VOL. 49 NO. 12 DECEMBER 2012 WHOLE NO. 365 M<THPRINT The Monthly Bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society VOL. 49 NO. 12 DECEMBER 2012 WHOLE NO. 365
FEATURES A New Interview with Simon Tolkien. By Mike Foster ........................................................... 4
Cover Art: Roc by Jef Murray. Jef Murray. http://www.jefmurray.com REVIEWS Film Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Reviewed by Donald T. Williams .............................. 3 Film Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. A Capsule Review by David Bratman ...................... 4 Simon Tolkien. Orders from Berlin. Reviewed by Mike Foster ................................................................... 6 J.R.R. Tolkien. Hobbitus Ille: The Hobbit Translated into Latin. Translated by Mark Walker. Reviewed by Laura Gibbs ................................................................... 8 Anna Kashina. The Princess of Dhagabad and Goddess of the Dance. Reviewed by Kelly Jensen ................... 10 Reviews, discussion group reports, news items, letters, art work, and other submissions for Mythprint are always welcome. In return for printed pieces, contributors who are not already subscribers will receive an electronic copy of the issue in which the item appears. Contributors who are already subscribers will not receive an additional copy. Please contact the editor for details on format, or send materials to:
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ISSN 0146-9347, 2012 The Mythopoeic Society
J.R.R. Tolkien. Hobbitus Ille: The Hobbit Translated into Latin. Translated by Mark Walker. HarperCollins, 2012. xv + 310 pp. $19.99. Reviewed by Laura Gibbs.
M ark Walker is already well-known to the denizens of the Latin Internet as he is the founder and editor of VATES: The Journal of New Latin Poetry. Now, with this Latin translation of 1olkien`s The Hobbit, Mark Walk- er`s work is bound to ind a wid- er audience, and deservedly so. Published by HarperCollins, the book is lovely to look at it. The coer image shows 1olkien`s own rendering of Smaug and his golden hoard elegantly given the look of an ancient mosaic, and the book is illustrated with Tol- kien`s black-and-white drawings and maps. Some of the online listings for the book describe it as an Lnglish-Latin edition,` but prospective readers should be aware that it does not have a facing English text; instead, Eng- lish is used only in the transla- tor`s introduction and appen- dices. There is also a Kindle edi- tion which has the usual digital features (including search), but there is no Kindle Latin look-up dictionary. Based on \alker`s work with VATES, I knew that he would do a marvelous job with the songs in the book, but I did not know just what he would do with 1olkien`s delightul and light- hearted prose style, so utterly different from the style of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and also so ut- terly different from the prose style of any classical Latin author. How would Walker respond to this double temptation to turn The Hobbit into some- thing overly serious and self-important? (A temp- tation the film-maker Peter Jackson apparently could not resist.) Luckily for us, Walker did not eschew 1olkien`s own style or The Hobbit. Just the opposite: \alker`s Latin translation is an homage to 1olkien`s Lnglish in eery detail. So much so, in act, that some readers may be put o by \alker`s highly Anglicized Latin style. Before I tackle this question of Anglicized Latin, however, I think we need first to step back and ask just what purpose is served by a Latin ver- sion o 1olkien`s book. In the absence o any na- tive speakers of Latin, the purpose of this book cannot be to bring The Hobbit at long last to a Lat- in-speaking audience. Instead, a Latin version of The Hobbit allows readers to reacquaint themselves with a beloved and familiar work of literature, pro- voking a thrill of recognition as readers recall the English through the Latin. This desire to see Lnglish in Latin` is an admit- tedly odd phenomenon but very real, as any Latin teacher knows. Rather than wanting to read Cae- sar or Horace, Latin students are often far more excited to learn how to say May the lorce be with you!` in Latin or to sing Sir Mix-A-Lot`s Baby Got Back with Latin lyrics (yes, you can find the lyrics of De clunibus magnis amandis oratio Mixaloti equitis online for your Latin delectation). So too with a Latin version of The Hob- bit: when I told a friend of mine how excited I was to be reading The Hobbit in Latin, she immedi- ately asked, low do you say my precious!` in Latin` Len though she knows no Latin at all, she really wanted the answer to that question (and that answer is: mi pretiose!). My guess is that most copies o \alker`s book will be bought by people who know The Hobbit well in English, perhaps even very well, and who are looking for something fun to read in Latin. Given the shortage of truly fun reading material available in Latin, Hobbitus Ille is a very welcome addition to the ever-expanding catalog of English books, mostly children`s books, that hae been rendered into Latin. On this point, a comparison with the Latin translations of J.K. Rowling (Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis and Harrius Potter et Camera Secretorum, both translated by Peter Need- ham, who is also the translator of Ursus Nomine Paddington) would be in order. While Rowling is certainly fun to read in English, it is because of the characters and plots of the Harry Potter novels, not her prose style. In act, Rowling`s Lnglish style is so undistinguished and unremarkable that there really is no style to recognize and enjoy when
