Three things make a post!
Right? Right!
One: The revised and expanded version of The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien appears soon and contains more than 150 letters (or parts of letters) which were cut from the first edition so it was of "publishable length"!1 And David Bratman confirms that Hammond & Scull did do a revision/expansion of their invaluable Index.
For those of you who like watching livestreams: the Tolkien Collectors’ are having a Livestream Party talking about the new edition on Friday, November, 10, starting at 10:00 AM Pacific Time.
Two: “How did The Lord of the Rings become a secret weapon in Italy’s culture wars?” by Jamie Mackay, The Guardian, Nov. 3, 2023.
As a longtime fan of JRR Tolkien, I’ve long felt put out by Giorgia Meloni’s bizarre obsession with The Lord of the Rings. Over the years, Italy’s ultra-conservative prime minister has quoted passages in interviews, shared photos of herself reading the novel and even posed with a statue of the wizard Gandalf as part of a campaign. In her autobiography-slash-manifesto, she dedicates several pages to her “favourite book”, which she refers to at one point as being a “sacred” text. When I read the news this week that Italy’s culture ministry is spending €250,000 to organise a Tolkien show at Rome’s National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art,2 and that Meloni will attend the opening, I couldn’t help wondering: why? What is this government trying to achieve by stamping its mark so aggressively on one of the world’s most loved fantasy sagas?
Three: A new Queer Lodgings Podcast is live: Cameron Bourquein and Mercury Natis on Episode 17, “Talking Angbang with Cameron and Mercury.”3
Please note the Content Warning posted at QL:
This episode includes discussion of sex, sexual relationships, kink, BDSM, intimate partner violence at various levels of consent, rape, sexual assault/abuse, abusive relationships, and abusive power dynamics.
Mercury posts information about the podcast *and* additional content (the question of Sauron’s free will) on their Substack, “Partners in Making and Delight” (which I highly recommend subscribing to!).
That was then, this is now, and I’d bet I’m not the only one who would buy an even more expanded edition, say, the 10-volume set! With illustrations by Tolkien!
The link in McKay’s article went to a paywalled story in The Times (London), so I substituted a link to an open article.
For those of us who had never heard of this ship name before (which includes me!):
Specifically, the ship pairing known as ‘Angbang’, which pairs the Dark Lord Sauron against the fallen Valar Morgoth, also known as Melkor. From the history of this ship and how its depictions changed over time, to the best-known Angbang fan fic and fan artists, to all the problematic, messy power dynamics involved… we dive deep into some dark, kinky transformative works to explore why ‘Angbangers’ are so enthralled with this pairing.