Friday, November 22, 2024

III: Canon

It is often said that Tolkien never finished the Silmarillion. It would perhaps be truer to say that Tolkien finished the Silmarillion several times; leaving a paper trail of mutually contradictory versions in his wake. Christopher Tolkien had to select material: the published Silmarillion can't, by definition, represent Tolkien's final intentions. Christopher didn't automatically regard the last thing his father wrote as authoritative: he went for the versions that were most polished, most finished, most consistent with the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, or simply "best". And we know that not every word in the Silmarillion is exactly what Tolkien wrote: Christopher made amendments and added bridging passages to create a sense completion and consistency. That's what editors do. At some point between 1980 and 1983 Christopher decided that this had been a mistake and embarked on a thirteen year project to produce a scholarly edition of the exact words his father wrote, false starts and contradictions and crossings out and all.

We could, if we wanted to, say that the only canonical Middle-earth texts were the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings ("including appendices"): since these were the only works that Tolkien approved for publication during his lifetime. We could add -- I think most people implicitly do -- the Silmarillion and the Unfinished Tales, because they contain writings that Christopher Tolkien felt to be broadly consistent with what was already published. You can read the Silmarillion, the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, in that order, with the Unfinished Tales as a kind of appendix, and feel that you have read a complete history of an imaginary world in various styles and from various points of view.

It would seem odd to say "the island of Tol Eressea is canonically England" (because that was Tolkien's idea in the very early Lost Tales manuscripts), or "Numenor canonically became the continent of America" (because Tolkien explored that idea in a very late "round earth" revision). But it would be equally odd to say that the story of Sam's daughter Eleanor becoming Arwen's hand-maiden was "apocryphal" or "part of my headcanon" because it occurs in an epilogue which Tolkien was persuaded (fairly reluctantly) to take out of Lord of the Rings. And I assume that no-one in their right mind would say that the magnificent ending of Beren and Luthien ("The quest is fulfilled; even now a Silmaril is in my hand!") was "only fan fiction" because it was one of the manuscripts that was published posthumously.

So perhaps, if we are talking about Tolkien, "the canon" had better refer to "what Tolkien actually wrote" (as opposed to what was invented by David Day, Iron Crown Enterprises, Peter Jackson or Amazon TV.) 

But "canon" can too easily become a weapon to be wielded in fan disputes. It is not enough to like Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Unless and until you jump over twelve heavily footnoted hurdles, you are a Dyson Airblade. (*).




Rings of Power

Season 1 Reviews


Season 2 Reviews

Season 1 Reviews (Book)


Season 2 Reviews (Book) (Available Soon)

Complete Reviews Season 1 - 7 (Available Jan 2035)

Thursday, November 21, 2024

II: Canon

I've been listening to Bart Ehrman's podcasts about the Bible, provocatively entitled Misquoting Jesus. Prof Ehrman has forgotten more about the New Testament than I am ever likely to know, and I have learned a lot from them. His explanation of how the "lost chapter" of Mark's Gospel was discovered; and why it is very probably a forgery is great fun.

But occassionally, his language wrankles slightly. Ehrman has a tendency to refer to the apocryphal gospels -- the Christian texts by people other than Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and sometimes Paul -- as "books which never made it into the Bible."

Which is literally true. Oliver Twist is a book that never made it into the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, and Sailor on the Seas of Fate is generally excluded from the Harry Potter series. But there is a danger that a listener could infer that Judas and Thomas and Peter and that huge body of second and third century fan-fic might have become of the Bible.

I suppose there could have been a world where "the Bible" never stopped growing: where books written by the disciples of the disciples of the disciples had the same status as the big Four (or sometimes Five). Maybe the Sermons of John Wesley and the Broadcast of C.S Lewis might have been canonised as part of the Twenty Eighth Testament. Don't the Quakers have something like that -- a collection of "testimonies" that each generation adds to? 

But the phrase "never-made-it-into" plays into the story that Once Upon a Time (TM) there was a big pile of books, all equally valid or equally invalid, and then one day an unruly mob armed with surprise, fear, nice red uniforms and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope unexpectedly burst in and arbitrarily deleted the ones they happen not to like.

Ehrman, obviously, doesn't remotely believe this story. He is clear and interesting and helpful about where the canon actually came from. The catholic church didn't have an official list of all the books that were definitively in the Bible until as late as the sixteenth century. But everyone who called themselves a Christian had been working from the same list for about thirteen centuries before that. The 1546 decree only came about because Martin Luther was making noises about excluding James and Revelation. 

