Review: Stories about Stories: Fantasy and the Remaking of Myth

Stories about Stories: Fantasy and the Remaking of Myth by Brian Attebery
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a good book, not a great one, and there is the measure of my disappointment. Attebery is at his very best -- which is exceptionally good -- when actively analyzing and commenting on individual texts and authors. He is usually quite skilled in integrating such analysis with the opinions of other scholars. Attebery makes many fascinating observations on Charles Williams, Hope Mirlees, George MacDonald, and Ursula K. Le Guin, among others, as well as on various species of fantasy, angels, and post-colonial fantasy. This book is an excellent education in the history of the genre.

Yet it is not without fault. At times Attebery slips into that self-renewing world in which scholars reference only each other and make pronouncements for which they neither adduce evidence nor produce an argument. Some call this engagement, but elopement might be the better term. True enough, this turning away from evidence is a common enough failing in academic writing over the last couple of generations, but it is the flight of the deserter rather than the escape of the prisoner (and so not to be commended). Mercifully, Attebery never stumbles into the Mirkwood of Jargon, where every utterance is impressive, but only as clear as the lyrics to Close to the Edge.

He seems a bit harder on C.S. Lewis than is necessary, however, and is at times dismissive: the entry of Joy Davidman into Lewis' life is apparently the sole reason that Till We Have Faces is less open to the charge of misogyny than Narnia is. While Joy Davidman surely had a profound effect on him, perhaps Till We Have Faces should suggest the need for a re-examination of the case again Lewis rather than the facile conclusion that he was swept off his feet and into enlightenment.

He also makes the occasional bald assertion, such as claiming that 'in order to avoid direct representation of religious iconography' Shakespeare substituted 'fairies for angels.' Did he? How so? But no proof is offered, no argument made. Since Shakespeare's fairies could not be mistaken for angels, and since Shakespeare's audience knew well that fairies and angels were not the same. this is an odd claim.

In discussing the attempt, specifically of G. P. Taylor, to write fantasy acceptable to literalist Christians, a failed attempt as it turned out, Attebery comments: 'Even the most faithful transcription of faith language into a work of fantasy has the effect of setting religion adrift.' But this one unsuccessful attempt by Taylor doesn't establish this. Perhaps Taylor just did it badly. Moreover, while it only takes one example to prove that something can be done, one example cannot prove that it cannot be done.

So I do recommend this book, but not without reservation. I found much to profit by here, but also some moments that could mislead the unwary.

Théoden King, or, Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's

Out of doubt, out of dark, to the day's rising
he rode singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.
Hope he rekindled, and in hope ended;
over death, over dread, over doom lifted
out of loss, out of life, unto long glory. 

But Merry stood at the foot of the green mound, and he wept, and when the song was ended he arose and cried: 

'Théoden King, Théoden King! Farewell! As a father you were to me, for a little while. Farewell!' 

(RK 6.vi.976-77)

As many fans of Tolkien are perfectly well aware, the personal names of the kings of Rohan are all Old English words for king or ruler, or for an attribute that would be valued in a king in a more violent time. 

Eorl  -- a nobleman of high rank
Brego -- a leader, governor, prince
Aldor -- a chief or prince
Fréa -- a lord or master
Fréawine -- from Fréa plus wine, a 'dear or beloved lord.'
Goldwine -- a generous and kindly prince.
Déor -- 'brave, bold, as a wild beast.' Cf. Lionheart
Gram -- 'furious, fierce.'
Helm -- a helm, poetically used of a king who protects his people like a helmet.


Fréaláf -- Fréa, 'lord', 'master', plus láf, 'what is left, remnant.' Since both of Helm's sons had perished, he was succeeded by Fréaláf, his sister's son.
Brytta -- 'bestower, distributor, prince.'
Walda --  'ruler'. See also here.
Folca -- from folc, 'people, folk;' in the form 'folca,' meaning 'of the people.'
Folcwine -- from folc plus wine, meaning 'friend of the people.'
Fengel -- 'prince.'
Thengel -- 'prince.'
Théoden -- 'prince, king.'

That's rather a lot of words for king or prince, no? Tolkien is obviously having a bit of philological fun, but a couple of points are worth making. First, although nearly every one of the words for ruler listed above appears in Beowulf, one of the most common in this -- for Tolkien -- poem of poems is entirely absent, drihten, which is also an important term, even in Beowulf, for God, i,e, 'the Lord.' This suggests that Tolkien was not just haphazardly converting words into names. (As if that would ever happen.) Which brings me to my second point. Given this, was Tolkien perhaps taking a cue from the history of another name that became a title? Caesar, as we know, became both kaiser and czar. Did the names of the kings of his beloved Rohirrim become titles in the same way? Was it part of Théoden King's 'long glory' that his name outlived his memory and became synonymous with king?

