Something that seems exactly suitable and beautiful...
I have had some excellent presents, including a navy blue Gondor hoodie for lounging around the house - with a white tree and seven stars logo, exactly the same style as worn by Denethor. And a thick navy blue cotton dressing gown.
A suitably rugged, lightweight outdoor jacket for the summer (again in navy blue - is this a theme?...).
Books include a collection of Celtic mythology, a paper copy of Tolkien's best long poem (?) Aotrou and Itroun, and Adey's analysis of CS Lewis and Owen Barfield's Great War letters...
And an art book of John Everett Millais.
Christ in the house of his parents
8 comments:
Merry Christmas Bruce. Thanks for all of the thought and effort you put into this blog.
Happy Christmas, Bruce! Thanks for all you do here.
Happy Christmas Bruce!
Seems you had better presents than me. For my part I've been hard at work over the last few days [i]making[/i] presents for family, wrapping stuff up, and cooking traditional British foods that are otherwise unobtainable down here. Have been playing traditional carols too (not any kind of secular Christmas songs, as a matter of principle in present times, though the former are generally better music too). This has left older daughter a bit disgruntled - she probably wants to torment me with endless renditions of the appalling online ditty "Baby Shark", its festive updates, or the like.
I think I would have appreciated all those books myself, besides perhaps the war letters. Decent books in English have been difficult to obtain here lately, though, so my chances of receiving anything good in that line were not high! Only a certain monopolistic international corporation with whom neither I nor the wife want to have further dealings seem to have much local English-language stock at present. I suspect this situation will only worsen in the immediate future.
Merry Christmas Bruce.
Hope you have a great Christmas and happy New Year.
Many thanks for all the effort you put into this.
Merry Christmas! I'm a newcomer to your blog - I followed a link to your essay on the 3 kinds of evil - but have been greatly enjoying all your posts. I hope your Gondor hoodie is bulky enough to fit over the coat of chain mail you wear next to your skin day and night, like Denethor! (I always thought his character was unforgivably mangled in the movie version - he was a noble man and great intellect, driven to despair by the Enemy.)
DM - "the coat of chain mail you wear next to your skin day and night" - Naturally. But many Gondorians find that an indoor hoodie helps us relax.
Yes, Denethor's character was indeed mangled in the movies - although very well acted!
I've rewatched the movies recently, and find it more annoying with every re-view that genuine heroism is only grudgingly permitted - and Faramir gets the worst of this (as well as being rather poorly cast and acted, made worse by being given stupid things to say and do, not in the book).
In general - I find the movies do not wear well. I loved them at first and for about a decade - despite all their faults; but as time goes by the faults loom ever larger. The wimpy non-heroism of the Riders of Rohan - right up to the (admittedly wonderful!) charge on Pelennor, is very annoying indeed, and in total contradiction to the real nature of these people.
Merry Christmas!
That Millais painting of the carpenter's shop has occasionally received interest from scholars of woodworking who examine his portrayal of then-contemporary workbenches and tools.
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