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Stirring Rings  by Larner 16 Review(s)
ExcelsisReviewed Chapter: 35 on 3/19/2013
Have you read the works of Edith Nesbit? I myself was very charmed by The Railway Children (not fantasy, I know, but very touching and highly recommended), and when I was a small child I read The Ship That Flew by Hilda Lewis.

My my! What discussion material we have.

ExcelsisReviewed Chapter: 35 on 3/19/2013
Tolkien's love of nature, is of course, inescapable. I wonder what his attitude towards the Industrial Revolution was. From what I gathered from his letters, he seemed to have loved the sime he spent in a small hamlet in Sarehole.

ExcelsisReviewed Chapter: 35 on 3/19/2013
Good Heavens! I fear I made a few spelling miatakes like "world", not "word" and sculpture has been spelled in an interesting but incorrect way. It's too bad that my computer doesn't have spell-check.

On the whole, I find Storis of Arda to be a good site because there really is quality control and management. I have visited fanfiction.net before, and often what you get there is very silly.

ExcelsisReviewed Chapter: 35 on 3/19/2013
I have also always found the failure of the White Council (even including Saruman's intereference) to investigate and to act when they had hundreds of years to do so to be somewhat vexing. Even if the Necromancer had turned out to be a lesser servant of evil, one less Necromancer in the world makes the word a better place.

ExcelsisReviewed Chapter: 35 on 3/19/2013
If you like history, especially cultural history, I would also recommend From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun. A man with wonderfully deep knowledge and a rather engaging style. He chronicles Western cultural history from the Renaissance to the present.

As for my own musical tastes, I find Bach to be supreme whereas in painting, I most admire Raphael and i scukpture, Micheangelo.

ExcelsisReviewed Chapter: 35 on 3/19/2013
Truly, you have travelled far and wide in the realm of fantasy literature. I used to love the Athurian cycles when I was a child, who, like many others, admired the virtuous knights of the Round Table and the little paradise on Earth created in Camelot.

Now however, I find that the this Matter of Britain is too tragic. All the characters in the end (unless I am very much mistaken) meet a tragic fate. I never understood why Merlin continued to teach Nimue his secrets even though he was thoroughly possessed of the foreknowledge that Nimue would betray him. Curses and witchcraft are omnipresent, while the goodness of God seems to be distant. Do you have a favourite character? Mine would be Sir Galahad, who was the purest of them all. Do you have a favourite story? Mine would be the rescue of the lady by Sir Gareth and the Quest for the Holy Grail.

If Arthur is tragedy, then Robin Hood can I am sure be considered as comedy.

I find that the Chronicles of Narnia is a sweet and very allegorical story, more for children than Tolkien, some of whose scenes can be very dark. Tolkien portrays both absolute or near absolute goodness in the forms of Elves (I grant that a few of them were more susceptible to evil than their peers, but on the whole, the purity of their hearts is without parallel in Middle-earth) as well as absolute evil.

I have read Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea trilogy and found it to be quite philosophical in vein, but though I enjoyed it, I do not consider it to be the very best in the field. I read L'Engle (A Wrinkle in Time) as a very small child, so sadly did not appreciate much of it.

May I presume that your favourite character in The Lord of the Rings is Aragorn?

So you are also interested in history and archaelogy and brain mapping and poetry? I used to be quite a history enthusiast, and even now, my family tells me that my understanding of it is vast. I know a lot more about Western history, however, than about Oriental history, mainly because I have always found that tackling the story of China is very difficult. One has to go through 9 major dynasties as well as a myriad of smaller periods.

I used to study The Second World War in partucular, and must regret that Britain and France made enough major mistakes during the 1930s to allow for German victory in 1940.

I am also very interested (I think I'm overusing this word) in neuroscience. The brain is the most fascinating and complex piece of matter in the universe, and if we can understand it, then humanity would be able to realise its true potential.

Have you travelled much for archealogical purposes? I have visited the Louvre and the British Museum (Elgin marbles) as well as many Italian museums but have never been on-site, though I wish to go to Greece one day.

What style of poetry do you like? Just to list one example, there is a passage attributed by George Eliot to Alfred de Musset which is strikingly beautiful.