But I think it's the story Richard Dawkins and Dan Brown and the journalists who got excited about the Gospel of Mary hoax believe in. Thomas and Mark are "the same kind of thing" and only random chance or inquisitorial suppression put one between big black leather covers and relegated the other to the Loeb Ancient Greek Texts series.

When Ronald Knox started to talk about the Sherlock Holmes "canon" in the 1930s he was making a scholarly religious joke. But once you've stopped laughing, the Holmes canon isn't particularly hard to define: it's whatever Conan Doyle wrote. Fifty something stories and a handful of novels. I am told that some people play a meta-game where, for example, Laurie King's Mary Russel books are treated as canon, but that's all part of the joke.

Comic book canon is quite a bit more fiddly. There are an awful lot of Spider-Man comics out there and it takes a monumental act of faith to believe they are all true at the same time. But if I say "Is Captain America canonically Irish?" or "Is Jimmy Olsen canonically gay?" I think you understand the question. Captain America's heritage has been alluded to in the comic books themselves; Jimmy Olsen has only been said to be Superman's Very Special Friend in fan-fiction.

You might very well say that it doesn't make any difference; but you understand the question. 

So: how, as readers, scholars, and adaptors, should we define the Tolkien canon?


Rings of Power

Season 1 Reviews


Season 2 Reviews

Season 1 Reviews (Book)


Season 2 Reviews (Book) (Available Soon)

Complete Reviews Season 1 - 7 (Available Jan 2035)

Wednesday, November 20, 2024

I - Gatekeeping

My mother went to the opera all her life: as a young woman she used to queue to get cheap back row tickets at Covent Garden ('the gods'); she went the Paris Opera during her honeymoon; and in later years she had a season ticket for the English National Opera. So she was understandably annoyed when a work colleague bought a single of Pavarotti singing Nessun Dorma and thereafter claimed to be a Devotee. I don't think she ever said that there was anything wrong with listening to fat Italians singing the famous bits. She certainly didn't say that people shouldn't be allowed to do so. But it annoyed her.

If I went out in public wearing a Motorhead tee-shirt, there is a real danger that someone would approach me and ask how many times I heard them perform live and the title of my three favourite albums. If I couldn't answer, there is a good chance that they would accuse me of being a Dyson Airblade. (*)

There used to be a comic book writer called Neil Gaiman. He wrote a comic called Sandman. Lots of people who never thought they would like comics really, really liked Sandman. As a matter of fact I really, really liked it. But some of the people who really, really liked it really really really liked it. It wasn't just the best fantasy comic of the early 1990s. It was the best fantasy comic of all time. It was the best comic book of all time. The first good comic book. The only good comic book

I am still a little surprised that people who didn't like comics managed get to the end of the first graphic novels, what with the constant references to Golden Age vigilantes, aborted Jack Kirby strips, Martian Manhunters and 1950s horror narrators. But that was part of Neil Gaiman's cleverness. Sandman was a dense web of fannish in-jokes; but the in-jokes weren't told in such a way as to lock anyone out. His stuff on Satan plays pretty well if you know your way around Milton and the Bible but equally well if you don't.

I am afraid I became rather insufferable around this point. Perhaps it was fair enough to feel irritated when people who had (by their own admission) never read any other comic book fansplained to me that prior to Sandman, all comics were puerile, disposable rubbish about people in brightly coloured underwear who said SOK and KAPOW a lot, and that Neil Gaiman had single-handedly turned them into serious English literature. But this very easily shaded in to my saying out loud that if you hadn't read Doctor Strange or Little Nemo you had no darn right to like Neil Gaiman.

A lot of the people who really, really, liked Sandman have recently discovered that they never liked it to begin with. 

In recent times, the argument has started to go the other way. I really, really like Cerebus the Aardvark, while acknowledging that it is really, really, really problematic. But when I point out the very great strengths of Dave Sim's artwork and story telling, some people are inclined to reply "I expect if I had read as many comics as you have, I would be able to see this skill and innovation that you talk about, but since I haven't I won't."

Gatekeeping is definitely a thing; and it's a very silly thing; although sometimes it is a very understandable thing. "Your opinion doesn't count because you know less than me" and "Your opinion doesn't count because you know more than me" are both forms of gatekeeping. "I don't think this is very good" should never be taken to imply "You are not permitted to enjoy this."






