the Lord of the Rings: Appendices

This book is the seventh, and the only non-novel-component, of J.R.R. Tolkien's masterwork. It comprises the appendix to the series proper - the reason for which I have done this as seven separate posts is that the books I own actually are seven separate books, which is the way the text was cut up in the original publications, a similar version of which I have linked above. But you know, these books are so famous that you'll probably easily find a version that suits you best - be it single-volume, triple, quadruple, seven[tuple]?

   Anyway. My six previous posts about this incredible trilogy are viewable below and devote themselves largely to summarising the plot - whereas in this final post I will give some more personal ruminations on the series itself and what it means to me. I will not be nitpicking changes between the books and movies, as Jess of the Shire is already doing that more than well enough; nor will I be relying on Tolkien's own philosophies of story, fantasy, language and interpretation to give any kind of exact statement of how one should read and imagine these characters in this world to be, as TolkienTrash already has a brilliant video covering that in-depth using queer readings as a launchpad. 

   A brief word on the appendices themselves: comprising timelines, family trees, pronunciation guides to the several languages Tolkien invented for/before this series, and historical overviews of events only alluded to in the main trilogy, as well as a bunch of other stuff - this is quite dry reading, but I love it because it shows how much depth and care Tolkien had for the imaginative consistency of this world he spent so long developing as a home for the languages he so lovingly created. I just think it's absolutely brilliant.

   That said though - ruminations on the whole series. I'll try to break these down into three main chunks:

1. Applicability of all the characters for a coherent moral framework: as is well-known among Tolkien nerds, he "cordially disliked allegory" and never meant for his stories to be taken as any sort of coherent real-world set of metaphors, instead preferring readers to simply enjoy the story on the merit of its linguistic beauties alone, and if deriving any lessons from what is told or done in the tales, to make these meanings themselves, knowing that there is a complex web of applicability built into the story so that many varying readings are possible and none completely wrong. That's a bold move from such an influential author - declaring his own death in the interpretative realm in the very prologue to his work, and saying "whatever this means to you, fine, let it mean that". But one aspect of this that I want to dive more deeply into is the non-allegorical but morally-consistent sense of Catholic virtue baked into the characters in the narrative, each with a universal lesson to teach a reader. Let me give a few examples:
• Frodo. We are all Frodo; sometimes called from the comforts of our known lives to undertake acts of bravery that scare and bewilder us, and we have to face those knowing we may fail.
• Sam.* We are all Sam; sometimes called by duty to support and uphold the struggles of our compatriots who are dealing with more than us, or even more than they can manage.
• Merry & Pippin. We are all "the spare hobbits"; free to attach ourselves, even ignorantly, to what seems like adventure or intrigue in the lives of our friends; and commendable when we achieve more in doing so than we could have ever expected.
• Gandalf. We are all Gandalf; expected to use our wisdom and experience to guide and protect those who are under our care.
• Aragorn. We are all Aragorn; expected to use our skill, strength and integrity to lead, inspire and fight for those who depend on us, also knowing that only by doing so can we become the men we are meant to be. (Sorry, there really aren't many female characters in these books. But my point stands.)
• Legolas & Gimli. We are all these dudes; worthy of utmost respect when we put aside our grudges to work together to repair generations-old wounds for the good of the world around us (especially when we're good at killing into the bargain).
• Boromir. We are all Boromir; capable of succumbing to temptation no matter how impenetrable we had thought our honour.
• Faramir. We are all Faramir; capable of overcoming temptation when not only our honour but the fate of the people we must defend is at stake.
• Eowyn. We are all Eowyn; to some degree boxed in by the norms and traditional expectations surrounding us, but capable of accomplishing incredible things when we throw off these shackles to carve our own path.
• Eomer. We are all Eomer; often thrust into geopolitical struggles that threaten our homes and families to extents that make us focus our anger outwards in ways we're not wholly safe in.
• Theoden. We are all Theoden; as devoted to our own realms as we may be, called to push past that factionalism and commit to international justice for the good of all.
• Treebeard. We are all Treebeard; often too stuck in our own little worlds, hoping that the troubles of the world will pass us by, even though we are strong enough to face those troubles decisively when we choose.
• Denethor. We are all Denethor; blinkered and thus prone to paranoia, and capable of abandoning our essential duties by giving up our hope.
• Saruman. We are all Saruman; far too susceptible to the lure of power even when we think ourselves too clever to become a victim of this trap, and so blind to the wretch we become when we fall into this.
• Galadriel. We aren't all Galadriel. Don't even try.
• Tom Bombadil. See Galadriel. Being as happy as him is worth a shot though.
• Gollum. We are all Gollum; there are things, vices or habits, in our life that can become so destructive that we become something unrecognisable even to ourselves, though we do not notice until those things are taken from us - and then we tend to lose our shit, and get into nasty patterns of untrustworthy neuroticism.
2. Richness of a lived-in world: Tolkien's worldbuilding is meticulous to the point of almost anal. Places' names have their own specific linguistic histories - they probably have numerous different names in different languages relating to when different people knew those places at different times. Same with people - Gandalf alone has at least four names I can think of off the top of my head. There are ruins that nobody remembers; there are scars on the landscape from battles millennia hence; there is a tangible sense of the shift shape of geopolitics between the lesser races watched over by the longevity and weariness of the elves; there is even, though religion is virtually unmentioned in the series itself, a strong sense of faith present in all the free folk - faith that the goodness with which Middle-Earth was created will ultimately always reassert itself, despite the temporal struggles it may be facing. The sheer depth to the massive history he made for this world is staggering - I mean, look at the dozen-or-so volumes The History of Middle-Earth that his son Christopher Tolkien has been painstakingly editing together out of his father's leftover notes. Frequent comparisons to George R.R. Martin are often made, but I haven't read Martin's works yet - so I'm reserving judgment on that particular for now.
3. You can tell how much fun he was having: though I'm sure it wasn't always an easy ride, Tolkien's love of language, and fantasy storytelling in particular, shines through on every page. Whether he's allowing Legolas to spend several paragraphs describing why the vibe of the trees in Fangorn Forest is so exciting only to be rebutted by Gimli spending several further paragraphs expounding the natural wonders of Helm's Deep's glittering caves; or whether it's writing entire stanzas of poetry in Elvish that a random character spits out and never bothers to even translate; or the bubbling undercurrent of good-humouredness and spirit - you really can just tell this was a labour of love. And that makes it all the lovelier to read.

   So there you have it. I read this whole series, excluding the appendix, when I was nine, and again when I was fifteen, so revisiting it with so much other reading and life-experience under my belt now truly was a delight. And I can't wait until I've finished reading enough other stuff to justify going back to it again. If you like reading for pleasure and beauty, these books are for you, even if you typically shun fantasy like the snob you are. If you love the movies but have never read these - oh man, there is so much extra depth you're missing out on.

* If you know the lore to even a halfway-accurate level, you will also approve of the fact that Sam is literally the only working-class character (other than maybe Gollum) in this whole list of main characters. All the rest of the major characters in this trilogy are royalty, aristocrats, or supernatural beings. Which - wtf, JRR?

Edit - obviously thematic interpretations of what Tolkien is saying these books are incredibly diverse, given the author's "cordial dislike of allegory in all its forms", and obviously a core thematic backbone throughout the trilogy is the Catholic ethic (expressed not allegorically but demonstratively), but I've just stumbled across a new YouTuber who summed up LotR's core theme in a profoundly succinct way: the conflict between "our desire to control the world against our need to control ourselves." Rich.

the Whitsun Weddings

This book is another poetry collection by Philip Larkin, and I enjoyed it just as much as the last one. Ignorance and the Importance of Elsewhere in particular resonated with me. I'm struggling however to learn much about the poetic craft itself from my readings of Larkin; skilled with words as he is it's quite hard to identify exactly what it is he's doing that is distinctive, but there certainly is something, as his poems ring with a style and character that is uniquely his. That said, I didn't read this just to steal ideas for my own poetic writings, and I did again very much enjoy it. A solid recommendation to anyone who likes original, striking poetry.

High Windows

This book is a collection of poetry by Philip Larkin, who I'd never seriously read before. I really enjoyed this collection; Larkin's poetry has an energy to it that I'm trying very hard to think of a better word than spunk - he takes relatively simple poetic forms and turns them into shocking, or funny, or unexpectedly both As Well As poignant things. This Be The Verse is probably my fave single poem from this collection, though that's probably just because I have a very amusing memory of a poet-friend of mine performing it live to the Match of the Day theme. All in all, a highly rewarding, engaging and accessible poetry collection.

the Lord of the Rings: book six

This book (yes I know that link is for the whole trilogy condensed into one book whereas this post is only going to talk about the second half of the Return of the King, but deal with it mate) is the sixth and final instalment of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic (virtually myth-status) fantastical trilogy. I have a lot to say about this trilogy, but I'm reading it all in one go, so I'm saving my reflections and my recommendations until the final post (and before you say "but that's this one!" there is a book of appendices, so eat your words), and here will simply outline in brief the specific plot of this instalment. Spoilers, obviously.

   Using the ring (oh did I not mention? It can turn you invisible) Sam sneaks into the tower of Cirith Ungol, and through a combination of dumb luck and the orcs' predilection for fighting each other they manage to escape. Then they trudge the long, slow, dark path across Mordor toward the volcano - Mount Doom, as it is so aptly named. When they get there however Frodo succumbs to the temptation of the ring and refuses to destroy it - but Gollum, who since Shelob's lair has been following the pair, loses his shit and bites the ring (finger and all) off Frodo's hand - only to fall into the lava when dancing about in victory. And so the ring is destroyed, Sauron is vanquished, and his forces lose all morale - which is great, because meanwhile at the gates of Mordor there are all the armies of good taking their final stand, which they suddenly win. Giant eagles show up and rescue Frodo & Sam from Mount Doom, taking them to safety. They meet up with resurrected-Gandalf and the remainder of the fellowship, celebrate a bit - then Aragorn is crowned King of Gondor, and after an entire chapter of people basically just saying farewells we follow a much-condensed journey home; back to the Shire with the hobbits. However the Shire has been taken over and industrialised by Saruman - though compared to everything our four hobbits have been through, this is small beans: they mobilise a large civil resistance against the evil wizard and confront him, only for him to then simply be stabbed in the back by his lackey. The work of rebuilding the Shire as an idyllic rural society begins, aided by Sam's gift from Galadriel of magical soil (idk). However - despite the happy endings all round - Frodo is still haunted by the wound he received all the way back in book one, and so he makes the choice to sail into the West, into the elven afterlife pretty much, with Gandalf and Galadriel and a few others, including his uncle Bilbo.

   And that's how it ends.

the Lord of the Rings: book five

This book (yes I know that link is for the whole trilogy condensed into one book whereas this post is only going to talk about the first half of the Return of the King, but deal with it mate) is the fifth instalment of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic (virtually myth-status) fantastical trilogy. I have a lot to say about this trilogy, but I'm reading it all in one go, so I'm saving my reflections and my recommendations until the final post, and here will simply outline in brief the specific plot of this instalment. Spoilers, obviously.

   Gandalf arrives with Pippin at Minas Tirith, the capital of Gondor, where they try to warn the steward Denethor (as Gondor hasn't had a king for ages) of impending dangers. Meanwhile, the Rohirrim (as in the cavalry of Rohan) are mustering for war, including Merry and Theoden's badass niece Eowyn; but Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli have gone off on a side-quest to try to persuade a bunch of ghosts to fight alongside them, which the ghosts agree to because SURPRISE yep you guessed it Aragorn is the rightful King of Gondor and therefore the only person who can command the ghosts' loyalty. Back in Gondor things are bad; orcs and their allies are pouring out of Mordor and laying siege to the defences - fortunately the Rohirrim arrive in time to make a big difference to the climactic battle on the fields surrounding Minas Tirith, and when the defeat of the good guys hangs in the balance, Aragorn turns up with his army of ghosts, who win the day. Faramir and Eowyn (the latter of whom, with Merry's help, had in fact killed the leader of Sauron's wraiths) have both been wounded, and Denethor (assuming Faramir [his son] to be dead and knowing that Boromir [his other son] is actually dead too) tries to burn Faramir on a funeral pyre - fortunately Pippin intervenes, saving the life of the steward-in-waiting. Aragorn uses his skills as a healer to bring Eowyn and Faramir back to full health, and then an intense debate ensues about what to do next about Mordor - where it is finally decided that the remainders of Gondor's and Rohan's armies will ride right up to Mordor's gates, to draw out all the orcs within so that Frodo & Sam have a clear run to the volcano where they must destroy the ring. Unsurprisingly this turns out to be quite a big battle.

   But that's where this penultimate instalment ends...

the Lord of the Rings: book four

This book (yes I know that link is for the whole trilogy condensed into one book whereas this post is only going to talk about the second half of the Two Towers, but deal with it mate) is the fourth instalment of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic (virtually myth-status) fantastical trilogy. I have a lot to say about this trilogy, but I'm reading it all in one go, so I'm saving my reflections and my recommendations until the final post, and here will simply outline in brief the specific plot of this instalment. Spoilers, obviously.

   Herein, rather than following the men and wizards and whatnot, we follow Frodo and Sam's journey toward Mordor - which gets off to a rocky start when Gollum (an ex-hobbit who had the ring for about five-hundred years before Bilbo found/stole it off him) sneaks up on them: despite his probable treachery, the hobbits decide that they need Gollum to show them the way, as he's been to Mordor before, unlike them. They take a shortcut across marshes full of ghosts, and sooner-than-you'd-expect reach the gates of Mordor - which are incredibly heavily-guarded, so they plan to find another way in. However along their route they are captured by Gondorian captain Faramir - who is quite suspicious of them, especially Gollum, whom he nearly orders to be killed. However the hobbits manage to make a good impression on Faramir and he releases them, with a warning to trust neither Gollum nor the route he's taking them. It turns out Gollum has been leading them to an incredibly precarious stair cut into the side of the mountains that surround Mordor, and at the top of this stair is a tunnel that is home to Shelob (an evil giant spider basically). Sam had become separated from Frodo & Gollum during the climb, and without anyone to look after him Frodo is incapacitated by Shelob - which is exactly what Gollum wanted, so he could take the ring back once the hobbit had been eaten. However Sam shows up in the nick of time, and with a combination of sheer ballsiness and the magical phial that Galadriel gave to Frodo, he manages to fight Shelob away from his friend and master. Unfortunately, Sam assumes that Frodo is dead - he is merely paralysed by Shelob's venom - and hesitates a bit too long, giving orcs from the nearby tower of Cirith Ungol the chance to stumble across Frodo's body. Naturally, they take him as a prisoner back to the tower, leaving Sam in quite a bind. Thank goodness he had the foresight to take the ring off Frodo just before the orcs turned up.

   That's it for book four...

the Lord of the Rings: book three

This book (yes I know that link is for the whole trilogy condensed into one book whereas this post is only going to talk about the first half of the Two Towers, but deal with it mate) is the third instalment of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic (virtually myth-status) fantastical trilogy. I have a lot to say about this trilogy, but I'm reading it all in one go, so I'm saving my reflections and my recommendations until the final post, and here will simply outline in brief the specific plot of this instalment. Spoilers, obviously.

   It's a mess, guys. Boromir has been killed by orcs, trying to defend Merry and Pippin, who themselves have been taken captive by aforementioned orcs, and with Frodo & Sam gone off on their own it falls to Aragorn to figure out what to do with the remainder of the fellowship. Along with Legolas and Gimli, he decides to pursue the orcs to rescue the hobbits. They soon run into men of Rohan, the horse-based civilisation, who are also pursuing the orcs. The men of Rohan in fact meet and battle and defeat the orcs holding Merry & Pippin prisoner - and the hobbits escape into the forest where they meet an ent (sentient tree basically) called Treebeard (sigh, yes, top marks to Tolkien for this character name despite the fact that ents have a language all of their own). Aragorn, Legolas & Gimli find the ruin from this battle and follow the tracks into the forest, where SURPRISE they meet a resurrected new-and-improved Gandalf - who tells them that much is afoot. The four of them travel to the capital of Rohan to talk with King Theoden, who is under a spell from the evil wizard Saruman: fortunately Gandalf is able to break the spell and they talk some sense into Theoden about all the orcs running amok. The men of Rohan muster at a keep called Helm's Deep, where there is a massive battle against Saruman's orcs (okay I know they're called uruk-hai technically but I'm trying to keep this summary as accessible to non-LOTR-fans as I can), which the forces of good manage to win. Afterward they travel to Isengard, where Saruman lives, and discover that Merry & Pippin are already there - not to mention the fact that it's flooded and ruined, because the hobbits managed to convince the ents to destroy it. Saruman tries to sway the good guys with his magical voice but fails. Pippin finds a magical seeing-ball (called a Palantir) in the wreckage and is intrigued by it - he looks into it (against Gandalf's warnings) and has a brief moment of connection with Sauron, who was on the other end.

