Sometimes the whale wins ...

I last updated readers on J.R.R. Tolkien’s translation of the Book of Jonah in August 2009, a little over five months ago. Since then, I’ve heard from some of you, impatient as I was. Release dates have come and gone on the various pages at Amazon, etc. According to Amazon.co.uk, in fact, the British edition was due to appear next week; but Amazon.com gave a much later date (December 2010). So, understandably confused, I inquired with my contact at the publisher, Darton, Longman & Todd. I just heard back, and sadly, he conveyed the worst possible news.

I don’t have any details yet (nor am I assured of getting any), but apparently the project has been killed. In their words, “I’m afraid we’ve had to cancel publication unfortunately. I’ll make sure is amended ASAP” — which I took to refer to Amazon, Bowker, and every other distributor and bibliographic database that had been informed of the planned publication.

So, I guess all we’re going to get — at least, for the foreseeable future — is the wonderful cover design and a lot of “what could have been” speculation. I will, of course, let you know if I ever hear that the project has been brought back to life. But for now — bollocks.

If you’re planning a visit to the ’Zoo

The schedule for the Forty-fifth International Congress on Medieval Studies, also known simply as Kalamazoo, has been published. The conference runs May 13–16, 2010 at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. One of the event’s innumerable sponsors is Tolkien at Kalamazoo, which is running seven sessions this year. I won’t be attending Kalamazoo myself, but as a public service, here’s what those who do can look forward to (for dates and times, you can refer to the full published schedule):

Four paper sessions:

MEDIEVAL FANTASY, ALCHEMY, AND MODERN SCIENCE IN TOLKIEN’S LEGENDARIUM

• Elvencentrism: “Elven Nature Preserves” in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Ann Martinez, U. of Kansas
• “Worlds on Worlds”: Tolkien, Lewis, and the Medieval and Modern Theological Implications of Extraterrestrial Life, Kristine Larsen, Central Connecticut State U.
• Inside Literature: Tolkien’s Explorations of Medieval Genres, John D. Rateliff, Independent Scholar
• J.R.R. Tolkien and The Battle of Maldon: An Example of “Freer” Verse?, Stuart D. Lee, U. of Oxford

TOLKIEN AND THE BIBLE

• Neues Testament und Märchen: Tolkien, Fairy Stories, and the Gospels, John William Houghton, Hill School
• “Justice is not healing”: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Pauline Constructs in “Finwë and Míriel”, Amelia A. Rutledge, George Mason U.
• Tolkien on the Old English Pater Noster: Digging Niggling Calligraphy, John R. Holmes, Franciscan U. of Steubenville
• The Lord of the Fish: Tolkien and the Book of Jonah, Michael Foster, Independent Scholar

TOLKIEN AS SCHOLAR, TRANSLATOR, ACADEMIC

• Tolkien as Pearl Maiden: Exhortation as Parable, David Thomson, Baylor U.
• Casting Away Treasures: Tolkien’s Use of The Pearl in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, Leigh Smith, East Stroudsburg U.
• The Pearl and The Jewels: Beren and Luthien [sic] and The Pearl, Janice M. Bogstad, U. of Wisconsin–Eau Claire

TOLKIEN UN-BODIED

• To Be or Not to Be? The Enigma of the Balrog in Tolkien’s Mythology, Bradford Lee Eden, U. of California–Santa Barbara
• Tolkien’s Ramblin’ Men, Peter Grybauskas, U. of Maryland
• “It is enough to make the dead rise out of their graves!”: Tolkien, Oliphant, and Gendered Conventions of the Supernatural, Sharin Schroeder, U. of Minnesota–Twin Cities

Two roundtables:

THE HOBBIT
A roundtable discussion with Jennifer Culver, U. of Texas–Dallas; Deborah Sabo, U. of Arkansas–Fayetteville; John D. Rateliff, Independent Scholar; Corey Olsen, Washington College; Janice M. Bogstad, U. of Wisconsin–Eau Claire; and Merlin DeTardo, Independent Scholar. Presider: Douglas A. Anderson, Independent Scholar.

TEACHING TOLKIEN
A roundtable discussion with Victoria Wodzak, Viterbo U.; Michael Foster, Independent Scholar; Jon Porter, Butler University; Kristine Larsen, Central Connecticut State U.; Corey Olsen, Washington College; and Benjamin S. W. Barootes, McGill U. Presider: Judy Ann Ford, Texas A&M U.–Commerce.

And another session (as usual at Kalamazoo) just for fun:

TOLKIEN UNBOUND: READERS’ THEATER PERFORMANCE

• Readings from Sigurd and Gudrun [sic], Yvette Kisor, Jennifer Culver, and Bradford Lee Eden
• “The Road Goes Ever On” by Donald Swann, Eileen Marie Moore
• The Lord of the Ringos, Michael Foster and Amy Amendt-Raduege

In addition to papers to be delivered under the impresa of Tolkien at Kalamazoo, a quick search of the full schedule turned up a few more papers and sessions of interest, to wit:

• Jeff Smith’s “Bone”: Revising Tolkien and Lewis’s Antimodernist Fantasies, Andrew Taylor, Western Michigan U.
• Landscapes of Lord of the Rings Online, Ryan T. Harper, U. of Rochester
• Middle-Earth [sic] and the Waste Land: Greenwood, Apocalypse, and Post-War Resolution, Edward L. Risden, St. Norbert College

Plus an entire session of papers presented by students from the NEH Summer Institute on Tolkien conducted at Texas A&M–Commerce last summer. The session is being run by Judy Ann Ford, one of the Institute’s two co-directors (and the other co-director, Robin Anne Reid, is in charge of Tolkien at Kalamazoo). I was particularly pleased to see this session, as I was one of the guest instructors at the Institute. I wrote a little bit about the Institute here (see the penultimate paragraph). It’s very nice to see the Institute bearing fruit.

Don’t forget about Mythcon 41

Last month, I posted the Call For Papers for Mythcon 41, which will be held in Dallas, Texas, at Southern Methodist University, July 9–12, 2010. The chairs of this event (Randy Hoyt and yours truly) have been hard at work, and we recently finalized the pricing for room and board. Mythcon is a relatively small, intimate gathering, a bit more like a family reunion at times than other conferences I’ve attended — but please don’t let that put your off; we love welcoming new faces too! Point being, most of those attending Mythcon stay in campus housing and eat together on campus as well. We also have a wonderful banquet on Sunday evening. The pricing on room and board this year is quite reasonable, so do consider it.

Also important: we have extended early registration pricing until February 15, 2010. After that, it’s going to go up a bit, so if you’re thinking about coming, not would be a great time to register. You can either send us a check, or pay online in mere minutes. Just follow this link.

Mythcon may still be six months away, but the days will pass more quickly than you realize! If you can’t attend Mythcon yourself but know someone who can, or participate in clubs, groups, or forums, online or off, on fantasy, science-fiction, creative writing, or even horror — we would certainly appreciate your letting folks know about our event.

We now return to your regularly scheduled broadcast.

Truths, in the eyes of the beholders

As you may recall from a post last summer, Truths Breathed Through Silver: The Inklings’ Moral and Mythopoeic Legacy was reviewed by Richard West for Tolkien Studies. He had very good things to say about the collection overall, but he spared only a few words for my essay. They were neither complimentary nor dismissive, but merely descriptive. But more recently, two new reviews have arrived, and these engage with my contribution a good deal more.

John Rateliff reviewed the book for Mythlore (the 2009 Fall/Winter issue). You can read the entire review online at the Mythopoeic Society’s website by following this link, but here is what Rateliff had to say about my essay:

The second essay focused on Tolkien, by Jason Fisher, looks at the question of whether or not Tolkien’s cosmology incorporates the idea of the ‘Fortunate Fall’ or Felix Culpa — the idea that greater good comes about as a result of evil than would have been the case had the evil never taken place. Here we have a case of a single essay, of moderate length, that tackles a major topic with vast ramifications and implications and yet manages to be relatively thorough within a short space. Fisher discusses all three Falls that take place within the legendarium (that of Morgoth, that of the Noldor, and that of the Númenóreans) and reaches the rather unusual conclusion that Tolkien himself did not believe many of the core theological positions underlying his mythology – for example, that “Tolkien’s world doesn’t seem to incorporate the idea of Original Sin” (101) but “certainly Tolkien himself, in his Primary World beliefs, would have subscribed to the doctrine of Original Sin” (109n15). And again, Fisher asserts “As a devout Catholic, Tolkien would have firmly believed that Lucifer played no part in God’s creation of the World” (102). I remain unpersuaded, but it’s an intriguing idea, and I’m curious to see if others will take up this proposed barrier between Tolkien’s real beliefs and the beliefs upon which he based his life’s work.

Having also mentioned me by name in his introductory remarks, Rateliff does so again in his conclusion, calling my essay one of the book’s “high points”:

In the end, this is not an essential purchase for Inklings scholars, especially given its high price for such a slim volume. But there’s certainly enough of interest here to make the book worth reading, with the high points being Khoddam’s quote from The Quest of Bleheris, Himes’s valiant attempt to sort out the mess regarding The Dark Tower, Howard’s reminiscences, and the essays by Fisher and Shippey.

I was very pleased to see this, as you can well imagine! That Rateliff isn’t fully convinced is not a great surprise. Editor Jonathan Himes and I, when discussing my essay as we maneuvered it through several rounds of revision and expansion, always knew the thesis would be a somewhat provocative one, especially among readers with an interest in theology.

More than unconvinced, however, was Charles Huttar, who reviewed the collection for VII: An Anglo-American Review, Volume 26 (2009). This review just appeared, and it is not available online, but Jonathan kindly shared a tear-sheet with me. Incidentally, Huttar blurbed the collection way back at the beginning of 2008, as I mentioned here. Huttar was just such a reader as I had in mind when I revised the essay several times in the attempt to forestall the kinds of theological objections I saw as the most likely to be raised. Had I not made such revisions, Huttar’s objections might have been more severe, but he still finds fault. Here’s what he had to say:

Jason Fisher, in “Tolkien’s Fortunate Fall and the Third Theme of Ilúvatar,” systematically shows how the omnipotent One takes all the evils that enter his creation, whether through Melkor, through Elves, or through Men, and makes them part of a larger pattern of his own devising that is good. Granted that none of these “falls” is ultimately disastrous, but is it valid to call them “fortunate”? Repeatedly the argument depends on fallacious reasoning; one example will have to suffice. “Thus, though tragic, the Fall of Man necessarily precipitates vastly greater good in the later ages of the world — is distills the good of the faithful and leads to the ultimate banishment of Sauron and his sinful influence from Middle-earth, just as the Fall of the Elves led to the banishment of Morgoth” (101). But the word “necessarily” begs the question; the phrase “greater good” rests on a comparison only with the immediate results of the evil, not with what good might have been in store had the evil not occurred (which cannot be discounted though of course it cannot be known); and the repeated “leads to ... led to” assumes a causality not proved or even argued: post hoc non ergo propter hoc [Latin for, “after this not therefore because of this”]. (Shall we sin that grace may abound?)

For the most part, I can accept these remarks as a perfectly legitimate reaction to my thesis, well within the range of responses I anticipated. I bristled just a bit at his judgment that my reasoning is repeatedly “fallacious”; his one example (to me) does not justify such a blanket assertion. I understand the limits of space imposed on reviewers as well as anyone, but if you are going to say “repeatedly”, I think you owe me at least two examples. :)

The one example given could easily prompt a protracted debate, which I will not enter into here lest I seem overly defensive. But anyway, there is no need. Why not? Because such questions as “could the good that would have arisen without the intervention of evil have been greater than the good evil itself brought about” are inevitably unanswerable, but — and here is where I lay the emphasis — that is beside the point. The point is that the Roman Catholic Tolkien would have believed in the Fortunate Fall without the need for explanation, justification, or debate. Its contrary assertion (that evil brought about greater good than would have occurred without it) is simply a matter of orthodox belief. That he would endow his Secondary World with such an element as he believed to be present in the Primary World should surprise no one; indeed, I would have expected this to be the most uncontroversial assertion I make in my essay. In other words, the very questions Huttar raises about my view of the world of Middle-earth might as easily be raised about the Fortunate Fall in our own world, but it was not the aim of my essay to tackle that thorny question. Perhaps I could have been clearer.

Overall, Huttar seems to find as the collection’s weakest essays some of the very ones John Rateliff found to be its highlights — and vice versa. For example, while Rateliff appreciated “Howard’s reminiscences”, Huttar feels Howard’s paper is “out of place in this volume. It was doubtless much appreciated as an after-dinner talk, but it does not make the kind of scholarly contribution a published paper should aim at and that the other papers in the book do achieve. In both style and content it does less than justice to the author’s stature as a contributor to Inklings studies over the years.” If you’re anything like me, you will immediately recall Tolkien’s words in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings — “the passages or chapters that are to some a blemish are all by others specially approved.”

It just goes to show you: three different reviewers, three very different reviews. But I am pleased to have been singled out for extended commentary by two of the three — even when the reviewer disagrees with my methods or conclusions. This is all part of a larger conversation, an incremental grasping to understand and appreciate the vast depth of Tolkien’s creation. To all my reviewers, thank you for taking the time to read my essay and ponder its conclusions. For one of you, I have already returned the favor; perhaps the other two will feel the weight of my pen one day to come.

When is an English root word like a Mafia don?

Here’s a philological game to pass an idle moment: try to think of basic English roots that attach to a wide variety of prefixes to form new words. I often find myself going through them in my head, always looking for the best-connected root — the Vito Corleone of English roots, if you like. Is it perhaps √SPECT “to look”, with its halo of aspect, expect, inspect, prospect, respect, suspect? Or √DICT “to say, speak”, with its wider nimbus of addict, apodictic, edict, contradict, indict, interdict, predict? And by the way, benediction, malediction, jurisdiction, valedictory, verdict, etc., don’t count, since these don’t involve proper prefixes, but are actually two roots linked together.

So, which English root has the most connections? Which is the biggest don, making the largest crowd of English prefixes an offer they can’t refuse? The basic rules of the game are: (a) start with a basic English root, usually describing a simple, concrete action — that is, not just any abstract root whatsoever, but one of the fundamental roots at the beginning of the English evolutionary chain; then, (b) see how many standard prefixes (not other roots) you can tack on to make real English words. (I suppose one could try this game in other languages as well, if they are constructed along similar morphological lines. It should work for most of the European languages, if perhaps not as well as for English.)

Does that sound like fun to you? I usually do it in my head, so I don’t have any systematic written record of my meanderings among the prefixes. But so far, the best-connected roots I think I’ve found are √JECT “to throw” and √DUCT “to lead”. For each, I’ve come up with twelve combinations of prefix and root — have I missed any? Note that these must be distinct. One cannot add adjacent or ejaculate, or conducive or educe, even though these are words with somewhat different meanings, because their prefixes are already accounted for. Can anyone think of a fundamental English root with more than twelve connections?

For √JECT “to throw”, I’ve got:

• Abject: “thrown away from [something better]”
• Adjective: “thrown toward, near [a noun]”
• Conjecture: “thrown together [to make a guess]”
• Dejected: “thrown apart, away”
• Eject: “throw out, away from”
• Inject: “throw in(to)”
• Interject: “throw among, between [other words]”
• Object: “throw against” [e.g., a point of argument]
• Project: “throw forward” [e.g., your voice]
• Reject: “throw back”
• Subject: “throw under(neath)”
• Trajectory: “thrown across, through, beyond”

And for √DUC(T) “to lead”:

• Abduct: “lead away”
• Adduce: “lead toward [i.e., bring forward]”
• Conduct: “lead together” [e.g., a symphony]
• Deduce: “lead out” [e.g., a conclusion]
• Educate: “lead out of [childhood, into the adult world]”
• Induce: “lead into” [i.e., persuade]
• Introduce: “lead into [something]”
• Produce: “lead forward [i.e., bring out]”
• Reduce: “lead back”
• Seduce: “lead apart, astray”
• Subduct: “lead under(neath)”
• Transduction: “led across, through, beyond”

Aren’t word-games fun? Along similar lines, my friend Gary and I used to coin new words by taking existing prefix + root combi-nations, and shuffling new prefixes into them. For example, we usually say that the opposite of the impossible is simply the possible, but shouldn’t it be the *expossible (on the model of impose and expose)? Or, if “making a prediction” is guessing about a future outcome, would “making a postdiction” be saying “I told you so!”, after the fact?

