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... a time to wonder
Apr. 24th, 2004 10:42 pmSo, just returned from a strange and wondrous day...
The first strange thing being me, attending a discussion and four lectures on one day, voluntarily, even paying for it. It was really interesting, too; also amusing how some of the specialists were so absolutely convinced of their approach that they didn't even try to hide they considered theirs the best: The mediaevist was convinced you could only truly understand Tolkien from a mediaevist's point of view; the theologist didn't say so expressively, but made it quite clear that he found that you had to at least know a lot about theology to understand Tolkien (although, for a theologist, he was quite reasonable). The third lecturer, Frank Weinreich, was not so arrogant, and his topic (freedom of will) was quite interesting and well pointed out, but his voice was sort of sneery (still, I'll never be able to read the Silmarillion again without thinking of his wonderfully sneery way to quote Ilúvatar); the last lecture on some number magic I found rather to wild, suggesting that there was some intentional sense to the numbers of several of the names, and some other stuff: Sort of like the "Bible Code", only for Tolkien. Gakh.
I can tell ya, it was a really weird feeling to be surrounded by all those people who read and taught and quoted all that stuff. I felt really stupid and ignorant in comparison (though, at some points, I was surprised how they did not see the most obvious things).
The discussion touched about every point once, including those we'll hear about today, and slash; we found out one of the lecturers had originally planned to speak about slash, but had dropped the notion because she'd thought it was too dangerous a topic. And that in Cologne. It might have been really interesting, too, had she been as convinced of the perfection of her approach: "The only true way to understand Tolkien is from a slasher's perspective..." Right.
There were several nice, rather funny remarks and good discussions on the Silm and the HoME and the free will of orcs in between, and great ideas for research and publications, which made the day among the Very Intellectual Purists quite enjoyable, really.
Then, I went to Gilbert's Pub with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tzaaihta, Dulin, and two friends of the first; and we saw three young men in really old-fashioned clothing - with losely cut unbleached shirts, black vests with seven buttons and velvet trousers and jackets, top hats, and their belongings in small bundles of cloth: carpenter apprentices. They explained how they had wandered, found no work for the day and asked for some money for a hostel, and a meal: All in old-fashioned language with a heavy southern accent. It even rhymed. Poor students that we were, we could only offer them chewing gum, which they also took. One of those traditions I almost forgot existed.
Then there were incredible loads of young men on their stag night, performing the strange rituals for that event. One, for example, had a cardboard sign with twelve women's names, and asked every woman in the place whether her name was on there. If it was, he asked her to place a kiss mark on that cardboard. Our names weren't there, so we had to send them off without success. And we saw at least four other grooms-to-be.
When I returned to my car, the city behind me echoed with the thunder of fireworks, though very few went high enough to be seen from where I was. The evening (it was around 10 p.m.) was bright, but I saw two tiny stars between the moon andEärendil the evenstar that I can't remember ever having seen before. I mentioned that the night was bright? First I thought it was the city's light, but it wasn't: When I reached the free fields behind the university, I looked westward, and I saw the horizon full of clouds, but around and behind them still shone the fading colours of the sunset: At 10 p.m., in April.
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( Es ist das Schicksal dieser Zeiten, dass sie voller Wunder sind. )
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The first strange thing being me, attending a discussion and four lectures on one day, voluntarily, even paying for it. It was really interesting, too; also amusing how some of the specialists were so absolutely convinced of their approach that they didn't even try to hide they considered theirs the best: The mediaevist was convinced you could only truly understand Tolkien from a mediaevist's point of view; the theologist didn't say so expressively, but made it quite clear that he found that you had to at least know a lot about theology to understand Tolkien (although, for a theologist, he was quite reasonable). The third lecturer, Frank Weinreich, was not so arrogant, and his topic (freedom of will) was quite interesting and well pointed out, but his voice was sort of sneery (still, I'll never be able to read the Silmarillion again without thinking of his wonderfully sneery way to quote Ilúvatar); the last lecture on some number magic I found rather to wild, suggesting that there was some intentional sense to the numbers of several of the names, and some other stuff: Sort of like the "Bible Code", only for Tolkien. Gakh.
I can tell ya, it was a really weird feeling to be surrounded by all those people who read and taught and quoted all that stuff. I felt really stupid and ignorant in comparison (though, at some points, I was surprised how they did not see the most obvious things).
The discussion touched about every point once, including those we'll hear about today, and slash; we found out one of the lecturers had originally planned to speak about slash, but had dropped the notion because she'd thought it was too dangerous a topic. And that in Cologne. It might have been really interesting, too, had she been as convinced of the perfection of her approach: "The only true way to understand Tolkien is from a slasher's perspective..." Right.
There were several nice, rather funny remarks and good discussions on the Silm and the HoME and the free will of orcs in between, and great ideas for research and publications, which made the day among the Very Intellectual Purists quite enjoyable, really.
Then, I went to Gilbert's Pub with
tzaaihta, Dulin, and two friends of the first; and we saw three young men in really old-fashioned clothing - with losely cut unbleached shirts, black vests with seven buttons and velvet trousers and jackets, top hats, and their belongings in small bundles of cloth: carpenter apprentices. They explained how they had wandered, found no work for the day and asked for some money for a hostel, and a meal: All in old-fashioned language with a heavy southern accent. It even rhymed. Poor students that we were, we could only offer them chewing gum, which they also took. One of those traditions I almost forgot existed.Then there were incredible loads of young men on their stag night, performing the strange rituals for that event. One, for example, had a cardboard sign with twelve women's names, and asked every woman in the place whether her name was on there. If it was, he asked her to place a kiss mark on that cardboard. Our names weren't there, so we had to send them off without success. And we saw at least four other grooms-to-be.
When I returned to my car, the city behind me echoed with the thunder of fireworks, though very few went high enough to be seen from where I was. The evening (it was around 10 p.m.) was bright, but I saw two tiny stars between the moon and
- - -
( Es ist das Schicksal dieser Zeiten, dass sie voller Wunder sind. )
- - -