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Works Consulted 

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Some Thoughts on Structure and Meaning in The Lord of the Rings

Yes, Simon. There she is again

Quite a few years ago now in his still highly relevant article, 'The Interlace Structure of The Lord of the Rings', Richard West made clear how intricately woven together The Lord of the Rings is. Unlike the simpler and more 'organic' practice common in modern novels, the medieval technique of '[i]nterlace, by contrast, seeks to mirror the perception of the flux of events in the world around us' (West 78), which leads to a narrative that, like life, is 'cluttered', 'digressive', and 'chaotic' (79). But there's more to it than that, as West points out:

Yet the apparently casual form of the interlace is deceptive; it actually has a very subtle kind of cohesion. No part of the narrative can be removed without damage to the whole, for within any given section there are echoes of previous parts and anticipations of later ones. The medieval memory (lacking modern information retrieval systems and therefore necessarily greater than ours) delighted in following repetitions and variations of themes, whether their different appearances were separated by scores or hundreds of pages. Musical art gives an analogous aesthetic pleasure and shows a similar structural binding ... but in literature, the interlace structure allows detailed examination of any number of facets of a theme.

(West 79)

Now in the course of The Lord of the Rings Frodo offers to give the Ring to others three times, but all of these come in the first two books, and never again after that.  A proximate cause is easy to spot -- Boromir's attempt to take the Ring at the end of the second book -- but that is only part of it. It is not the truest cause.  For in the first two books Tolkien weaves together a series of offers by Frodo with a series of (real and imagined) attempts by others to take the Ring. How these offers and attempts are made are telling in themselves, but as with Boromir each of them is part of the larger web of the story and allows us to reflect on questions of the effect the Ring has on those who possess it, claim it, or who have considered what they might accomplish if it were theirs.

1. In The Shadow of the Past Frodo offers the Ring to Gandalf in fear, but has just proved himself unable even to throw the Ring into his fireplace, which, it has already been demonstrated, is scarcely able to warm it up (FR 1.ii.49-50, 60-61). Gandalf refuses the Ring, also out of fear, because he knows his 'pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good' will make him a prey to the Ring's power. Given the truculence with which Bilbo, like Gollum before him, asserted and defended his claim to ownership of the Ring in A Long-expected Party, Frodo's offer to Gandalf is tantamount to a denial of a claim to the Ring. 


2. In The Council of Elrond Frodo, upon learning that Aragorn is Isildur's heir, seems almost relieved: '"Then [the Ring] belongs to you, and not to me at all!" cried Frodo in amazement, springing to his feet, as if he expected the Ring to be demanded at once.' Aragorn replies, 'It does not belong to either of us...but it has been ordained that you should hold it for a while' (FR 2.ii.237).  Frodo here in fact asserts Aragorn's claim to the Ring. This not only shows how true and wise Aragorn is by his refusal, but also supports the view taken above that Frodo has so far refused to claim the Ring. 


3. In The Mirror of Galadriel Frodo's perception of things that are hidden and secret is enlarged, because he is 'the Ring-bearer, and one who has seen the Eye' in Galadriel's Mirror. This puts him on more of an even footing with Galadriel, since it allows him to recognize her as another Ring-bearer. Now he asks her what she wants, just as she had asked all the members of the Fellowship earlier in this chapter, and the fears for Lothlórien she reveals in her response parallel Frodo's fears for the Shire in The Shadow of the Past (FR 1.ii.62), as well as those stirred in Sam by what he has just seen in the Mirror.  In all humility then, it seems, Frodo offers to give her the Ring, and by implication renounces any claim to it: 'I will give you the One Ring, if you ask for it. It is too great a matter for me.'  Like Gandalf and Aragorn, Galadriel also refuses, but not without admitting the dreams of power and glory she had dreamt, as she pondered what she would do if the Ring ever came into her possession; and not before giving Frodo a glimpse of the majesty she would attain with the One Ring on her hand (FR 2.vii.365-66). It is intriguing, however, that here the offer of the Ring is conditional -- 'if you ask for it.' Requiring her to ask for it is an assertion of power and control, and suggests that Frodo's attitude towards the Ring has been changing. It is also intriguing that no sooner does she reject the Ring than he asks her how he might use it to 'see all the [other Rings] and know the thoughts of others', which Galadriel warns him not to try, since to use the power of the Ring would require him to train his 'will to the domination of others.' To try, she says, 'would destroy you.'

In addition to these three offers to give up the Ring -- whether Frodo could have actually done so if anyone had accepted is another matter -- Books One and Two begin and end with attempts, two real and two imagined, to seize the Ring -- 

1. In A Long-expected Party Bilbo claims that the Ring is his when Gandalf urges him to give it to Frodo: 'It is my own. I found it. It came to me.' But, as Gandalf continues to press him, Bilbo grows paranoid and fears that Gandalf wants the Ring for himself and will try to take it by force.  He lays his hand on his sword, implicitly threatening the kind of violence he had so significantly eschewed by not stabbing Gollum when he had the chance (FR 1.i.34).  