Lewis/Tolkien special journal issue

The bimonthly St. Austin Review, which calls itself “the premier international journal of Catholic culture, literature, and ideas”, has just released its January/February 2010 issue, with a special emphasis on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Highlights from its table of contents include:

• Tolkien and St. Thomas on Beauty, Michael Waldstein
• Distributism in the Shire, Matthew P. Akers (read it)
• The New Tower of Babel: Modern Ideologies in C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength, Marie Cabaud Meaney
• Harold Bloom versus C.S. Lewis: Will the Real “Dogmatist” Please Stand Up?, Louis Markos
• Reawakening Wonder: Farther Up and Farther In with C. S. Lewis, Thomas Howard
• Inheriting the Legacy of Tolkien and Lewis: Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle, Sophia Mason
• Musica Donum Dei: Sibelius, Tolkien, and the Kalevala, Susan Treacy

And book reviews of:

• The Latin Letters of C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis & Don Giovanni Calabria (trans./ed. Martin Moynihan)
• Night Operation and Eager Spring, Owen Barfield
• Mere Christians: Inspiring Stories of Encounters with C.S. Lewis, ed. Mary Anne Phemister and Andrew Lazo
• Out of My Bone: The Letters of Joy Davidman, ed. Don W. King

I have reviewed the two Barfield novelas myself (forthcoming in Mythprint), and I have been really interested in reading the Joy Davidman letters. The Latin Letters is a very interesting (and much older) collection; I highly recommend it. I have the 1999 edition, but it has just been released in softcover, at a much better price!

All together, a good collection of reviews (though where is Tolkien in them?), and what looks to be an excellent collection of essays. Thomas Howard, in particular, always brings his A-game — he’s the only scholar whom I’ve heard convincingly work the word “punctilio” into a casual conversation! And the Susan Treacy column as especially timely, given the release of Walking Tree’s new collection, Music in Middle-earth (ed. Heidi Steimel and Friedhelm Schneidewind, 2010).

If you decide to pick up this issue, you might consider ordering the July/August 2008 back issue as well. This was a special issue on “The Catholic Genius of J.R.R. Tolkien”, featuring essays by some familiar names — Elizabeth Whittingham, Sandra Miesel, Jef Murray — and reviewing a number of books on Tolkien.

“From eckward to andward”

The Dark Tower, an abandoned time-travel novel (or sorts) by C.S. Lewis, is, despite its brevity, densely packed with fascinating words, allusions, and ideas. Among many points that have struck my interest on this (my first) reading of it was the following passage — quoted by Lewis from the fictional book, Time Angles:

“An uncontrolled time proceeding in the backward-forward direction is subject, as is known, to fluctuations during which small extensions of it (say .05 of a second) will make a measurable angle with the backward-forward direction. If, now, we suppose this increased to a right angle, this time will proceed from eckward to andward” — so the words appeared to Scudamour’s memory when he told us the story — “and will cut an ideally normal time at right angles.” [1]

So far as I can tell, the words “eckward(s)” and “andward(s)” are Lewis’s own inventions. I have been unable to find them in anything predating The Dark Tower (except as completely unrelated proper names). For the most part, the time-travel literature on which Lewis drew for inspiration (e.g., H.G. Wells, J.W. Dunne, Murray Leinster, et al.) either coin nothing new, making do with existing words; or else borrow terminology from the world of spatial dimensions — e.g., Leinster’s “sidewise in time”. H. Beam Piper, whose works were probably too late to have influenced Lewis, adopts “paratime”, which serves well enough — but there is something remarkable to me about Lewis’s invented adverbs, “eckward” and “andward”. They feel just right; they appear perfectly appropriate and look like genuine English words. Naturally, I was curious about their possible etymologies. Now, I have not read all of the available scholarship on The Dark Tower — far from it! — but from a quick search, it does not appear to me that anybody has written much of anything on this subject. If anyone out there knows otherwise, please pass the details along! In the meantime, I’ve had some thoughts.

Two possibilities to explain “eckward” and “andward” come readily to my mind: Greek and Old English. To tip my hand, I think it’s probably the latter, but I’ll address them both, and I welcome your input.

To make up Lewis’s words, the Greek prefixes in question would most likely come from the prepositions ἐκ, ἐξ “out of, (away) from” and ἀνά “(up)on, along, up through, thereon”, respectively. The resulting meanings would therefore be something like eckward = “in a direction away from or out of (normal time)” and andward = “in a direction along or up through (normal time)”. The first would serve us well, but the second would not; such a meaning seems opposite to what Lewis meant. The only scholar whom I have found to venture any opinion on the matter is Sanford Schwartz. He (only tangentially) advances the Greek theory in his recent book — for “eckward”, at least; I haven’t seen an opinion on “andward” [2]. But while Greek would ordinarily be a natural assumption for Lewis (after all, the Four Loves are all given their Greek names), there are some problems here.

