Oh, and Merry Christmas! (Been a hectic holiday season for the Holbo/Waring clan. Good and bad. Leave it at that. So I went off the grid.)
Here’s a bit of Crooked Timber, captured in Takoma Park, MD.
I had just spent several hours futzing with a design in Adobe Illustrator, node-wrangling. (Just so you don’t think I’ve actually got a valid excuse for not blogging. But I do have this illustration project pending.) And then you go outside to clear your head and, – behold! Life imitates Adobe. All the world’s just lines and nodes and bezier curves.
I had another project for the New Year: namely, to read the entire Silmarillion to my girls in the voice of Lumpy Space Princess. But I only got a couple pages before I couldn’t take it anymore. It’s tiring! Props to Pen Ward.
Oh, and I’ve got a bleg. There’s a story about Pericles. They were holding an ostracism, those Athenians, and he was a candidate, and some rustic wandered into town for the big vote, bitching and moaning about how he wanted to ostacize Pericles, that bastard. But he was illiterate and needed help from someone to scratch ‘Pericles’ on his little shard. So he asked the nearest guy, who turned out to be Pericles (little did the rustic know.) And Pericles politely obliged him. I didn’t dream that, right? That’s a story from Plutarch or wherever? Where did I get that?
Oh, and for holiday activities we went to see Into The Woods. Meh. But Glenn Close’s dress was fantastic. We watched Secret of Kells on video. How did I miss that when it came out on 2009? Fantastic design, and the girls and I can’t wait to see Song of the Sea.
I also read my girls The Hobbit in my own voice. They agree: it’s a really good book! It is part of that select canon of great children’s adventure books that is substantially about food. It is really a great feature of the story that the dwarves and the hobbit have no strategy, barely any tactics. Mostly it’s worries about logistics, punctuated by the next meal finally, gloriously materializing in the nick of time. That’s a great way to tell a story.
More to follow. I hope so. New year and all.
{ 30 comments }
Adam Roberts 01.09.15 at 2:49 pm
Wrong Greek: here’s Plutarch, in a suitably fruity 18th-C translation — “When the Athenians were fully bent to banish him [Aristides] by an Ostracism, an illiterate Country Fellow came to him with his Shell, and asked him to write in it the Name of Aristides: Friend, said he, do you know Aristides? Not I, said the Fellow, but I do-not like his Sirname of Just: He said no more, but wrote his Name in the Shell, and gave it him. “
chris y 01.09.15 at 2:50 pm
The story you attribute to Pericles is, in fact, about Aristides, and I’m pretty sure you’ll find it in Plutarch’s Life of Aristides.
Lynne 01.09.15 at 2:55 pm
Happy New Year. I’m not a Tolkien fan, myself. The man couldn’t imagine a female character to save his life.
Corey Robin 01.09.15 at 3:29 pm
It’s funny: I read The Hobbit to my daughter and came to the exact opposite conclusion. It’s a terrible book. Or at least a terribly written book. I think when you read these books aloud you actually have a much different sense of the prose. Writers like C.S. Lewis, E.B. White, or even Carolyn Keene — the author of the Nancy Drew series — have a great sense of economy. There’s really nothing extra in the sentences. Everything serves a purpose. But, God, Tolkienn could go on. I found myself editing along the way, not because anything was too disturbing or inappropriate but because he threw so much extra, unnecessary crap in there. At the level of the sentence, I mean. Lewis really trusts the reader; Tolkienn does not. At least that’s what I took away from reading aloud.
MPAVictoria 01.09.15 at 3:33 pm
My Dad reading the Hobbit to me as a child is one of my fondest memories Corey. I am sure your daughter will think only good things when she looks back.
:-)
MPAVictoria 01.09.15 at 3:35 pm
And your daughters as well John!
John Holbo 01.09.15 at 4:18 pm
Excellent, Aristides it is!
And Tolkien reads great! Every sentence is a pleasure!
mud man 01.09.15 at 4:25 pm
So, not politeness, it was justly done. I like that. Cf Romans 3:10, None is righteous, no not one.
California Girl 01.09.15 at 4:28 pm
Happy New Year to you as well
JanieM 01.09.15 at 4:43 pm
This is wonderful: “Mostly it’s worries about logistics, punctuated by the next meal finally, gloriously materializing in the nick of time.”
