Easter Eggs Will Not Replicate a Style

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica: Easter Eggs Will Not Replicate a Style · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: A Tintin Fan who cannot accept Hergé's work was admired by Degrelle

There is a video channel that offers breakdowns of the Episodes.

What Episodes? Well, those of The Rings of Power of course.

There is more than one, but the one I am right now looking at, (no, not watching) gives on the caption a count of how many "easter eggs" there are in an episode. 91 for episode 7, it seems.

Even so, quite a lot of fans are claiming "this is so not Tolkien" - and admitted, from what I have seen (not on Netflix itself), the writing is pretty different, way eerier.

Those who, like myself, enjoy both Tolkien's Middle-earth and Narnia will know that these while closer to each other than either is to Netflix, in style, they are pretty different.

Tom Bombadil could make company with Bacchus and Silenus, at a pinch, but the Ring-Bearer and his hobbit friends could not do so with the Pevensies of Prince Caspian.

There is a big difference in moral universe between being involved in a deal with the devil and trying to escape it (like the ring-bearer and like Krabat) and having a vocation to save a king from an usurper (like St. Joan).

Middle-earth is so much closer to That Hideous Strength, if you want a moral or style-wise parallel in C. S. Lewis. I am not speaking of style of prose (that's lost anyway in a film adaptation or TV series except for dialogue), but style of action.

And nevertheless, on a day back in Malmö, when I had re-read LotR (much easier in an apartment with less noise) and Narnia (I have managed even here in the streets of Paris), I could drew up a list of 40 "easter eggs" between the two, not deciding which ones were original to the author and which ones were borrowed from the other.

Ettinsmoor and Etten Moors is one of the examples, the quiet of Fangorn and of the Wood between the Worlds another, and I think that back then I missed the one that Jadis is basically a hypothesis on "Galadriel took the ring" ... I think even her hight matches that of the elves. But her morals doesn't. Galadriel refused to see subjects as just tools for her own enhancement, refused to do anything like saying the Deplorable word and so on. And if Jadis is Galadriel as a baddy, Puddleglum is Gollum as a goody.

The idea that a fan fic (and the Netflix franchise is one, only one contracted with the rights holder of the author) should totally replicate the style of the original is not really realistic. Write a sequel or a prequel to a story, that someone else wrote - you are bound to differ. My (incomplete) Chronicle of Susan Pevensie is different from anything in the Seven Chronicles of Narnia, and it should be. Jean de Meung did not continue Guillaume de Lorris as same style, and George Chapman did not write Christopher Marlowe - at least as far as C. S. Lewis' views on Roman de la Rose and Hero and Leander are concerned.

So, why would writing a prequel be different? The question is, for each who decides to view The Rings of Power - is the gain worth the shock of seeing Tolkien material treated in a non-Tolkien way?

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Bridget of Vadstena
8.X.2022

23 Julii Romae natalis sanctae Birgittae Viduae, quae, post multas sanctarum locorum peregrinationes, divino afflata Spiritu, quievit. Ipsius autem festivitas octavo Idus Octobris celebratur.
7 Octobris In Suecia Translatio corporis sanctae Birgittae Viduae.
8 Octobris Sanctae Birgittae Viduae, cujus dies natalis decimo Kalendas Augusti, ac Translatio Nonis Octobris recensetur.

Was God's Motive Ethic or Aesthetic When Creating?

1) Can a Christian Author be indebted to an Anti-Christian one? , 2) What does Subcreator Mean?, 3) Was God's Motive Ethic or Aesthetic When Creating?

Big spoiler, my position is, it was both. Generosity is both an ethic and an aesthetic motive.

I was just watching, yesterday, John Bowen for BBC programme Bookstand (1962) interviewing Tolkien. And one of the things they seemed to disagree on was this.

J.R.R Tolkien 1962 interview (subtitles)
7th of Jan. 2022 | Sîdh Aníron
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi8q1Eopk2U

At 4:01 Tolkien says that as sub-creator (his highest comment on being an artist, doesn't mean being a magician) - because he is NOT the Creator - he rearranges the primary material into a "form that pleases, which maybe isn't necessarily a moral pleasing, it's partly an aesthetic pleasing."

Bowen, at 4:11 says "God, we may assume, made a moral rather than an aesthetic choice."

We are only, says Tolkien by 4:25 "looking at facets of one whole, but certainly an aesthetic whole"

So, Bowen tries to make it out that Tolkien is somehow in disagreement with how God created. Tolkien says he isn't, as far as he knows.

Let's take three books. God's of Pegana, by Lord Dunsany has definitely a very large overweight of the aesthetic over the ethic. Lord Dunsany was in fact an Atheist, and as such, the only function he ascribed to gods of mythologies would be an aesthetic one. Look Back in Anger has a high overweight for the ethic. It's one big exploration of how to be angry when being angry becomes unavoidable, by John Osborne (I had to read it in school). And Lord of the Rings, or Silmarillion, has a double edged blade on this issue, and so has The Hobbit.

If we assume that the best of these three authors, namely Tolkien, is more like God than the other two, we must imagine God's choice in creating as being both aesthetic and ethic. Generosity is the quality that is high in both of these domains.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
17th Lord's Day after Pentecost
2.X.2022

What are the English Hobbit Names?

First of all, some of the readers of JRRT may know that none of the Hobbits in the original Westron (Shire dialect or not) is named what he's named in the pages of Lord of the Rings. Adûnaic is a language that to us would sound Oriental, and Westron is descended from it.

Tolkien has himself sufficiently analysed Samwise and Hamfast as "halfwit" and "stay-at-home" and some may recall that Frodo is - I would say a comprommise between the Latin and Danish forms of - Frotho or Frode, a king of Denmark or two kings of Denmark, the single or the second of which lived in the time of Caesar Augustus, the single or first of which hosted the grand-step-son of Odin and found out he was no god.

But what about Fredegar / Fatty, Peregrin / Pippin, Meriadoc / Merry?

If Frotho is a name from Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus and Frode from its Danish translation, there is also a Gesta Francorum, an older book, of which the main author is St. Gregory of Tours, but which continues into the times past where he left off, and that written by Fredegar of Tours. I am not sure whether Fredegar is a learned construct or a saint, but that is where Fredegar comes from. Fatty obviously needs no explanation, after he had been in certain dungeons, with lean diet, "Fatty no more" ...

Pippin is also a nearly self explanatory word, it is English for Apple-Seed, and perhaps Pippin is named like Sam Gamgee is acting somewhat in the vein of Johnny Appleseed. And his taste for beer matches Johnny Appleseed's affinity for cider and applejock. But what about Peregrin? There is a St. Peregrino Laziosi who was a cancer patient, is patron saint of cancer patients, and is probably the most known Servite Saint after the Seven Founders (most famous of whom is St. Alexius Falconieri). As St. Peregrine was healed from a cancer or infection in the leg just the last night before a leg amputation, he lived on to 85. Some learned men have said that that is a very fabulous age for the Middle Ages (though St. Alessio died at 109 or 110 years, born in 1200 and died in February 1310).

St. Merri or older spelling Merry is in Latin Meredicus - he was a hermit and abbot who died on Aug. 29th (decapitation of St. John) in AD 700. Obviously, as Tolkien points out, Merry was chosen as nickname because of the meaning "merry" but this doesn't preclude that he had seen or heard of the saint. If he found his distaste for the French by a hit-and-run car accident in Paris, he would probably have been able to see the Church of Saint-Merri.

Despite the fact Merry is used as nickname for Meriadoc, this is not a version of Medericus. A king and a saint are involved:

Conan Meriadoc, semi-mythical king of Brittany in Gaul
Meriasek, Breton saint, patron of Camborne

as the wiki said./HGL

PS : Happy Hobbit Day, Tolkien Fans!

Clumsy Salvaging of a Website

Here is a page that WebArchive saved:

https://web.archive.org/web/20051027013227/http://weisse-rose-stiftung.de/fkt_standard.php?aktion=cs&ma=cs&c_id=mamura&topic=033&mod=2&page=1&lang=de

But, when it came to the places where the text says "Weiter ..." it shows nothing.

