The Hobbit and the Harp in the ICU

During our stay in the hospital, one day passed rapidly into another. I found reading difficult, as there were always people coming and going. Thankfully, I had brought my sketch pad and colored pencils. Unlike reading, where I would have to shut people out to concentrate, with sketching I could embrace the interruptions, listen in on the discussions around me, and truly be there for the family. 

Above all the nurses and ICU staff, one visit proved particularly memorable. A woman introduced herself as a volunteer, and asked if the patient would like to hear a little music. When my sick family member answered "Yes," she wheeled in a harp.

Yes, you read that right: a harp.

I've played the piano all my life, and heard all the instruments that people typically play in church. I've always listened to music at home, from records to tapes to today's Compact Discs. Yet I've never really grown accustomed to hearing someone play the harp. I believe it says in the Old Testament that David played the harp for King Saul, and that the music eased his ruler's troubled brow. I can imagine that. It's such an elegant instrument, and she played it beautifully. She may have only played for a few minutes, but I could have listened to her for hours. 

You know, in his novel The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien records that Thorin Oakenshield played the harp. I'm not sure where or how he carried it as he traveled, but he played it that night he and the other dwarves visited Bilbo's little home in Hobbiton. In fact, all the dwarves played their own instruments. I'm not sure what happened to all those musical instruments after that. I don't remember the dwarves ever playing them again during their journey. Maybe they had to trade them in to buy their provisions for their adventure. In any case, it's sad they lost those instruments, particularly Thorin's harp. I bet they would have escaped the elves in Mirkwood much more easily, or perhaps even won their friendship, had they played so beautifully for the elves as they did that night in Bilbo's house. Don't you agree?

Dragon Dave

Happy Birthday Terry Brooks

In the beginning, there was darkness and chaos. Then J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit appeared, bringing with it a haven of light and order called Middle Earth, and there was much rejoicing. The light provided joy and gladness and order, as well as a lighted pathway through the surrounding darkness. This led to another, larger region of Middle Earth, wherein The Lord of the Rings was found. And there was much rejoicing.

And then...nothing. No matter how great the quest, no more great realms were discovered. Middle Earth was a wondrous realm, to which one could venture again and again. Joy and gladness occasioned those reunions, but frustrated nursed hopes for additional adventures. If only new paths could be found, with great discoveries awaiting them at their end, for life to again blossom with promise and hope for the future! Hope and joy could be simulated in lesser realms like Dungeons & Dragons, but such areas burned with less brilliance and vitality, lacking the structure and order brought into being by a wise creator. So hopes faded, and order struggled to fight off the ever-ravenous hordes of chaos.

Then lo, when all seemed lost, a new path was found. A path burning bright with lights, and the promise of a great new adventure. A path that led to another bright realm created by Terry Brooks called The Sword of Shannara. There more great heroes dwelt, and rose to defend their lands against a malevolent villain and his ravaging hordes. We accompanied our new dwarf, elvish, and human friends on their adventures, stood beside them as they risked their lives for others, grew with them as they overcame all the obstacles that threatened to stop and confound them...and there was great rejoicing. 

Like J.R.R. Tolkien's realm of Middle Earth, this realm of Shannara could not contain all the order, excitement, and joy it promised. So it gave birth to another realm called Landover, wherein great adventures also took place. But the realm of Shannara proved even more robust. It burst with promise, with newness of light, and its depth and richness amazed all who found their way there. The light of Shannara grew brighter, more brilliant than most weary, dispirited wanderers could have possibly imagined. In a land filled with so many interesting places, heroes, and adventures, hope could never die. Order and promise could be sustained. Rejoicing, great rejoicing, could continue unabated, undimmed, forever.

And so, oh Great Creator, we thank you for lighting new pathways amid the darkness, and illuminating the wondrous realms of Landover and Shannara. On this most special day, may your heart burn with order, enthusiasm, and hope for the future. 

Happy Birthday, Terry Brooks! Let there be much rejoicing!

