Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien

One doesn’t really read a a collection of an illustrator’s work, though there is
some text. I suppose it is incredibly obvious that it is more for viewing…an understatement. It is for gazing, contemplating, studying, and indulging the visual sense and memories. 

• Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Illustrations selected and annotated by Christopher Tolkien
• Illustrator: J.R.R. Tolkien
• First Published: January 1, 1979
• My edition: November 16, 2021 by William Morrow

I was gifted this beautiful book for Christmas a few years back by my daughter. I thumbed through it briefly, thought it was cool, and then put it away. I recently picked it up again, and after another short perusal realized it was worthy of more dedicated study.

I’ve seen many of the pictures before, though not all, and never with informed annotations such as those provided by Christopher Tolkien.

 

Professor Tolkien stated that he had no talent for drawing, but this book is evidence to the contrary. The selections are primarily from The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. But there are a handful from lesser works such as The Father Christmas Letters, Leaf by Niggle, or just from the volumes of notes and drawings that were not part of published volumes. Many also appeared in Tolkien Calanders over the years.

 

Many of the pictures are expansive and intricate, and some contain tiny figures that are easily missed. I do not have permission to post the artwork here, but if you can find the picture titled Fangorn Forsest and look closely you may find Merry and Pippin…though Christopher Tolkien suggests they are actually Beleg and Gwindor in Taur-nu-Fuin.

 

There are professional artists who have illustrated Tolkien: Barbara Remington my personal favortie (see HERE). Professor Tolkien's standing as an amateur is evident by contrast, but it is also the greatest charm of this book...the glimpse it gives of his obsessive love for the worlds he built. 

 

The term “must have” is probably over used, but if you have a Tolkien fan on your Christmas list, here’s a great gift idea.

 

.

The Horla and Others: The Best Weird Fiction and Ghost Stories of Guy de Maupassant

 

Guy de Maupassant is a 19th century French writer, and master of the short story. He did not write only macabre or ghost stories but he wrote enough to be called the Gallic Poe. In turn he influenced the writing of H.P. Lovecraft, perhaps we could call Lovecraft the American de Maupassant, but that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. By the way, it’s Guy (ghee, rhymes with “he”) de Maupassant (mahñ-pah-sawñ). The “N” is almost, but not entirely silent, or just…unpronounceable for anglophones.

• Author: Guy De Maupassant
• Illustrator: Michael Grant Kellermeyer
• Horror, Short Stories, French Literature
• First Published: 1886
• My edition: Oldstyle Tales, 2016

 

The Gallic Poe is fitting, especially for this collection. It is very reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe. The terror is seldom a snarling blood-thirsty beast, or even ethereal specter, but rather the nameless fear, the shadowy phantasm, that troubles the otherwise rational mind…especially at night. The title story, “The Horla” is particularly styled along these lines. The horla or “outsider” takes up residence in the apartments of a comfortable, rational young Frenchman. It’s something like a vampire, only invisible. It drains the life force of its victim and bends their will to its own.

 

I loved this exchange between the young Frenchman as he asks a monk if he believes in the supernatural. The monk replied…

Do we see the hundred thousandth part of what exists? Look here; there is the wind, which is the strangest force in nature, which knocks down men, and blows down buildings, uproots trees, raises the sea into mountains of water, destroys cliffs and casts great ships onto the breakers; the wind which kills, which whistles, which sighs, which roars, — have you ever seen it, and can you see it? It exists for all that, however.

And the young Frenchman’s response.

The man was a philosopher, or perhaps a fool; I could not say which exactly, so I held my tongue.

Most of de Maupassant’s main characters are unnamed, hence “the young Frenchman”. But most of the stories are told by first-person narrators. Are they reliable or not? That is the question de Maupassant does not answer.

 

An excerpt from “Magnetism” another unnamed character…

The populace, and imbecile flock of sheep, now steadily patient, and now in ferocious revolt. Say to it: “Amuse yourself” and it amuses itself,. Say to it: “Go and fight with your neighbor,” and it goes and fights. Say to it: “ Vote for the Emperor,” and it votes for the Emperor, and then say to it: “Vote for the Republic,” and it votes for the Republic.

