with Bruce Charlton: The vital relevance of The Inklings

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Keri Ford has done a half hour video interview with me on the subject of The Inklings, including many subjects such as the development o...
5 comments:
Friday, 17 May 2019

The first enchantment of Lord of the Rings

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Ever since my first reading, the episode when Frodo, Sam and Pippin meet the High Elves (led by Gildor Inglorien) in the Shire, walk with th...
4 comments:
Monday, 13 May 2019

Many Mansions: Charles Williams, Modernity, and the Mass - guest post by John Fitzgerald

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There is much to be gained, I feel, in reading and reflecting on the work of Charles Williams in the midst of the political, social and cult...
4 comments:
Thursday, 9 May 2019

The temporary breakdown in Tolkien's marriage in 1946?

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I remember when I first read Humphrey Carpenter's 1977 biography of JRR Tolkien , that it heavily hinted at some unspecified marital pro...
Wednesday, 8 May 2019

Tolkien and reincarnation

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Although reincarnation is firmly excluded from his devoutly practised Roman Catholic Christianity, as being Not True; Tolkien seems to have ...
9 comments:
Monday, 6 May 2019

Tolkien (the movie) - 2019

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The new Tolkien 'biopic' movie was rather frustrating. The first half was extremely good; not least in its ambition - there was a re...
6 comments:
Friday, 26 April 2019

Fantasy assists in the evolution of Creation - Tolkien speaks, and then obfuscates...

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The respected Inklings scholar David Llewellyn Dodds (who I am lucky to have as a regular commenter here!) has noticed an extremely importan...
14 comments:
Thursday, 18 April 2019

For Tolkien, Subcreation is a type of real - objective - creation

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When, in the essay On Fairy Stories, JRR Tolkien discusses Subcreation, which is what he terms the world-building Faerie fantasy he was then...
7 comments:
Wednesday, 17 April 2019

Review of The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson

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I have recently finished my fourth or fifth read-of/ listen-to The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson (published in 2013) - which has taken ...
Saturday, 13 April 2019

The name Lowden in the Notion Club Papers - a dissent from John Garth

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John Garth has speculated that the name Lowden - of the character in the Notion Club Papers - was derived from a place name near Nottingham...
4 comments:
Thursday, 4 April 2019

Why is Paul Kocher's Master of Middle Earth (from 1972) 'still' one of the best books about Tolkien's work?

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Paul Kocher 's Master of Middle Earth is one of the handful of very best works of Tolkien scholarship - 'yet' it is by far the ...
5 comments:
Sunday, 17 March 2019

Noel Appleby - the average, archetypal hobbit

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Two of my favourite scenes from the movie version of Lord of the Rings involve the actor Noel Appleby (credited as Everard Proudfoot) playin...
Tuesday, 5 March 2019

Secret cult of the White Hand (Tolkien-themed surreal-satire)

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A simple household candle... or is it? Few have yet noticed the sinister resurgence of those who revere the name of Saruman. I became...
Sunday, 3 March 2019

Fantasy is a literary genre

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From about fortyfive years of experience, since I read Lord of the Rings (LotR), I agree with Tolkien's opinion (offered in On Fairy Sto...
1 comment:
Wednesday, 30 January 2019

Charles Williams and the avoidance of Glastonbury

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I am currently reading a book called The Avalonians by Patrick Benham (2nd edition 2006); which is about the people involved in the spiritua...
14 comments:
Wednesday, 23 January 2019

Galadriel and Eowyn Tolkien's exceptional women, and why they 'work' for him (but seldom for other authors)

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There are two 'dominant' women characters in Lord of the Rings, Galadriel and Eowyn. Three generations of readers testify to the fac...
8 comments: