Tolkien Week and Hobbit Day

It's Tolkien Week this week, and to celebrate, director Peter Jackson has a gift for all Tolkien-lovers.  The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the film that is killing all Tolkien fans with suspense.  Now there is a brand new HD trailer, showing ever so much more Bilbo Baggins actions than ever.  

Now that you are appeased with all the extra content, I'd like to tell you a little about the concept of Tolkien Week.  Tolkein Week is the calendar week containing September 22 (Hobbit Day).  The idea is mainly for bookstores and libraries to celebrate the works of J.R.R. Tolkien during the week, sometimes through the endorsement of his literature as well as Lord of the Rings movie marathons.  

Hobbit Day on the 22nd of September, is possibly the oldest celebration of the Tolkien fandom, giving fans of the books and films an official opportunity to flaunt their love for Lord of the Rings.  The date of Hobbit Day was specifically chosen to coincide with the Bilbo and Frodo's shared birthday.  I think this is just such a sweet and simple way to pay homage to the greatness of Tolkien.  Perhaps I'll have to do some reading - or watching - to celebrate.  

So there you go.  Happy Tolkein Week!

Ain't it Great to be a Nerd!

I have been wanting to share this exciting and fun information on Bouquets for a long time, but the enormity of explaining it and refinding the sites bored me to the point of procrastination.  I have, however, been roused to action by having to give the information to a good friend of mine, and thus, it made perfect sense to take the oppertunity...  the oppertunity to teach you how to write in the Elven script from The Lord of the Rings.

To be specific, it's Quenya, a form of Tengwar. There are other forms, obviously, but this is used throughout the book and is fairly simple to learn. Actually, don't be surprised if after a couple of hours practice you can fluently write it, if not read it. It's really not that hard.

Firstly, here's a site that can help you get the actual alphabet and process of writing down-pat. It's simplistic in comparison to some of the fully frustrating omplicated sites. I would definitely recommend that you read all the information, and write down the alphabet and word combinations plus any simple rules for using them on a piece of paper or something so that if you're practicing, you have a quick reference point.

http://www.starchamber.com/paracelsus/elvish/elvish-in-ten-minutes.html

You will probably find, the more that you read on this topic, that there can sometimes be different ways of doing things, especially writing the vowels, as some people are very flexible with the whole "vowel sits on top of a stem" concept. Really all I can say to help you out of confusion is that you might like to just decide to write it your way and be done with it. If you're confused by what I just said, don't worry about it. If you come across this, you'll know what I mean.

This second link is to a page that gives you the punctuation. You might like to scroll down to the subheading DOT MARKS and read only from there to LATIN SCRIPT PUNCTUATION. Everything before and after this point is not relevant and is seriously confusing. This isn't scary, really - just basically your full stops, commas, questions marks, and end of stanza marks.

http://at.mansbjorkman.net/teng_punctuation.htm

Alright, having read all that, my greatest recommendation is that you summarise the information on a sheet with your alphabet and start practising. I practised by translating the first chapter of Watership Down by Richard Adams... yeah I know... into Quenya in my notebook. I just kept my alphabet and rules sheet beside me and after about a page, I didn't need it any more, and after three pages, I am now officially a fluent writer of Elven Script!

I really hope that you don't find all this information daunting, because once you've summarised it onto a sheet you can realise how simple it is. It won't take you too long and then you will be able to code everything in the single most tasteful and cool way ever. It is awesome.

There and Back Again

The Hobbit.   I have been 'there and back again'.  I made that long and sometimes tortuously slow journey all the way to Smaug, and then all the way back to Bag End.  But it just left me... unfulfilled, I suppose you could say.  As I said, it was long and often very slow and in comparison to The Lord of the Rings, the vivid, vibrant, grippingly beautiful and intense style that enchanted and impassioned me every step, every sentence, was completely lacking in The Hobbit. 

I read it because my mentality has always been start at the start, end at the end, read before you watch the movie, etcetera etcetera.  And so, I completely abstained from the glorious three-part edition of The Lord of the Rings that I got for my fifteenth birthday, grovelling instead, in the tame and dusty pathways of The Hobbit. 

It scared me a little.  I had waited so long with so much expectation to read The Lord of the Rings, that when I read The Hobbit, I was really concerned that I wasn't going to enjoy it after all.  I had expected so much and was met rather, by a simple and unexciting children's book.  It really put me off.  But nevertheless, there was that glorious three-part edition waiting on my shelf, and I eventually grabbed it and set off.  Within half of a single chapter, it was obvious to me that I was not going to be disappointed.  Every expectation of the last five years was going to unravel like a fresh lawn in front of me, and then continue out of my imagination.  It became the book that I had waited for without realisation, my entire life. 

I should probably have never read The Hobbit, if only for the avoidance of those days of disappointment, and really, for all of you who consider reading it in the future, it isn't necessary anyway, because the entire plot and all the details are given in The Lord of the Rings, so that if you skip it, it won't affect your reading experience.  But despite my less than thrilling journey there and back again with Bilbo Baggins, it is impossible for me to stifle excitement over the impending release of part one of the film adaption next year.  Especially knowing who is going to play Bilbo Baggins...

It is my wonderful and delightful Martin Freeman, gallant portrayer of Dr. Watson in the BBC production, Sherlock and our awkward but wonderful Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Who then, better to play funny and frumpy Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit?  Not to mention, he looks extremely funny, frumpy, and dare-I-say-it, cute, 'hobbofied'!

You agree, don't you?  This is one of the original stills released from onering.net, and it's just enough to sprinkle thrills up your spine, if you're anything of a Tolkien fan - movies or books. 

Though the book left much to be desired, I have a strong feeling that the movie will be something worth journeying for.  Even if only for Martin Freeman. 

An Unforgettable Grief

Wow.  There is something very like dying and yet being born about what happened to me today.  Perhaps it's not much of a story, but it's a great moment nevertheless. 

Today I finished reading The Lord of the Rings to my dad.  We started reading it - well I don't even know when we started reading it for certain, but I can guess that we began mid year, perhaps June or July last year, nearly immediately after I finished reading it for the first time myself.  And today, the 22nd of July, 2011, at fiveish in the afternoon, in a corrugated iron shed, sitting in wicker chairs some twenty-five years old, nestled in amongst the cushions I hand-sewed for Dad for Christmas, drinking chai tea with one sugar, we finished it.  I made it about a page and a half to the very end, and then I could hardly breath, and I was crying softly and heartrendingly with my heart completely smashed.  Gosh.  It was so hard! 

Dad said, "keep reading!  Keep reading!  We'll cry and see them off together!"  And that it just what we did.  I tried to get my breath back as much as I could before I soldiered on, and with sobs and trembles of grief, I read to the very last sentence, and then, with Sam's sweet last words, we sat and cried together and grieved those beautiful, wonderful people that we had met and loved and lost together for a year and a half. 

I think I am either a lot younger or a lot older now.  I can't really tell which it is just yet.  But to cry with that pain that was truly authentic and totally perfect and read at the same time gave us both the doorway to revelation.  What we had just done was so intensely personal.  We were grieving. 

There is nothing at all wrong with grief.  And there is nothing at all wrong with crying.  There is nothing at all wrong with crying while reading because what we've been through with dear Sam Gamgee and Frodo and Gandalf and Merry and Pippin has been something completely personal and incredible.  We said goodbye for the last time to friends so key to our development and life of late that seeing them leave is like wrenching away a limb.  We will grieve, all right, and sob when we need to, but what we have done together, I will never forget. 

Tolkien Gets Personal

Well, I'm a bit disappointed to have to draw a close to the Open Sesame Challenge, but nobody has added anything, so perhaps it's time to get onto the voting. Which of the three entries do you think is the most interesting opening to a book? Make sure you read all three, and vote on the poll. You can find links to the entries and the poll on the right hand side of the screen. Please do.

My dad and I have made fantastic progress on The Lord of the Rings today. We spent hours reading this morning and even after lunch, and managed to nibble steadily into the final chapters. Three left to go! But there is something I've noticed in it, that I can't explain all to clearly but has given me such a warm and homey affections for the book that it just cannot go unmentioned. I wholeheartedly adore the love and totally real relationships that connect all the characters. It has popped up and out like the most flamboyant of pop-up books in the last couple of chapters. The One Ring has been destroyed and everyone has been reunited, and the things they say and give to each other is so gorgeous. It is terribly cute. It is healthy and ruddy and fresh and beautiful. And it makes me sigh and smile longingly at how healthy it all is. It's not something that I can point to, or read you - it's just the whole. It's unlike everything else. J. R. R. Tolkien just really understood something very important about relationships and it is beautiful to read.  It is very personal. 

Sadly, Frankenstein is becoming increasingly disappointing.  It's a clever concept, but the execution of it as a whole is so slow that it has failed to keep taut any thread of suspense for me whatsoever.  It might just get better - I don't know - but I don't have much left to read now.  I might get it finished tomorrow morning, if I read in bed for a hour or so.  I'm sorry I haven't had much to share from it.  It hasn't been terribly quotable.   