Dragon Dave 

Calling All Hobbits

Thirty-five years ago, a friend loaned me his copy of The Silmarillion. The book had recently come out, and I eagerly opened the hardcover volume, looking forward to taking a great journey alongside Bilbo Baggins, his nephew Frodo, or some other Hobbit, Dwarf, or Human hero. Imagine my surprise when I discovered this was a collection of stories, highly mythological or historical in nature. Instead of easily following the narrative, I found myself lost, bewildered, and bored. I closed the book, and ultimately returned it to my friend. It remains one of the few great Science Fiction or Fantasy books that I gave up on, and never finished.

For as long as he could remember reading, Tolkien claimed he had been writing stories about different peoples, their cultures, and inventing their myths, legends, and languages. Those stories would make up The Silmarillion, which apparently cover the First and Second Ages of Middle Earth. Last Saturday marked the One Hundred and Twenty-Third anniversary of Tolkien's birth. Had he not died, J.R.R. Tolkien would be now be older than Bilbo at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings, which occurs during the Third Age of Middle Earth. It seems a fitting time for me to pick this book up again, and give it another try. 

If, like me, you've always wanted to read to learn more about Middle Earth, why not pick up The Silmarillion and read it with me? I'd appreciate hearing your feedback as I undertake the demands of this dense tome. And if you've also had problems getting through the book, perhaps we can make better sense of it together. After all, neither Bilbo nor Frodo departed Hobbiton alone. Each had his faithful friends to travel with, and help make his journey more manageable and enjoyable. I'd be honored to have another hobbit to travel alongside on this great adventure. Or even a Dwarf, or a Human hero.

Dragon Dave

J.R.R. Tolkien in the Classroom

Tuesday Tolkien

Despite earning high scores in English throughout grade school, and receiving an A and an A- for the first two halves of my thoroughly unnecessary High School English summer school class, my teacher gave me a B for a final grade.  As a result, the administration placed me in a lower track of English for my Freshman year.  This perplexed me, and angered my mother, who had been forced to rearrange her schedule to drive me to and from school during the summer.  Yet, we were assured that, while I was in a lower class, it would count the same academically as the higher track, and prepare me for the regular track of English in my Sophmore year.

Any unhappiness over the administration’s decision melted away as I got to know my new English teacher.  I evidently responded to her, as she gave me an A each semester, and Excellent for citizenship.  In my Freshman yearbook, she thanked me for my hard work, and encouraged me to keep doing my best.   And, just as the administration promised, I graduated to the normal English class for my Sophmore year.

In the same year I was enjoying my lower track English class, most of my other friends had the same instructor who had taught my summer school class.  The assignments he handed out looked harder than those I received, and for the literature portion of the class, he selected Animal Farm by George Orwell.  My English teacher chose a different novel: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.  So I got to read a book I was not only familiar with, but thoroughly loved.  When we got to the section where Bilbo talks with Smaug, she even brought in a big cake with a dragon on it to celebrate!  (Yes, knowing me, I probably had seconds.) What can I say?  Truly, all things work out for our ultimate good, right? 

Or at least, all things involving J.R.R. Tolkien, his novel The Hobbit, and those most fearsome, knowledgeable, and yet beloved creatures known as dragons.

Dragon Dave

Rusty: Daleks are more fearsome than dragons, right?
Pocket: Let's discuss this elsewhere, recruit.

Tolkien On Speed

Tolkien Tuesday

Maybe I was never great in English class.  Perhaps it was only all my book reports that impressed my Grade School teachers.  Or maybe I just had an off-day during my High School entry test.  Whatever the cause, the Elven Administrative Council that ruled my High School declared that I must take English in Summer School before beginning my Freshman year.

My main recollection from that class was that the instructor tried to teach us how to speed read.  He said that High School classes would be tough, and the quicker we could assimilate information, the better.  He encouraged us to bring our own books to read, and gave us tips on how to scan each sentence, and absorb the bulk of the content at speed.

As it happened, I was reading The Fellowship of the Ring, so I brought in my paperback, and applied my teacher’s instructions to J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel.  I remember reading about Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry leaving the Shire, and traveling toward the village of Bree.  Aside from one instance of running, my recollection is that the bulk of their journey occurs at a relatively easy pace.