2. In The Flight to the Ford the Black Riders very nearly catch Frodo at the Ford of Bruinen (FR 1.xii.213-15). He attempts to command them, but they laugh at him. His questioning Galadriel about using the Ring needs to be read in connection with his failure here. His later invocations of the Ring to control Gollum (TT 4.i.618, iii.640; RK 6.iii.943-44), his wondering whether he was ready to confront the Witch-king at Minas Morgul ('not yet' -- TT 4.viii.706), and his claiming the Ring for his own (RK 6.iii.945), are all obvious 'facets' of this 'theme', but so, too, is his subsequent mourning for its loss (RK 6.ix.1024)


3. In Many Meetings Bilbo's reaching out to touch the Ring sparks a reaction in Frodo as paranoid and close to violence as Bilbo's response to Gandalf had been (FR 2.i.232). This moment is significant in three ways: first, in showing the effect the Ring is already having on Frodo by recalling Bilbo's behavior in A Long-expected Party; second, by enabling Bilbo to understand at last what the Ring does to those who bear it; and third, by the alarmingly small effect this moment has on Frodo's understanding of what the Ring is doing to him: he just moves on. 


4. In The Breaking of the Fellowship Boromir almost succeeds in seizing the Ring for himself (FR 2.x.396-400).  Frodo escapes only because he uses the Ring, which also results in vastly expanding his perception of the world, but in doing so he nearly reveals himself to Sauron, just as he had almost done, it would seem, when looking into Galadriel's mirror 11 days earlier. 

As Boromir's attempt follows so closely upon Frodo' offer to Galadriel, it might be worthwhile to consider these two moments side by side. Galadriel confesses that she has wanted the Ring, but will not take it or ask for it. She knows well that any good she might do at first will only end in despair. Boromir does not have the wisdom to see this -- he imagines himself becoming 'a mighty king, benevolent and wise.'  He not only wants the Ring, but requests it and will brook no refusal.  Frodo's psychic brushes with Sauron in these episodes, which emphasize his own increasingly complex relationship with the Ring -- 'He heard himself crying out: Never, never! Or was it: Verily I come, I come to you?' (FR 2.x.401) -- must be viewed in context with Galadriel's silent probing of Boromir's mind at their first meeting in Lothlórien, an encounter   that left Boromir rattled and suspicious, and Galadriel concerned that he was in peril (TT 3.v.496). Who would grasp that peril better than she? Who would find her desire to save her land and people more unnerving than Boromir? As Faramir later wonders, from a fascinating perspective that encompasses both sides of the experience: 'What did she say to you, the Lady that dies not? What did she see? What woke in your heart then?' (TT 4.v.667).  Boromir and Galadriel will have seen in each other's thoughts a reflection of their own fears and desires.

There are of course other scenes in the first two books that we might examine in greater depth, to see how they might contribute to our understanding of the Ring and the relationship of Frodo and others to it. In addition to some of the passages cited within the points made above, the scenes in the Shire, at Bree, and on Weathertop would be worth closer inspection. From my discussion of these same passages we can also see that much more lies ahead, which I have not yet fully thought through, and which will doubtless alter my own understanding of what I have seen so far. Still it would be foolish to think that every last passage can or should be fitted into some sort of pattern, as tempting as that can often be. 

But there is one more rather eccentric piece of this puzzle that I think requires comment at this time. In The Old Forest Tom Bombadil comes plunging into the story like some rogue comet from the Oort Cloud. The hobbits spend most of three chapters in Tom's Country, measuring from the High Hay to the East Road beyond the Barrow-downs, just as they do later in Lothlórien. Unlike Galadriel, however, Bombadil asks to see the Ring, which Frodo, to his own surprise, gives him without demur, but when Bombadil puts on the Ring and makes it disappear instead of vanishing himself, Frodo becomes alarmed and suspicious. Even though Bombadil immediately returns the Ring, Frodo must test it to be sure he hasn't been tricked. Again, the Ring has no effect on old Tom, who sees Frodo quite clearly (FR 1.vii.132-33).  Pardoxically Frodo reveals himself by disappearing. The Ring is already at work on him. Unlike Galadriel and everyone else in The Lord of the Rings, however, Tom is his own Master and desires nothing but what he has. Thus the power of the Ring has no pull on him. He knows of the Ring, but seems to have little interest in it except as a curiosity (cf. FR 2.ii.265).