Ah well, The Lord of the Rings has been plenty sustainance for me these last few days.  I am going to be such a mess when we finally finish it.  Would you believe if I told you we'd been reading it since this time last year?  I have formed very strong relationships with every single character, Sam especially, and I have laughed out loud and cried painfully with them.  I will probably have to hold a funeral.  Wow.  OK.  I'm going to start crying prematurely if I dwell on this too much longer. 

.

My Quest to Mount Doom

I have been reading The Lord of the Rings to my dad again these holidays, and we are finally onto the last stretch - the final stages of Frodo and Sam's journey to Mount Doom.  I have enjoyed reading it so much, today, and time and time again I have been surprised and delighted by his cunningly selected words and images.  Paragraphs and pages worth of writing have burst out in my face with so much thrill and fullness.  I have been completely absorbed, and partaking eagerly of every second of my asborbtion.  I hand-picked a pair of ripe sentences for you that pricked me as I read them. 

Under the lifting skirts of the dreary canopy, dim light leaked into Mordor like pale morning through the grimed window of a prison. 

and

The torch, that was already burning low when he arrived, spluttered and went out; and he felt the darness cover him like a tide. 

The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien (published 1955). 

I bolded the part that made me shiver with glee.  Aren't they beautifully written?  It's subtle by so strong. 

It's pretty funny, actuallly, how absorbed I was this morning.  It was all we don't have enough water, they could afford only a nibble of lembas and take my rations Mr. Frodo because etcetera etcetera.  And I was so freakishly hungry and thirsty when we finally breaked for lunch that I could barely walk!  I'm amazed by how clever writing is.  It's an incredible thing.  Very incredible. 

By the way, I have begun to revise my catalogue of 'Dates of Birth and Death of Major Authors and Publication Dates of Major Literary Works Between 1500 and 2001'.  It is a spectacularly nerdy enterprise, but it is hugely interesting, because there are a lot of connections between things.  I also intend to start including the years in which film adaptions have been made.  And while doing all this, I've found that I really need to start compiling a catalogue of all the intertwining connections between books and authors - like I never knew that Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens wrote books together (short story The Haunted Mansion).  I mean, I knew Wilkie Collins published in Charles Dickens' magazine, but this fresh gossip is too juicy to forget in the future.  I've just so into it!

Oh, and lastly, I found out that 25th of May is 'Towel Day', celebrated by all Douglas Adams fans.  I know what I'm doing next year! 

May the Fourth Be With You

May the Fourth today, and of course "May the Fourth be with you!"  I had to laugh when the radio presenter on the classical channel said this this morning.  I was talking to a friend today about one of my favourite descriptions in 'The Lord of the Rings'.  Of course, as it is one of my utmost favourite books, I have many many bits that I adore, but this one part has always stuck in my mind, almost obstinately, because of how deep, green and nobly beautiful it is.  It is about Treebeard's eyes (Treebeard being an old tree-man for non-Tolkiensians, and Fangorn the Ent otherwise): 

Often afterwards Pippin tried to describe his first impression of them,

'One felt as if there was an enormous well behind them, filled up with ages of memory and long, slow, steady thinking; but their surface was sparkling with the present; like sun shimmering on the outer leaves of a vast tree, or on the ripples of a very deep lake. I don't know, but it felt as if something that grew in the ground - asleep, you might say, or just feeling itself as something between root-tip and leaf-tip, between deep earth and sky had suddenly waked up, and was considering you with the same slow care that it had given its own inside affairs for endless years.'
 
'The Lord of the Rings', Volume 2: '.The Two Towers', 'Treebeard', by J.R.R. Tolkien. 
 
Isn't it beautiful?  Did you read it aloud?  I think that it sounds really wonderful when you read it aloud with all the pauses and such, to bring out the rhythm and flow of the words.  That is often the case, hey?  I love the last sentence.  'Dormant' is one word that floats to the top of my mind.  Do you read it and feel that it is coloured green?  I do.  Like green with thick green curtains on a cold wind, or green of soft, newborn moss under a log.  Tolkien says so many things that I love. 
 
I also love in 'The Fellowship of the Ring' when the hobbits are in the house of Bombadil (a character I grieved the absence of dearly in the movies), and the rain turned the chalk path into a milky river.  Just the perfect words to make me see it.  I love it so much. 
 
What are your favourite things from him?