Second Breakfast

This is for me one of those special books that I re-read every few years, and as I grow older, with increasing delight.

For the uninitiated, “The Silmarillion” is a posthumously-published collection of the mythical and “historical” writings by Tolkien on Middle-Earth that were assembled an edited by his son, Christopher Tolkien with considerable assistance by Guy Gavriel Kay, now a fine and respected fantasy author in his own right.

The style and substance of this work are very different from The Lord of the Rings (LoTR), which reads like a modern novel and is a long, singular work with a coherent internal structure. In contrast, The Silmarillion is a collection of shorter works, some of which come from Tolkien’s earliest writings on his invented world. The literary style ranges from the mythic to at least somewhat historical and archaic, and the scope spans the creation of the world, the earliest ages of Arda (that is, Middle-Earth), though the end of the Third Age with the destruction of the Ring and the passage of all of the ringbearers into the West.

The title of the work comes from the longest story in the collection, which chronicles the “War of the Jewels”, which are the events of the First Age of the world that center around the Silmarils, three legendary jewels of great beauty and power. The Silmarils were created by Feanor, a not-distant ancestor of Galadriel who figures so importantly in the events of LoTR, to capture the light of the Two Trees, which illumined the world before the Sun and Moon were created. The Trees are killed by Morgoth (a good stand-in for Satan, and the primary mover of evil in Middle Earth’s early history), who steals the jewels for good measure. Feanor and his kin swear a terrible oath of vengeance, and the repercussions of this act, as well as the betrayals and hurts that follow, shape the lives of the peoples of Middle-Earth.

The events of The Silmarillion take place in lands that lay to the west of those shown on the maps in LoTR, as the conclusion of the War renders such destruction that the very earth is wrought asunder, and many lands sink into the sea. Morgoth is ultimately overthrown, but at a terrible price, and the world is ultimately diminished.

The “point” of this writing is ultimately about language, and the place and character names in Tolkien’s invented elvish, dwarvish, and human languages are dense. In a very real way, the stories were themselves written to give a place and context in which the languages could have life. In his Letters Tolkien underscores this point several times — he invented the languages first, and the stories later so that the languages could be spoken by “real” people. “No one believes me, but it’s true,” he wrote. As a reader, this can be a bit intimidating, but the book includes a good set of reference materials at the back.

The Silmarillion includes some of the most important stories in Tolkien’s legendarium, including the Narn i Hin Hurin (”Tale of the Children of Hurin”, recently republished in a slightly amended and expanded separate volume), the Fall of Gondolin, and the tale of Beren and Luthien. Many of these events prefigure and are the backdrop to the later events in the Lord of the Rings, and for a reader who loves and is familiar with that book, part of what can be deeply satisfying about this work is the myriad connections that draw these stories together. We learn of Galadriel’s origins for example, and come to understand more deeply the meaning of Frodo’s offer of the Ring to her. We learn about Aragorn’s ancestry, and how Sauron’s manipulations lead to the downfall of Numenor and the Aragorn’s ancestor’s exile to Middle Earth.

Tolkien’s own Catholic philosophy and Northern European sensibilities are prominent in this writing. The general theme is a sense of diminishment and decay, from an idyllic and edenic origin, through the working of evil (both supernatural and very human), to a fallen future. Sauron, who is seen as the “lord of evil” in LoTR, is shown to be merely the chiefest lieutenant of Morgoth before his overthrow. The One Ring, while very powerful, is an echo of much more powerful devices. Aragorn, Galadriel, and Elrond, while powerful in their own right, are either themselves diminished from their past potency, or scions of more powerful ancestors. Tolkien’s gaze is always backwards, and the world is always sliding, slowly or quickly, into ruin and decay. This is the ultimate antidote to modernism.

This volume is but the first in a series of books that trace the development of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth legends, and there is a shocking amount of unpublished material (in various states of completeness and quality) from Tolkien’s papers that his son Christopher has been faithfully editing and publishing over the years. I am simply in awe of the amount of output that Tolkien produced, in addition to his important scholarly translations and other contributions.

I still remember the first time I encountered this book, and the sheer and strange beauty of it entranced me then. In some ways these myths have embedded themselves as deeply in my consciousness as much as, say, the Greek myths. Tolkien’s aims were in part to create a mythos for Britain, which has no “native” mythology of its own. Having a long familiarity now with these stories and languages, I continue to find a deep well of both aesthetic and spiritual pleasure to draw from. While these works are demanding of the reader, I think the rewards can be quite profound.

Scott Lynch kind of pisses me off. These are his first two published books in what promises to be a quite fine fantasy series, and together I think are rather good.

While the trappings of these stories, the first two in a promised seven-book “Gentlemen Bastards” sequence, are typical sword-and-sorcery stuff, the attention to detail, complexity of plotting and character development are of a much higher order.

Both books center around the eponymous title character of the first book Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen, two young thieves in the rather Venice-like city-state of Camorr. As the two begin to learn their newfound trade, they find themselves embroiled in a battle for control over their city’s underworld, and undertake a series of cons and double-crosses that is a bit dizzying at times. The second book follows hard on the heels of the first, and moves from an “Ocean’s Eleven” riff to “Pirates of the Caribbean”, as the duo, having never set foot on a ship, must pass themselves off as seasoned pirates or suffer a horrible death by slow poison. Again the crossing and double-crossing runs thick, and the story has plenty of turns and enough misdirections that I was guessing even until the end.