Like Lothlórien, Tom's Country is also Faërie. Under his mastery time there flows differently from time in Bree or The Shire or Rohan, but not in the same way as it does in Lórien, from which one emerges to find that one has fallen behind time in the mortal world. In Tom's Country it is always the present, but the past remains vibrant and accessible: Tom can still go singing out into the ancient starlight when only the Elf-sires were awake (FR 1.vi.131); the trees can remember 'the times when they were lords' (FR 1.vii.130); the Barrow-wights can recall the first Dark Lord (FR 1.viii.141); and visions of Dunedain kings, once and future, can rise up before the hobbits' eyes as well as in their dreams (FR 1.viii.143, 145-46).  In Galadriel's Golden Wood we may also see visions of times past and times perhaps to come, but the land itself is anchored in an age long gone: In Lórien the Elder Days 'still lived on in the waking world' (FR 2.vi.349), but only if she had the One Ring could she perhaps preserve it that way forever. Tom and his Country serve as another structural counterpoise to Galadriel and hers.

What, finally, is the theme whose facets we are examining through this extensive and intricate web? Perhaps that which Gandalf touched upon first in The Shadow of the Past and which Elrond expands upon in The Council of Elrond, two chapters which occupy the same position and play much the same part in their respective books:

‘A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings. Yes, sooner or later – later, if he is strong or well-meaning to begin with, but neither strength nor good purpose will last – sooner or later the Dark Power will devour him.’

(FR 1.ii.47)

And:

'Alas, no,' said Elrond. 'We cannot use the Ruling Ring. That we now know too well. It belongs to Sauron and was made by him alone, and is altogether evil. Its strength, Boromir, is too great for anyone to wield at will, save only those who have already a great power of their own. But for them it holds an even deadlier peril. The very desire of it corrupts the heart. Consider Saruman. If any of the Wise should with this Ring overthrow the Lord of Mordor, using his own arts, he would then set himself on Sauron's throne, and yet another Dark Lord would appear. And that is another reason why the Ring should be destroyed: as long as it is in the world it will be a danger even to the Wise. For nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so. I fear to take the Ring to hide it. I will not take the Ring to wield it.' 

'Nor I,' said Gandalf. 

Boromir looked at them doubtfully, but he bowed his head. 'So be it,' he said.  

(FR 2.ii.267)

This is how good becomes evil. Boromir's question to Frodo on Amon Hen -- if the Wise won't wield the Ring, someone has to: 'Why not Boromir?' (FR 2.x.398) -- is not all that different from Frodo's asking Galadriel about using the Ring himself the moment she has refused his offer.

It will be interesting to see how this line of inquiry unfolds from here.




Richard C. West, 'The Interlace Structure of The Lord of the Rings' in Jared Lobdell, A Tolkien Compass (1975), pp. 77-94.

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Works Consulted

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The Real Reason Tolkien Disliked 'The Chronicles of Narnia'

Tolkien hated cats.

The Dark Heart of the Smith Still Dwells in It (Silmarillion 201-02)

Fireball over Banff National Park, CA. Dec. 2014 © Brett Abernethy

[Melkor] began with the desire of Light, but when he could not possess it for himself alone, he descended through fire and wrath into a great burning, down into Darkness. And darkness he used most in his evil works upon Arda, and filled it with fear for all living things.

(Silmarillion 31)

With passages like this in mind, which recall for many of us the words of Isaiah 14:12 -- 'How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! -- it is easy to forget that Melkor was not the only thing that fell from the sky and which a dark heart made evil.

'I ask then for a sword of worth,' said Beleg; 'for the Orcs come now too thick and close for a bow only, and such blade as I have is no match for their armour.' 

'Choose from all that I have,' said Thingol, 'save only Aranrúth, my own.' 

Then Beleg chose Anglachel; and that was a sword of great worth, and it was so named because it was made of iron that fell from heaven as a blazing star; it would cleave all earth-delved iron. One other sword only in Middle-earth was like to it. That sword does not enter into this tale, though it was made of the same ore by the same smith; and that smith was Eöl the Dark Elf, who took Aredhel Turgon's sister to wife. He gave Anglachel to Thingol as fee, which he begrudged, for leave to dwell in Nan Elmoth; but its mate Anguirel he kept, until it was stolen from him by Maeglin, his son. 

But as Thingol turned the hilt of Anglachel towards Beleg, Melian looked at the blade; and she said: 'There is malice in this sword. The dark heart of the smith still dwells in it. It will not love the hand it serves; neither will it abide with you long.' 

'Nonetheless I will wield it while I may,' said Beleg.

(Silmarillion 201-02)

Most people these days think of objects as morally neutral, and even if we tend to regard specific weapons as evil, we do not regard them as possessed, as it were, by the malice of their makers.  But clearly Tolkien portrayed things differently.  The intention of the smith, of the maker, matters greatly, for good or for ill, as Gandalf makes clear:

 ... let all put doubt aside that this thing is indeed what the Wise have declared: the treasure of the Enemy, fraught with all his malice; and in it lies a great part of his strength of old. Out of the Black Years come the words that the Smiths of Eregion heard, and knew that they had been betrayed: 

     One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
     One Ring to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them.

(FR 2.ii.254)

The Raven -- Christopher Lee

Today in 1845, Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven was first published.

