Tolkien: A Look Behind the Lord of the Rings

I'm forever drawn to Tolkien related things, either for myself or any of the guys in my family, I have a bunch of the old paperbacks and this one was a recent addition to the shelf. My father read all of the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) and the Hobbit out loud to my brothers and I when we were small kids. Also fewer kids. So these characters have been with me pretty much as long as I can remember. Which means that my level of being weird over them is pretty high, and I can understand that not everyone cares that much about whether the LOTR is allegorical.¹

Tolkien: A Look Behind the Lord of the Rings by Lin Carter reads like an academic essay from the days where you couldn't write an essay on Twilight for college.² It is a delightful piece of nerd nostalgia that I really enjoyed, even if a great deal of it doesn't seem to be about LOTR.

Some history of Tolkien's writing years are given, but mostly the focus here is the LOTR. The book covers several chapters of summary of the trilogy, and it actually makes for interesting reading, if only to see what Carter chooses to leave out or talk about too much. Also you can cringe when he says that Eowyn is Theoden's daughter and not his niece.³ There is also a lot of speculation about the Simarillion and what that would further explain, since the book had not been published yet.

The later half of the book seems to be a history of the Epic Tale.⁴ There are many descriptions of ancient epic heroes fighting the gods to save the world that Carter puts forward as the stories that made possible LOTR. While I enjoyed learning about many of them, I'm not certain that Carter is putting forward anything too radical. It mostly seems like he is just giddy over finding so many things that seemed to inspire Tolkien. And I admit that seeing a list of names that includes my favorite dwarves is from a copy of the Poetic Edda is pretty damn cool.

I say read this if you both really like Tolkien and reading about writer inspiration. A good read, but not a must read.

Another reason why I read this book is because my husband, brothers, and my father are all rereading the LOTR together and meeting up after each book to talk about them. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes!⁵



1. No.
2. Don't look at me, I wrote about Harry Potter.
3. I guess Carter probably didn't have LOTRwiki to help him out. But come on!
4. Eurocentric Epic Tale.
5. Who else is excited that I learned how to make footnotes?

Recent Buys & the Ladies of Grace Adieu

I always manage to find a few things. I love Colette and try to grab her books when I see them. I got The Pure and the Impure and The Innocent Libertine from her. I'm about halfway through The Innocent Libertine and really enjoying it. Her stuff is pretty sexy, but without the shame of reading 50 Shades of Grey. I'll review it in a few days probably.

Michael Chabon's Maps & Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands for the man and I will probably end up reading it too. I really enjoyed The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and have just picked up any of his books I find for cheap since.

The final book in the pile is Susanna Clarke's The Ladies of Grace Adieu. I'll do a short review of it here since I powered through it hours after buying it. Clarke wrote Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell which I have not read, but now want to.

From the back cover, this book is reviewed by Spectator as so: "These tales read as if Jane Austen had rewritten the Brothers Grimm ... wonderful!" I think this sums up the book very well. There are eight beautiful little stories that mix the romanticism of Austen with the the magic of Grimm. The land of Faerie is someplace you can cross over to on your way to tea with the King and end up stuck for months until your love frees you by smashing a hornet's nest.

Clarke has a real flair for writing dialogue and sucked me in. She also has that way of describing a character to you totally with just a phrase or two.

"The governess was not much liked in the village. She was too tall, too fond of books, too grave, and, a curious thing, never smiled unless there was something to smile at."

If you are a fellow fan of Austen, but like a little more darkness, this is book is for you.

All women are Aes Sedai

As I'm sure many of you are aware, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series just released a new book, the first after Jordan's death. One of my brothers is very into this series and would not stop talking about how great it was and how I should read them. I am not a huge fantasy reader. I like fantasy stories though; I grew up listening to my dad read The Lord of the Rings books to me before falling asleep.

Ryan finally got me to read the first one of Jordan's, The Eye of the World. This is an adventure story, full of magic and beasts, and the battle between the Light and the Dark. Magic in this world is used by tapping into the One Power, something that only women are able to do. Men who do so go crazy and have to be destroyed. A group of three boys from the backwoods, along with two young women from their town are caught up in the fate of the world when an Aes Sedai woman and her Warder rescue them from Trollocs (nasty critters half-human/half-whatever animal seemd handy).

I liked this book, although I did find myself comparing the whole thing to the Lord of the Rings. Some times it seemed like Jordan picked what he liked from Tolkien and just tweaked it a little bit and threw it in his books. My brother did not feel the same way and said I was being unfair.

Aes Sedai is a group of women who can wield the One Power and they are the most interesting part of the story to me. I would be inclined to read the rest of the series just to learn more about them.

The story starts off a little slow, but to be fair Jordan is setting up an epic story here. The whole thing is going to be something like thirteen books long. At the end of the book I was interested in the characters and the various plots. Luckily, Ryan left book two waiting for me.

Fart Party

After picking up I Saw You... I had to check out Julia Wertz's website and soon bought both volumes of the Fart Party. This collection of comics is all about Julia's life as a twenty-something gal in San Fransisco. She drinks, she swears, she serves tables and has adventures with her boyfriend Oliver.

I was really able to connect with the book since I feel like I'm in a similar point in my life. I too love reading (and drinking) in the bathtub and swearing at my mom in an endearing way.

Here's a sample page from her book:

Wertz's website is here. What I like about this book is that you can open it to about any page and just read a few and enjoy them or you can read start to finish. The art isn't the same as Fables, but it works with the whole feel of the book. Some of the humor is a little crude but at least it's honest. I highly suggest at least checking out her site where she posts a lot of her comics.

Fables Part Two

I jumped right into Fables Animal Farm. Basically all of the fable creatures that can't pass for humans in New York City live at a farm upstate to keep out of sight from the normal people. Snow White goes up there to double check on things. Goldilocks and the little pigs happen to be planning a revolution and things take an ugly turn. Snow White has to fight to put down the rebellion and get out of the farm with her life.

This one was better than the first one in my opinion. The story, character development and art is just wonderful. Although the thought of Goldilocks and Baby Bear sharing a bed makes me cringe a little. I can't wait to get my hands on part three.

Fables

Fables is more of what I think of an actual comic book than the previous two entries. I borrowed these from a friend and was very excited to read them because I love to read retellings of classic tales.

In Legends in Exile we find that all of the characters from classic tales are alive and have come to live in our world because the "adversary" has driven them out of their lands. Rose Red has been murdered and the Big Bad Wolf and Snow White are on the case. Beauty and the Beast, the three little pigs, King Cole and Prince Charming all make appearances along with a slew of other characters.

The murder mystery was well done - I did not see the end coming. I really liked this comic and rushed to read the second one. Reading this has made me want to check out what other comic I've been missing. Anyone have any suggestions?