The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun by J.R.R. Tolkien

In this volume of posthumously-published work by J.R.R. Tolkien, we are treated to his reworking of two related tales  - from the Poetic or Elder Edda -  which  Tolkien's cast into modern(ish) English poems that follow the rules of Norse poetry. Christopher Tolkien guesses that his father wrote these poems some time in the early 1930s.

The two poems are preceded by an foreword by Christopher Tolkien which explains his father's interest in legends from "the nameless North", an essay by Tolkien, which probably was to be the basis of a lecture on the Elder Edda, and some brief notes related to the history and subject matter of the poems.  They are followed by three more broadly explanatory appendices by Christopher Tolkien regarding the origins of the legends, and the history of Attila the Hun.

The two poems themselves are a bit hard to follow if one is not already familiar with the original legends; however, Christopher Tolkien has provided helpful explanatory notes after each poem.  The difficulty of the poems is intentional: Tolkien was mimicking style of Old Norse poetry.  Here finesse in the form of the story was not paramount, what was desired was energy and the impact of the language and the sound of the language. As Tolkien says:

...Old English verse does not attempt to hit you in the eye. To hit you in the eye was the deliberate intention of the Norse poet ... Few who have been through this process can have missed the sudden recognition that they had unawares met something of tremendous force, something that in parts (for it has various parts) is still endowed with an almost demonic energy, in spite of the ruin of its form.

In short, the poems are fleet and vigorous, and they are short on narration and exposition.  And so it is with Tolkien's poems in this volume.  I admit I lost the thread of the story on more than one occasion, but I was rescued by the explanatory notes. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

So do you want to know what the poems were about? Well, read the book.

Publishing details: The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun by J.R.R. Tolkien (edited by Christopher Tolkien, HarpersCollins, London, 2009, pp.376)

The Dhammapada

This book is categorised as religion/mythology, so let's start by talking money.  When I bought this book, its r.r.p. was $8.95.  Those were the days!

Talking about them thar days, The Dhammapada was probably composed about 2300 years ago, and is supposedly the words of the Buddha.  The book is divided into 26 chapters, and is made up of 423 short verses.  Each chapter treats with one or more of the concepts of the eightfold path of Buddhism, but its central message can be summed up with this verse:

Do not what is evil.
Do what is good.
Keep your mind pure.
This is the teaching of the Buddha.

 The translator Juan Mascaró has provided an extended introductory essay that is a gem especially cut for those who are seeking the Inner Light. 

I loved this book when I read it all those years ago. I love it now. And I have loved it all the times I have read it in between. The Dhammapada is compact; it is terse; it is short and easy to read, and yet it is powerful. There is a statement on every page that forces us to examine our preconceptions, our misconceptions and our complacency, and challenges us to change for the better. IMAO.

Publishing details: The Dhammapada translated by Juan Mascaró (Penguin, London, 1973, pp.93.)

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien by J.R.R. Tolkien

I never thought I would enjoy a book of someone's letters.  In the case of this book I was happily mistaken.  Of course, it doesn't hurt that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote my favourite book - The Lord of the Rings - so it makes sense that I might like to get an insight into his mind via a route other than his fiction.

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien encompasses his life from 1914 (when he was 22 years old) to 1973 (when he died a widower, aged 81) and is comprised of 354 of his letters (or excerpts thereof).  The first letter in the volume was addressed to Edith Bratt, his future wife and the mother of his four children.  The last letter was addressed to his only daughter Pricilla and was written just four days before his death.

The contents of the letters cover the main aspects of Tolkien's life: his family and friends, his academic career, his dealings with publishers and translators, and his fiction.  Through these letters we get a partial glimpse into an unfolding life. We find a man who is deep-minded, conservative, religious and loving and who, by turns, is also playful, fastidious or even utterly serious.

Fellow Middle Earth enthusiasts will enjoy the letters of explanation Tolkien wrote to his curious fans in the 50s and 60s who asked for details about hobbits and dwarves and elves and their histories.   I enjoyed those particular letters too. Amongst the other letters two are, to my mind, particularly memorable.  In the first, Tolkien describes the death of his former friend C.S. Lewis as 'an axe-blow near the roots', and an old man's pain is very evident and yet expressed with Edwardian restraint.  The second was addressed to his (now adult) son Michael, who was suffering from depression and 'sagging faith'.  Tolkien gently comforts his son and then tells him about the consolations of Christian faith: tender, poignant and deeply personal.

I am very glad that I read this book of Tolkien's letters.  I liked it so much that I think I will read it again in the near future, perhaps one letter a day, so I can stretch it out over the course of a year.   

Publishing details: The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter (Harper Collins, London, 2006, pp.502)

As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams by Lady Sarashina

"One thousand years ago a woman in Japan with no name wrote a book without a title." So says Ivan Morris in his introduction; it is an imprecise description but an provocative one.  Although we don't know the author's given name, we do know her family name was Sugawara, and that she was the daughter of a man named Takasue. However, she is known to us as Lady Sarashina - a name derived from her mentioning a mountain in the province of Sarashina; and the title of this translation of the nameless book is taken from a poem.  Even so, there is something intriguing about a "nameless" Japanese woman living a thousand years ago, writing a nameless autobiography.

The book covers the period 1020-1059, at the height of the Heian period.  At this time, although very few people could read,  there was a flourishing of literature, mainly originating from the educated aristocrats and courtesans.  Lady Sarashina was both a beneficiary of, and a contributor to, this culture.  In her book, Lady Sarashina covers her life from ages twelve to fifty (or so).  The author spent her first twelve years in the remote eastern provinces of Honshu, the largest of Japan's four main islands.  In the first chapter she straightaway sets out her main theme : 

Yet even shut away in the provinces I somehow came to hear that the world contained things known as Tales, and from that moment my greatest desire was to read them for myself ... [and I prayed to Buddha]: "Oh, please arrange things so that we may go to the Capital, where there are so many Tales, and please let me read them all.

Her prayer is soon answered and her family moves to the Capital, Heian Kyo (now present-day Kyoto) and before too long she is given a copy of Lady Murasaki's Tale of Genji.  We soon find out that Lady Sarashina was a dreamy youth without either spiritual or worldly ambitions, and she waits passively for a Prince Charming to whisk her away.  By the end of her account, the author is a sad and bitter woman in ill-health. She says: "If only I had not given myself over to Tales and poems but had spent my time in religious devotions, I should have been spared this misery."

Dreams figure prominently in the writing, and they mostly of a spiritual nature, which the author fails to take to heart. She also undertakes many pilgrimages to sacred sites, but these tend to be diversions from life at home rather than spiritual quests. 

Lady Sarashina tells her own tale using a combination of plain narrative, travelogue and poetry.  Descriptions of her fellow humans are usually terse, while those of the natural world are fuller and certainly more lyrical.  We are privy to her thoughts and emotions, but they are uneven: she is very aggrieved by the deaths of her sister and her parents, but she does not mention her marriage and hardly mentions her husband or children.

As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams gives us a sketchy but beguiling insight into Japanese life as it was at the beginning of the last millennium and a wistful journey through life with the flawed and pitiful Lady Sarashina.

Publishing details: As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams - Recollections of a Woman in Eleventh-Century Japan (Penguin, London, undated, trans. Ivan Morris. pp.153)