Review: Peter Pan

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a sublime little book this is, which I had never read till now. It's so much sadder and full of longing, both for those who grow up and those who don't, than I ever expected it to be. Among the many things I found interesting was that there is only one actual fairy in it, the splendidly chaotic Tinker Bell, but the story isn't about her. In fact she disappears for much of it.

Rather, it is the adventures of humans in Faërie: the lost boys, the Darling children, the Pirates, the Indians, even Peter. But, as Tolkien, who as a very young man (1910) had seen the stage play of Peter Pan and was much impressed by it, pointed out decades later, that is what good fairy-stories are:

Stories that are actually concerned primarily with “fairies,” that is with creatures that might also in modern English be called “elves,” are relatively rare, and as a rule not very interesting. Most good “fairy-stories” are about the adventures of men in the Perilous Realm or upon its shadowy marches. Naturally so; for if elves are true, and really exist independently of our tales about them, then this also is certainly true: elves are not primarily concerned with us, nor we with them. Our fates are sundered, and our paths seldom meet. Even upon the borders of Faërie we encounter them only at some chance crossing of the ways.

On Fairy-stories,  ¶ 11

Part of what's interesting about this is that Tolkien of course grew to loathe fluttery gossamer fairies like Tinker Bell. Another interesting point, which Dimitra Fimi has discussed in her Tolkien, Race and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits (2010) 34-38, is the moment when Peter, in order to help save Tinker Bell, reaches out to children in the real world who are asleep and 'might be dreaming of the Neverland, and who were therefore nearer to him than you think: boys and girls in their nighties, and naked papooses in their baskets hung from trees' (chapter XIII, Do You Believe in Fairies?). The idea that dreaming children are 'nearer' to Faërie reappears in Tolkien's early poem (1915) 'You and Me and the Cottage of Lost Play,' in which children reach Faërie through their dreams. Tolkien also later speaks of this Path of Dreams, the Olórë Mallë, in The Book of Lost Tales, Part One.  We might also hear a more distant echo of this in Frodo's dream/vision of Elvenhome while in the house of Tom Bombadil.

So both for its storytelling and for its influence elsewhere, this is definitely a book worth reading.

John Hurt -- Jabberwocky

Anachronism and Artifacts of Translation (FR 1.i.27-28)

The lights went out. A great smoke went up. It shaped itself like a mountain seen in the distance, and began to glow at the summit. It spouted green and scarlet flames. Out flew a red-golden dragon – not life-size, but terribly life-like: fire came from his jaws, his eyes glared down; there was a roar, and he whizzed three times over the heads of the crowd. They all ducked, and many fell flat on their faces. The dragon passed like an express train, turned a somersault, and burst over Bywater with a deafening explosion. 

(FR 1.i.27-28, emphasis mine)

'Like an express train' is of course a simile entirely unsuited to the pre-industrial world of Middle-earth. Many have called it an anachronism, and it is, broadly speaking, but, as Corey Olsen has noted more than once in my hearing, strictly speaking it is not, because the 'translator' of the Red Book has introduced this phrase, not the narrator. Presumably the narrator (Frodo) used a phrase or idiom that conveyed the same meaning, only with different words. The translator, however, wasn't sufficiently alive to the words he was using to realize the paradox he was creating. 

Sound far-fetched?

Not quite.

Consider one of Aubrey de Selincourt's least happy translations of Livy's Latin:

The tribune would have been roughly handled but for the universal and determined support of the mob and the rapid filling of the Forum by excited men who ran from every part of the city to swell the crowd. Appius stuck to his guns, ugly though the situation was.... 

(Livy, Book 2, Chapter 56; emphasis added)

The events described here took place, according to Livy, in the year we would call 471 B.C.E.  So clearly Appius, one of the consuls of that year, had no guns to stick to. The Latin for 'Appius...was' is 'sustinebat tamen Appius pertinacia tantam tempestatem,' which may be easily rendered into the following English: 'Nonetheless through tenacity Appius withstood so great a storm.' De Selincourt, however, in his search for a forceful metaphor lost sight of the literal meaning of the words he chose.

Thus we can understand 'express train' as precisely analogous to 'stuck to his guns', as an artifact of a translation momentarily out of touch with the larger context of the words being translated.* And since Tolkien himself is the only 'translator' of the Red Book who lived in the age of express trains, he is poking fun at himself by not removing the 'anachronism', perhaps at first as unwittingly as de Selincourt later did with Livy. 

Livy, 'The Early History of Rome: Books I-V of 'The History of Rome from Its Foundations,' translated by Aubrey de Selincourt, Penguin (1960, reprinted with additional material 2002).

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Works Consulted

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*It has been suggested that a close paleographical analysis of the surviving ms of the Red Book of Westmarch is consistent with the reading 'like Bolgers at a buffet' for the original simile,

In the Realm of Useless Footnotes III

In the first chapter of Peter Pan, while reckoning up the costs of raising children with his wife, Mr Darling mentions mumps, measles, German measles (rubella), and whooping cough (pertussis). My edition of the text, which appeared in 2005, footnotes each of these diseases with a description of its symptoms. 