For one, as I’ve hinted already, the explanation for “andward” isn’t nearly as good as the one for “eckward”. And where would the d come from, if the prefix is the Greek ἀνά? For another, Latinizing ἐκ, ἐξ to “eck–” would not follow the established pattern for the use of that prefix in English (e.g., it’s eclipse, not *ecklipse or *eklipse). For yet another, the suffix, –ward, is most definitely Germanic. If the prefix were Greek, we’d have rather uneasy bedfellows from competing word-stocks. Such admixtures are not unprecedented in English, but they are not as common as unalloyed compounds. And especially in the case of a neologism by someone with Lewis’s knowledge of language (rivaled among the Inklings only by Tolkien’s or Barfield’s), one would have to expect more consistency. So what is the other alternative?

As I said, –ward is Germanic, going back to Old English –weard, ultimately from a Germanic root meaning “to turn”. Cognates to the Old English include Old Saxon –ward, Old High German –wart, Gothic –wairþs, and Old Norse –verðr. Might the prefixes be Old English along with the suffix? Certainly! If they are, the most likely sources are OE and “without, against” and éce “eternal, perpetual, everlasting” [3]. The latter already carries a temporary meaning, so we have reason to feel optimistic! Moreover, there actually is an attested OE word andweard, which, had it survived, would have become a Modern English word of precisely the form in question, “andward”. It means “present” in the spatial sense (i.e., “without any specific direction”), but this would obviously tempt a knowledgeable word-maker to apply it to the temporal dimension as well. If this hypothesis is the correct one, then the two words would mean something like andward = “all time in the present” and eckward = “all time perpetually conceived”, both contrasted with the mundane temporal dimension we all know from experience.

This etymology fits the story very well, where the fictive time-scientists of Lewis’s Othertime explain that “[a]t the [...] moment of intersection [of two perpendicular timelines] the whole series of events in each of these times will then be contemporary to those living in the other”, and “a consciousness which succeeded in passing [from one timeline to another] would attain to endless time, and the Time Square [i.e., a two-dimensional temporal plane], though finite, would be endless or perpetual” [4].

I feel satisfied, therefore, that the Old English etymology is most likely the one Lewis had in mind, in spite of his more typical attraction to the Greek or Latin. What do my readers think of this hypothesis? And why haven’t other writers, of both fictional time-travel stories and nonfiction books on time, picked up these very useful words? As someone who used to speculate on temporal dimensionality quite a lot (once upon a time :), I would certainly have found them useful!


[1] Lewis, C.S. The Dark Tower and Other Stories. Ed. Walter Hooper. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977, p. 84.

[2] Schwartz, Sanford. C.S. Lewis on the Final Frontier: Science and the Supernatural in the Space Trilogy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

[3] An alternate possibility is OE éc “also”, with a meaning of “also-time”, but this strikes me as a bit less plausible.

[4] Lewis, pp. 84, 87.

A short review of “Three Rings”

Last May, I learned that one of my essays was being reviewed in the new issue of Hither Shore, then still forthcoming. That issue (Volume 5) is now in print, and most of it is available on Google Books. Having duly perused it, I also found a review in English of Tolkien Studies, Volume 5 (2008) by Thomas Honegger (running on pages 259–62), in which my essay, “Three Rings for—Whom Exactly? And Why? Justifying the Disposition of the Three Elven Rings” received the following favorable comments:

Lastly, Jason Fisher provides a straighforward study of the origin of the three elven rings. He points out that the final names and attributions to their wearers were given relatively late (first galley proofs). He establishes likely reasons for Tolkien allocating the ring of fire to Gandalf, the ring of air to Elrond, and the ring of water to Galadriel and shows how he strengthens the bond between wearer and ring by means of textual allusions. Finally, Fisher unearths a nice piece of ‘Tolkienian depth’ by paralleling the fate of the three silmarils — which find their final resting-places in the sky, the ocean, and the fires of the earth, respectively — with the three elven rings, so that it may indeed by not surprising that Elrond, the descendant of Eärendil who ‘carries’ one of the silmarils across the sky each night, is given the ring of air. (p. 261, ego-stroking emphasis added :)

It’s so nice to be read! My thanks to Thomas for the review.

