Thanks for your reminiscences of JRRT in Oxford. It must have been a different world there from when I had a summer program in Oxford in 1978. Even then, everyone was complaining about the town being overrun and way too congested--which is just how I felt when I was last in Oxford in 1999 and compared that with my previous visits.

To link this a bit with CAS, the year after you were there, L. Sprague de Camp sent Tolkien his anthology Swords & Sorcery (published December 1963), which includes Dunsany's "Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller", Robert E. Howard's "Shadows in the Moonlight", Lovecraft's "The Doom That Came to Sarnath", CAS's "The Testament of Athammaus", as well as stories by Poul Anderson, Henry Kuttner, Fritz Leiber, and C.L. Moore. Unfortunately, we have Tolkien's comments on only two of these authors. First, he disparaged Dunsany for the ending of his tale, which pricked the illusion of the story for the sake of a (poor) joke. Second, de Camp reports that Tolkien told him he "rather liked" the story by Robert E. Howard. With regard to the qualifying word "rather", I understand that while in US usage this is taken to be an emphatic, in British usage it is taken as a qualifier, thus meaning something more akin to "moderately liked" rather than really "liked". Too bad we have no comment on the CAS tale!

Doug

Quote:

Too bad we have no comment on the CAS tale!

If it was to be a dismissive opinion, and I suspect it may have been, then I am glad that we don't have it! I lost a bit of respect for M.R. James after reading his dishy remarks about Lovecraft. (Although, in fairness to James, he never intended that his comments be made public).

My second daughter just finished a Master's at Oxford last year -- While she had a splendid academic experience, she is deeply concerned as a woman and executive at the apparent attempt by some to blend Sharia law with English law - only the truly unlearned could hope for such a horror - she found it quite frightening - there is, of course a growing Muslim community from the uneducated classes - a colleague of my wife's had married a Muslim fellow from Arabia - they fell into conflict, and he simply took the 2 children and vanished into the vastness and total anonymity of Arabia - she has no idea where the children are, and no way to find out - she is grateful he did not murder her first - Ah, well not relevant to the post -

Other area of posts - "Rather", from JRR is fairly high praise - it means he found no fault in the construction -

For Oconnor -- Just keep giving it your best - the books I sent you to (and I add, Don Fryer's stuff to that list) will not damage your work -- you should work on some of the small stuff also, such as usage for " to, and too", "affect and effect" -
The greater danger to many writers is having read too much, and allowing the manner in which some other writer used a word to slow down your flow of ideas -
Write, proof, put it away - come back, look again, and have someone else read it to you aloud - Allow your brain to connect its own synapses from the works you consume - and wonderful new things will emerge. Don't worry about "Purple prose" -
it is easier to prune, than to expand - when I direct a play, I always require my performers to "overact", to emote, use broad gestures, go overhoard - I can then trim the performance back a little, and then allow the butterflies of opening night to pull the performance down to the proper level - if they underplay during rehearsal, on stage will be dull, through natual nervousness - writing needs some of the same tricks to play on oneself -- at least until after the first million words.

calonlan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My second daughter just finished a Master's at
> Oxford last year -- While she had a splendid
> academic experience, she is deeply concerned as a
> woman and executive at the apparent attempt by
> some to blend Sharia law with English law - only
> the truly unlearned could hope for such a horror -
> she found it quite frightening - there is, of
> course a growing Muslim community from the
> uneducated classes - a colleague of my wife's had
> married a Muslim fellow from Arabia - they fell
> into conflict, and he simply took the 2 children
> and vanished into the vastness and total anonymity
> of Arabia - she has no idea where the children
> are, and no way to find out - she is grateful he
> did not murder her first - Ah, well not relevant
> to the post -
>
> Other area of posts - "Rather", from JRR is fairly
> high praise - it means he found no fault in the
> construction -
>
> For Oconnor -- Just keep giving it your best - the
> books I sent you to (and I add, Don Fryer's stuff
> to that list) will not damage your work -- you
> should work on some of the small stuff also, such
> as usage for " to, and too", "affect and effect" -
>
> The greater danger to many writers is having read
> too much, and allowing the manner in which some
> other writer used a word to slow down your flow of
> ideas -
> Write, proof, put it away - come back, look again,
> and have someone else read it to you aloud - Allow
> your brain to connect its own synapses from the
> works you consume - and wonderful new things will
> emerge. Don't worry about "Purple prose" -
> it is easier to prune, than to expand - when I
> direct a play, I always require my performers to
> "overact", to emote, use broad gestures, go
> overhoard - I can then trim the performance back a
> little, and then allow the butterflies of opening
> night to pull the performance down to the proper
> level - if they underplay during rehearsal, on
> stage will be dull, through natual nervousness -
> writing needs some of the same tricks to play on
> oneself -- at least until after the first million
> words.


Thank you Dr. Farmer. I have tried your advice and guess what? The chance which once had me are now gone. What a refreshing feeling. I hope to have a story complete soon to share with all you guys. So is your Daughter wanting to become a lawyer? That is cool.

This particular daughter (no. 2) spent several years on the executive board of Girl Scouts of America, primarily promoting programs to get young women into science (her youngest sister is a Chemical Engineer) - She is at present CEO of WIT in Denver - women in Technology -
My eldest is a teacher in Taliquah, OK, where she took a Master's in English (surprise - her first words were quoting me, "badly, it's an adverb!") - My son is working on a second BA in Industrial Design - his first was in Communications (film) he is married to a lovely Philippine girl who is an MD ( her father was Mayor of Manila for many years until run out by Marcos) -- they have two exquisite little girls now 8 and 11 (my eldest has to part Choctaw Indians, blond, one with blue the other with brown eyes - 18 and 16 ) - My youngest is married to black classical musician (studied performance Cello with Emmanuel Axe - Yo Yo Ma's accompanist - and is an orchestra conductor - they have two remarkable kids - Josha, 12, and Jasmine 10 -
The eldest grandchild is in college - So we have 4 children homemade, all with degrees, two with MA's - we also raised 5 others who blew in on a tumbleweed in various states of disrepair - two of these are dead, one in a horse/mototcycle accident - one probably reverted to the drug life and died alone somewhere, - a third was brought over from Viet Nam for plastic surgery having been shot to pieces (Time Magazine 1968), and after having him with us for 2 years, their gov't would send no more unless the first went back - we have not heard from him after one year of his return, now 38 years ago -- the remaining two are doing really well - one went on to an independent life after we got her feet repaired (Muscular Dystrophy), and is a cute little redheaded heavy equipment operator - the other is a Priest in Tacoma, Wa. Don't know why I put all this in - but I get asked a lot. The one thing I will request or Yahweh or Thassagua (whatever) is that next time he arranges it so we can have our grandchildren first!

This thread about procrastination on the Poe forum, I found interesting. A problem I think is related to the perfectionism and feeling of insufficiency O'Connor mentions, that can paralyze the growing and struggling artist.

http://poestories.com/discuss.php?article=42ba75e676330



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 27 Jun 09 | 05:01PM by Knygatin.