It took me a dull moment to realize why the editor felt the need to gloss these once common childhood diseases for her readers. Ah, once common. Then I could only laugh out loud. It isn't every day that a work of fantasy supplies evidence of the effectiveness of vaccination. 

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J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan, with introduction and notes by Amy Billone, Barnes and Noble Books (New York: 2005).

After the Deluge

Sorry for all the reviews. I am consolidating both my blogs. But it is now safe to send out the dove in search of land.

Review: Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness

Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness by Charles Bukowski
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I give it four stars solely on the quality of the writing. The man really knew how to put words together. Often, though, and this is more often true of his prose than his poetry, which can be quite striking, what he had to tell was repulsive and left you feeling the need of a shower.

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Review: The First Man in Rome

The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this book. It was well researched and not implausible, a tale well told, but each succeeding book in the series declined. When I reached the point, three or four books in, where Julius Caesar began talking to his masculinity, I just gave up.

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Review: Nightfall and Other Stories

Nightfall and Other Stories by Isaac Asimov
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

the collection is good overall, but the title story is outstanding, often and justly considered one of the greatest of SF stories.

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Review: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

some of the entries are so acidic you expect the pages to hiss.

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Review: The Ice Palace

The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

lovely and slow, dreamlike, full of sorrow and grief and hope again after.

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Review: The History of the Hobbit

The History of the Hobbit by John D. Rateliff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

this is no light read. it is a work of serious scholarship intended for serious students of Tolkien.

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Review: The Long War

The Long War by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I can only repeat here what I said about The Long Earth, except to add that The Long War is even less interesting.

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Review: Atonement

Atonement by Ian McEwan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In which the innocent atone for the sins of the guilty, but isn't that always the case? Beautifully, brilliantly written.

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Review: Ajax Penumbra 1969

Ajax Penumbra 1969 by Robin Sloan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

a decided improvement on "Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore," which is too transparently clever for its own good. The pacing here is better and the storytelling more persuasive.

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Review: Tree of Salvation: Yggdrasil and the Cross in the North

Tree of Salvation: Yggdrasil and the Cross in the North by G. Ronald Murphy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

scholarly, persuasive, fascinating, one of the very best books I've read in many years. The only drawback is the publisher's failure to reproduce the photographs in way that is anything but embarrassing.

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Review: Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man

Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A shallow young man lives in a thoughtless daydream of a world that is about to vanish. His older, more worldly self, tells the story, but allows his past actions to speak for themselves.

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Review: Red Harvest

Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Often crime fiction has a romantic glamour cast over it, as if there were honor among thieves when all there really can be is a doubtful truce. Red Harvest has no such illusions.

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Review: A Canticle for Leibowitz

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a beautifully done book about what fools we human beings are. Our folly defies and defines both faith and reason. The climax of the book, which is melancholy but not without a glimmer of hope, is heartbreaking.

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Review: Wait Till Next Year

Wait Till Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A deftly done, clearly written memoir of growing up in an America that seemed idyllic, but was on the crest of change. It's nice to be reminded that memoirs needn't be sopping with narcissism, and the lurid fascinations of shipwrecked lives.

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Review: Nothing On Earth

Nothing On Earth by Conor O'Callaghan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Written with a sure touch, it never gives much away, or spells anything out for you. It leaves you wanting to know more, but feeling that there is no more that can be known. Spooky, creepy, lovely.

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Review: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I was a kid, the Burton-Taylor movie of this play always ran on tv in the middle of the night, split into two parts shown on two nights. There's a reason for that. The play is so scalding that it's hard to endure all at once. Amazing. Unpleasant. Brilliant.

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Review: Ender's Game

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Aside from a nice twist right near the end, this book wasn't very interesting. Almost all the main characters are young children, which is fine, but they are implausible as such, and the author does little or nothing to make them plausible. The prose is sturdily unremarkable.

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Review: Middlemarch

Middlemarch by George Eliot
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What amazes me the most about Middlemarch is that its most powerful scenes take place in an eloquent ironic, silence, in which the characters can almost never say what they wish and often misunderstand each other entirely, while the reader looks on, fascinated and helpless.

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Review: The History of Middle-Earth Index

The History of Middle-Earth Index by J.R.R. Tolkien
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This isn't so much a review as it is a recommendation. If you are interested in using The History of Middle-Earth as a source for studying Tolkien, this book is an indispensable aid. It's hard to come by, but will make for a lot less work. Not that flipping from volume to volume isn't fun.

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Review: Perilous and Fair: Women in the Works and Life of J. R. R. Tolkien

Perilous and Fair: Women in the Works and Life of J. R. R. Tolkien by Janet Brennan Croft
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is an excellent contribution to the scholarly study of the role and importance of women in the works of Tolkien. The writing is clear and level-headed, and the editing is thorough and professional. Every article is good, and several are exceptional. There's a lot of fine work here, which will repay the scrutiny of fan, student, and scholar.