 

Those who direct it are also stupid.

The Horla, both the short story and the others in this collection, have no snarling beasts, nor satisfying closure. Someone may die, or go mad, or simply disappear, but the reader is left wondering…”What was that?” (Nod to Meriadoc Brandybuck intentional.)

 

I do not care for de Maupassant’s cynicisms. But, if his purpose in writing was to express them, he was successful.

 

And he was wildly successful in writing creepy, unnerving tales fit for October. I thought "The Horla" was the best.

 

Like Poe, de Maupassant was a troubled soul, only worse. The following is his own epitaph:

I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing.

Have you read de Mauppassant? Any recommendations for non-spooky stories by GdM?

 

.

 

A Spy in the House of Love by Anaïs Nin — novel #265

  

There is no bleaker moment in the life of the city than that one which crosses the boundary lines between those who have not slept all night and those who are going to work. It was for Sabina as if two races of men and women lived on earth, the night people and the day people, never meeting face to face except at this moment.

 

·      Author: Anaïs Nin

·      American lit; Avant-garde

·      First Published: 1954

·      My edition: Sky Blue Press (eBook)

·      Setting: New York City, mid 1950s

 

A Spy in the House of Love is the story of Sabina, a thirty-year-old actress who leads a double life while facing an existential crisis of identity.

 

She is married to Alan, a gentle older man, who is more father-figure than lover. Sabina loves him for the security and normalcy he provides. But she is restless and has a series of brief affairs and lies to Alan by feigning acting commitments, in order to protect him.

I must always be on guard, to protect his happiness, always on guard to protect my guardian angel.

 

…so much did her feelings about Alan seem not like those of a woman wanting to be faithful or loyal but those of an adolescent escaping home for some forbidden games.

It’s unclear if Sabina has much of a professional acting career, though she is constantly acting, playing a part for Alan, her lovers, and indeed for herself. 

What I corrupted was what is called the truth in favor of a more marvelous world. I could always improve on the facts.

She thrills at the nearly casual encounters, but agonizes over the guilt. All the time she is desperately trying to form a perception of her own identity.

 

Sabina considers herself an “international spy in the house of love”—a clandestine participant, dangerously involved in scenes and lives to which she never belongs.

 

 

This book has been described as avant-garde:

 

…experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable to the artistic establishment of the time.

[Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory]

 

That’s about right, and although I am not of the artistic establishment of any time, I didn’t find it acceptable. I’m probably very simple, but I have no use for too much navel-gazing and arcane babble.

 

I was nervous about reading this due to Nin’s association with Henry Miller. I find him obscene, arrogant, and insulting. So I had my misgivings about this, but I believe I gave it a good faith read. Nin portrayed Sabina’s affairs without being at all graphic, much less obscene—just scandalous. So, I don’t fault her for that. Nonetheless, I don’t believe I’ll be reading any more Anaïs Nin either. Though, at times she writes beautifully, as in the quotation at the opening of this review. Great title too! For those two points, I’ll give it a half-star bump to…

 

 

2 ½ /5 stars

 

 

 

 

This is title #32 of 50 for The Classics Club Challenge – Round IV

 

Am I too harsh? Is there some work by Anaïs Nin you recommend?

 

.

 

The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers — novel #264

  

It was not a common thing to have an unknown hunchback walk to the store at midnight and then sit down and cry.

• Author: Carson McCullers
• Southern Gothic, American Lit, Novella
• First Published: in Harper's Bazaar 1943; in book form in 1951
• My edition: Mariner Books, 1979 (eBook)
• Setting: Small mill town, Southern U.S.A. probably 1930s
• Also by this author (that I’ve read): The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Member of the Wedding 

 

You might infer from the title and my opening hook that this novella involves a hunchback, and a café. Indeed, there are really only four characters: Lymon the hunchback; Miss Amelia his second step-cousin or something and owner of the café; Marvin Macy, Miss Amelia’s husband; and the fourth—the café.

