Beren and Lúthien by J.R.R Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien ed.

3.5 Stars

A labor of love. Not just Beren's feats to win Lúthien, but also Christopher Tolkien for his father and his apparently enormous oeuvre. This is an archivist's weaving of the fragments of the tale of Beren and Lúthien from a selection of separate works to relay the most complete, yet, not rewritten telling of this love story.

The verse in the various cantos and Quenta is lyrical, mesmerizing, and beautiful. While the publisher pushed Tolkien for prose and the result, The Lord of the Rings, is wonderful, the verse and Tolkien's love of heroic poetry is resplendent.

'Be he friend or foe, or demon wild
of Morgoth, Elf, or mortal child,
or any that here on earth may dwell,
no law, nor love, nor league of hell,
no might of Gods, no binding spell,
shall him defend from hatred fell
of Feanor's sons, whoso take or steal
or finding keep a Simaril.
These we alone do claim by right,
our thrice enchanted jewels bright.'

Or:

From wall to wall she turned and wheeled
in dance such as never Elf nor fay
before devised, nor since that day;
than swallow swifter, than flittermouse
in dying light round darkened house
more silken-soft, more strange and fair
than sylphine maidens of the Air
whose wings in Varda's heavenly hall
in rhythmic movement beat and fall.

While this is a self-contained telling of the story of Beren and Lúthien pulled from various works and unpublished pieces, the largest being "The Lay of Leithian". I still feel like I might have been better off if I had read The Silmarillion, first. It's not that Christopher Tolkien does a bad job, if anything I think the work and dedication clearly evident in pulling the fragments together into a coherent whole is admirable, but there is context that I'm missing. Nonetheless, watching the story change as the years progress is very interesting.

Tolkien's love of language is at the forefront and there are so many things which tickled my brain as I read. Various references to Norse mythology, Rapunzel theme with Tinúviel, and an interesting interplay between Chinese and Japanese, which in a post-WWI context would be fun to explore further. I do like to see the hints of history that pepper through his work.

Huan, Hound of Valinor means "change" in Chinese, a great wolfhound that is pictured on the cover. He is a critical character in the story. Beren's trial include being thrall to the evil Prince of Cats, Tevildo which in one variant is referred to as Ainu, name of the indigenous peoples of Japan. So, there are definitely political themes relevant to Tolkien referenced. Frankly, I'm curious if the added storyline of Kili/Tauriel in the Hobbit movie was influenced by Beren and Lúthien.

There are some lovely image plates accompanying the story. I recommend this for Tolkien fans only.

Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy by Noam Chomsky

4 Stars

Understanding global politics is like string art; it's not complete until you can see all the threads intersect.

Chomsky lambasts nearly every nation state that makes the news in this book, both U.S. political parties, and if you can't comprehend the United States as an imperialist power then this book is going to be a huge miss for you.

Chomsky's the person that stands up and says, "The Emperor is Naked".

You've written about a "democracy deficit"

"Deficit" is an understatement. Iran just had an election, and people criticized it, rightly, because you can't even enter Iranian political system unless you're vetted by clerics. That's terrible, of course. But what happens here [US]? You can't enter the political system unless you're vetted by concentrations of private capital. If you can't raise millions of dollars, you're out. Is that better?

This exemplifies the discourse within the book. Questions or thoughts are posed for Chomsky to extrapolate on. The sections include: State Spying and Democracy; A Tour of the Middle East; Power Systems Do Not Give Gifts; ISIS, the Kurds, and Turkey; Living Memory; Fearmongering; Alliances and Control; The Roots of Conflicts; Toward a Better Society; Elections and Voting; Crises and Organizing; The Trump Presidency.

Rocker wrote, "Political rights do not originate in parliaments, they are, rather, forced upon parliaments from without."

From below, in fact. I think that's an accurate comment. Power systems do not give gifts willingly. In history, you will occasionally find a benevolent dictator or a slave owner who decides to free his slaves, but these are basically statistical errors. Typically, systems of power will try to consolidate, sustain, and expand their power. That's true of parliaments, too. It's popular activism that compels change.

You said in a recent interview that U.S. policies have "succeeded in spreading jihadi terror from a small tribal area in Afghanistan to virtually the whole world, from West Africa to Levant to Southeast Asia. How did they do that?"

When the only method you have is to use your comparative advantage in violence, you will always make the situation worse. The military analyst Andrew Cockburn points out that every time you kill a leader, you think it's a big triumph. But what you're doing, almost invariably, is replacing him with a younger, more competent, more violent leader. It happens over and over.

So, when people say these actions are free recruitment advertising; they're serious. The question that Chomsky keeps coming back around to is what is your objective? Sometimes solving a problem isn't the fun or palatable option and the money game makes everything worse.

"When you're an activist, you have to think about the people you're trying to protect, and not just make yourself feel good."

I recommend this book if you're still working out a comprehensive worldview because Chomsky does a good job highlighting cause and effect in essentialist terms. Short, sweet, and to the point.


Favorite quote:

The efforts that go into trying to ensure the end of humanity are impressive. If there were somebody from outer space watching this, they could only conclude that humans are an absolutely unviable species, an evolutionary error tending toward self-destruction.