Rings of Power

Season 1 Reviews


Season 2 Reviews

Season 1 Reviews (Book)


Season 2 Reviews (Book) (Available Soon)

Complete Reviews Season 1 - 7 (Available Jan 2035)

Digression

I must not digress.

Digression is the blog-killer.


Digression is the general point which brings total excursus.


I will ignore my digression. 


I will permit it to pass over me and through me.


And when it has gone past, I will fire up scrivener and read my notes. 


When the digression has finished there will be nothing. 


Only content will remain. 

Rings of Power - Afterparty

RINGS OF POWER

AFTER PARTY

Digression

I: Gatekeeping

II: Canon

III: Canon

IV: Fantasy


V: Gatekeeping

VI: Adaptation

VII: World Buidling

VIII: Fantasy


IX: Sources

X: History

XI: Discourse



Season 1 Reviews


Season 2 Reviews

Season 1 Reviews (Book)


Season 2 Reviews (Book) (Available Soon)

Complete Reviews Season 1 - 7 (Available Jan 2035)

Rings of Power 2.8 -- Out-takes

 Rings of Power Outtakes

Friday, November 08, 2024

Donald Trump is not in fact a supporter of an Italian political movement between 1919 and 1945. The British and the Americans use the word "liberal" in different ways. The only thing which matters right now is that we all get this right. Everyone knows exactly what "woke" means and anyone asking for a definition is an elitist pedant. I am very clever indeed.

Thursday, November 07, 2024

 So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, government of the people by the people for the people, even America itself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm going to live as like an American as I can even if there isn't any America.

why did christianity come to an end in the UK?

a: because it became too liberal: church men said 'it's all about ethics and spirituality, you don't need to worry about all the Jesus and God stuff' and people said 'if we don't have to worry about all the Jesus and God stuff we don't see why we should worry about all the vicars and hymns stuff either'' 

-- solution: start to preach that ol' time religion again

b: because it didn't become liberal enough: people wanted spirituality and moral guidance and all they got was creeds and ancient texts

-- solution: apologise to J.A.T Robinson

c i: because the institution itself became corrupt -- people wanted god and jesus and mass and evensong but not from an institution that shielded child molesters and diverted funds into the hands of flamboyant televangelists 

 -- solution: be less evil


c ii: because the institution failed to move with the times: people wanted god and jesus and mass and evensong but not from an institution that didn't recognise women's vocations, couldn't accept LGBTQ+ people, wouldn't acknowledge its historical role in slavery and segregation etc

-- solution: be less evil


c iii: because the institution became too woke: people wanted god and jesus and mass and evensong but not from an institution that kept banging on about slavery and women and LGBTQ+ rights 

-- solution: be, er, more evil

d i: because the basic premises of christianity became impossible to sustain: people ceased to believe in god because god's existence became impossible to believe in and therefore stopped supporting an institution which did believe in it

-- solution: none; accept that the church was an historical mistake and move on

d ii: because changes in social mores revealed the situation that has always existed; a very small number of believers and a very large number of indifferent or hostile persons who no longer feel social pressure to attend service 


-- solution: none -- both believers and skeptics should welcome the new situation although it does create an issue about what to do with all the pretty buildings scattered round the countryside

why did liberalism come to an end in America and the UK

a:  

Wednesday, November 06, 2024

Does Twitter Serve Any Useful Purpose

 This is a test to see if I am getting any traffic to this website via Twitter. If you are reading this any found it via twitter, it would really help me if you said "Wibble" in the comments below. 

 it's all right he didn't mean a word of it nothing is going to happen

people have predicted the end of the world after every election result in my life time


it's all right he probably did mean most of it but he won't actually be able to do it because they have a constitution and we don't


i mean last time around you said he was going to overturn roe vs wade and that never


the most important thing is respecting the result as he would have done if he had

