Tolkien Letters

And so I have completed the first go-through of The Letters of JRR Tolkien.

Absolutely incredible. One could spend a lifetime, I think, studying Tolkien.

I probably won't add any more notes to those already at the link.

The Mundane

I often spend mornings at Starbucks: blogging, reading.

I just completed a few more pages of The Letters of Tolkien.

It is Sunday, overcast, drizzly. It is exactly how I remember Yorkshire. Exactly. The only difference: Now: in Starbucks reading and blogging. Then: a drive in the drizzly rain on a very curvy road (with roads that paralleled the river before turning across the bridge) to Ripon; church some days; then exploring.

I do think, of all things, Evensong, was most special. Nothing can replace that.

But only with another. Evensong with another has been replaced with reading. Alone. And I am content/satisfied. 

[I remember someone once telling me her theory about English roads paralleling the river before turning to the bridge: that way, drivers would see the whole expanse of the bridge. The builders were proud of their handiwork and wanted others to see it, the entire bridge. When boating down the Charles River in Boston (rarely) and going under a bridge I realize that we see things on the bridge that others have never seen.]

Speaking of which, it was my visit to Monet's garden at Giverney many, many years ago when stationed in Germany that "taught" me to see the various greens in the the color of leaves. When I walk now, I still see many, many hues of green. Had it not been for that visit to Monet's garden, I might never have seen that there were so many shades of green. I don't notice that so much in other colors. Same with yellow blades of grass. I never thought there was such a thing as yellow blades of grass (except dying) until I heard Norah Jones' song and then saw yellow blades of grass in England while visiting an abbey destroyed by Henry VIII. We listened to the song together many times, but I don't recall if I ever mentioned the yellow blades of grass. The video of Norah Jones is posted elsewhere, probably more than once.

JRR Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings

I continue to read The Letters of JRR Tolkien, edited by his biographer, Humphrey Carpenter. It is absolutely incredible: it is obvious he was a genius; the question is whether his obsession with Middle-Earth was certifiable/diagnosable. The fact that he could function in society at a very high level, of course, means that he was neither certifiably or diagnosable but he was clearly as close to living in another world -- the world he had created in the Middle-Earth -- one wonders how close he came to crossing over into insanity.

In medical school, my closest friend who became a world-renown researcher in pediatric renal disease (at one time I thought he might be considered for a Nobel Prize in Medicine) talked to me about specializing in psychiatry. At that time I could not understand his passion for psychiatry (I, of course, do now) but he explained to me that he found it fascinating how all of us are literally on the edge of sanity/insanity.

I think of that the more I read the letters of Tolkien. I am about halfway through the book -- the letters are from the mid-50's. The last letter of the book is dated in 1973 or later; it will be interesting to see how his thinking evolves, but right now, he seems to be living in Middle Earth.

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It's a long story, but some time ago I was in my W. H. Auden phase. I'm not sure how I got to WH Auden; I assume I was led to WH Auden while in my Shakespeare phase [My Shakespeare phase began with Hamlet; became most interesting with the discovery of Brenda James.] But WH Auden is another writer who really intrigues me. I can't articulate why, but suffice it to say, WH Auden is in a class by himself, and I enjoy coming across Auden in places and times completely unexpected. So I was quite surprised to see the correspondence between JRR and WH Auden in 1955, just about the time JRR published the first volume of The Lord of the Rings. Auden had reviewed the book for the New York Times Book Review and Encounter, and was now asking Tolkien some questions about the book. Tolkien's reply was never found; Auden had a habit of throwing letters away after reading them. A pack rat, not. Apparently, this is another letter from Tolkien to Auden.]

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In the letter to Auden I referenced above, Tolkien reminisces about his early life in "West-Midland," a region of England. As he describes it, I am taken back to Yorkshire. Unfortunately with time, my memories of Yorkshire drift farther away; they are not as vivid and certainly not as emotion-laden until I get to thinking about them again. The "hitchhiking" as it were, each night after work.  The rocks at Brimham. The long, long walks every Saturday (until I met another walker) -- walks so long, taken to drive suicidially-depressive thoughts out of my mind. I remember carrying a portable CD player with me and playing Hank Williams, Sr, over and over, a man whose songs suggested a deeply depressed individual. He, too, died in a most inglorious (?) way. Most sad. Wow, do I ever get off track. I used to think about Yorkshire all the time; it generally led to a real sadness (sadness being significantly different than depression). I no longer let myself go down that road, and I won't tonight. It it what it is, or rather, it was what it was, and now it's gone. Never to return.