I read The Hobbit and LOTR to my kids when they were seven or eight years old. My son (now 29) loves it as much as I do. He has reread it so many times that he can rattle off more passages by memory than I can (with my yearly rereadings, now more like skimmings, for the past 50 years). My daughter isn’t into LOTR in the same way, but she writes fantasy novels for teens with great female characters despite her early exposure to Tolkien. ; – )
As for JRRT’s sentences, Corey’s complaint reminds me of another book conversation, probably right here at CT, where I was grumbling about the length of Harry Potter Book V. (I can never remember the actual titles….) I had read the Harrys right along as they came out, but I got bored with V and didn’t read the rest until many years later, after my daughter dragged me to the first VII film. I liked the movie enough to go back and give JKR another chance. And was glad of it.
Rambling back to my point…when I complained about Harry V being too long, someone (here?) pointed out that if you love the books, you may prefer that they be long, so you can stay in their world all that much longer.
Maybe so. And maybe my own sentences, convoluted and ridden with parentheticals as they are, give a clue as to why I’ve never noticed anything wrong with Tolkien’s: some of us actually like that kind of thing.
rea 01.09.15 at 4:44 pm
It always struck me as amazing that archeologists have been able to come up with a pottery shard with the name of Aristides written on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristides#mediaviewer/File:20_-_Sto%C3%A0_of_Attalus_Museum_-_Ostracism_against_Aristeides_(483_BC)_-_Photo_by_Giovanni_Dall%27Orto,_Nov_9_2009.jpg
JanieM 01.09.15 at 5:15 pm
Speaking of female characters in stories, Geena Davis is doing good work in this area. She spoke about it at an event I attended a few years ago.
Lynne 01.09.15 at 5:25 pm
While my surly comment above stands, there should have been an exclamation mark before it, as I wasn’t feeling at all surly when I wished everyone a happy new year.
Janie, love the slogan: “If she can see it, she can be it.”
My husband loves Tolkien, and read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to our sons, twice (!) There’s no need for early exposure to Tolkien to warp kids as long as they don’t subsist on an exclusive diet of it. ;)
JanieM 01.09.15 at 5:34 pm
Lynne — I didn’t think you were being surly. And I was just poking you back on purpose, as the smiley indicated. You’re obviously right about his female characters (all two of them), and he has other faults as well. But I love LOTR, failings and all. You can’t have everything.
And, as you remind me — Happy New Year to all! It’s racing right along as usual.
MPAVictoria 01.09.15 at 6:13 pm
“Rambling back to my point…when I complained about Harry V being too long, someone (here?) pointed out that if you love the books, you may prefer that they be long, so you can stay in their world all that much longer.”
Indeed. I have that feeling about some of my favorite books. :-)
“But I love LOTR, failings and all. You can’t have everything.”
I love the Hobbit but only enjoy LOTR. The Hobbit is the perfect little story. It moves along quickly from adventure to adventure with very little, Corey’s complaints notwithstanding, extraneous fluff. LOTR is more ponderous. It takes its time and meanders through the story. Still enjoy reading it though.
Lynne 01.09.15 at 7:10 pm
Janie, I know. :) And it’s cool about your daughter, by the way. (I write, too). A friend of mine says, referring to her TV viewing but I think it fits with reading, too: “I refuse to apologize for my entertainment.” Different strokes….
J. Parnell Thomas 01.09.15 at 8:04 pm
This is the 2nd post to remind me of the song about the garlic aroma that could level Tacoma.
BTW I had a Hungarian bubby named Esther, so, you know.
TheSophist 01.09.15 at 8:40 pm
I’m currently teaching LOTR to a class of 14, which is exactly 7b/7g. I also just today had lunch with four young ladies who were in the class in previous years and had come back to campus to see me. Anecdata, I know, but it has been a great joy to me that love of JRRT is no longer the almost exclusive preserve of the nerdy male (such as I was at that age.)
And MPAV, with the greatest possible respect, Nooooooo…how can you possibly say that!!?? “Only enjoy LOTR” ….I am weeping, and Sauron just threw a kitten into Orodruin.