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Review: The Long Earth

The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This was not a bad concept, but a middling execution, and a disappointment after all the good things I've read by Terry Pratchett in the past. I don't know whether to put it down to a partnership that just didn't work (unlike the successful partnership with Gaiman in Good Omens) or whether Pratchett, stripped of the humor of the Disc World novels, just doesn't have much to say.

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Review: Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs

Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs by John Lindow
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A solid work of scholarship. The introduction provides essential background material for the culture of the mythology, and an interesting, if brief, discussion of the nature of time in Norse mythology. Since the body of the book is arranged alphabetically by topic or character, it helps to have some grounding in Norse mythology to start with. So if what you're looking for is a narrative of the tales of the Norse gods, this not the right book.

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Review: Possession

Possession by A.S. Byatt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a wonderful book, both fun and literarily impressive. Byatt weaves together many voices through letters, journals, books, and poems written by the characters, in addition to a third person narrator who sometimes addresses the reader and sometimes shows the reader things that most of the characters will never know. It's a good story well told, and it's even more fun if you know something about literary criticism and the academic world.

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Review: Of Human Bondage

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A well written, but strange book, though I suppose the same could be said of its author. The first two thirds of the book remind me of a Thomas Hardy novel, with all the grim foreboding that entails, and you reach a point where you think it can only end in two gunshots. Then suddenly, with the turn of the page, a character who could have sprung from the forehead of Dickens appears, complete with an appropriate family, and you know somehow that all will end well.

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Review: American Gods

American Gods by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This is the fourth book by Neil Gaiman that I've read, and the only one so far that I've found disappointing, very much so in fact. This was quite a surprise to me given how I liked Stardust, and loved both Good Omens and The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and given how many people whose opinion I respected had told me good things about it. I found the basic concept of the book intriguing -- when immigrants bring their gods to a new land, and then stop believing in them, what happens to those gods? -- but was seldom charmed by, and often shook my head at, the execution.

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Review: The Great War and Modern Memory

The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the very best books of literary criticism I have ever read, and I've read a few. It's not an easy book or a quick read, and it is an old school work of literary criticism that pays more attention to the facts of the text than to theories about the facts. But it is worth the effort, and you will learn a lot. If you're interested in WWI, read this book. If you're interested in the lost generation, read this book. If you're interested in 20th century poetry, read this book. If you're interested in the history of the 20th century and western civilization, read this book. If you're.... Need I go on?

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Review: Lyonesse: Suldrun's Garden

Lyonesse: Suldrun's Garden by Jack Vance
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Jack Vance's work has many charms. His prose is smooth and, for the most part, stealthily beautiful. Then all of a sudden it isn't stealthy at all, and it lifts you up. His wit is quick, surefooted, and dry. And he will surprise you by turning the story on a dime in an unexpected direction, but what he does follows, and you can't believe he just did that. So he is quite sly, and entirely persuasive. Even when he introduces fairies that seem to be just like those annoying, cloying toy pixies of the Victorians, they're not. Oh, no.


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Review: Deep Roots in a Time of Frost: Essays on Tolkien

Deep Roots in a Time of Frost: Essays on Tolkien by Patrick Curry
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A good and thoughtful book, knowledgeable and perceptive, though inclined to give much closer attention to the opinions of secondary sources than the evidence of primary.

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Review: Troilus and Criseyde

Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very nice and useful edition, with the text of Boccaccio's Filostrato -- the source of Chaucer's poem -- on the facing page. This allows the reader to compare both texts closely, and to see where Chaucer departs from and expands, often greatly, on his source. In the second half of the book is a selection of scholarly articles on the poem. The only fault I can point to is one that this edition shares with too many editions of poems with explanatory notes -- that where a note is most needed, there almost never seems to be one. The story itself is marvelous, funny, sad, vexing, and enlightening. I look forward to re-reading Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida to see what he did with Chaucer's story.

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Review: Life After Life

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If I hadn't read a review of this book before seeing the terrible cover they put on the American edition, I would probably have sneered at the book and walked on by. And the absurd endorsement that appears on the front of some editions would have only sped me on my way: "This is the best book I've read this century." It's only 2013. Maybe you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but people choose their books that way all the time.

This is a good and interesting book, well written, well read, at times bitterly funny, at times full of horror. Don't misunderstand the description given of this book. This isn't It's a Wonderful Life After Life. No bells ring here. No angels get their wings. This book has an edge, and a sharp one. And it will leave you wondering. The chapters on the Blitz are brutal.

I'm planning to read more Kate Atkinson.