   And that's where book three leaves off...

the Lord of the Rings: book two

This book (yes I know that link is for the whole trilogy condensed into one book whereas this post is only going to talk about the second half of the Fellowship of the Ring, but deal with it mate) is the second instalment of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic (virtually myth-status) fantastical trilogy. I have a lot to say about this trilogy, but I'm reading it all in one go, so I'm saving my reflections and my recommendations until the final post, and here will simply outline in brief the specific plot of this instalment. Spoilers, obviously.

   So soon enough Frodo with his elf-guardian arrive at Rivendell, and the master there, another elf named Elrond, is able to save him from his dagger-wound. Sam, Merry, Pippin and Aragorn soon arrive, and the five of them meet up with Gandalf, who has been waiting for them. We then meet a bunch of new people, including Gondorian military leader Boromir, another elf named Legolas, and a dwarf called Gimli; then Elrond calls a council, in which all characters already named and present attend, so that representatives of all the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth can decide what to do about the ring. It is decided that it must be destroyed - only the catch is it can only be destroyed by being cast into the volcano where it was forged, in Mordor - Sauron's dark realm. Frodo, almost by default, is chosen as the ring-bearer; and the other three hobbits, as well as Gandalf, Aragorn, Boromir, Legolas and Gimli all join his party - which is termed the fellowship of the ring. They set off on their journey towards Mordor, or at least in that general direction. Crossing the mountains proves problematic so they take a shortcut through the dwarven kingdom of Moria, where they discover that goblins have taken over and killed pretty much all the dwarves. Then a balrog (a kind of fiery demon type thing) shows up and everyone just about manages to escape - only after Gandalf sacrifices himself to defeat it. Escaping from Moria the remaining fellowship make their way to the elven realm of Lothlorien, where Frodo tries to offer the ring to elf-leader-lady Galadriel - who is tempted, but refuses to take it. After leaving Lothlorien laden with individual gifts from Galadriel, the fellowship realise that they are being pursued by orcs, and in the confusion Boromir tries to take the ring from Frodo (who manages to get away, and takes a boat to continue his journey alone but for Sam).

   And that's where book two leaves off...

the Lord of the Rings: book one

This book (yes I know that link is for the whole trilogy condensed into one book whereas this post is only going to talk about the first half of the Fellowship of the Ring, but deal with it mate) is the first instalment of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic (virtually myth-status) fantastical trilogy. I have a lot to say about this trilogy, but I'm reading it all in one go, so I'm saving my reflections and my recommendations until the final post, and here will simply outline in brief the specific plot of this instalment. Spoilers, obviously.

   So there's a hobbit called Frodo, whose uncle Bilbo found a magic ring fifty years previously. After the party for Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday (don't @ me it's literally what hobbits call 111 as a number) the wizard Gandalf persuades Bilbo to leave the ring to Frodo along with everything else before he [i.e. Bilbo] wanders off into a retirement (not that he ever had a job I don't think) of meandering around the world talking to elves and whatnot. Gandalf then goes off and does a lot of research about magic rings, as the Dark Lord Sauron crafted a ring of great and nefarious power many ages ago, and this ring has been lost to time; seventeen years after Bilbo's party, Gandalf returns to the Shire (where the hobbits live) and confirms that Frodo's ring is indeed this lost evil artefact. Gandalf tells Frodo to head to the elven town Rivendell for further consideration of what to do with the ring. So soon after Frodo sets off with his gardener Sam; they run into their friends Merry and Pippin, and the four of them proceed on their journey. After they all nearly get eaten or drowned by a mean tree, they are rescued by a mysterious man called Tom Bombadil, who is utterly brilliant and totally pointless and 100% just an author-insert so Tolkien could rove around Middle-Earth as a borderline-omnipotent forest-dweller. Bombadil rescues them again (this time from ghosts) and sends them on their way, until they eventually reach the village of Bree - where they realise they are being pursued by wraiths, agents of Sauron himself. They meet a ranger called Strider who leads them on, and while camping on a hill called Weathertop the wraiths attack and their leader stabs Frodo with a magical dagger. Aragorn (as in Strider - you didn't think Strider was his real name did you? idiots) fights off the wraiths and a friendly elf shows up to ride Frodo to Rivendell before he succumbs to his wound.

   And that's where the first instalment ends...

A Guide for the Perplexed

This book by E. F. Schumacher is an attempt to develop a simple, cohesive, holistic philosophy that anyone can access and use in their own thought and life. While I don't think his proposed system necessarily achieves all that much in terms of engaging with actual philosophical issues and questions, it certainly does achieve its goal of putting forward a simple, cohesive, holistic system, so props to Fritz for that - especially given that he isn't building academically on ideas from previous philosophers, but developing an entirely new "map" (as he calls them) for inquiry.

   I will only extremely briefly give an overview of the book: he starts with the conception of philosophy as the provision of maps for thought, then discusses levels of being within the natural order, then considers that everything in its own teleological context must be "adequate" to its aim or goal, then treats in turn the four fields of knowledge and how we best engage them, then finally closing on an examination of the two distinct kinds of philosophical problem/question. Schumacher's writing is as non-scholarly and accessible as it is lively and engaging, and his actual system of thought has a great spirit of generosity to it - though ethics and politics aren't directly treated in his book, there are clear linkages between his metaphysical, epistemic and methodological sections that if taken seriously and followed would lead one into a far humbler (and therefore may we assume) more morally-integrated kind of life.

   I would recommend this book to anyone, even those uninterested in philosophy, as it functions not so much as a treatise on this or that particular arcane issue but as an orientation to systemic thinking along the same lines as Schumacher himself, and while I obviously never knew the man and so cannot say exactly to what degree he was right about everything, he is clearly (going also from Small is Beautiful, another book of his on economics) a man who thinks deeply, well, and with a great optimism for what humankind may be capable of were we only to slow down once in a while.

William Blake: the Complete Poems

This book is, as you probably guessed from the title, a complete collection of William Blake's poetic works, edited by Alicia Ostriker (who I presume also wrote the end-notes, which are of great help in getting the best out of this most-mystical of poets).

   What is there to really say? Blake was a romantic visionary so far ahead of his time that only now, nearly two centuries after his death, are we starting to catch up with the core essence of his writing. Be they the iconoclastic inclusive philosophy expressed in All Religions Are One, or the sheer depth of generosity-of-spirit and creativity with the written word as in his Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience (which together map out a thoroughly-interesting transition of how Blake changed as he aged between the two), or the spiky theological ruminations of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; and heck, I haven't even got to the best part - his epics. The unfinished draft of The Four Zoas, and the illuminated works Milton (which I was reading alongside this) and Jerusalem; the complete collection is worth buying just for these three oh-so-meaty texts. Herein Blake develops his own idiosyncratic-yet-coherent mythology, telling allegorical stories about Creation, the Fall, psycho-spiritual being in time, eschatology, and probably much more through the lens of his mythic figures (the "zoas") and their emanations. I wanted, in this post, to be able to summarise (or even adequately describe) these works, but I feel they are such in complexity, richness and depth that any attempt on my part to do so would detract from them. Let it merely be said that they truly warrant the label of "epic" as they put John Milton's best efforts to shame, and they are so thought-provoking in their twists, turns and sleights-of-hand (especially if you're using the end-notes to their fullest potentials) that you will come away from them changed.

   At the heart of all Blake's writing is the premise that imagination is the active home of the human spirit - and therefore that liberty and creativity and all their products are somewhat holy. His writing is accessible enough, perhaps surprisingly, but his ideas are enormous; tending to be either so simple in their holistic scope that they can be grasped easily enough, or else their meanings hidden under the obfuscations and elusive complexities of his mythological system. His understanding of God and biblical living are, weirdly, deeply orthodox - and yet what he does and seeks to imply from those doctrines is utterly unlike anything any poet I've come across even thinks about, let alone attempts to systematize into written form. Dismissed in his own lifetime as "an unfortunate madman" (as a reviewer of one of his art* shows put it), Blake has nonetheless had an immense impact on the development of poetic thought and practice - he was a lodestone to the Beats, he's a major influence on Kae Tempest, and he continues to draw speculative and analytic attention from the scholarly wing of creative writing to a degree unrivalled by most poets.

   I wish Blake were alive today, as his reactions to and/or against the myriad strangenesses of contemporary society would be just as left-field and potent as his responses to the problems and contradictions of his own day. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in poetry, mythology, theology, philosophy or spirituality; especially if you yourself are a poet you will find a wide wealth of inspiration from what he does and how he does it. Even if you have no interest in the fields I mentioned above, there are certainly things in here that would make you think and feel in a more open, receptive, gracious way - and surely that's one of the points of poetry?

* Yes, as well as a poet he was an accomplished visual artist. Which is maybe to be expected given that he worked most of his life as an engraver. I had the privilege last year to visit an exhibition of his work in London, and can only say that his paintings are just as weird, epic, and inspiring as his poems.

Paradise Lost

This book, the classic epic novel by John Milton, was a bit of a surprise. I mean, I knew it was about the Fall of humankind as described in Genesis 3, and I knew that Satan was the main character - but that's pretty much the extent of what I knew about it going in. Little could have prepared me for how truly, deeply, epic it actually is - and I'm using that word "epic" not in the modern sense of "yeh just really great" but in the traditional sense of scale and scope. Here we have depicted, in floral prose and incredible monologues, the war in Heaven that precedes the rebellion of Satan against God - and this war is descriptively depicted at quite some length, as are the metaphysical realms in which it takes place. A powerful work of imagination that has had an immense impact on the subsequent developments not only in poetic form but actual theology. I would recommend this book to anyone with a modicum of interest in what I will term "moral-theological" poetry, with no caveats as to the beliefs of the reader - even non-Christians will find Satan a compelling, if still ultimately evil, character. Adam and Eve likewise are well-developed and the reasoning around their being tempted by the Devil (and obviously succumbing to this temptation) is extremely cogent. This book wholly deserves its status as a classic. The only real gripe I have with it that I can think of is that Milton makes heavy usage of references that you basically need a degree in Classics to understand, so get a version with explanatory footnotes.

the Book of Chuang Tzu

This book, along with the Tao Te Ching, is one of the foundational texts of the ancient Chinese religion/philosophy called Taoism; traditionally credited to Chuang Tzu*, though in actuality he is unlikely to have written more than the first seven chapters of its thirty-three.

   When I read Lao Tzu's work I reflected that I could no longer in the spirit of intellectual honesty consider myself anymore only a Christian - but that I must be some kind of Taoist as well: and on reading Chuang Tzu's philosophy now too, I wholeheartedly embrace this polyreligious side to my own life and mind. The work presented in this book is utterly unlike any philosophical system or idealized religion anywhere else - it performs its functions through extended usage of parable, often humourous** and somewhat absurd, never less than thrillingly thought-provoking. Many of his little stories revolve around natural phenomena and processes and how they relate to the Tao; many are to do with governance or management and the follies of humanity in regard to these; quite a few are simply sideways (generous but still) jabs at Confucianism, which are among the most radical in their philosophical position. I will make no bones about the fact that this book is one I am completely unequipped to be able to summarize or even overview to any degree that really does it justice - I can only say that this text has stuck in my brain and fundamentally altered my perceptive attitudinal modes of being in ways that very few other things have, perhaps nothing other than the Bible itself. Which is odd, considering that while it has a great deal to imply about the nature of faith, goodness, transcendence, etc - Chuang Tzu says virtually nothing about what Western thought would call God. Instead focus is given to the lived experience of humans as creatures, in their quest for meaning and purpose, failing to find it anywhere they do not surrender themselves to the overriding principles of the Tao - and though "wu wei"*** is a core concept in the work, much of what the thinkers who composed this book have to say is actually of a deep and profound practicality in reference to activity, thought and spirituality.