reading Harrius Potter in Latin (though Needham did a wonderful job with both books), and the vocabulary is also very daunting. So, while many Latin students eagerly bought one or even both of the Rowling books in Latin, the reading experi- ence was a frustrating one (as I heard from my own Latin students at the time), and I suspect there are very few people who have read those books from cover to cover. Hobbitus Ille, on the other hand, affords a real rush of pleasure to Latin students with every page. Much o that pleasure comes rom 1olkien`s own warm embrace of the reader, a style which Walker imitates with literal, even hyper-literal, faithfulness. Tolkien constantly addresses his read- ers in a playful and amicable spirit of hospitality that many Latin readers will perhaps be experienc- ing for the very first time. When in a Latin classic has the reader ever been so warmly acknowl- edged? You - tu - are part of this novel in a way that is remarkable for a work of Latin prose. For example, when Gandalf first appears on the scene, 1olkien exclaims, Gandal came by. Gan- dalf! If you had heard only a quarter of what I hae heard about him .` and so \alker: aduenit Gandalphus. Gandalphus! si tu quartam partem solum audivisses rerum quae ego de illo audiui . O course, the narrator knows far more about the world of Middle-earth than we ever will, and we can de- pend on him to make sure to keep us well- informed, as at the opening of the book when he pauses to explain just what a hobbit is. The narra- tion then resumes once the reader`s needs hae been attended to: Now you know enough to go on with,` 1olkien assures us, nunc satis intellegis ut tibi progredi liceat. Reassuring words for any reader, of course - and especially for the eager but hesi- tant reader of a novel in Latin. In addition to coneying 1olkien`s prose style, Walker also opts for literal renderings of English phrases in the Latin, rather than the use of distinc- tively Latin idioms. Without intending anything sacrilegious, the best comparison I can make is to the way that the translators of the Hebrew Bible into Greek and into Latin often included Hebrew idioms rendered literally word-for-word. So, for example, \alker uses the phrase tange et i` to ren- der Lnglish touch and go` ,a rendering that has the intriguing effect of bringing an otherwise dead metaphor back to life as we re-examine the Eng- lish words anew in this Latin garb). Likewise, the phrase ante theam` ,beore tea`, expects that readers recognize the Lnglish metonymy o tea` or tea-time` when reading the Latin, and the characters in the book also like to hae tea,` habere theam` ,een though in Latin, that would usually mean something more like possessing tea, rather than drinking it). In addition, Walker some- times imitates not just English idioms but English syntax. lor example, without the trouble o ask- ing him` is rendered word-for-word as sine labore rogandi eum` een though gerunds in Latin normal- ly do not take an object. \alker`s use o the Latin gerund often follows English word order and style, and there are also some outright errors in which English gerunds are rendered with Latin present participles (English uses the same form for the gerund and the present participle; Latin does not). It is to be hoped that the publisher will make sure that such mistakes, along with the occa- sional typographical error, are corrected in subse- quent editions of the book. The highly Anglicized style of the Latin does not mean that Walker fails to profit from the many opportunities that arise to have fun with the Latin for its own sake. This is especially true in the songs which he renders with a variety of both clas- sical and medieval Latin meters. Given that so few Latin students are exposed to the rich tradition of rhyming Latin verse (as it is a medieval tradition, not a classical one), these rhymed Latin songs are especially welcome. So, for example, near the end o the book, we ind this song o Smaug`s demise: dracone nunc adusto / et corpore combusto / cum armis prorsus fractis / honoribusque sparsis` ,1olkien`s origi- nal: 1he dragon is withered, , lis bones are now crumbled; / His armor is shivered, / His splendor is humbled!`,. 1o help readers naigate the dier- ent classical and medieval meters, Walker has in- cluded an appendix indicating the meter of each of the sixteen songs in the book, along with the rid- dles, which are likewise rendered in Latin verse form. Sometimes too the Latin adds a dimension to the text which is entirely fortuitous but nonethe- less delightful. Consider, for example, the special meaning that orc` now has in this Latin language context. In his own introduction to the book, Tol- kien warned English readers about the meaning of this word orc` as ollows: Orc is not an Lnglish word |.| and it is not connected at all with our orc, ork, applied to sea-animals of the dolphin-
