rymenhild

[Forgive crossposts; I posted something like this to FB.]

I am rereading The Lord of the Rings for the first time in eight years or so, now that the memory of the films has faded and I can enjoy the books as books again. Right now I am about halfway through Fellowship, and I am puzzled.

The Nazgul are immortal, ancient wraiths of mysterious and evil power. They can track Frodo by the smell of the Ring. They ride mortal horses, at least before the horses drown in the Bruinen.

Meanwhile, when Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin start their journey, they are almost entirely unaware of their danger. The hobbits go on foot, singing loudly. They eat frequent meals and take frequent naps. They are unarmed, unprotected and unafraid.

By this point, two Nazgul have entered the Shire itself, and are barely hours, if not minutes, behind our heroes. The Nazgul have horses. The hobbits don't. The Nazgul can smell the Ring. The hobbits can't track the Nazgul.

Gandalf has been trapped by Saruman. Aragorn is in Bree. Gildor and friends aren't immediately within the hobbits' reach. No one at all stands between the Nazgul and the hobbits. What I don't understand is, why don't the Nazgul capture Frodo and the Ring before Frodo ever leaves the Shire? As far as I can tell, there is no need for the remaining 2.5 volumes of The Lord of the Rings, because Frodo should have been lost by the middle of Fellowship Chapter 4. And then Sauron conquered the world. The end.

I suspect that most of my friends can be divided into two groups: the friends who'd be delighted by Catherynne M. Valente's The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making and the friends who'd thrill to Cat Valente's Deathless.

( Fairyland: take young girl's quest fantasy, add meta )

( Deathless: dark, adult hilarity in Soviet Russia )

That's the last fun reading until the dissertation is filed, I hope. See you all on the other side, where there will be lots and lots and lots of novels.

Seanan McGuire's half-fae San Francisco investigator Toby Daye solves approximately one mystery per book, but she lives in a world with plenty of mysteries left. This post, which I began writing months ago but have been saving until muchabstracted finished the series, begins to guess at some of the hidden mysteries. Expect major spoilers for all three published books, as well as the sample chapter for the fourth book. Also, be warned that the post is enormous.

( Let there be gall enough in thy ink )


I know that posting this on Christmas Eve probably limits my readers, but I encourage everyone who's read the series to join the conversation in the comments, both on LJ and Dreamwidth.

The e-ARC (downloadable advance reader copy) of Lois McMaster Bujold's new Miles Vorkosigan novel, Cryoburn, is available for $15 at Webscriptions. I was going to wait, but cerusee convinced me that I wanted to read the book at once.

( Two sentences, as spoiler-free as I can make them )

I was just spamming Twitter with enormous quantities of chat about the Prop. 8 closing arguments liveblog. Short form: Cooper, lawyer for the anti-gay-marriage side, just accused gay people of causing ... single parenthood and adultery. But Judge Walker's calling Cooper on his nonsense.

Anyway, I obviously can't continue to clog everyone's Twitter feed without being obnoxious. Therefore, I declare an open post for Prop. 8 closing arguments discussion. Talk to me, folks!

Here is the liveblog, at Pam's House Blend. There are other liveblogs and transcripts elsewhere.

Edit:
Firedoglake liveblog, part 1: Olson and Boies' closing arguments
Firedoglake liveblog, part 2: City of SF
Firedoglake liveblog, part 3: Cooper's closing arguments.

Boies' rebuttal hasn't happened yet.

My Old French is out of practice, which makes me sad, because the printed translation of the thirteenth-century satirical poem I am currently reading has been expurgated. Therefore, while I am finding some of the anus jokes in the Song of the Peace with England, I may be missing many more of them!

According to the editor/translator, Thomas Wright, the poem "seems to have been written on the occasion of the intermediation of Louis IX. of France, between the contending parties [i.e. the royalist party supporting King Henry III and the reform party more or less led by Simon de Montfort] in England, in the beginning of the year 1264. Much of its point consists in a rather gross play on words which cannot always be translated." Yes, actually, they can.

( For your edification and entertainment, rather gross plays on words appear behind the cut. )

(I began this post in November. See, I can finish posts I promise myself I'll write! Sometimes!)

The year is 1910*. You are an Englishman or -woman of no particular importance. Somewhere in Eastern Europe, a small principality has mislaid its rightful prince. Because you are both insatiably curious and lucky enough to be connected to this principality in some way, you find yourself on your way to the principality, about to restore order!

*Or 1890, or Sometime Before 1914.

( If this is happening to you, congratulations; you are living in a Ruritanian romance. )

( Some examples of the form )

If I've missed any romances, please share; I'm in the market for more imperialist monarchist wacky hijinks.

--

Edit: I was wrong about the name of the kingdom next to Galazon. It's Aravill, not Aravis. All those unpronounceable imaginary foreign names are the same to me. ;)

than watch Muppets sing "Bohemian Rhapsody" on YouTube.

Actually, no, wait, there cannot possibly be anything better that we could do today.



(If I am the seventeenth person to post this on your friendsfeed, I apologize. I got it from angevin2 and fox1013, and I really had no choice but to share.)

Two things that have improved what's shaping up to be a deeply frustrating day:

Via cursor_mundi, the Random Academic Sentence Page. Here are the results of my most recent click.

Pootwattle the Virtual Academic(TM) says:

The (re)invention of the anesthesia of forgetting gestures toward the representational validity of the public sphere.

Smedley Smedley the Virtual Critic(TM) responds:

Pootwattle's wide-ranging study of the relationship between the (re)invention of the anesthesia of forgetting and the representational validity of the public sphere narrowly avoids withdrawal into conscious unreadability.

Via moireach at greatpoets: B. H. Fairchild, "The Deer".

Amid the note cards and long, yellow legal pads, the late
nineteenth-century journals containing poems by Swinburne or
Rossetti or Lionel Johnson, the Yeats edition of Blake with its
faded green cover and beveled edges, I and the other readers in
the British Library began to feel an odd presence. We lifted our
eyes in unison to observe the two small deer that had entered
the room so quietly, so very discreetly, the music of their
entering suspended above us, inaudible, but there, truly, as the
deer were there...

Edit: One more link you should all read: sotto_voice writes about Maine's No on 1 Campaign.

Absolutely rage-inducing advertisement of the day, printed in white text on a black background on a poster pasted on a vacant storefront:

Strippers will not tolerate disrespect... HAHA, just kidding!

A website address beneath the text suggested that there may be a movie associated with this poster. I feel that it is not a movie I want to see. In fact, it is probably a movie I want to wave protest signs in front of.

In cheerier news, instead of writing this afternoon (*facepalm*), I ended up in the basement of Local Independent Bookstore reading Sir Terry Pratchett's Nation. (Then I ended up purchasing the book... remind me not to walk into bookstores.) The plot involves an analogue-Polynesian boy and an aristocratic English girl recreating civilization on a tsunami-wiped island, but the plot itself is only a vehicle for an argument about human dignity and faith and belief and rage against the divine. Oh, and there's a postcolonial reclamation of science from imperialism in there: the Galápagos writes back, or even more precisely, we learn, the Galápagos wrote first. I'm trying to avoid an author-centric critique here, but I can't stifle the sense I get that in writing Nation, Sir Terry manipulates his own, deeply personal, rage and desire for dignity in the face of mortal and divine failures.

Not a perfect book by any means; there are subplots that seem unnecessary and moments of tonal dissonance; but a very fine book, worth reading and worth debating. I keep thinking about how it's a direct reply to Lord of the Flies and an indirect reply to His Dark Materials, but since what I should be thinking about is my dissertation, I'm going to stop my post here and invite comments.