   I absolutely loved this book. It challenged me throughout, while also liberating me into a bigger sensitivity toward the world and its contents and contradictions. It made me think, made me laugh, made me aware of my smallness as well as my potentialities - all the while being nothing less than a superbly well-written series of supremely idiosyncratic anecdotal little happenings, ponderings, reflections and recollections. If you are the least bit interested in Chinese history and culture, in philosophy or spirituality more generally - I cannot recommend this book enough. Chuang Tzu may not have written the whole thing but his spirit pervades it, and in truth he has become one of my few favourite thinkers from across all time and space.

* For an excellent all-age accessible introduction to this dynamic historic personality, check out this delightfully and appropriately idiosyncratic Chinese (with English subtitles fortunately) cartoon series documenting his life, work and influence.

** I shit you not, in places it is actually hilarious. You'd never laugh this much reading, say, the Talmud, were you to approach them even with the same spirit of openness.

*** Wu wei means "actionless action", "non-action" or something like that - it's a complex phrase to translate, but essentially means not striving toward a pre-determined goal, instead merely being content to follow the natural flow of events and things as they are in themselves, and acting only when spontaneous context compels you to act freely. I think, anyway. If you're a Taoist sage reading this and want to correct me please do so in the comments, though given the inherent notion within the Tao of not contending, I recognize you are unlikely to do so.

the Holy Bible

This book* is, you probably need no explanation, the foundational Scripture of Christianity, the world's biggest (and my primary) religion. It is the most widely-translated and best-selling book in human history. I haven't listed an author for this book for three main reasons:

1. It's not "a book" so much as sixty-six texts, some a page long, others spanning large chunks, all organised together into what is more like a library
2. Many of the texts in the book are either anonymously composed or their authorship (as attested by Judeo-Christian tradition) is contested by scholarship
3. As a Christian it is my belief that the Bible is the divinely-inspired word of God, but it feels odd to list my Creator as a mere author

   What's it all about then? In a nutshell, God's liberation of humanity. In less-of-a-nutshell though, I will try to give a succinct and satisfying summary of the overarching narrative found in this book. Hold onto your hats, this is going to be a long paragraph. You probably know the rough shape of how it starts - "in the beginning" God creates the universe, including humanity. The first humans, Adam and Eve, live in total harmony with God, each other, and the world; that is, until a serpent persuades them to do the one thing they have been told they cannot do - eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil - and in punishment they are pushed out into a world that now suffers, as they do. They have children and populate the Earth, etc. The next big things that happen are that God, in frustration at the evil humanity is perpetrating, decides to wipe out humankind with a flood - survived only by Noah and his family, and two of every animal to repopulate the wild; next is again humanity acting out of a sense of cosmic superiority and trying to build a tower to Heaven, which results in God scattering them into a whole host of differing nations and languages. Then we meet a man called Abraham, to whom God promises land, innumerable descendants, and great blessings: so we follow him for a bit, then his son Isaac, then Isaac's son Jacob, who meets and literally wrestles with God and is thus renamed Israel (and yes, I did hear the Bible-novices among you just go "ohhh!"). Jacob's dozen sons settle in Egypt, where they multiply to such an extent that they are made slaves by the Egyptian state. With the help of God sending ten plagues on the Egyptians, a man called Moses liberates the Israelites from slavery and leads them into the wilderness on their journey to the land promised to Abraham: along the way, God legislates a system of laws for them, including the Ten Commandments (which I'm assuming you've heard of) alongside a meticulous programme for appropriate sacrifices and such. Moses dies, but under the leadership of his second, a man called Joshua, the Israelites conquer and settle the promised land. Then things fall apart a bit. Everyone starts eroding in their respect for God's law, and even under the stewardship of a string of prophetic/military leaders called judges, they rebel against it again and again. Eventually the Israelites decide they want a king to lead them, like the other nations; God says this isn't a great idea but nevertheless concedes, but (aside from a short but high-impact Golden Age under the reigns of David, who wrote a great number of poems about the God-ward life, and wise thinker Solomon, who built the temple) the Israelites, just as under the judges, fall into cyclical patterns of rebellion and repentance - with even their kings becoming [a-bit-more-than]-occasional idolaters, tyrants and so on. To nudge Israel back onto the right track, God starts sending prophets - some, like the early Elijah, to confront ungodly kings directly; others like the later Ezekiel and Jeremiah to mourn the godlessness of Israel and expound messages of redemptive hope. In the prophets we read of God's judgement against the nations surrounding Israel as well as against Israel herself - in fact, several of the prophets foretold that Israel would be colonized by the Babylonians and Assyrians, which she was.** Prophets like Daniel continued their work of realizing God's plans for them even during this period of exile; and we begin to see the emergence within God's speeches the specific promise of a messiah, a redeemer, who would wholly and totally liberate Israel from sin and death. Eventually the Israelites are allowed to return home and rebuild their temple, and this more-or-less concludes the Jewish section of the Bible, known in Christianity as the Old Testament - called such because here comes the New Testament. This next (much shorter) Christian section of the Bible begins with the coming in Bethlehem of a man called Jesus, whose birth had been promised to a woman named Mary, a faithful virgin. Jesus grows up and becomes a radical peripatetic rabbi - accruing an enormous number of followers (a core twelve hand-picked by him at the start of his ministry and many more just following him as he goes along because they were intrigued and liberated by what he had to say), healing people, casting out demons, telling parables, pissing off the religious authorities, etc. In a bizarre twist, despite their devotion to him, Jesus's followers didn't really understand who he was - that is to say, the messiah promised in the prophets; especially in the prophetic writings of Isaiah, who had foretold that Israel's messiah would be misunderstood and rejected by them, and ultimately killed. Next, you guessed it - Jesus is killed: betrayed by one of his disciples, taken before the religious and political leaders (at this time in Israel's history it was a Roman colony) and condemned to crucifixion. However our story continues; three days after his death several female followers of Jesus find his tomb empty, and sure enough he then reappears, resurrected from the dead, to his disciples - with the express intent of assuring their conviction that yes he was and eternally is the messiah, and sin has been defeated, and the disciples are to kick-start the task of bringing this good news to the world. Jesus ascends into heaven and the disciples go about their God-given task, only to be heavily persecuted by the Jewish religious authorities and met with ridicule by the predominant Hellenistic culture surrounding Israel. A member of the suppressive class, a man who came to be known as Paul, was challenged by a vision of Jesus, and became a co-worker with the disciples in spreading the good news of Jesus's death and resurrection. Most of the rest of the New Testament is letters written by Paul and other disciples like Peter to various churches around the Roman Empire, exhorting them to continue the work of spreading the good news and developing the huge theological points implied by Jesus's teaching, life, death, and undeath. Finally we close off the whole thing with an apocalyptic series of visions revealed to Jesus's disciple John about the consummation of God's plans for world history.