So, most of the text of the site is lost.

Fortunately, the historic documents are still extant (as far as I know) and a similar site can be remade.

I can't do it, since I do not have access to the documents.

Someone else can./HGL

TOF Spot Has Some Tips on Writing

Scrivening :
1: It Came from Schenectady

2: Entitlement
3: Another Fine Mess
4: Getting Info Out of the Dumps
5: Embodiment
6: Just One Dang Thing After Another
7: Who was that Character I Saw You With Last Night?

Since TheOFloinn has written in September and therefore is still alive, and since he has not resumed this series since May, it is probably something like complete./HGL

Un peu davantage sur CSL et ses leçons de culture

Répliques Assorties : Certains mots n'éclairent pas l'esprit : exemple "paralittérature" · Φιλολoγικά / Philologica : Un peu davantage sur CSL et ses leçons de culture

Le soir que j'avais écrit mon refus de respecter un démarcage entre "littérature" et "paralittérature" je vois quelqu'un avec un T-shirt qui disait :

NEVER GROW UP

En principe, ça pourrait être une coïncidence fortuite, voir un acte de la Providence. En statistiques, ça m'arrive un peu trop pour que j'y crois.

CSL avait un jour à s'occuper de la question de gens qui trouvaient enfantile de lire des contes de fées. Il remarquait que pour un adolescent, c'est assez utile de se sentir concerné par sa maturation mais pour un adulte, ce ne l'est plus. Et n'ayant pas à prouver qu'on est adulte, on est libre à lire les contes de fées qu'on veut. Quelqu'un en Suède (ne sachant peut-être pas la source) à voulu répliquer que "Puttes äventyr i blåbärsskogen" ne se lit pas très bien par un adulte. J'avais cru que c'était un livre pour enfants sur une simple cueillette de myrtilles, sans plus. Intéressant pour un garçon de cinq, même pas trop pour quelqu'un de neuf. Erreur. Le livre est par Elsa Beskow, le genre d'écrivaine dont un personnage peut donner le nom pour un café, et il met en scène des thématiques comme un lutin bienfaisant et la diminution du garçon en lutin. Ou plutôt, en taille de lutin.

Le Suédois en question devrait donc être un cas de ce que CSL considérait comme des adolscents attardés.

Présumons encore que celui qui portait le T-shirt m'avait visé, même si ça ne se laisse pas prouver (de mes observations). Il pourrait donc l'avoir fait parce que CSL est surtout connu pour Le Monde de Narnia, et ceci depuis les films de Walden média. Lire CSL serait donc, selon l'idéologie qu'il fustige, enfantile. Déjà, le premier livre qu'il écrit dans la série, il le dédie à une filleule, s'excuse pour avoir attendu trop longtemps, elle est déjà trop grande pour les contes de fées, mais ajoute qu'un jour viendra qu'elle sera suffisamment grande pour recommencer de les lire. Donc, déjà là, c'est mal visé.

Mais en plus, si CSL valorisait lui-même les sept chroniques de Narnia plus que son autre œuvre, celle-ci ne se limitait pas à livres pour enfants. Il y a ces sept livres, pour enfants, il y a sept autre livres à taille de roman, pour adultes, ou huit si on compte le roman épistolaire sur la prière, il y a deux livre d'autobiographie non fictionnelle, avant et après sa femme, il y a des grands essais et il y a de collections de petits essais. Et comme il remarquait dans un des chroniques de Narnia, "je n'ai jamais entendu parler de quelqu'un qui veut lire les rédactions" - en anglais, on dit "essay" que ce soit un essai qu'on a choisi d'écrire sur un thème qu'on tient au cœur ou que ce soit une rédaction où le prof à laissé le choix entre certains thèmes. Mais ses essais, à lui, ça se lit.

Alors, comment a-t-il approché l'écriture pour des enfants? Il l'a évoqué dans un contexte où on avait posé la question à partir de sa réussite sur les sept chroniques de Narnia.

Il y a selon lui, trois manières d'écrire pour enfants.