 

closest allies special relationship shoulder to shoulder common values


liberal tears woke virtue signal still not tired of winning


seriously kemi badenoch


right to defend themself 


if liberals hadn't been so liberally then the right wouldn't be so righty so it's all our fault


several reliable well informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitlers anti semitism was not so genuine or violence as it sounded and that he was merely using anti semitic propaganda as a bait to catch


all their disadvantages rust belt middle class privilege if you were in that position you might have done the same so don't go casting the first 


the negro's name is used it is plain for the politicians gain as he rises to fame and the poor white remain on the cabose of the train but it ain't him to blame he's only a pawn in their game 


woke box ticking DEI liberal communist SJW 


i am loyal to nothing colonel except the dream


kemi badenoch seriously


come back emma goldman rise up old joe hill the barracades are going up they cannot break our will come back to us malcolm x and martin luther king we're marching into selma as the bells of freedom ring


it's all right it might never happen 


it's all right it probably won't happen 


every thing is fine


every thing is fine 



Friday, November 01, 2024

Rings of Power 2:5

 On going lamentations continue on my Patreon Page. Drop a pound or so in the box and you can read it, and make me feel that someone out there case. 


Rings of Power 2.5 Review

Thursday, October 24, 2024

Here Comes The Flood

Have you seen that old clip of David Frost interviewing Oswald Mosley?


Frost plays a clip of one of Mosley's speeches. There are really only two possibilities, he says. Either you were deliberately trying to emulate Hitler. Or you were impersonating Charlie Chaplain in the Great Dictator.



The Conservative Party is in the process of choosing a new leader. That leader will automatically become the Leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition, and will presumably be Kier Starmer's opponent at the next General Election. 


A decade ago, faced with a similar situation, the Labour Party gave its members the choice between a half-way plausible leader (I honestly can't remember his or her name) and an obviously unelectable one. The party members, including my good self, selected the second option. Overwhelmingly. Twice. 


The Tories are obviously not going to repeat this mistake. Instead, they have offered their members a straight choice between two obviously unelectable candidates. There's the one who wants to fight culture war battles against trans people and equal opportunity acts and the one who would only have people in his cabinet who want to withdraw from the European convention on human rights. I do concede that framing "culture wars" as a "left wing dog-whistle" implies a kind of Joycean genius for word play. 


It will be aesthetically displeasing to have to listen to one or other of these people talking this kind of rubbish at Prime Minister's question time every week. But it makes no difference. It doesn't matter who becomes Leader of the Opposition. Not even a little bit.


And it doesn't matter if Kier Starmer has been a little bit naughty about who pays his tailor's bills; although, since the whole point of Starmer was that he was bright and sensible, it is a little disappointing that he has done something quite so dumb and quite so stupid quite so quickly. We used to slag off Rev'd Tony for his obsession with spin, but you would think that these people paid people to tell them when they were about to do something that is going to look terrible in the papers. 


Of course, it's up to you Prime Minister. I'm sure you know what you're doing. A very courageous move.



British electoral cycles and American electoral cycles are out of sync. Ms Badenoch and/or Mr Jerrick are going to get one shot at becoming PM, and that won't come much before June 2029. By which time either Kamala Harris or JD Vance will be beginning their second terms in the White House.


Or else something weirder and scarier will have happened in the Land of the Free. The repeal of the Twenty Second Amendment. A third Trump term. A Democrat victory overturned by a bigger and more decisive January 6th coup d'etat.


And this blog believes in balance. There is another possibility. If Mr Trump and Mr Vance do not win the election, and do not succeed in overturning the result by legal jiggery pokery or mob violence, then by June 2026, Kamala Harris will have established a Marxist dictatorship and ended free elections in America.


That's certainly the opinion of the official Republican nominee; and it's also the opinion of the richest and cleverest man in the world. And they wouldn't say so if they didn't truthfully believe it. 



When Jeremy Corbyn suggested that internet access might become free his own party literally accused him of being a Trotskyite. 


When Kier Starmer recently moved a painting to a different wall in Downing Street, newspaper columnists literally accused him of being a Stalinist.


But try drawing any kind of parallel between anything that Mr Trump and Mr Musk say and things that that funny little German with the moustache used to say, and see what happens....


"Oh, you liberals, any one who disagrees with you even a little bit is automatically a Fascist!"


"Oh, well, the word Fascist can mean anything you want it to mean and doesn't mean anything at all."


"I shall tell you who the real fascists are -- the ones saying that white people are just the same as black people and that some people are trans and that it's OK to be gay. And the ones who put a black elf into Lord of the Rings!"


"Why oh why oh why can't liberals carry out an argument without resorting to insults?"