 

I think it was the town that was sad, before there was a café. It was previously a store operated by Miss Amelia, selling among other things her own bootleg whiskey. If not a leading citizen of the unnamed town she is its dominant character. She is tall, rich from suing people, cross-eyed, stoic, and fiercely independent. She had a brief disastrous marriage to town troublemaker Marvin Macy, but he left, more precisely was pushed away by Miss Amelia and ended up in prison. It was a sad, sleepy place until Cousin Lymon strolls into town late one night, professes to be a distant relative of Miss Amelia, and sits down and cries. Surprisingly, Miss Amelia takes him into her home, and the two form a bond. In fact, Miss Amelia loves him.

When she watched him her face had a bright, soft look, and when she spoke his name there lingered in her voice the undertone of love.

But, the author offers a memorable discourse on love that leaves the reader apprehensive of the happy ending. I’ll come back to that.

 

Happily, Lymon’s arrival inspires the advent of the Café, which becomes the town’s center point, a place of comfort and contentment. 

For the atmosphere of a proper café implies these qualities: fellowship, the satisfactions of the belly, and a certain gaiety and grace of behavior.

All is good, until Marvin returns. He makes no attempt on his conjugal rights, nor claims on Miss Amelia’s money, but the tension is rising. The town, and the reader sense a showdown coming.

 

Like most of McCullers’ writing, this story is character driven, but there’s still a plot. I believe it has to do with those famous few paragraphs about love, or on the unequal nature of love.

First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons—but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved.

And…

The beloved fears and hates the lover…

There’s much more on the subject, and I understand some find it poignant and profound. I can’t say I agree.

 

But that didn’t stop me from liking this novella. I disdain cliché or I’d call it “hauntingly beautiful”; fairly certain someone has already described it that way. It is southern gothic after all. McCullers’ writing is definitely beautiful and evoking sympathy. I felt for all the characters, even Marvin. There’s no happy ending. In fact it ends with a chain gang on the outskirts of town, singing a melancholy tune—a sad ballad even.

The music will swell until at last it seems that the sound does not come from the twelve men on the gang, but from the earth itself, or the wide sky. It is music that causes the heart to broaden and the listener to grow cold with ecstasy and fright.

My rating 4 out of 5 stars

 

This is title #32 of 50 for The Classics Club Challenge – Round IV

 

This review is only for the novella. The Ballad of the Sad Cafe is also the title of a book of collected stories by McCullers: Ballad plus six short stores. I will read and review the short stories separately.

 

 

As an alternative to McCullers’ definition of love, I offer the following. I like this much better.

 

1 Corinthians 13:

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. ⁵ It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, ⁶ it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; ⁷ it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (NASB)

 

.

The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  

A Sherlock Holmes short story

• Mystery, crime, detective, British Lit
• Published: 1904
• My edition: The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Volume II
• Annotated by: William S. Baring-Gould
• Setting: England; 1894

 

This is Holmes’ second case after Conan Doyle brought the detective back from the dead—the presumed dead that is. But that was all explained in "The Adventure of the Empty House".

 

In this caper, Holmes is brought in to solve a murder that has baffled police detective Stanley Hopkins. Baffled police is often, not always, how Holmes comes by his cases, but Detective Hopkins is a new foil.

 

The victim is the young male secretary to an aged and infirm professor who is writing his magnum opus. The young man has no enemies, nothing appears to have been stolen, and the professor and two domestics can offer irrefutable alibis for each other. The murder weapon is a sealing wax knife, suggesting a crime of passion, not the weapon one would employ in a premeditated attack. The only other clue at the scene is a pair of golden pince-nez.

 

Which of course is more than enough for Holmes to deduce a likely scenario that only wants a bit of testing.

 

Ho hum. I’m a bit more than half-way through the Holmes canon, and I’m growing a bit dubious. Perhaps a little bit of Sherlock is better than every bit. His skill of observation is impressive, but I find that his deductions are often too narrow. What he deduces is certainly plausible, but it is seldom the only possibility; yet, he’s rarely wrong.