Un pédagogue peut avoir l'ambition de faire passer une leçon à un certain tranche d'âge. Il s'informe chez des professionnels quel est le leçon que cette tranche d'âge nécessite, il étudie ce qui est écrit pour cette tranche d'âge, il se met à la tâche. CSL considère cette manière comme vouée à produire des médiocrités, et en plus, même si quelqu'un pourrait faire quelque chose de bien dedans, lui, il ne le pourrait pas.

Un auteur peut être l'ami d'un enfant concret. J. M. Barrie (si je ne me trompe pas) avait échangé avec un garçon de manière d'élargir et d'encore élargir une histoire, jusqu'à ce qu'elle devienne assez longue. A. A. Milne basait Christopher Robin sur son propre fils, Christopher Robin Milne. Rien de tel non plus pour CSL, même s'il trouvait la méthode largément supérieur à d'écrire pour des enfants théorisés.

Il y a, selon lui, encore une manière. On peut écrire un récit pour enfants* parce que le récit pour enfants et la forme qui correspond la mieux à ce qu'on a à dire. Genre comme un poëte peut écrire une sonnette ou un compositeur une sonate parce que c'est ce qui correspond à son intention artistique. Car, le récit pour enfants est une forme spécifique avec ses limitations et donc aussi ses potentialités très spécifiques. Pas de sexe, on n'est pas là pour corrompre. Pas d'analyse psychologique très poussée. Aventure prime sur dialogue ou description.

Et tel était son cas. Certains méprisent ce genre de forme parce que le manque de sexe ne serait bon que pour les pré-ados, ou parce que l'analyse psychologique doit être incisive. CSL n'était pas d'accord avec ça, moi non plus. Je pense vraiment pouvoir réussir ma nuit de noces, si on ne continue pas à me harceler, sans de lire D. H. Lawrence. Et je suis encore davantage sûr que les analyses trop incisives donnent une vision de la vie trop noire. CSL est un homme qui m'a donné sa culture. Et des hommes qui la veulent remplacer avec la leur, c'est la mauvaise fortune de ma vie.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Zacharie
et mon anniversaire
6.IX.2022

* En VO, il ne s'agit pas de "children's book" mais de "children's story" ...

More than One Brand of Fascism

Wrangel - or What's Right With Fascism · Jasenovac - or what is wrong with "Fascism" · More than One Brand of Fascism

Between Austrian members of NSDAP and Austrian members of the Austro-Fascist Régime, a coalition between the Christian Social Party and the Heimwehr, who killed Bettauer?

Maximilian Hugo Bettauer* (18 August 1872 – 26 March 1925) was a prolific Austrian writer and journalist, who was murdered by a [??] follower on account of his opposition to antisemitism. He was well known in his lifetime; many of his books were bestsellers and in the 1920s a number were made into films, most notably Die freudlose Gasse (The Joyless Street, directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1925), which dealt with prostitution, and Die Stadt ohne Juden (The City Without Jews, directed by Hans Karl Breslauer, 1924), a satire against antisemitism.

I have omitted the party designation.

The Nazis branded Bettauer* a "Red poet" and "corruptor of youth", and an Austrian party member published a series of articles calling for "radical self help" and "lynch justice against all polluters of our people".[3] On 10 March 1925, a dental technician named Otto Rothstock shot Bettauer several times.[3] He was taken to hospital in Vienna with serious injuries and died on 26 March 1925. He was cremated at Feuerhalle Simmering, where also his ashes are buried.

Seems some of both wanted people like Bettauer lynched. On the one side THE Nazis, on the other side ONE member OF the "Austrian Party" - here a misnomer for back then Christian Social party, of which Austrian Party is a post-War successor. But what was the loyalty of Otto Rothstock?

As a young member of various different political parties, Rothstock** was enraged by Bettauer's newspapers that he claimed to be pornographic. On March 10, 1925, Rothstock entered Bettauer's office and shot him five times at point-blank range. Hugo Bettauer died on March 26, 1925, from his wounds.