MPAVictoria 01.09.15 at 8:50 pm
“And MPAV, with the greatest possible respect, Nooooooo…how can you possibly say that!!?? “Only enjoy LOTR†….I am weeping, and Sauron just threw a kitten into Orodruin.”
I am sure the problem is on my end but I just can’t get into LOTR the same why I get into the Hobbit. It is just a touch to self indulgent for me. I mean who wants to reads a 7 pages song?
MPAVictoria 01.09.15 at 8:55 pm
“I also just today had lunch with four young ladies who were in the class in previous years and had come back to campus to see me. Anecdata, I know, but it has been a great joy to me that love of JRRT is no longer the almost exclusive preserve of the nerdy male (such as I was at that age.)”
Also that is just wonderful. :-)
yabonn 01.09.15 at 8:59 pm
I also like the Hobbit, and only tolerate LotR at smaller doses. It’s not the length, but a certain serious stuffiness. All the “wholesome” and all the “wicked”, bleh. The Hobbit is more playful.
Main Street Muse 01.09.15 at 9:10 pm
Could not finish The Hobbit but enjoyed LOTR.
Loved reading the Harry Potter books to my son.
“Oh, and for holiday activities we went to see Into The Woods. Meh. But Glenn Close’s dress was fantastic.” Memory escapes me – who was Glen Close in this movie?
PJW 01.09.15 at 9:12 pm
“Mostly it’s worries about logistics, punctuated by the next meal finally, gloriously materializing in the nick of time.”
You sure you weren’t reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy?
peep 01.09.15 at 9:37 pm
Holbo did an experiment! It took around 30 seconds for commenters to note that he had confused Pericles and Aristides, but almost a whole day for someone to notice that he confused Glenn Close and Meryl Streep.
MPAVictoria 01.09.15 at 9:45 pm
Ooo if we are talking about movies I finally watched the Grand Budapest Hotel over the holidays and I could not have enjoyed it more. It sucked me into its world of splendor and amazing dialogue. It was everything a move should be. Great script, great sets and great actors. Please, please do yourself a favour and go watch it.
/And if you don’t like it, come back here and we will organize a search party to send out to find your soul and sense of fun.
//:-)
TheSophist 01.09.15 at 10:53 pm
I’ll enthusiastically second the Grand Budapest Hotel recommendation. Thoroughly enjoyable.
bianca steele 01.09.15 at 11:45 pm
The first Harry Potter has got even the fantasy-hating Mr. Steele caught up in the story. But I just looked at the first two pages of The Hobbit, and though I’m not opposed to convoluted language, I think I’d have to cut an awful lot out to keep a six-year-old’s attention. There’s a lot of pretty good fantasy for little kids out now, probably more than there was even three or four years ago.
I’m tempted to try to see Into the Woods while she’s at school, but it would be a bit of a hate-watch. It’s fine on CD when it doesn’t have to make sense, but. Also, they could have tried casting Bernadette Peters, couldn’t they? Even Glenn Close has real singing experience.
Main Street Muse 01.10.15 at 3:03 am
Bianca – I thought Into the Woods was fine and fun (somehow, I’d grown up never ever hearing about this show, but I guess that’s my Midwest culture showing.) Bernadette Peters as the witch? Not sure about that casting call – I don’t remember seeing her in a movie for quite a while – but again, perhaps my Midwestern isolation from all things Broadway is the reason for that…
The movie has lots of English accents – some good, some bad. Typical Disney, i.e lots of death and singing.
yabonn 01.10.15 at 7:33 pm
Also, “Ernest et Célestine”. Because kids will like it, and you can’t start soon enough with anarcho-commie propaganda. Might even wash away some of the the coming of age stuff.
bianca steele 01.10.15 at 8:21 pm
MSM: The play opened right after I finished college, I remember because I knew someone I knew someone who was in the cast. In 1987 it seemed very “edgy” to be showing the reality of what happens after, for example, you finally land Prince Charming and you have to do the real work of relationships. But there are people who love Sondheim (people who valued attending expensive Broadway musicals when most of the audience were losing interest) and I’m not one of them. They are oh-so-grownup and MA-TURE, and certainly not rock operas or spectaculars.
Bernadette Peters was in the original cast, though, and I’m not sure I even want to hear someone else’s voice in the part.
Comments on this entry are closed.