The lyf so short

The annoying thing about volunteering as a web journalist with your club of choice (the German Tolkien Society in this case) is that you regularly have to make time for "editorial team" meetings via Skype, that you have to run after topics, and that the people you have to run after for news don't always take you seriously because you are not writing for any "serious" medium. ALso, your husband may occasionally grouse because you invest time and effort and get no money for it.

The GOOD thing is that sometimes they DO take you seriously, which is why I got a folder of images from the Maker of Middle-earth exhibition AND the exhibition catalogue (it's got 416 pages, is that still a catalogue?) as a pdf file? Just because I am going to write an article about MoMe for the German Tolkien Society page. HOW AWESOME IS THAT? I am obviously not allowed to share it, but I can ogle it at leisure!
(I'm always surprised when things work out, OK?)

Incidentally, the catalogue is GORGEOUS and you should all buy it, ESPECIALLY those who can't make it to the exhibition, but also those who've seen it and chafed at the No Photography rule! Hint hint nudge nudge. There's SO MUCH in there, hot damn. If you order via the Bodleian directly, you can also buy a softcover edition which only costs 25 Pounds (rather than 40 for the hardcover - although it's totally worth it). Amazon etc. only have the hardcover.

CJRT has resigned as director of the Tolkien Estate. (As early as August actually. Multiple sources confirm so I guess this is not just a hoax?) It shouldn't be that surprising - he's 93 and hinted as early as April that Beren and Lúthien would probably be the last of his father's works that he'd edit and published - and yet... it is.

Well, this is certainly a gamechanger, isn't it, and opens up a whole new range of possibilities for the TV rights Amazon has bought. O.ó

when designing dragons, there's a fine fine line between "terrifying" and "ridiculous".

[from the diary of Melkor, 223 F.A.]

SOOO for the purpose of this month's SWG challenge I am re-reading Humphrey Carpenter's Tolkien biography. (The topic of the challenge is love stories. The muses insist on an essay. Don't ask.) I know I keep saying that, but maybe I haven't yet said it here, so let me put it out here: I really really wish that Tolkien's biography could be turned into a movie at some point, because WHAT A LIFE, WHAT A CHARACTER. Seriously, it would be like Angela's Ashes, only with more Elves?

But anyway. I stiiiill haven't fouuuund what I'm looking for, but I have found plenty of great anecdotes. I know some posts have been making the rounds on Tumblr about John "Road Rage" Tolkien, and him and C.S.Lewis attending a party (NOT a costume party) dressed up as polar bears, and these are indeed delightful tales, but there are so. many. more. Many of which have been dear to my heart for years but I keep forgetting half of them and only recall them upon re-reading, so let me share them now.

There's the debating society thing, where young JRRT gives his maiden speech on a motion supporting the objects and tactics of the suffragettes. I had completely forgotten about that! How unexpected is that! Mind you, considering that this is the school debating society, everything should probably be taken with a grain of salt as it may purely be meant to provoke. But as this is also the source of the motion (probably of his own devising) 'That this House deplores the occurrence of the Norman Conquest' and the '[...]sudden flood of unqualified abuse upon Shakespeare, upon his filthy birthplace, his squalid surroundings, and his sordid character', two convictions which appear to be taken as set in stone by a lot of fans and scholars, that's certainly interesting. ("his filthy birthplace, his squalid surroundings and his sordid character"? I mean YMMV but does that sound like it's supposed to be taken literally? Incidentally, I find it curious that Carpenter adds "probably of his own devising" to the thing on the Norman Conquest, since he earlier related the story of the teacher who insisted on the use of plain old English words rather than posh Norman loan words, cf. muck vs. manure. So yeah, the speech may have been Tolkien's, but the idea? Less so? Incidentally incidentally, for a linguist who supposedly so hated the Norman influences on the English language, Tolkien certainly uses a shitload of Anglo-Norman words in the Lay of Leithian, starting in fact with "Lay", but what do I know.)

Anyway.

There's the delightful description of Tolkien's graduation: 'The school-porter was sent by waiting relatives to find me,' [Tolkien] recalled years later. 'He reported that my appearance might be delayed. "Just now," he said, "he's the life and soul of the party." Tactful. In fact, having just taken part in a Greek play, I was clad in a himation and sandals, and was giving what I thought a fair imitation of a frenzied Bacchic dance.' (I WOULD PAY GOOD MONEY TO SEE THAT ON SCREEN OMG.)