Looking back now, the thought of speed-reading The Fellowship of the Ring, one third of the epic Tolkien spent over a dozen years writing, seems rather like running through a museum, then trying to deliver a detailed analysis of each piece of artwork.  But back then, I was young, and it was just another novel that I wanted to read.  And it was an assignment handed down from a High School teacher.  And no, he wasn't an orc.  (At least, I don't think he was).  At any rate, it would take decades for me to realize how monumental Tolkien’s work really was, and how his stories should be savored rather than skimmed.

Of course, in Peter Jackson’s movie “The Fellowship of the Ring,” Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry journey from the Shire to Bree occurs at frantic, breakneck speed, pursued all the way by the Nazgul (Ringwraiths).  The pace of that movie jarred so strongly with my recollections that I had difficulty accepting Jackson’s version.  Later, he brought out his extended version on DVD, and the additional scenes slowed down the overall pace, which allowed me to better appreciate the movie.

Warning: The next paragraph contains plot spoilers!

As with "The Fellowship of the Ring," Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug," the second part of his three-movie adaptation of The Hobbit, unravels at breakneck speed.  In violent contrast with my recollections of Bilbo packing the dwarves into barrels and sending them off on a fairly easy ride downriver, the dwarves ride down the river in open barrels, using swords and other weapons to fight a band of orcs that pursue them all the way.  Legolas and a band of Elven soldiers join in, at times even leaping from one dwarf's head onto another along the river as they shoot arrows at (or otherwise battle) the orcs.

I’m not criticizing Peter Jackson.  Even when he differs from scenes in the books, I think he’s trying to do homage to the depth and majesty of Tolkien's stories.  Still, I have to wonder if one of his High School teachers taught him to speed-read, and if so, how he reads Tolkien today.  For just as there's a difference between spending five seconds and five minutes staring at any given piece of art, there's a difference between Bilbo packing the dwarves inside barrels and sending them gently downriver, and the video game sensibilities of Jackson's adaptation.

Dragon Dave

The Link Between The Hobbit & Star Wars

Tolkien Tuesday

One weekend, back in 1977, a friend and his folks took me out to see “Star Wars” in the cinema.  I hadn’t visited my friend with any inkling that he and his parents would take me to my first movie.  It just happened, and in so doing, changed my life forever.  It impacted how I saw the world, what I judged as important, and the type of stories I henceforth sought out.  Still, when it came to storytelling, reading has always been (and I suspect, always will be) my first love.

My most vivid recollection from the Eighth Grade was all my book reports.  What I lacked in technical skills, I made up for by submitting reports on each book I read.  I can’t imagine what my English teacher thought, but she read each one I wrote, and gave me extra credit for all of them, even if she had only assigned us four or eight, and I turned in over twenty.  I can’t tell you all the novels I read that year, but I remember that my expectations of stories changed after seeing “Star Wars.”  Now every story had to be a little bolder, and possess more grandeur, than had previously been the case.

One of my friends was the Eighth Grade Class President, and I had helped him win his electoral campaign by making posters and hanging them around the school.  In addition to hanging out during the week, we occasionally spent weekends at his house, enjoying conversations and embarking on adventures together.  During those weekends, he loaned me a paperback: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.   Despite my suspicions to the contrary, he assured me I would enjoy it, and so I opened the cover and started read.  He was right.  Tolkien’s novel wasn’t anything like “Star Wars,” or the other books I had read, regardless of genre.  Yet I fell in love with his characters, his world of Middle Earth, and the way he wrote.  It’s the first time I can remember noticing how an author’s writing style could flow, could draw me into a story, and be beautiful in its own right. 

And so, my friend in the Eighth Grade surprised me with a story that met my heightened expectations of a novel, by handing me a book that was different in every way from the movie I loved.  But that’s the way of life, isn’t it?  So often, it’s the things we either stumble across, or others thrust into our hands—things we neither planned nor sought--that often prove the most important to us later on.  Just like “Star Wars.”