Hmmm. Sadness vs depression. I don't know how professionals would differentiate the two. For me, depression is an emotional state that lasts for quite some time, often no overt signs except to someone perhaps trained in observing signs of depression. Sadness, on the other hand, is shorter in duration, measured in hours, maybe days (at which point I start to think of "grief"), and is pretty much obvious to others. They say the Eskimos have 100 words for snow. The other day, I happened to come across multiple words for different kinds of frost. And now, multiple words for depression, sadness, grief. Interesting.

Wow, from JRR Tolkien to sadness.

I Am Sailing .. I Am Flying .... I Am ... Forever Trying ....I

I looked at the first post for this blog again tonight (at least I think it was the first post).

Nothing has changed. It was posted in 2009. I had been posting much earlier but as mentioned earlier, I deleted the original blog about that time and started over.

My original blog covered all my interests: the oil industry in my home state, music, literature, travels, and, of course, the life-altering experience called Yorkshire.

But that original blog was too eclectic so I broke it up into several blogs. Most of my time is spent on my blog regarding the oil boom in my home state. I post often throughout the day. It is probably the best source of information on the oil boom in North Dakota for "amateur" followers of the boom.

At one time, it was music that kept me going and I have a blog focusing on the music I enjoy. I've pretty much quit posting at that blog, having pretty much exhausted my personal music library, as it were.

But now, it is literature that keeps me going from day to day. I get into "phases" where I will read everything I can about a certain author. Before tackling a major work of literature, I read at least one biography, and generally two or three biographies before reading the novel. Examples include Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller: James Joyce and his wife Nora: Hemingway and his four wives, all very successful in their own right; Virginia and Leonard Woolf; F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald; Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas; Karen Blixen and Dennis Finch-Hatton; and, of course, the Brontës. I am absolutely fascinated by the human dilemma: how men, maybe women, "manage" relationships.

[I teared up after reading Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth, but Karen Blixen's Out of Africa was even more difficult for me to handle. I would love to read that book out loud to another; it is so poetic, so powerful. I think often of how Dennis died, and I am certain my thoughts about his death are correct. Wow, that was an incredible book. An incredible story. But I digress.]

I stopped reading literature in my fourth year of college, as I was transitioning to graduate school, and then the Air Force. I didn't start reading again until 2002, when I was sent to northern England. No one knew how depressed I was in the 90's -- it was reading that "saved" me. I started an aggressive reading program in 2002 and continue reading to this day. 

Enough rambling for now. 

I am sailing ... I am flying .. to be near you ... to be free ... can you hear me .. can you hear me ... 

It is incredible -- songwriting .. can you hear me ... through the dark night ... I am dying ... forever trying to be near you ...


I Am Sailing, Rod Stewart

Haworth

One of my favorite memories (click here), over at my literature blog.

Bronte Parsonage, Walk to Top Withens

I wrote a long post about Top Withens and Wuthering Heights about three years ago. Unfortunately, one night for some reason, long forgotten, I deleted the entire blog. I have never had the energy to re-create that post, but maybe I will do that someday.

Naomi Mitchison

I am "in love" with strong women. It would be an interesting area to explore. I have been very fortunate to have known three wonderful, powerfully strong women.

In my JRR Tolkien phase, I ran across, for the first time this woman: Naomi Mitchison, while reading The Letters of JRR Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter. Wow, what a story. See wiki.

In My JRR Tolkien, Lord Of The Rings, Phase

I talked about this elsewhere, on my literature blog, I believe. Several months ago, I got back into my JRR Tolkien / Lord of the Rings phase. Brings back wonderful memories of Yorkshire.

I will be updating my literature blog but it's hard to do. I would rather discuss it in person. Unfortunately that won't happen.

Not a day goes by that I'm not thinking of ...

No video today. Sorry.

Instead, some high points of my reading.

I am reading The Letters of JRR Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter, his official biographer, I believe.

I read it slowly, savoring every letter -- or almost every letter. There is a draft letter of Tolkien to C. S. Lewis, undated, but believed to have been written in 1943 on the subject of "Christian marriage, which is binding and lifelong, and marriage-contracts solemnised (sic) only by the State, which make no such demands."

The whole issue is, of course, problematic, but would be an interesting discussion.

I still maintain that as men grow older, they become more romantic; women, less so.