Then it's off to Oxford and the typical town vs. gown rags: 'At ten to nine we heard a distant roar of voices and knew that there was something on foot so we dashed out of College and were in the thick of the fun for two hours. We "ragged" the town and the police and the proctors all together for about an hour. Geoffrey and I "captured" a bus and drove it up to Cornmarket making various unearthly noises followed by a mad crowd of mingled varsity and "townese". It was chockfull of undergrads before it reached the Carfax. There I addressed a few stirring words to a huge mob before descending and removing to the "maggers memugger" or Martyr's Memorial where I addressed the crowd again." [emphasis mine]
*rolls under the table in helpless laughter* Fëanor? Fëanor is that you?

Or a brief return to his old school where he met up with his friends of the T.C.B.S. to perform the first ever play by an English dramatist performed at King Edward's School in Birmingham. After their performance of Sheridan's The Rivals, "the school magazine reported: J.R.R.Tolkien's Mrs Malaprop was a real creation, excellent in every way and not least so in make-up." AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! (Aside from the fact that it amuses me to no end that this super-obsessed linguist would play Mrs Malaprop of all characters, I also relish the idea of Tolkien's exploits as cross-dresser.)

On that note, this also had me rolling my eyes: [...] while as to homosexuality Tolkien claimed that at nineteen he did not even know the word.
That's such suspiciously specific phrasing that I immediately feel reminded of the "Exact Words" section over at TVTropes. I mean, I can practically see the entirety of the interview: "And was there any kind of, hm, homosexual behaviour at your all-male school, Prof. Tolkien?" - *deadpan* "Homosexual behaviour? Good God, at that age I didn't even know the word. *chews on pipe* Back then, we simply called it buggery." - "CUT! CUT!"

...
At any rate, I think these crazy little episodes deserve more attention because a lot of fandom (and even more of "scholarship") has this mental image of Tolkien as this unworldly, uptight, super-serious scholar. So let's not forget that this supposedly unworldly, uptight, super-serious scholar danced on the table wearing nothing but a sheet and sandals, or hijacked a bus (WTF WTF?!) and made stirring speeches to a crowd of Oxford students and citizens (AHAHAHAH), and who strutted around on stage in petticoats and make-up. I think Tolkien scholars in particular could benefit from the occasional reminder of a frenzied Bacchic dance. Also, sympathising with suffragettes? I guess this is where Erendis got her rhetoric?

But of course the "Charge 'em and they'll scatter" story is gold as well. So keep on reblogging it, it makes me happy whenever I see it.

That moment when you mean to use the "like a moth drawn to the candle" imagery in an Age-of-the-Trees fanfic set in Valinor and realise it doesn't work. Moths die in candles because they mistake our artificial lights for bright lights in the sky, particularly the moon. BUT IN THIS SETTING, THE MOON DOES NOT YET EXIST. Instead, we have two very bright trees ON THE VERY EARTH, making moth orientation next to impossible without, like, drowning in the vats of Laurelin. *facepalms*
So, no moths in Valinor. Perhaps moths in Cuiviénen (USING BRIGHT STARS FOR ORIENTATION, YOU CAN'T STOP ME), who regularly died in Noldorin campfires? And thus the adage came into being, and continues to be used in Valinor? LOOK, IDK. I'M JUST OVERTHINKING FANTASY. WHAT ELSE IS NOT NEW.

In less accomplished news, this comic here is giving me such horrible fandom crack ideas. I mean, it totally works for Alqualondë/Losgar, too. ("Fry the chips." - "..." - "THE CHIPS! DAMN YOU! NOT THE SHIPS!")

(Oh dear. It's like a mash-up of "Verdammte Brandstifter!" and the Potato thing, isn't it.)

...
BUT I FINALLY WROTE MAITIMO'S CORONATION SCENE. *weeps tears of joy*

Only took six years in real time to get there, too. Now if I manage to get up to Fingolfin's coronation, I may actually finish the bloody story! Woo hoo.

Right. Move on, nothing to see here. Just had to get that out of the system. Goodnight!

TWO THINGS.