kind.` \alker, howeer, makes a Latin warning instead: id nomen nequaquam pertinet ad Orcum Latine, id est Dis, deus inferus` the name is linked in no way to Orcus` in Latin, that is, Dis, the god o the underworld.` \alker thus alerts his Latin read- ers not to sea orcas, as Tolkien does, but instead to the dread god Hades, Orcus in Latin (yes, you can find the word orca in the Latin dictionary also, but Orcus is definitely the right candidate for this context). Of course, every translation has to strike its own balance between the opportunities and obli- gations associated with the original text and the opportunities and obligations imposed by the tar- get language. \alker`s Hobbitus Ille revels in the use of Latin, very energetically so, but it also re- veals a persistent awareness of the English origi- nal, in a loing eocation o 1olkien`s presence. I the readers of this book were expecting to use it as a model of Latin style, these Anglicized elements could pose a serious problem. As it is, though, the purpose of this book is surely not to provide a model of Latin style (there are plenty of books by native Latin speakers which serve that purpose). Rather, Hobbitus Ille is intended to give readers the experience of an English text in Latin, an experi- ence so pleasurable for its own sake that many readers (I hope) will want to read all three hun- dred pages of the book, enjoying the memorable moments it offers on every page. As Walker asks in his introduction to Hobbitus Ille, \hat is there for the intermediate reader, who is tired of the textbook but not quite ready to grapple with the stately poetry of Virgil or the grand rhetoric of Cicero` It seems to me that \alker has ound both the right text and the right style for meeting the needs of those intermediate Latin readers, fans of the English Hobbit who can now enjoy the Lat- in adventure of Hobbitus Ille. As the most famous song o the book tells us, Roads go eer eer on / Under cloud and under star, / Yet feet that wandering hae gone , 1urn at last to home aar,` pergit iter semper, semper sub nubibus, astris, / sed pedibus tandem sic itur usque domum. The Latin of this book takes us away on an adventure, but it always look- ing homewards to the English as well, an elegiac sic itur usque domum. The result is a blend of famili- arity with fabulae et facinora audacia, bold deeds and tales, that will delight their readers as much in Lat- in as they did in the original English. <Mp> Anna Kashina. The Princess of Dhagabad. Dragon- well Publishing, 2012. eBook, 3.81, $5.95.
Anna Kashina. The Goddess of Dance. Dragonwell Publishing, 2012. 328 pp. $16.95.
Reviewed by Kelly Jensen.
T he Princess of Dhagabad tells the story of a unique friendship. A curse has left the Sultan of Dhagabad unable to father a male child. He has one legitimate heir, a daughter known only as the princess. In keeping with the tradition of her peo- ple, we do not learn her name until the end of the book, she is simply the princess`, which says much about her role in society. When she comes of age, the princess will become a wife, the sultan- ess, and will be known by a name her husband gives her. As the only child of the sultan and sultaness, the princess is allowed certain concessions. She is educated and encouraged in her natural curiosity. On her twelfth birthday, she receives an unu- sual gift - a mysterious bottle once owned by her grandmother. The princess has been waiting for many years to take possession of the bottle and is eager to find out what is inside. She finds she has inherited a very unusual slave, the djinn named Hasan. Formally an all-powerful wizard, Hasan has been enslaved for two thousand years. He can only perorm magic at the princess`s request, mak- ing him a prized slave. Yet, djinn are regarded sus- piciously at best - feared at worst. The princess does not fear her slave. The solemn grey of his eyes sparks compassion and his grasp of all she would like to know kindles her curiosity. Her friendship with the djinn broadens her outlook. The princess learns to think beyond the borders of her ather`s kingdom and to ask questions only Hasan has answers for. Throughout the years, their friendship deepens and they forge an unshak- able bond. When the princess comes of age, a husband is chosen for her, and though the friendship be- tween herself and Hasan has remained sweetly innocent, it is clear they care deeply for one anoth- er. On the eve of her betrothal, the princess is aced with a choice: that o respecting her ather`s wishes and doing what is best for the kingdom, or following her heart. The Mythopoeic Society Box 6707 Altadena CA 91001