The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, an illuminating look into the author, part 3

After chipping away at it for the last couple weeks, last night I finished up The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. My one line review? It's not hyperbole to say that, if you're a fan of this man's great works of fiction, you owe it to yourself to read Letters.

Over the course of this book I developed a much deeper appreciation not only for The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion, but also for what a unique individual Tolkien was. For example, unbelievably, even towards his last days while continuing to chip away at The Silmarillion, Tolkien regularly answered fan mail. And not just in a cursory, "thank you for the kind words" manner. Letters contains dozens of detailed, multi-page letters on the history of the elves, the derivations of words and names, and the various historic ages of Middle Earth, which Tolkien composed and sent off to bog-standard readers and fans.

Take a moment to think about that: A man who is now regarded as the single greatest influence on not just fantasy literature, but the entire fantasy genre, taking an hour or two out of his busy day to write an eight-page explanation to a reader commenting on Frodo's failure to surrender the Ring in the Cracks of Doom (Letter 246), or to a woman wanting to know whether Shadowfax went with Gandalf across the sea (Letter 268), or to answer a fan's request for a translation of the opening words to one of Treebeard's song (yes, this is in here too--Letter 168).

A few times I actually found myself getting angry: Tolkien died in 1973 at age 81 before he could complete The Silmarillion, which he considered to be his life's work, and a book he continued to chip away at, unsuccessfully, until his death. His son, Christopher, published it posthumously in 1977, but I can't help but think how much more Tolkien could have fleshed out the legends and mythologies of Middle Earth if he spent those hours writing instead of corresponding with fans. But that's who he was.

While Tolkien was quite private about matters of his own life, Letters reveals some personal details which I found quite touching. For example, the fact that he asked to have his wife's headstone engraved as follows (Letter 340):

EDITH MARY TOLKIEN

1889-1971

Luthien

Tolkien himself had "Beren" engraved on his own gravestone (Beren and Luthien were a mortal man and immortal elf-maiden, respectively, who were the first-age equivalent of Aragorn and Arwen). "She (Edith) was, and knew she was, my Luthien," he wrote.

Tolkien lived and breathed Middle Earth, and spent the majority of his life thinking about it and expanding upon its legends. His devotion to his creation is apparent everywhere and even bleeds through into casual correspondence. For example, he described his relationship to his friend and publisher Rayner Unwin, "like that of Rohan and Gondor... and for my part the oath of Eorl will never be broken, and I shall continue to rely on and be grateful for the wisdom and courtesy of Minas Tirith." Middle Earth was no silly outlet for Tolkien--it was him, and he was it. This is probably the greatest reason why it remains (in my opinion) the most convincing act of sub-creation in all of fantasy literature, one that countless other fantasy authors have sought to imitate, but without the same success.

Other of Tolkien's letters reveal his sense of humor. For example, Tolkien tells that he received a drinking goblet from a fan, "which proved to be steel engraved with the terrible words seen on the Ring. I of course have never drunk from it, but use it for tobacco ash" (Letter 343). When a reader wrote to ask for Tolkien's help with an academic project about his works, Tolkien rebuffed him with a quote from Gandalf: "Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger." (Letter 346). When another fan asked Tolkien to sign her copy of The Hobbit, he did, but also sent her a postcard written in elvish runes.

There are tons of other great details in Letters, too many to tell here. But just a few nuggets:

• Tolkien "began a story placed about 100 years after the Downfall of Mordor, but it proved both sinister and depressing" (Letter 256);
• Frodo's "failure" as a hero: "Frodo 'failed' as a hero"... but "had done what he could and spent himself completely (as an instrument of Providence) and had produced a situation in which the object of his quest could be achieved. His humility (with which he began) and his sufferings were justly rewarded by the highest honour; and his exercise of patience and mercy towards Gollum gained him Mercy: his failure was redressed" (Letter 246);
• Tolkien actually "welcomed the idea of an animated motion picture, with all the risk of vulgarization" (Letter 198);
• Tolkien more or less told a German publisher in 1938 to go screw himself when the latter wrote to inquire whether Tolkien was of Aryan descent (Letter 3o)

In short, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien is highly recommended for any serious Tolkien reader.

Tolkien estate sues New Line Cinema

The Tolkien estate dealt what could be a fatal blow to the film adaptation of The Hobbit today, suing New Line Cinema for failing to share any profits from The Lord of the Rings films. This according to a story in Variety today: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117980703.html?categoryid=13&cs=1.

According to the article, the complaint seeks in excess of $150 million in compensatory damages, punitive damages, and (selfishly, the big one for me), "a declaration from the Court that the plaintiffs have a right to terminate any further rights New Line may have to the Tolkien works under the agreements, including The Hobbit."

