Christopher Tolkien Passes Away at Age 95

I really didn't want to write this post, for several reasons. Primarily, of course, because this is very sad news. Less of importance is the further weight it places on my seasonal gloom. I cannot add anything more to his importance: how he heard "The Hobbit" from J. R. R. Tolkien as a bedtime story with his siblings, the support and interest he showed his father during the writing of "The Lord of the Rings", his re-drawing of the Middle Earth maps to replace his father's original sketches, his constant work as conservator of his father's legendarium up until almost a year ago. Did he resign because he knew he was going to die, or did he pass away because he felt he could finally rest?

What can I say that would add to that? I can only recount my own opinions of him through the years. When I first heard about Christopher Tolkien, I couldn't help but feel jealous. Next to actually being Professor Tolkien, what could be better than being his son? Then I was annoyed with him in the person of the Tolkien Estate, and the slowness of the release of unpublished work. Only gradually did I become aware of the enormous task he had taken on his shoulders, and his protection of his father's legacy. The more I learned about his own unique qualifications, his enormous scholarship, his careful analysis of the ancient, sometimes overwritten pile of manuscripts that had become scattered through the years, the more I appreciated his efforts. In the end I respected him almost as much as his father, if only for protecting Middle Earth from even my own juvenile desires.

What happens to this legacy now that the door-warden is gone? I shudder to think what comes after. But Christopher Tolkien's work will still stand as an enduring monument, whatever grows up around it.

R.I.P. Sir Terry Pratchett

In 1983 I accidentally received The Color of Magic through the Science Fiction Book Club. Seldom have I been so lucky. Now over thirty years later I have almost every book Terry Pratchett has ever published and have had countless hours of laughter, wonder, and interesting insights. So sad that he has passed away; so glad it never came down to that assisted suicide he had been investigating through his final years. I hope nobody will be "carrying on" the franchise beyond what he has created himself: trying to reproduce genius almost never satisfies.

R.I.P. Thomas Kinkade, "Painter of Light" (1958-2012)

"The next real [artistic] rebels in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of anti-rebels, born oglers who dare somehow to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to endorse and instantiate single-entendre principles. Who treat of plain old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U. S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue. These anti-rebels would be outdated, of course, before they even started...Too sincere. Clearly repressed. Backward, quaint, naive, anachronistic. Maybe that'll be the point. Maybe that's why they'll be the next real rebels. Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk disapproval. The old postmodern insurgents risked the gasp and squeal: shock, disgust, outrage, censorship, accusations of socialism, anarchism, nihilism. Today's risks are different. The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the "Oh how banal." To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law. Who knows." --David Foster Wallace.

Between Sadness And Hope

Three things that have made me sad recently: the deaths of John Neville (Nov. 19, 2011), Nicol Williamson (Dec. 16, 2011), and John Severin (Feb. 12, 2012).

Four things I have to look forward to (besides the upcoming Hobbit movies): James P. Blaylock's new novel of Langdon St. Ives, The Aylesford Skull, to be published on March 9; Tim Power's new book Hide Me Among The Graves on March 13; Neil Gaiman is working on an adaptation of his American Gods for HBO; and the movie of Jeff Smith's Bone is finally definitely in production.