Incredibly, it would take thirty-five years until a filmmaker named Peter Jackson could make a movie version of The Hobbit capable of sitting comfortably beside “Star Wars.”  But that, as they say, is another blog post.

Dragon Dave

Jane Johnson’s Wild Road

In Jane Johnson’s novel, The Secret Country, her characters travel between Earth and Eidolon along wild roads, invisible doorways that can only sensed by those receptive to magic.  As I read her story, this reminded me of another novel I had read, one also involving talking cats.  As she delves into folklore and mythic characters, such as centaurs, satyrs, and dryads (I’m excluding dragons from that list because dragons are real), I wondered if she had borrowed the concept of the wild roads from some of the same sources. 

The novel in question was The Wild Road by Gabriel King.  A little research revealed that Johnson wrote this novel (under a pseudonym) with M. John Harrison back in the 1990s.  So the Eidolon Chronicles follow a trail she blazed earlier in her career, one that paved her way for later adventures. 

Interior Illustration by Adam Stower
(who has also written his own books).

Jane Johnson has spent her life following her own wild road.  As a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien, she earned a masters degree in Scandinavian studies, concentrating on those old Icelandic sagas that Tolkien loved.  She then went to work for George Allen and Unwin, Tolkien’s publisher.  Within a short time there, she became responsible for all Tolkien-related books, as well as overseeing many popular authors, including Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Arthur C. Clarke, and George R. R. Martin.  (The latter author's Fantasy novels in the Song of Fire and Ice sequence have been compared to Tolkien's, and adapted into the HBO “Game of Thrones” TV series).  Her love of Tolkien also took her to New Zealand, where she served as an advisor on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films.  (She is featured on the extended-edition DVDs).  Additionally, she wrote visual companions to the films, using the pseudonym Jude Fisher.

As if all that's not enough, Johnson's wild road extends beyond her love for J.R.R. Tolkien.  During a research trip to Morocco in 2005, a near-fatal climbing incident caused her to reevaluate her life.  So she gave up her life in London, and moved to that North African country, where she married a Berber tribesman.  She now splits her time between his village in the Anti-Atlas Mountains, and a town in her native Cornwall.  In addition to telecommuting in her duties as Fiction Publishing Director for HarperCollins, she still writes and publishes her own fiction.  Her most recent titles include adult historical novel The Sultan’s Wife, and Gold Seekers, the fifth installment in her children’s Eidolon series. 

In Fiction, would-be heroes travel along wild roads on fabulous adventures.  Jane Johnson walks those wild roads herself.  Thankfully, she then records her journeys, so that we can accompany her.

Dragon Dave

Tay Trefenwyd of Shannara

The Elves in First King of Shannara seem little different from their Human counterparts.  Terry Brooks doesn’t overwhelm you with information on their distinctive language, or how their history and culture differentiates them from Dwarves or Humans.  He refers to his Elves as men and women, just as one might describe the people of our world in terms of their ethnic or national origins.  When compared with J. R. R. Tolkien, Terry Brooks (and every other writer) comes away the loser.  Yet I regard him as a winning writer, and from his Bestselling status, I’d argue that many others agree with me.  For where Brooks really shines is in breathing life into his characters, and three especially important characters in his novel are Elves. One of them is a young Man named Tay Trefenwyd.

Brooks describes Tay as “an affable, easygoing man who cared about the problems of others and had always done his best to give what help he could.  He was not confrontational like Risca or stubborn like Bremen.”  He “accepted people as they were, isolating what was good and finding ways to make use of it.”  “Tay’s big hands were as strong as iron, but his heart was gentle.”  He “knew when to stand his ground and when to yield.  He was a conciliator and a compromiser of the first order, and he would need those skills in the days ahead.” 