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Review: Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45

Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 by Max Hastings
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Retribution is the first book I have read by Max Hastings, and I highly recommend it. It is an impressive work that provides a balanced account of the events and people involved in all the theaters of the Pacific War in 1944 and 1945, including many areas often neglected, e.g., China and Burma. Hastings writes well and clearly -- though, as another reviewer has noted, he chooses some odd words at times -- and he never seems shy about voicing his opinion either of the those who fought the war or of later historians who judge the way the war was fought.

As broad as the scope of his narrative is, it is also quite deep. He not only discusses and evaluates the famous leaders -- MacArthur, Stalin, Mao, Nimitz, and dozens of others -- but also spends time with many of the individual soldiers, sailors, airmen, and prisoners of war on both sides. He quotes often and extensively from their firsthand accounts and memories, which gives their stories an immediacy and emotional impact it could not have otherwise. What they went through, what they did, what they felt, are by turns breathtaking, horrifying, inspiring.

In the end it is this breadth and depth that make this book so good and worth reading. Others have written and will write again that, for example, it was wrong or right to drop the atomic bombs; others have criticized MacArthur or praised him. Those arguments are nothing new and will never be settled. Hastings has his opinions on the bomb and MacArthur, too. They will not be what I remember from this book. I will remember what I learned about the size of the war in China and Burma, and what I learned about the people who fought the war and how they felt about what they did and saw. This is a good book.

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Review: Tolkien

Tolkien by Raymond Edwards
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This biography is much better on Tolkien's scholarship than Carpenter's. Edwards is perceptive, often witty, and definitely not shy about sharing his opinions. On Charles Williams, for example, he is quite scathing (p. 186):

"Williams was given to ... overuse of abstract nouns and to prolonged flirtations with impressionable young women. Williams clothed these flirtations, which in a couple of cases were prolonged over years and involved hundreds of letters, with a pseudo-mystical flummery borrowed from Dante, Swinburne and the whole overripe Blavatskian-Hermeticist tradition; but to all but dedicated fans, this stuff reads like transparent special pleading for what has aptly been called 'moral adultery'."

Now, really, who does not know that the young and impressionable must avoid the overripeness of the Blavatskian-Hermetecist tradition? I should think it goes without saying, but what does not go without saying is the source of borrowed judgements. By whom these 'prolonged flirtations' -- as as Edwards points out twice in so many words in two sentences -- were called 'moral adultery', we are never told. Not that I necessarily dispute the aptness of the opinion.

Nor is his lack of a citation here an isolated incident. For example, at one point Edwards cites Tom Shippey but gives no source (p. 303 n. 23 -- the nearest previous reference to Shippey is 15 footnotes earlier). At another (p. 83) he says that Robert Graves made a statement 'somewhere', and leaves it at that, but Google was able to locate that 'somewhere' in well under a second. Playing fast and loose like this with details undermines my confidence in the author. God and the Devil both lie in the details.

Despite faults like these, I enjoyed this book. I will consult it and find it useful. It does represent an advance beyond the hagiographic biography of Carpenter, and has profited by the research of the last 4o years. What we really need, however, is a new authorized biography based on much fuller access to Tolkien's letters, diaries, and papers.

As of this writing, the page count listed in Goodreads for this book is inaccurate. This edition has 336 pages, not 256.

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Review: A Game of Thrones

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For anyone new to this series, whether you've just heard of it, or you've seen Game of Thrones on television, the first thing I would say is that these books are certainly not for children or the faint of heart. The violence is graphic and the sex (some would say) is pornographic. Rape is commonplace (often heard of, but rarely witnessed). A Song of Ice and Fire pulls no punches. It depicts a brutal world of treachery, murder, lust, and greed, in which even the good characters have to be ruthless if they wish to survive. Time Magazine has called Martin "the American Tolkien," but that is a superficial judgment. These books are nothing like Tolkien. Imagine the Sopranos in Middle Earth, and you'll get the picture.

And yet, as dark and twisted as these books are, they are compelling. No sooner did I finish one book than I started the next, and I am looking forward to the publication of "The Winds of Winter" somewhere between now and the end of time. This is because Martin's greatest strengths are plot and character. He weaves his tale out of many threads. The perspective shifts from chapter to chapter, as his main characters take their turns at center stage in Dickensian profusion. Some of them know what the other characters are up to, some think they do, and some don't know much at all. But each advances the complex plot, driving the story and the reader forward.

There are two areas in particular where Martin does an excellent job. First, he is more ruthless to his characters than Stephen King. No one is safe. No one. Second, almost all of his main characters are quite well rounded. They can surprise you. One character, for example, commits a horrific crime early in the series, and is known to have committed another. As the books go on and the portrait of his character develops, however, it becomes more difficult to pass a simple judgment because he begins taking actions the reader wants to admire him for. I had to keep reminding myself of what he had done before, and that, as someone says in one of the books, sins can be forgiven, but crimes must still be punished. The good guys aren't simply good, and the bad guys aren't simply bad.

All in all, a good, fun read, if you're up for it. There is no middle ground.

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