If this story is correct, it sounds like more sleazy, underhanded work by New Line. Remember that this story comes just months after director Peter Jackson sued the studio for allegedly cheating him out of his fair share of the profits for the LOTR films, and then failing to turn over its books.

I give New Line all the credit in world for backing Rings, and for being the one studio in the world that ponied up the money and the creative license for Jackson to make all three films as he'd wished. But these latest incidents are putting New Line in a very bad light. With worldwide gross receipts of almost $6 billion dollars, are these tactics really necessary? Let's hope the damage and ill-will doesn't put any early end to The Hobbit.

An edible Minas Tirith?

Okay, this is just plain silly (and awesome): The Battle of the Pelennor Fields, done up in cake and candy.

I have no idea how much cake mix went into that creation, but whatever the cost it was worth it.

Eaters of the Dead: A review

Given my huge love of fantasy in general, and viking/dark age-influenced tales in particular, you would think that the 13th Warrior, the film upon which Michael Crichton's fine novel, Eaters of the Dead, is based, would be a personal favorite of mine. It is not. But of Crichton's work I am most definitely a huge fan.

Eaters of the Dead is a retelling of the supposedly authentic travels of an Arab, Ibn Fadlan, and his experiences among the Northmen circa 922 A.D. Several reviews state that much of Eaters is fiction; I myself thought as much after noting both the quality of the narrative and two much more obvious clues: The fact that the book is marked "fiction" on its cover, and the inclusion of The Necronomicon as one of the general reference works listed among its sources. But apparently Fadlan is a real figure from history who did spend time among the vikings as an ambassador.

Regardless of its authenticity, Eaters is a terrific read, made all the more compelling by Crichton's skillful "adaptation" of Fadlan's journal. The viking culture among which Fadlan finds himself is dirty, bloody, and graphic, but oddly appealing if you're a fan of orgies, death-duels, and animal (and occasionally human) sacrifices. These are laid out before the reader without judgment, with only Fadlan's disgust serving as a moral compass. Yet the incredible heroism of the Northmen shines through, as Crichton portrays them as unwaveringly honest and possessed of a steadfast and admirable belief in a warrior's code. Though he's at first appalled and disgusted by the rude, uncivilized behavior of the northmen, Fadlan learns to love their bravery and even comes to embrace their culture.

Fadlan is taken in by the Northmen and becomes an unwilling participant in their mission to save a viking tribe from the attacks of the mist-people, otherwise known as the eaters of the dead. In a scene with strong parallels to Beowulf, Fadlan experiences a terrifying night raid by the mist-people in the hall of Rothgar, the Northmen king. The mist-people, which appear as hairy, brutish monsters, are later revealed to be some form of surviving Neanderthal tribe, wielding stone axes and wearing animal pelts. Though it sounds silly, I found that this explanation added even more realism, and Crichton in the afterword makes a convincing case that perhaps Neanderthal man existed long past his presumed extinction date (commonly believed as 20,000-30,000 B.C).

Later, Fadlan and a small band of northmen led by Buliwyf (read--Beowulf), a mighty warrior, undertake a perilous journey to the home of the mist-people to slay their wendol-mother and stop the source of the attacks.

Equally or even more so than the fun story it tells, I found Eaters of the Dead a fantastic read due to its examination of viking culture, religion, and philosophy. And its eminently quoteable, too. Following are some of my favorites:

The deeds of dead men are sung, and also the deeds of heroes who live, but never are sung the deeds of ordinary men.

There is too much that man does not know. And what man does not know, that is the province of the Gods.

Each person bears a fear which is special to him. One man fears drowning and another fears a close space; each laughs at the other and calls him stupid. This fear is only a preference, to be counted the same as the preference for one woman or another, or mutton for pig, or cabbage for onion. We say, fear is fear.

Praise not the day until evening has come; a woman until she is burnt; a sword until it is tried; a maiden until she is married; ice until it has been crossed; beer until it has been drunk.

A hero's great challenge is in the heart, and not in the adversary.

And finally, when Fadlan tells Buliwyf that that he is afraid, the latter replies, That is because you think upon what is to come, and imagine fearsome things that would stop the blood of any man. Do not think ahead, and be cheerful by knowing that no man lives forever.

White Dwarf: Remembering a great old magazine

The recent demise of Dragon and Dungeon magazine (in paper form-- both have since gone electronic) has gotten me a bit nostalgic for the old days of print-supported role-playing game magazines. With a few small print run exceptions, including Kobold Quarterly and the bi-monthly The Crusader, the days of widely circulated, glossy, print RPG publications are gone.