Lynch’s world-building, a trademark metric of modern fantasy, is quite good, and he strikes a good balance between establishing his characters in a believable and interesting context without getting overburdened in the details. He’s no linguist, and the European flavor of his places and characters seem natural and yet fresh.

Ultimately the thing that keeps this writing interesting are his protagonists, and the complex relationship between Locke and Jean I think drives and redeems a little bit from some of the more pedestrian elements of the books.

One thing I enjoy about Lynch’s approach to fantasy writing is his restraint in the use of magic. While there is a real, bad-ass magician’s guild at the edges of the story, most of the “magic” used here is of the alchemical variety, and the cons they Locke and Jean pull off they accomplish by their own wit and bravado versus via the Ancient-Scepter-of-Azul bullcrap that infects a lot of this kind of writing. This isn’t your father’s Fafhrd and Grey Mouser.

Lynch, at least from his published photos for some reason reminds me of Margaret Cho’s observation about the “creepy connection between leather sex, Star Trek fans and Renaissance fairs”. Regardless, I look forward to his next installment.

This is a beautiful novel that lives somewhere on the border of fantastic realism and pure fantasy.

I recall picking up this book when I was an undergraduate at the long-gone Dawn Treader books in Ann Arbor on South University. I think there’s a comic book shop there now. I found Little, Big and Winter’s Tale on the same trip, and the former book moved me greatly even then. But some books don’t make sense to you as a young person, but with the passage of time become something you treasure. Delaney’s “Stars in My Pockets Like Grains of Sand” is a science fiction novel I would put in that category as well.

So when I put this in my reading pile this summer I was surprised that I didn’t really know anything about this book even though its been on my shelf for years.

I find it interesting that I bought both of these books on the same day (if, as in Iron Chef, “memory serves”) given how similar they are. Both Crowley and Helprin are masters of language, and Helprin’s prose is exquisite. I found myself savoring passages and his descriptions, and a thrill of almost physical pleasure at times as I read this novel. There are lots of parallels between the two books, which I’ll detail some other time.

The book itself is a little hard to describe. There are elements of fantastic realism - the novel is set in New York city and upstate, spanning from the late 19th century to the present day. But it is not quite “our” New York, and its history isn’t quite the one that we know. There’s a mysterious racing wall of cloud that lives just offshore, and occasionally intrudes and whisks people and even buildings away, to reappear in the future, or maybe never. There’s a flying horse named Athansor whose destiny shapes the fate of many in the story. There’s an impending Armegeddon, and a bridge to literally nowhere, which may hold the key to salvation, or maybe not.

In the midst of this all is Helprin’s intense romanticism and obvious admiration for his characters and love for his readers. This is ultimately a novel about love transcending death. The effect is beautiful, and although I’m not sure I can decide what the novel “means”, it is at the very least beautiful for beauty’s sake. That’s not so bad.

This book has received an enormous amount of praise and attention, all of it well-deserved.

Alan and I like to use Netflix to view long-format dramas and series, mostly geeky sci-fi stuff, but occasionally historical stuff such as HBO’s Henry VIII. So we watched the HBO miniseries based on this a few months ago and thought Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney were fabulous and the portrait of Adams fascinating. So I picked it up for my summer reading list, which stretched a bit into the fall.

This was for me an enormously pleasurable reading experience. McCullough is a master of prose and narrative, and I was impressed both the level of detail and his obvious admiration for this fascinating man. Unlike a lot of historical biographies that either just feels like an accounting of dates and places or gets bogged down in attempting to unravel the inner workings of the subject’s mind, this book draws on the enormous wealth of the Adams’ family papers to provide a nicely balanced portrait of both Adams the man and Adams the political revolutionary.

What strikes me most about Adams is his enormous devotion to consistency of thought, word, and action. Given the complexities of the age and his life, he remains remarkably free of the contradictions that plagued some of his contemporaries (Jefferson comes to mind). Jefferson himself does not come across in a particularly flattering light in this account, and I think rightly so.

Perhaps as interesting as John Adams is his wife Abigail. Their private correspondence is quite moving at times, and she shines forth even today as a remarkable woman of incredible fortitude, perception, and wisdom.

I was introduced to Christopher Moore by the (very nice) boyfriend of my step-sister.  Actually there’s a story there on my step-sister, but that’s another show.  Bloodsucking Fiends was in the back seat of his car, which is a title almost no one could resist.

Turns out Moore is something of a “cult literary sensation”, at least according to the press on his book jackets.  I hadn’t heard of him, but that doesn’t mean anything since I still really don’t know who Kylie Minogue is or why I should care, so I’m hardly a good bellweather for the tends of popular culture.

These are short, funny, breezy novels that live somewhere between fantasy and general popular fiction.  Fiends features a young girl who is attacked by a venerable (if attractive and young-looking) vampire who is looking to find a suitable companion, and then has to figure out how to maintain a reasonably normal life.  Apparently most vampire-spawn don’t last very long as they’re too stupid to deal with the rigors of life as the undead, go figure).  Demonkeeping features a guy who raises an amazingly bloodthirsty demon in his youth and stumbles across an opportunity to jettison his wretched (and ravenous) traveling companion.  Both novels worked well for me, and I was suitably caught up as the story action builds to the necessary climax.  Maybe a little formulaic — Moore likes to poke around in the spaces where the fantastic intersect with the mundane — but fun.

Actually I find it interesting that the arbiters of literary genres decided to classify these as general “literary” fiction instead of “fantasy/sci-fi” given that the tone, setting, and content these books would sit alongside plenty of authors in that genre, but the whole classification and marketing of books and music is a big game anyways.

Definitely enjoyable, fluffy summer reading.