1) Ok, this is something that you wise people and experienced heretics may be able to help me out with.
Look. This is something I knew but completely forgot about, and now I randomly remembered and can't keep it to myself.
We all know how Lúthien is basically Edith Tolkien née Bratt, right? Self-insert, Mary Sue, what-have-you. I mean, Tolkien even had the name put on her grave. So yeah. The thing is, WHAT OF LÚTHIEN IN HER FIRST INCARNATION? Because some early draft had Her robe was blue as summer skies,
but not so blue as were her eyes;
'twas sewn with golden lilies fair,
but none so golden as her hair.* or somesuch.
Compare that to the later descriptions (Her robe was blue as summer skies,/ but grey as evening were her eyes;/ 'twas sewn with golden lilies fair,/ but dark as shadow was her hair.*), and, indeed, to dark-haired, (presumably) grey-eyed Edith and it's obvious that Lúthien initially was somebody else (or no-one in particular). At any rate, Lúthien wasn't always Edith.
So here's the question: Is anything known about that? Was golden-haired, blue-eyed Proto-Lúthien someone specific, or just a generic fairy-tale princess that later got rewritten, or what? INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW.

(I can't believe I only remembered that now. When I was relatively new to Tolkien, I regretted that he ever changed the description of Lúthien because I wanted to cosplay her, and I'm blue-eyed and blonde. I mean, you can hardly say "I'm cosplaying Lúthien from the first drafts of the Leithian", can you? And when I dye my hair black, it actually comes out aubergine. Been there done that. Well, I'm not exactly Most-beautiful-woman-alive material, either, but that's a different matter. Edith Tolkien ain't no Halle Berry either. (I made the robe anyway, too.) Point is, I knew there once was a blue-eyed, golden-haired Lúthien. And then I went and completely forgot it and lived the "Lúthien was inspired by Edith, duh" lie. Bzuh!)

- - -

2) Fantastic something that's come to my attention thanks to my cooperation with gwailome. I love this and it's giving me plotbunnies without end. Namely:
HOW DID FINGOLFIN "KNOW THAT HE WAS BETRAYED" WHEN HE SAW THE SHIPS BURN?

Correct answer: He didn't. He might have guessed it, but he might just as well have believed that the servants of Morgoth did it. ("OH CRAP WE HAVE TO GO AND SAVE MY HALF-BROTHER'S ASS! AGAIN!") Or that it was an accident. I mean, those boats were made of wood. Caulked with (presumably) flammable material and sealed with pine or birch tar. That stuff burns like a treat. Now, combine that with people carrying torches and lanterns and hurrying to get ashore...
It could've been lightning. Or, well, Orcs. Or vengeful relations of the Teleri.
As we know, the Silmarillion was recorded in retrospect, and by predominantly anti-Fëanorian chroniclers. So of course by the time they wrote it, them bloody traitors did it. But at the time it was happening? THEY VERY LIKELY DIDN'T KNOW.
Actually, what with oral history and unreliable narrators, maybe it actually was an accident. (Fëanor: "I'm gonna unload my portable forge now." GM: "Roll please." Fëanor: "CRAP. FUMBLE.") And later the Fëanorians told themselves they totally meant to do that, good riddance. And by the time the Fingolfinians reached the shore, they actually believed it? LOOK, I DON'T KNOW. But it's a wonderful little twist for head-canon. Isn't it. I want to play with it forever!

And that concludes today's heretic geek-talk. Probably.

- - -

*Somewhere in the History of Middle-earth 3: The Lays of Beleriand. I'm too lazy to go and get my copy right now. And no, I don't know the entire Lay of Leithian by heart. Just a few lines. *shifty eyes*

Non-Tolkienists probably won't want to know.

So, completely by coincidence and through channels that shall remain unnamed (*cough* dA *cough), today I learned how the Chinese translators of the Silmarillion rendered Maedhros in Chinese, namely, 梅斯罗斯 (mei(2)si(1)luo(2)si(1)).
Of course, that translates to nothing sensible, just being a rough approximation of the sounds of the Sindarin to the sounds of the Mandarin, so to say. (When you transliterate foreign names into Chinese, there are basically two options: Either, you try to come up with something in two characters that distantly invokes a related sound but otherwise isn't really similar; however, it will feel reasonably "Chinese" to speakers of Chinese. Or you come up with something utterly non-Chinese that may look a bit more like the original. An example for the former would be 徳国 (de(2)guo(2), "Germany") - this looks like a Chinese name for a country, but sounds nothing like "Germany", or even like Deutschland (although that is, of course, why they chose a character that reads de). An example for the latter would be 法兰克福 (fa(3)lan(2)ke(4)fu(2), "Frankfurt") - this sounds roughly the same, but immediately parses as "foreign", and really just means jibberish. But the main point is, these strings of characters have been chosen to represent these names in the Chinese language.)