While I miss to some degree Dragon and Dungeon, both fine magazines in their own right, these days I find myself remembering and looking back most fondly at the Games Workshop (GW)-published White Dwarf magazine, "the voice of British adventure gamers."

Eh, you role-players say? Doesn't GW still publish White Dwarf every month? For the record, they do. But for me, the magazine died roughly around issue #100, when it became a mouthpiece for GW's profitable miniatures wargames line.

Pre-issue 100, White Dwarf was a fantastic magazine. Whereas Dragon very quickly evolved into a house organ for TSR and later Wizards of the Coast, and eventually covered strictly D&D, White Dwarf was a rarity in that it covered all role-playing games. Within its pages you could find articles on Dungeons and Dragons sandwiched in between Runequest columns, Call of Cthulhu adventures, Champions role-playing advice, and Traveler comics.

This model has its problems, since you're much less likely to find value in an article about a game that you don't own. Nevertheless, I derived great enjoyment as a youth examining Champions or Traveler articles and trying to puzzle out their rules based on stat blocks or descriptions. And more than any real gaming value, the pleasure in reading these articles alone made it worth the purchase. The best example I can think of is issue #53 (the cover of which I've included above), which contained Minas Tirith, a scenario about the battle of the Pelennor Fields from The Lord of the Rings. The game system was Warhammer, which I didn't (and still don't) own, but I loved reading about the background, the turns and what events would occur in each, the behavior of the Mumakil if they recieved an eye wound, the Gondor and Witch-King of Angmar army lists, and more.

White Dwarf had columns on minatures painting, scenarios and mini-campaigns, system-free articles on incorporating undead into your games or designing logical campaigns/fantasy worlds, reviews of RPGs popular and obscure, and much more. Here were some of my favorites:

The Castle of Lost Souls. Between issues 52-55, White Dwarf published a four-part choose your own adventure story that drew inspiration from the old Lone Wolf and Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. Remember those? Like Lone Wolf, The Castle of Lost Souls required you to create your own character, resolve combats with dice, etc. It was a great little romp that kept me busy in between games.

Tabletop Heroes: A regular column devoted to minatures painting. It contained lots of great advice not only on how to paint, but also caring for figures, building terrain, castles, and dungeons out of household products, and more. The color illustrations of finished figures were great, although I was left with an inferiority complex when comparing these to my own.

Treasure Chest: A great column of odds and ends, neat little ideas for treasure and devices, alternative rules, and more that you could pick up and drop into your game. Examples: The dungeon cart (a practically-designed, easily-transportable cart specifically designed for underground adventures), drowning rules, the sword of thunder (a +2 intelligent sword that allowed the user to deflect lighting bolts and absorb their charges into the blade; the clear pommel would glow blue when so charged), dragon shields (magic shields made of dragon scales/hide that confer complete protection from that dragon type's particular breath weapon), hints for creative spell uses, halfling-specific magic items, nunchucks in Runequest, and much more.

British style and humor. The letters and reviews in White Dwarf were full of that particular brand of British wit that I find endearing. Example: Issue #63 reviewed XL1: Quest for the Heartstone, a notoriously bad D&D module, with the following: Quest for the Heartstone was at first reading no more than a sales exercise for AD&D Action Toys, and is very reminiscent of everyone's first dungeon: a collection of randomly placed monsters with a random selection of Good Guys going off after some magic item and having to hack through them...my favorite is 'You may use the five-headed Hydra Bendable Monster for this encounter.'

Fun comics. My favorites were Groo, a little three or four-panel strip about the sick adventures of a thick-skulled goblin, and Thrud, which followed the adventures of a massive-bodied, small-headed barbarian that invoked all the worst Conan cliches.

Crunch-less articles. One of the reasons I stopped buying Dragon was that it seemed in the latter days too preoccupied with "crunch," aka. new prestige classes, feats, magic items, etc. This stuff gets real old, real fast. White Dwarf had its share of crunch, but devoted lots of page space to thoughtful columns and features about topics like roleplaying characters after death, discussions on how fast or slow to level, how to colorfully roleplay clerics in D&D, how to create campaigns and worlds with depth and versimilitude, etc.

Sure, White Dwarf wasn't perfect. In particular, my eyes glazed over at "Microview," a bi-monthly computer column about how to write computer programs to aid your tabletop RPGs (issue #50, for example, contained the code for creating a Taurus III striker vehicle, using BASIC language on a TRS-80. Yuck.). But nevertheless, White Dwarf was an invaluable resource from the heyday of RPGs and a vanished member of a species of magazine that, sadly, is all but extinct.