At his trial, Rothstock justified what he had done as necessary to save European culture from the menace of degeneration. His lawyer, Walter Riehl, (himself a National Socialist functionary) argued that his client was guilty but insane, with which the jury agreed. However, within twenty months Rothstock was released as “cured” from a mental hospital.[3] A fair amount of money was collected from the general public for him.[4]

Rothstock was an unrepentant Nazi. In a 1977 interview on the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, Rothstock reportedly boasted of Bettauer's "extinction".[5]

In other words, the killer was a National Socialist.

Heinrich Schenker died 1935, under Austrofascism. His widow Jeannette died 1945, under National Socialism. How did each die?

Schenker*** died on 14 January 1935, age 66 at 2 AM, the cause of death listed as diabetes and arteriosclerosis. He was buried on 17 January at the Wiener Zentralfriedhof, Gate 4, Group 3, Series 4, number 8.[55] The inscription on his grave reads: "Hier ruht, der die Seele der Musik vernommen, ihre Gesetze im Sinne der Großen verkündet wie Keiner vor ihm" (Here lies he who examined and revealed the laws concerning the soul of music like none other before him).

Jeanette Schenker stayed in Vienna after the Anschluss. She was rescued twice from the Nazis before being arrested and transported on 29 June 1942. She died in Theresienstadt on 8 January 1945.[56]

I think it is pretty safe to say, Austrofascism was lots healthier for Jews than National Socialism was.

But which one of them did Jews like better?

In einem Brief an seinen° Schüler Felix-Eberhard von Cube begrüßte er am 14. Mai 1933 den politischen Aufstieg Hitlers als Zeichen einer kulturellen Umkehr.

In a letter to the pupil Felix-Eberhard von Cube, on the 14th of May 1933, he saluted the political rise of Hitler as a sign for a cultural revolution.

On the other hand, the one occasion in which Austrofascists on a larger scale got "physical" with Jews were fistfights where Heimwehr punched Jews for insulting the memory of Dollfuss. So, Jews had insulted Dollfuss, so probably were not as fond of Austrofascism.

And as for doctors ...

"Nach einer wochenlangen Medienkampagne gegen Bettauer schoss der 21-jährige Zahntechniker Otto Rothstock"
"On 10 March 1925, a dental technician named Otto Rothstock shot Bettauer several times."

Or the tombstone of Hans Tita Probst in Graz:

New blog on the kid : I thank the Cemetery of Graz
https://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/01/i-thank-cemetery-of-graz.html

Please note, I did not thank the cemetary of Graz most for honouring the probable last wishes of HTP, but - here is my reason:

Thanks to this, it may at last be known outside Austria too that this man, who has a Swastika and not any Cross on his grave, whose headstone features no Cross even for the date of his death (and no star for the date of his birth, just "24.3.1897 - 27.7.1934", no star and no cross), who died in the July Putsch of 1934, who was a comrade thus with the other Nazi who killed Dollfuss, who was an SA Sturmbannführer, and who was called Hans Tita Probst, was a Medical Doctor and thus likely to have been in life an Atheist or Pantheist, but at least no Catholic Christian. Unless there was a cross above the piece shown in the picture. Even so, it is likely as with Georges Lemaître he was getting more of his worldview from non-Christian, non-Catholic sources than from orthodoxly Catholic ones.

In Austria, Nazis were progressives, precisely like Social Democrats. Austrofaschists were Reactionaries.

As a Reactionary Austrofaschist, I am thankful it be known that Hans Tita Probst, Sturmbannführer and Medical Doctor, was shot by Austrofaschist either police or military or Heimwehr. Thanks for proving I am not a Nazi! Es war sehr schön, es hat mich sehr gefreut!

Unfortunately, the article I linked to in 2014, is down. You will have to trust my honesty as to not have invented the parts I now cite, and my judgement as to not have extrapolated Hans Tita Probst as being medical doctor for no reason at all.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Decapitation of St. John the Baptist
29.VIII.2022

PS, as I mentioned medical personnel, how about this, here:

Schenker's*** father was a doctor who had been allowed to settle in Wiśniowczyk, a village of only 1,759 inhabitants, according to the 1869 census.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Bettauer

** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Rothstock

*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Schenker

° https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Schenker