 

Still his adventures are usually great fun: banter with Watson, snide commentary of the constabulary efforts, various idiosyncrasies, Watson’s love life, all mostly absent from this tale. Though “Ho hum” is a bit harsh. Perhaps “meh” is more in tune.

 

One quotable by Sherlock. When the detective arrives at 221B Baker Street, shortly before midnight, Holmes is excited by the probability of a caper and opines to Watson…

...all virtuous folk have been long in bed.
 

He can turn a phrase.

 

 

"The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez” is part of Return of Sherlock Holmes collection, though I read it from The Annotated Sherlock Holmes: a two-volume collection of all 60 cases (four novels and 56 short stories), which attempts to put all of Holmes’ cases into fictional chronological order. According to The Annotated collection, “The Adventure of the Pince-Nez” is Sherlock Holmes’ 33nd case.

 

.

Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens (novel #263)

  

Every failure teaches a man something, if he will learn; and you are too sensible a man not to learn from this failure. ~ Daniel Doyce to Arthur Clennam

 

Indeed! There must have been a lot of learning going on in this slightly atypical Dickens story.

 

• Author: Charles Dickens
• Victorian lit, British lit
• First Published: 1857
• My edition: Project Gutenberg, free book (eBook)
• Setting: England, briefly in France and Italy, early 19th century
•  Also by this author (that I’ve read): Most of his novels and short stories. For a complete listing, see my Dickens page.

Of the title character, I always assumed Little Dorrit was a child. Dorrit, Amy Dorrit, is a young woman of 22, but she is so slight that she is sometimes mistaken for a child. To her friends and family she is Little Dorrit, a sobriquet she happily owns. Before she was born, Her father, William Dorrit, was confined to the Marshalsea, England’s notorious debtor prison. His family is allowed to live with him, though they may come and go. Little Dorrit, is born within the walls of the Marshalsea and her mother dies when she is a child. Tending to father and family, is the sum of her life’s story—a life she is contentedly suited to.

 

Atypical I said, though I am hard pressed to elucidate. I felt it more than I apprehended it. Dickens usually woos me to love some humble character and then breaks my heart when they suffer cruel injustice. The humble character, in this instance Little Dorrit, is the soul of virtue, kindness, humility, and love, but she isn’t miserable; I couldn’t quite pity her. The cruel injustice, so different in this case, comes from good fortune. William Dorrit experiences a reversal of fortunes. He and two other children want to forget their former shame. With it, they also forget Little Dorrit’s constancy and labors of love on their behalf. She is an embarrassment when she does not, in their eyes, rise to the family’s new social status. For this they cruelly berate her, and now—she is pitiable.

 

There are other reversals of fortune; in other directions, and other Dickens hallmarks: preposterous caricatures, a heinous villain, comic relief, a hopeless love story, and that signature oh, so satisfying justice in the end. This is the second Dickens novel in a row with a talking bird (part of the comic relief), though the talking parrot in Little Dorrit does not steal scenes as the Raven Grip did in Barnaby Rudge.

 

Did I mention two Dickens in a row? I just finished 700+ pages of Barnaby Rudge when The Classic Club Spin landed on this 1,000+ page story. And before the two Dickens novels I had the 800+ page Stephen King novel 11/22/63. I am ready for some lighter_­ fare—literally as in something lighter than a 3 pound book.

 

But I don’t mean to complain. All three were very good. For Little Dorrit…

 

I give it 4 out of 5 stars

 

 

 

This was title #31 of 50 for The Classics Club Challenge –Round IV, and my spin read for The Classics Club Spin #45

 

Have you read Little Dorrit? Did you find it atypical? Where do you rank it amongst Dickens’ novels?

 

.

Classic Novels For Sale

  

 

Dozens of classic novels by Dickens, Faulkner, Hemingway, Henry James, James Joyce, Woolf, and many more. Most are hardcover in “Fine” or “Near Fine” condition from high-quality publishers: Everyman’s Library, The Modern Library, Folio Society.

 

Click HERE for the updated list and additional details. 

 

FREE SHIPPING to the U.S. I will ship to foreign addresses for additional charge.

 

5% discount for 2 books, 10% for 3 and 15% for four or more.

 

 

.