   I hope that was enough of an introductory overview. Whether you're an ardent Christian fundamentalist who thinks everything I've just talked about is the utterly-literally-true history of our world, or a hardcore skeptic who thinks some (or quite a lot maybe) of it is little more than fanciful myth; it cannot be denied that in the Bible is a wealth of wisdom and historical reflection that can deepen and sharpen our hearts and minds. Reading the Bible is ideally an inherently radical act of self-emptying submission to the truth of God, in our efforts to make sense of its narratives and teachings.

   So, there's an excellent Christian quote by I-forget-whom; "one should visit many good books, but live in the Bible," and I hold to this as an approach to literature. I read parts of the Bible as a regular part of both my devotional life in relationship with God and my philosophical life in all my seeking for a satisfyingly-developed and coherent worldview. The reason I'm doing a post about it now is that I finished reading it cover-to-cover - and while throughout my life I've probably read most of the Bible multiple times or at least once, this was the first time I've worked through the whole thing as a singular entity.

   Would I recommend this book then, verily the book of books? Yes, cautiously, with caveats. It is a complicated library, that spans a narrative of over two-thousand years, and many parts are pretty impenetrable even to people who have devoted their entire lives to studying them; to get the most out of the Bible it is probably recommended (certainly is by me) that you read it alongside commentary, theology and doxology.*** And while I do believe that engaging with the Bible can, in the hopeful light of the Holy Spirit, lead one into a real meaningful relationship with our God - it has to be approached with a certain degree of humility and open-mindedness; as a non-believer who is diving in to try to find justificatory ammunition in their efforts to repudiate Christianity will likely be able to find a lot in there for their purposes, but this would be a misuse/misunderstanding of the text.**** This book is neither a moral rulebook nor a philosophical treatise on reality - it is primarily an account of God's relationship with humanity through the specific lens of ancient Israel, coming to its climax in the life and person of Jesus, who was God incarnate. Come to the Bible with an expectancy that God will meet you halfway and testify to you about Himself, breaking into your heart with liberating conviction, and you're on the right track.

* Over 150 translations of the Bible are available for free from that link. The version I finished was the New King James Version, though for the majority of my reading I tend to use either the English Standard Version or the New Living Translation; as I'm not familiar enough with the breadth of versions out there I can't make any solid recommendations as to exactly what would be the best fit for you, so try out a variety, but for newcomers who have never read the Bible and would like something both accessible and accurate to the ancient texts from which our modern forms are translated, I'd go with the New International Version.

** A quick note on "prophets" - the contemporary understanding of this term has been boiled down to a bastardisation that merely conveys predictions about the future, in a similar kind of category to "seer" or even "wizard". But in the biblical sense, a prophet is someone with a particularly close relationship to God who seeks to share this relationship with those around them by both denouncing the godlessness of others' lives and pointing to the hopes of redemption and true betterness when people return to right relation with God; visions of the future are merely the means by which God's promises and goodness are mediated from eternity into humankind's experience of time.

*** For starters, though there are many theological and doxological texts that I've reviewed for this blog, I wouldn't highlight any one book as I don't know how or where you're going to start your Bible journey - but this YouTube channel, the Bible Project, has some truly fantastic resources for getting to grips with particular books and concepts.

**** Any problems, intellectual or moral or otherwise, that you have with either the Bible or Christianity, are too wide-ranging for me to address here - but if you have a bone to pick do so in the comments and I'll do my best to reply with honesty and humility.

2020 overview

Another year gone - another 95 books read (one of which I wrote myself, so whether I "read" it is a point of debate, because I certainly have, but not in order and more just while it was going along), which is by far my record, beating 2017 (which was my dissertation year and everything) by over twenty - and thus, another yearly recap post (see here for last year's). Admittedly a significant number of those read this past year were very short children's books, but I've got a solid number of challenging books under my belt too. Covid aside this has been a much less dramatic year for me than the last few have, so I don't have too much autobiographical plonkage to spew at you here, so I'll refrain from giving any and just get straight to the meat of the post.

