Marta's Mathoms

Just poking in to give a hearty Hear, hear! (hear what?) to two of my favorite hobbits. In their honor, here's one of my favorite passages with JRRT at his snarky finest before sharing a bit of heart.

For ADELARD TOOK, for his VERY OWN, from Bilbo, on an umbrella. Adelard had carried off many unlabelled ones.

For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love from Bilbo, on a large waste-paper basket. Dora was Drogo’s sister and the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century.

For MILO BURROWS, hoping it will be useful, from B.B., on a gold pen and ink-bottle. Milo never answered letters.

For ANGELICA’S use, from Uncle Bilbo, on a round convex mirror. She was a young Baggins, and too obviously considered her face shapely.

For the collection of HUGO BRACEGIRDLE, from a contributor, on an (empty) book-case. Hugo was a great borrower of books, and worse than usual at returning them.

For LOBELIA SACKVILLE-BAGGINS, as a PRESENT, on a case of silver spoons. Bilbo believed that she had acquired a good many of his spoons, while he was away on his former journey. Lobelia knew that quite well. When she arrived later in the day, she took the point at once, but she also took the spoons.

This is only a small selection of the assembled presents. Bilbo’s residence had got rather cluttered up with things in the course of his long life. It was a tendency of hobbit-holes to get cluttered up: for which the custom of giving so many birthday-presents was largely responsible. Not, of course, that the birthday-presents were always new, there were one or two old mathoms of forgotten uses that had circulated all around the district; but Bilbo had usually given new presents, and kept those that he received. The old hole was now being cleared a little.

Every one of the various parting gifts had labels, written out personally by Bilbo, and several had some point, or some joke. But, of course, most of the things were given where they would be wanted and welcome. The poorer hobbits, and especially those of Bagshot Row, did very well. Old Gaffer Gamgee got two sacks of potatoes, a new spade, a woollen waistcoat, and a bottle of ointment for creaking joints. Old Rory Brandybuck, in return for much hospitality, got a dozen bottles of Old Winyards: a strong red wine from the Southfarthing, and now quite mature, as it had been laid down by Bilbo’s father. Rory quite forgave Bilbo, and voted him a capital fellow after the first bottle.

I got a new laptop off an Amazon Prime Day sale. It's nice to be able to just buy one when the old one's wearing out. Probably I would have dithered a bit more, but the sale was good, the brand has been reliable in the past, and the specs are similar to what I've had in the past.

Of course now I have to name her. I was thinking vaguely about Ancalime but that seems a bit ill-fated. Something Silmarilliony would be nice, but as serious as things have been, maybe a little whimsy would be better? Bombadillo perhaps? I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any ideas.

The weatherman is promising some of that white stuff the rest of the country has had dumped on it. It should be interesting since they haven't gotten snow here in several years, which may mean they don't know how to handle it. I'm just hoping our power doesn't go out, which seemed to happen with all the major non-winter storms we've been hit with. But the cupboard is well stocked and I haven't gone out in nearly a week anyway.

The fires out in LA look... intense is the only word for it. Horrific. I don't think I know anyone out there, but I can only imagine how hard that would have to be.

Weather is supposed to be the stuff of small talk. This doesn't feel so small. :-$

In more fannish news, I really enjoyed Threads of Song, a one-shot about Galadriel, Celebrian, and Arwen learning the art of weaving. It was just beautifully told and constructed. Well worth a read if you enjoy those characters.

I was getting dressed this morning, set down my socks on the bed while I put on my shirt, and a Certain Someone leaped up and ran off with one of them. Thief! Baggins! Socks in particular are a favorite prey of hers, and I"ve bought extra so I can let her have a few at a time. But in fairness I had cats growing up so I can't claim I didn't know what I was signing up for.

I've been reading the story of Aldarion and Erendis for the first time and basically liveblogging it over at Tumblr. I may collect up the links if anyone's interested. But the main thing (other than I've been letting my inner geek out to play and heartily enjoying it) is, Tolkien is playing with some rather racist and sexist ideas here in much more explicit terms than I think I've ever seen in his writings. The trick is it's story-internal racism and sexism, and it's clear the belief --if it's even genuinely held-- is being used to serve the story. Not something Tolkien necessarily believes or even is presenting as true for the story's world.

An example: Aldarion is a direct descendant of Elros, and Erendis, while she has the look of that line, it's said she isn't really and won't have the same longer lifespan. Aldarion is driven to go on long sea-voyages (he's away for years at a time even after they're married), and it's a main reason their marriage devolves into a technicality more than a true marriage. So Aldarion sets up a law where the king's heir can only marry someone of Elros's line. On the surface it feels very racist, even eugenics-y. The official justification given is because of the differing lifespans couples would be fundamentally mismatched. Which doesn't make much sense even on its own terms since there are lots of Elros-descended people not in line for the throne, so if this is really such an issue surely the law should apply to all of them?

The real reason is Aldarion's blaming the lifespan thing for the breakdown of his marriage, rather than accepting blame for essentially abandoning her, repeatedly!, so he could go off adventuring. It's a little more complicated than that (Aldarion's being driven by sea-longing, which Tolkien describes as an almost physical need to get back to the ocean), but certainly he's not treating Erendis well and because of his pride and just his basic character, he's not accepting that he needs to apologize and right the relationship. Much easier to blame her for being below him and them being fundamentally incompatible because of that, and thank goodness he has the wisdom to spare other people his heartache, etc.

It's a really fascinating look at racism as a crutch. And even the parts of all this I suspect Tolkien may have believed himself -- the idea of Numenoreans as the mannish messiahs of Middle-earth in the fight against Sauron does have imperialistic undertones, and I can see a conservative-leaning British man of his age having at least some sympathy for that view -- even there, Tolkien seems all too aware how this kind of mindset harms even the Numenoreans. It's fascinating, really, and quite fun to think through how we navigate hateful-in-RL things in the context of literature.

I've been thinking about that a bit because in other fandom news, Neil Gaiman was accused of sexual assault recently. What little I know seems more like a messy sex life to be sure but where I don't have enough facts to have an informed opinion on if it was truly assault vs. miscommunication, different perspectives, etc. So while he doesn't come out smelling like a bed of roses, I'm also not reaching for my pitchfork yet. But I'm also very aware that I like his writing, like the parts of him I've come to now through social media, and probably would approach these accusations differently if I wasn't so emotionally invested in him being a good guy. So the question of how we react to hateful things and even morally complicated situations in the abstract, versus when there's emotional entanglement (and yes, storytelling is similar!) is definitely on my mind. I don't have any hard answers. But I suspect I'll be thinking about it for a while to come.

Back to work, I suppose. Thanks for the space to play with my thinky-thoughts, and have a good day.

This Tumblr post has me smiling. Basically it's about all the silly linguist-humor-but-making-us-mere-mortals-reach-for-our-notecards things Tolkien does. A sample:

2. Characters who Have Way Too Many Names

Examples include Aragorn son of Arathorn son of Arador heir of Isildur Elendil’s son, descendant of Numenor, Thorongill, Eagle of the Star, Dúnadan, Strider, Wingfoot, Longshanks, Elessar, Edhelharn, Elfstone, Estel (”Hope,”) The Chieftain of the Dúnedain, King of the West, High King of Gondor and Arnor, and Envinyatar the Renewer of the House of Telcontar

Wait I’m sorry did I say “examples” plural

Cuz that was all one guy

Check out the whole thing, it's really quite hilarious if you've made it to the other side of the head-thunking stage we all seem to go through.

Then come back and answer me two simple questions:

1) What are your favorite examples of this?
2) What the heck was JRRT thinking with all this?