Page Created: 12/21/13. Last Updated: 04/14/14.
YVETTE KISOR
Faculty Page, Ramapo College: http://www.ramapo.edu/sshgs/faculty/yvette-kisor/
Additional Page, Ramapo College: http://pages.ramapo.edu/~ykisor/
MEETING SUMMARY
Meeting Date: January 11, 2014.
Meeting Site: Saddle River Valley Cultural Center, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Official Attendance: 21.
Meeting Program: Talk on Tolkien / Beowulf / King Arthur by Ramapo College Professor.
Notes:
Newsletter Account
The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2014 Philip J De Parto:
Year 30 of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County got off to a very nice start on Saturday, January 11, 2014 at the Saddle River Valley Cultural Center in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. While the heavy fog cut down on the attendance, those who did persevere enjoyed a most pleasant evening of fantasy and science fiction. Our pre- and post- meeting activities were well attended and all were in good spirits.
OBLIVION ISLAND: HARUKA AND THE MAGIC MIRROR was shown by our Animation Associates. The Japanese computer-animated feature about a teenaged girl who enters a magic world through a fountain lived up to its good press, Things got a bit strange on the main floor. Phil, Kathy, Yvette, Barry and Pam read from the Secret Diaries by Clarissa Clare, a humorous and ribald look at what was really going on with the Lord of the Rings crew. Yvette, our speaker, delivered Sauron's lines with gusto. Phil could not get past Saruman's plans to breed "goblins and cheerleaders to create a super-perky army that can travel by day and will not complain about pink uniforms."
Yvette Kisor of Ramapo College was our guest speaker. She has taught literature classes in Arthurian Legend, BEOWULF and the works of J R R Tolkien at the school and discussed aspects of all these works at the meeting. This write up shall focus primarily on her comments about Tolkien.
There has long been an academic bias against teaching the works of Tolkien, particularly in England. Many academics feel he spent too much time writing works of popular fiction and not enough on academic papers. Our speaker believes this attitude is misguided and that while Tolkien might not have written a lot of academic works, what he did write was masterful.
The author was always most comfortable in small, close-knit male literary groups. His first group of this sort formed at the end of his teenaged years. The other three members of the group died in World War I. JRRT served in the war and was wounded during the Battle of the Somnes.
While we don't think of the Oxford Don as a romantic, he was thunderstruck when his future wife danced for him in the woods. He recast the experience in his early tale, "Beren and Luthien," found in THE SILMARILLION. They referred to each other by those names, and the Tolkien headstones read "Beren" and "Luthien."
Everyone knows that THE HOBBIT began as a story Tolkien told to his children. What most people do not realize is that THE HOBBIT which we read is not THE HOBBIT that was first published. The version of THE HOBBIT we read is one Tolkien rewrote to more closely integrate it into the mythology of The Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson has done the same thing in his HOBBIT movies.
THE HOBBIT circulated in manuscript form among his literary friends, The Inklings. One member of the group suggested submitting the work to Unwin, which published the work.
C S Lewis' space trilogy arose out of a conversation between the two men which went something like, "You know, we should write the sort of works we enjoy. One of us should do space, the other, time." So Lewis wrote OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET, PERELANDRA and THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH and modeled Ransom, the protagonist, upon Tolkien. JRRT started THE NORTON CLUB PAPERS, an unfinished novel which used a form of astral-dream time travel.
Tolkien's tendency to get bogged down in philosophic details is part of the reason THE NORTON PAPERS and THE SILMARILLION were never completed. One issue with which the author wrestled was the nature of evil. If the orcs are inherently evil, then it is noble and righteous to slay them. But if they are merely on the opposite side of the field from you, then it's an altogether different matter. JRRT never quite made up his mind on this. If the orcs are merely targets to be shot, why is there a scene in which Sam overhears some orcs talking about what they will do after the war is over and things settle down?
Another issue with THE SILMARILLION was its amorphous structure. Tolkien constructed "The Cottage of the Lost Way" as an attempt to provide a framework. He abandoned that, as well as a second attempt, "The Lost Road."
Given Tolkien's background, it is no surprise that speech is very important in his works. Orcs speak Cockney, other characters use archaic word patterns, while Aragorn and Gandolf switch speech patterns depending on who they are addressing.
Some miscellaneous notes about Tolkien follow. The dwarf names come from the Eddas. While the women are by-and-large missing, the women in THE SILMARILLION are more interesting. There is a scene between Gandolf and Boromir in the appendixes of LOTR. Ms Kisor thought the movie trilogy did a good job developing Boromir, whom she found dull on the printed page. THE FATHER CHRISTMAS LETTERS is a terrific book by Tolkien that few read. Our speaker also recommended ROVERENDUM. Non-Tolkien works of interest mentioned were GLITTER'S SAGA, the VULSUNGA SAGA and Aristo's ORLANDO FURIOSO.
A comment about Smaug moved the talk to BEOWULF. although there is a reference to the story in the Anglo-Saxon poem, DEOR, the actual BEOWULF manuscript was preserved almost by accident. Most scholars believe the work dates back to the eighth century, but a minority argues the eleventh century. In any case, the yarn was originally set in Denmark, "but Britain needed an epic, so they stole it." The poem is a re-work of an earlier Norse saga about a hero fighting a troll. Something about the tale appeals to the modern sensibility as both Michael Crichton (EATER OF SOULS) and John Gardiner (GRENDEL) gave their own spin on the work. Speaking of the Norse roots of the epic, our guest commented that "Women are weird in Norse saga. They use their power to incite men to take terrible actions."
This was one of our quickest, easiest post-meeting clean ups in a long time, and we gratefully thank everyone who pitched in.
TO BE CONTINUED