Nous causames longtemps; elle etait simple et bonne.
Ne sachant pas le mal, elle faisait le bien;
Des richesses du coeur elle me fit l'aumone,
Et tout en ecoutant comme le coeur se donne,
Sans oser y penser je lui donnai le mien;
Elle emporta ma vie, et n'en sut jamais rien.

Which means:


"We talked for a long time; she was simple and kind.
Knowing no evil, she did only good:
She gave me alms from the riches of her heart,
And listening intently as she poured out her heart,
Scarcely daring to think, I gave her mine;
Thus she carried off my life, and never even knew it."

I also loved some passages in Paradise Lost, the most poignant scene for me being the departure of Adam and Eve and their vow to support each other in the wilderness. And of course, what plays do you like?

Since you like poetry, do you like novels as well? If you do, then I would seriously recommend Middlemarch, by George Eliot, which I believe to be of the greatest novels ever writtn. Virginia Woolf described it as one of the few novels written for grown-ups.

And what about music and painting?

Since we have much time to discuss, I shall end this rather long message here. Hope to hear from you soon!

ExcelsisReviewed Chapter: 35 on 3/17/2013
To expand the discussion still further, are you familiar with the Greek, Egyptian, Norse, etc myths?

Author Reply: When I say that I grew up reading mythology, I mean ALL myths. I started with Greek and Roman mythology, both of which are heavily featured in Bullfinch's. He also covers Norse mythology, and covers both the Charlemagne and Arthurian cycles as well. My mother began getting me more books of myths and legends, which expanded on the Norse and introduced me to Persian myths and legends. As I said, I read a good deal of Pyle's works, which got heavily into Arthur and Robin Hood. I have probably forty or so treatments of Arthur, ranging from Tolkien's own translation of Gawain and the Green Knight to Steinbeck's book of Arthurian Legends, also of course including Stewart's and Bradley's and T.H. White. The most realistic treatment of Arthur, however, is probably Sutcliff's "Sword at Sunset."

I have a very extensive personal library, and much of it is focused on my many obsessions, including myths, legends, fantasy, fairy, and folk tales. MacDonald's "The Light Princess" was my favorite fairy tale when I was growing up, and I have two collections of his shorter works for children. I read Martin's first three books when they were first published over fifteen years ago, and predicted then that he would end up being seen as Tolkien's most influential successor. His works are highly literate, original, and full of wonderful characterizations and gripping story-telling. I stopped reading the Shannara series with the first book--Brookes ripped of Tolkien big-time in writing "The Sword of Shannara," and I lost respect for him immediately, although I did enjoy "Magic Kingdom for Sale." I can't begin to name all my favorite fantasy writers, and I bless Tolkien for his influence in finally convincing publishers that the common belief held up through the sixties that adults didn't read fantasy was false. Ace and Avon were the first publishers to begin publishing fantasy for adults as its own genre, and it was interesting that among the first books Ace published were the works of Merritt, who wrote originally in the thirties, forties, and early fifties, and whose works were first disguised as science fiction and so on. "The Ship of Ishtar" was first presented by Ace as a mystery, for Pete's sake, and it's based on ancient Babylonian mythology!

ExcelsisReviewed Chapter: 35 on 3/17/2013
And on the subject of admiration, it must be the worst possible thing to choose as your penname Deo, or Eru Iluvatar!

ExcelsisReviewed Chapter: 35 on 3/17/2013
To ensure that I am not believed to be arrogant, my pen name, Excelsis, comes from the fact that I like the phrase "Gloria in Excelsis Deo".

I've always been a little saddened by Valarin passivity with regards to Middle-earth, but I suppose it reflects Tolkien's view that mortals must do the work of defeating evil by their own free will instead of relying on divine aid.

Author Reply: If you've read the works of Orson Scott Card, you may find the origin of my penname. Heh! Am rereading one of the relevant works right now, in fact.

ExcelsisReviewed Chapter: 35 on 3/17/2013
I also wonder if you have read some of the more modern fantasy books. There is quite a litary of them, and one almost does not know which one to read. There is, however, A Game of Thrones which is relatively famous. Have you read that?

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