I always thought that the Nemesis the Warlock comic-strip in 2000AD took a wrong step when it turned out that nasty inquisitor Torquemada didn't really hate aliens at all: he just thought that giving his human subjects someone to hate was good for business. The legendary Clan of the Fiery Cross Superman story ended on a similar revelation. The chief wizard of the clan didn't believe in any of his white supremacist bullshit. He'd invented the cult because he had a warehouse full of bedsheets he needed to sell.


And how comforting it would be if that were true. There are no Nazis. There are no Fascists. And, in the interests of balance, there are no Liberals and no Communists. There are only gullible people who have been hoodwinked into believing an obvious lie; and cynical liars hoodwinking the gullible for their own ends.


I don't believe it. I think it is highly probable that Mr Hitler really did have an issue with Jewish people. I think it highly probable that Tommy (who's-real-name-is-Yaxby-Lennon) Robinson really does dislike immigrants and dark skinned people and people who say "Allah" rather than "God". But I think it is very likely indeed that many of the people currently serving time for inciting or participating last summer's attempted pogrom had no strong feelings about immigrants or Muslims one way or the other. They were just caught up in the moment. 


Which is why we should have as few of those moments as possible.



I am perfectly sure that everyone who heard Yoko Ono speak at Glastonbury in 2014 believed in that moment that if we hugged our neighbours and imagined that all the grapefruits were made of clouds then war and fracking would end there and then. I am equally sure that everyone at Billy Bragg's Bristol gig earlier this year truthfully believed, in that moment, that the sense of empathy between singer and audience could spread out and defeat the forces of cynicism (which is the real enemy).


In the cold light of day, we might have decided that it was all a bit over done and not entirely realistic. But we were carried along in the moment because we really do believe that love and imagination and solidarity are good things. I have said that I always come out of one of Martyn Joseph's concerts honestly wanting to be a better person. 


It is not fair to think that everyone who goes to right-wing rallies is evil any more than everyone who attends a revivalist meeting is a saint. Not everyone in the audience necessarily believes that everything in a Trump speech is the gospel truth, any more than everyone in the mega-church necessarily believes that everything in the Gospel is the gospel truth. But it is fair to assume that they are going for some reason. It is fair to assume that they are getting something out of it. It is fair to assume that repeated exposure to that kind of thing has some kind of affect. 



It would be very hard to argue that Mr Trump is not an authoritarian -- let's avoid the F-word. It seems very hard to argue that Mr Trump is not an extreme nativist, even a white supremacist. Let's avoid the R-word. 


I would personally find it very hard to argue that Kamala Harris was a Marxist. She seems to me to be rather to the right of most British politicians. But I'm not the richest and cleverest man in the world. I'm not even in the top three.


What would British politics look like after four and a bit years of Authoritarian Nativist rule in America?  Or, to remain completely unbiassed, in the equally believable and plausible circumstance that US democracy had come to an end and the Hammer and Sickle was flying in the Oval Office?


Some British politicians would undoubtedly say that a jolly good shot of Nativist Authoritarianism up the backside is precisely what Britain needs to put a stop to all those National Trust scones and unisex lavatories.


Some British politicians would certainly say that if the leader of our strongest and traditionalist ally has decided to deploy the armed forces against his political opponents, or to intern or expel religious and racial minorities, then it is our job as a friend to back them up. 


Some British politicians would even say that opposing coup d'etats is the self-indulgence of the metropolitan hipster.


And I am very much afraid that some British politicians might say that opposing Authoritarian Nativism is on a level with demanding a unicorn on every street corner.  Very nice and fluffy of course, but not the sort of thing that serious grown-ups talk about. Serious grown-ups understand that if you are really against Authoritarian Nativism, then the serious grown-up thing to do is to stop going on and on about it, sit down to dinner with Authoritarian Nativists and maybe be just a little bit more Authoritarian and Nativist yourself. 


Life isn't like Love Actually. Tough choices. I for one welcome our new insect overlords.


But it's a safe bet that after four years of American fascism (or, to be completely unbiassed, American communism) winter fuel payments and sewage in Lake Windermere will be the least of our worries. 


Whatever happens, on November 6th we will be in uncharted territory. I propose to continue eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, reading comic books and singing sea shanties, until the day that Trump enters into the White House. 


At this stage there doesn't seem a great deal that anyone can do about it. 





I only get time to write these things because people like you take the trouble to support me; so if you think this stuff is fun or interesting, please, consider joining my Patreon....


If you can't afford to join my patreon, please consider dropping a few pence in the tip-jar