Mythcon 41 Call for Papers

Regular readers will remember that I’ve written about Mythcon — the Mythopoeic Society’s annual conference and fantasy convention — from time to time. For example, here is my detailed conference report for Mythcon 39. I was unable to attend Mythcon 40 this past July in Los Angeles, but I did have a paper read there. My good friend Randy Hoyt (also the webmaster for the Mythopoeic Society) filled in for me.

It was at Mythcon 39, though, that Randy and I first began talking about bringing Mythcon to North Texas. In its forty year history, it has never been to Texas at all, let alone to the Dallas/Fort Worth area (the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the U.S.). The closest Mythcon has come to Texas is Norman, Oklahoma (Mythcon 37), a bit more than 200 miles; Nashville, Tennessee (Mythcon 34), more than 600 miles; Boulder, Colorado (Mythcon 27), right at 900 miles. Every other Mythcon over the past forty years has been 1,000 miles or more away! So in our view, a Texas Mythcon was long overdue.

And so, it’s happening in 2010: Mythcon 41 will be held at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas over the long weekend of July 9–12. Randy Hoyt and I are co-chairing the conference, with the on-campus sponsorship of the Department of Continuing Education! Even though the conference is months away, we have already opened registration, here. Room and board packages will be available, but we are finalizing the costs now. Those will be posted on the Mythopoeic Society website as they become available.

In the meantime, I’m happy to share the Mythcon 41 Call For Papers. You don’t have to present a paper in order to attend Mythcon, but for the scholars among you (amateurs welcome!), please consider proposing one. We have a conference theme, “War in Heaven” (see below for more details), but papers do not have to deal directly with this theme. However, we do especially welcome papers on the theme. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you have questions, either here or via email.

Mythcon 41 Call For Papers

Mythcon 41: War in Heaven
The 41st Annual Mythopoeic Conference
Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas
July 9-12, 2010
Download: Call For Papers (PDF)
Proposals for papers are due: 4/15/10

Guests of Honor

Tim Powers, Author
Tim Powers is a science-fiction and fantasy author. He has received numerous awards and nominations for his works, including the World Fantasy Award for his novels Last Call (1992) and Declare (2000). He has been nominated for four Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards, most recently for Three Days to Never (2006).

Janet Brennan Croft, Scholar
Janet Brennan Croft is the editor of Mythlore, one of the premier periodicals on the Inklings and fantasy literature. She has published many articles and three books on J.R.R. Tolkien, including War in the Works of Tolkien (2005), which won the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies.

Additional Special Guests to be announced!

Theme: War in Heaven
From the great epic poems of ancient Greece and ancient India to the Book of Revelation and the Poetic Edda; from John Milton and William Blake to J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams; from Philip Pullman to Neil Gaiman and beyond, theomachy (conflict amongst and against the gods) has been a perennial theme in mythology and mythopoeic literature. Moreover, the year 2010 marks our theme with special significance as the 80th anniversary of the publication of Charles Williams’s novel War in Heaven.

Papers dealing with the conference theme are especially encouraged. We also welcome papers focusing on the work and interests of the Inklings (especially J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams), of our Guests of Honor, and other fantasy authors and themes. Papers from a variety of critical perspectives and disciplines are welcome. Each paper will be given a one-hour slot to allow time for questions, but individual papers should be timed for oral presentation in 40 minutes maximum. Participants are encouraged to submit papers chosen for presentation at the conference to Mythlore, the refereed journal of the Mythopoeic Society. Paper abstracts of no more than 300 words, along with contact information, should be sent to the Papers Coordinator at the address below (e-mail preferred) by April 15, 2010. Please include your A/V requirements and the projected time needed for your presentation.

All paper presenters must register for the full conference; please see the Mythcon 41 web page for information and rates.

Robin Anne Reid
Mythcon 41 Papers Coordinator
Department of Literature and Languages
Texas A&M University-Commerce
Commerce TX 75429
Robin_Reid@tamu-commerce.edu
Alt: rrede13@yahoo.com

The Mythopoeic Society is an international literary and educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and mythopoeic literature. We believe the study of these writers can lead to greater understanding and appreciation of the literary, philosophical, and spiritual traditions which underlie their works, and can engender an interest in the study of myth, legend, and the genre of fantasy. Find out about the Society’s activities at: http://www.mythsoc.org/.