When Bremen arrives at Paranor, Tay heeds his former instructor’s warnings, and leaves the center of Druid learning.  Bremen charges him with two duties.  First, he must return to his homeland and convince the king of the elves to send envoys to the Dwarves, in the hopes that both races will unite against Brona’s imminent invasion.  On his journey home, he must evade parties of Gnomes that have traveled in advance of Brona’s forces.  When he reaches Arborlon, his friend Jerle Shannara agrees to help him in any way he can.  The Elf King Ballindarroch also seems amenable, not only to sending envoys to the Dwarves, but also to outfitting a party to find the Black Elfstone, an object of great power that Brona must not be allowed to wield.  But politics rear their ugly head among the Elves just as they do among Humans, and more sinister forces also invade Arborlon, upsetting everyone’s plans.

Throughout all this, Tay must exercise patience, as well as draw upon his inner resolve to complete his second task.  As he searches for the Black Elfstone, he wonders where he will fit in after he has completed his quest.  He feels like a stranger in Arborlon, and he cannot return to Paranor.  He had planned on a life of celibacy, but now his feelings for the lovely Preia gnaw away at him.  While Preia clearly returns his affection, she has pledged to marry his friend Jerle.  Yet she seems like the only person who could give his future meaning, should they survive the war with Brona.  But first he must recover the Black Elfstone, while evading the war parties of Gnomes that constantly harass them.  And then there are the Skullbearers, who once were Druids like him, but gave themselves over to dark magic long ago, and have become like Brona: evil, powerful, and deadly.

Long after the key events and great battles in First King of Shannara fade away, I think I’ll remember Tay Trefenwyd.  For I understand all too well what it is to feel like I don’t belong.  I’d rather be conciliatory rather than confrontational.  And I constantly wonder if I can ever meet others’ expectations of me, and even more important, if I can achieve the high goals I have set for myself.  Against one of Tolkien’s Elves, a person infused with superhuman powers, who has amassed great knowledge and wisdom in his long life, and who hails from a culture much more impressive than my own, I can only end up the loser.  But I can view another Man as a role model.  And Tay Trefenwyd, while very much an Elf of Shannara, is also very much a Man.

Dragon Dave

The Familiar Flavor of Terry Brooks

In my youth, I enjoyed Terry Brooks’ first three Shannara novels so much that I revisited them numerous times.  But I had never read the prequel to his first novel, The Sword of Shannara, which he published roughly two decades later, and it has been a long time since I’ve read any of his stories.

I found diving into First King of Shannara refreshing, and at the same time comforting, hungry as I was to recapture the magic his novels once held for me.  Brooks certainly knows how to tell an entertaining story, and his prose flowed smoothly as he introduced me to his characters and the dilemmas they faced.  He threw a lot of history at me in the opening chapters, but then he gave me a breather as Bremen returns to Paranor, the center of Druid learning.  There he tries to warn them that the evil Brona is leading an army of Gnomes, Trolls, and Skull Bearers to invade the land.  I enjoyed meeting his friends, and hoped that he could convince the council to accept his arguments.  Unfortunately, just as they once expelled him from their order, the Druids refused to see his point of view.  So they again cast him out.  But this time, some of his friends accompanied him, recognizing his wisdom, and the urgency of the situation.

Returning to Shannara as I did, without remembering much from the original trilogy, the novel struck me afresh, yet soothed me with a sense of déjà vu.  I enjoyed following the protagonists as they fought Brona’s minions, sought out the magical items necessary to combat the villain, and repeatedly faced off against the forces of evil.  I felt sad when the characters I had come to care about died, but rejoiced in the survivors’ triumphs.  With his prequel, Terry Brooks left me satisfied, and interested in rereading that first great novel, The Sword of Shannara, as well as the ones that immediately followed.

As a teen, J. R. R. Tolkien’s novels left me wanting more great stories like The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.  In Terry Brooks, I found a writer who sated my hunger.  While my palate has evolved since my teens, it’s comforting to know that I can occasionally order a former favorite off the menu, savor its familiar flavors, and leave the table satisfied.  If, after watching Peter Jackson’s films, or reading Tolkien’s books, you find your stomach rumbling, might I suggest a house special: one of Terry Brooks’ delicious and satisfying Shannara entrees?

Dragon Dave