But of course, the individual characters have a meaning of their own. So when coming up with such a "translation", the translators try to find characters that vaguely fit the concept they're looking at. That failing, they try to flatter. For instance, 可口可樂 (ke(3)kou(3)ke(3)le(4), "Coca-Cola") literally reads "nice-mouth-nice-amusement". (de(2)guo(2) is "virtue-country", and fa(3)lan(2)ke(4)fu(2) is "law-orchid-victory-fortune".)

So of course I could not resist looking up the characters for mei(2)si(1)luo(2)si(1), to find out what the nice Chinese translator had considered suitable for Maedhros.
"plum-like-silk-like", that's what.
Aside from my initial AHAHAH, THAT'S SUCH A GIRLY NAME, this is actually quite clever; Chinese plums tend to be on the reddish side, and silk, as we all know, has a lovely texture, so, for a name that's originally supposed to mean "well-shaped copper", this is a reasonably good match (as these things go. I mean, you have to find characters that sound right AND mean something useful - even with the crapload of homonyms in the Chinese language, especially when you leave out the stresses, that can't always be easy. I mean... "law-orchid-victory-fortune", anyone?).

But... IT'S SUCH A GIRL'S NAME. XD

(Also, plums have now become "my" Maedhros' favourite fruit. Just because.)

OK as I may have mentioned, I haven't touched The Hobbit in eleven years.
So the last time I read that book, I hadn't read the Silmarillion. (SHAMEFUL I KNOW)

I have to admit that I did the book a gross injustice; I had filed it in my head as "cute, but not really to be taken serious, totally whimsical 1930s kiddie book, not at all like the LotR". Which is not wholly untrue, but not wholly true either. I mean, there's a lot already in place, just in allusions and paraphrases.

And then there are the bits I just didn't pick up on, back then. (I would have, had the Annotated Hobbit already been in existence and my property back then, because they really explain all the shit. But it wasn't, so I didn't.)

YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MADE ME REALISE.

PJ totally has the chance to do some Silmarillion stuff even though the rights to that book aren't his, BECAUSE OF ALLUSIONS IN THE HOBBIT.

Like, when Thranduil's merry bunch first fool and later arrest the Dwarves, there's a bit of elaboration on the difference between these wood-Elves and THE ELVES WHO HAD GONE TO FAËRIE AND SOME OF THE DEEP ELVES MADE GREAT STUFF AND SOME OF THEM RETURNED TO MIDDLE-EARTH.
...
...
...
CAN WE HAVE THAT IN THE NEXT FILM PLEASE. SOME SPECIFIC DEEP ELVES IF AT ALL POSSIBLE.
(Fun fact aside: The first German Hobbit translator, Walter Scherf, translated "Deep Elves" as die Unterirdischen, "Underground Elves". BWAHAHAH. Noldor = Drow? XD)
Also, allusions to why the Elves can't stand the Dwarves, because "They had fought wars against each other and the Dwarves stole a great treasure from them but to be fair the Dwarves said they had only taken their due because the Elf king had refused them their proper payment". SACK OF DORIATH OMG OMG OMG! CAN WE HAVE THAT TOO. SILMARILLION FLASHBACKS FTW. INCLUDING VENGEFUL FËANORIANS PERHAPS?
...
SQUEE.

Probably not. If the Nauglamir appeared, its Silmaril would forever be confused with the Arkenstone, so PJ will probably avoid that. Still, a girl can dream. I mean, that would certainly explain the "short book = movie trilogy" development...

Crap, now I got my hopes up. :P

- - -
ETA: further fun with the German translation: Drachen wissen zwar mit all ihrem Besitz nicht viel anzufangen, aber in der Regel kennen sie ihn auf Mark und Pfennig....
Tee hee.
(FWIW, I would've translated that as Heller und Pfennig -- even now, Mark feels too modern. These days, of course, we're using Euros and Cents, but I dearly hope nobody is going to change this in current editions! Also, now I can't help wondering whether there were/are editions going Schilling und Groschen or Franken und Rappen...? XD)