Iron Maiden, Dickinson take to the air

What can't Bruce Dickinson do? Published author, former world class fencer, successful solo musician, lead singer of the greatest heavy metal band of all time--Iron Maiden--and, oh yeah, licensed pilot.

Dickinson is actually flying Maiden around the world on its 2008 World Tour, stepping behind the controls of the band's very own Boeing 757. Check out the paint job on this baby: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/music/article743697.ece

Seriously, what's next for this guy? Can world domination be far behind?

The Shawshank Redemption: Cinematic perfection

Part 9 of a 10-part series in which I examine my favorite films, and the reasons why I love them so.

Warning--spoilers

Movies just don't get any better than 1994's The Shawshank Redemption. To call this a feel-good film is a gross misunderstatement: When I watch it, I'm reminded of why life is worth living, and that hope remains, no matter the depths in which you may find your spirit. It's a profound affirmation of life.

The plot is a simple one: Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) is serving a life sentence for a crime he did not commit. While in prison he befriends an old convict (Red, played by the incomparable Morgan Freeman), also serving life for murder, albeit one that he did commit.

But The Shawshank Redemption is much deeper than a mere prison film, or a buddy movie. It's a film about hope and redemption, hardly surprising given the film's title. But it's not just about the obvious, easy-to-spot redemption of Dufresne, who escapes from Shawshank Prison and takes down the corrupt prison warden on his way out. It's more so about the redemption of two souls--Dufresne and Red. This element is what makes Shawshank, in my opinion, a truly great film.

Dufresne may be innocent of the crime of which he is accused, but he is also a "cold fish," as his fellow inmates call him, an opaque, distant soul whose unfeeling demeanor casts him in a bad light with the judge and jury, and lands him in prison. At the movie's outset he remains distant, uncommunicative, and reclusive. He theorizes (probably correctly) that this flaw is what drove his wife into another man's arms, and the situation that resulted in her death: "My wife used to say I'm a hard man to know, a closed book. She complained about it all the time...I loved her, I just didn't know how to show it, that's all. I killed her Red--I didn't pull the trigger, but I drove her away. That's why she died, because of me, who I am."

Red on the other hand is guilty of committing a senseless crime as a youth. But while he's served his time and is a worthy candidate for parole, he's not truly ready for release because, until he meets and befriends Dufresne, he doesn't appreciate what life has to offer. His appeals before the parole board twice in the film are hollow and unconvincing, and result in rejection. He is, in short, without hope, an old, institutionalized man who feels his only purpose is to go on living on the inside, swapping contraband for cigarettes.

It's noteworthy that Red, always cool and in control, only loses his calm once: When Andy brings up the subject of hope: "You need it so you don't forget that there's places in the world that aren't made out of stone--there's something inside you that they can't get to that's yours. Hope," says Andy.

"Let me tell you something friend--hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. It's got no use on the inside. You better get used to the idea," Red replies.

It's amazing to watch how both men bloom and grow in one another's company as the film progresses, even in the midst of the hell of Shawshank. The prison is depicted as a vision of the underworld in the opening sequence, with the new convicts ("fresh fish") stripped naked, deloused with burning powder, and marched into dark, isolated cells where other inmates bet on who will break first. Guards beat prisoners mercilessly, even to death at times. Presiding over this hell is warden Norton, who, much like Satan, thinks himself God, but is corrupt and evil at the core.

In the end, both men face a simple choice (as told beautifully by Dufresne in the film's iconic line): It comes down to a simple choice, Red: Get busy living, or get busy dying. Confronted with the choice of suicide at the end of a rope, or taking a terrible risk for the chance at salvation, Andy chooses the latter, and his escape from Shawshank is a thing of cinematic beauty. He crawls through 500 yards of foul-filled sewer pipe (an apt metaphor for life, perhaps) before he escapes, throwing his arms up to heaven in praise.

Red's redemption is more subtle but just as powerful. With his mind and soul opened by Andy's example, his third appeal before the parole board is painfully honest, heartfelt, and successful: "There's not a day that goes by that I don't feel regret--I look back at the way I was then, a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him, I want to try and talk some sense into him, tell him the way things are, but I can't. That kid's long gone, this old man is all that's left. I've got to live with that."

As the film ends we're left with a beautifully uplifting ending, two friends embracing on the warm sand by the blue waters of the Pacific. The colors here are achingly beautiful after two-plus hours of gray prison walls. It makes you feel like anything is possible. And that is why I love this film.

Remember Red--hope is a good thing, and good things never die.

It's worth noting that, as most people know, The Shawshank Redemption is based on a novella by master of horror Stephen King. I highly recommend that story as well (you can find it in Different Seasons). It's one of King's best.