• A book I wrote myself - The Improbable Interplanetary Revolutions of Naomi Moss
• Page-for-page most stimulating Christian book - playing
• Overall most stimulating Christian book - the Cloud of Unknowing
• Best Christian prophetic provocation - Punk Monk
• Best Christian living primer/reminder - the Poet, the Warrior, the Prophet (although Holy Habits, the Soul of Wine, the Prodigal God and Counterfeit Gods also deserve a mention)
• Best Bible study - Romans 1-7 for You
• Best Bible meta-study - the Book of the People (although in a comparative religion sense, you cannot beat the Lost Art of Scripture)
• Most concise Christian exhortation - Talking about Jesus without sounding Religious
• Most creative Christian apologetic - Phoebe
• Most comprehensive Christian apologetic - Rumours of Another World
• Most philosophically edifying - the Path
• Most spiritually questionable - either the Gospel of Judas, the Corpus Hermeticum or Living Dangerously
• Best poetry book - can't decide between witness or the Waste Land. Oh, and The Sheffield Anthology definitely deserves a mention, as probably do Budapest to Babel and Mary Wilson
• Best children's poetry - Rhyme Stew
• Best (okay, only) Doctor Who-themed poetry - Now We Are Six Hundred
• Worst poetry - Phantasmagoria
• Best book about poetry - Poetic Diction
• Best fantasy/sci-fi novels - Stardust, the Dying Earth, and A Wizard of Earthsea & its sequel the Tombs of Atuan (and though I don't think I entirely or even particularly understood it, I did also very much enjoy Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - conversely, I fully understood and somewhat enjoyed Axiom's End)
• Best non-fantasy/sci-fi novels - either A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius or Fight Club - with an honourable mention to the Man Who was Thursday 
• Darkest yet funniest novel - All My Cats
• Steamiest novel - Reckless
• Best humour book - Pistache, with the runner-up being either Husbands: Don't you just love 'em? or Sloth Life (with an honourable mention to All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome)
• Best comic or graphic novel - Watchmen
• Weirdest comic or graphic novel - either Ozma of Oz or this Spiderman story
• Best children's book - Little Turtle Turns the Tide, with Jeremiah Jellyfish Flies High  and Holes as close runners-up. Honourable mentions to Fox, the Diary of a Killer Cat and Emil and the Sneaky Rat; and in Christian considerations also A Pair of Sinners and the Tale of Three Trees
• Best probably-intended-for-children non-fiction - Daredevils & Desperadoes
• Best play - Arcadia
• Not a great non-fiction book but it includes discussion of the play mentioned above so there's your tangential reason for the inclusion of this book in my recap - Life in the Garden
• Most daring non-fiction - Ten Days in a Mad-House
• Most practical non-fiction - How to Argue with a Cat
• Best audiobook - Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue
• Best thing to read if you want to become a detective - Know yourself through your handwriting
• I started playing Dungeons & Dragons properly this past year, as DM no less, and would heartily recommend this activity to anyone - for which you should probably check out the Player's Handbook and Dungeon-Master's Guide (and if you want to go really nuts, swap it up for a sci-fi world with Dark Matter)
• And finally I'm not sure how to categorize this but it's a book by (in fact the only book by) Neal Cassady so it warrants inclusion here - Grace Beats Karma

   As for my intentions to try to read less by white males and more by women, people of colour and the queer community (don't @ me for missing out your favourite minority, I can't list everyone), I think I'm doing better than I have in previous years, but the sad fact remains that most of the books I own are by white dudes, and I'm not going to not read them just because of that sad fact. In any case, the effort continues.

   That's it from me folks - happy New Year and may 2021 bring you many blessings.

   Peace & love

   Isaac Stovell

the Shaking of the Foundations

This book is a collection of sermons from Paul Tillich, the renowned 20th-century existential theologian and teacher. They are extremely wide-ranging in topic and theme, also varying considerably in terms of length & layperson-accessibility (as there are several sermons in here that feel more like transcripts of philosophy lectures); but all have in common Tillich's holistic approach to Christian teaching, which draws on everything from contemporary science to the horrors and promises of modern history to make its points. His writing style is engaging and lucid and I would've loved to hear the man preach live, as there is also a strong undercurrent of emotive heft to his written teachings to the Church - which needs thinkers and leaders like him, given modernity's "shaking the foundations" of ecclesial assumptions. Of course, the title is double-edged - alongside the meaning just noted it also hints at the "shaking the foundations" of the whole modern order by means of God's revelation and Christ's activity in the redemptive power of the Christian worldview. A highly interesting and thought-provoking read: I'd strongly recommend this to readers who are believers that it may challenge and hone their own theology, as well as a tentative recommendation to non-believers, as I think Tillich's arguments stand up pretty darn well on philosophical grounds and therefore could function quite well as apologetics.

Life in the Garden

This book by Penelope Lively is a relatively short but topically wide-ranging survey of the common contemporary garden. Drawing on historical developments, cultural trends, socioeconomic possibilities, and the human relationships with natural plant-life that makes the rest of it all possible, she weaves an interesting path across the subject and makes the humble* garden come to life in a new, invigorating way. Her prose is agreeable enough, and I learnt quite a lot from this book, but didn't particularly feel too compelled to finish it, which is why I've been reading it on-and-off several months before finally completing it. A niche book to recommend, though if you're into gardens or gardening, and want to know more about the rich and storied context of the contemporary "yard", I reckon this would probably be a good place to start.

* Or not so humble in the cases where she's discussing the huge grounds of stately homes, etc. But you get the drift.