XPost: soc.culture.south-africa, rec.arts.books.tolkien
From: hayesmstw@hotmail.com
On Tue, 6 Jan 2004 14:09:17 +0200, "Moira de Swardt"
wrote:
>
>"Steve Hayes" wrote in message
>> wrote:
>
>> >I'm surprised that no one has discussed the final offering from
>The
>> >Lord of the Ring trilogy.
>
>> >I saw it tonight and it is magnificent. It is certainly as good
>as
>> >the other two. It is, however, very long, and the ending seemed
>to
>> >drag, or maybe I was simply very tired of sitting at that point.
>
>> >What news about it from the other side of the world where it was
>> >created, Peter? I'm sure you must already have seen it.
>
>> It has been discussed endlessly in rec.arts.books.tolkien, and so
>some extent
>> in alt.books.inklings
>
>I thought it was relevant to soc.culture.south-africa at a different
>level.
Possibly.
I looked back in my diary to the day I first read it, and found this:
10-Oct-1966, Monday: Durham University
We had only one lecture in the morning, and most of the rest of
the morning I spent cloistered in my room, reading the final part
of The Lord of the Rings. After lunch went to have tea with the
principal - with Graham and a little bloke called Barnes. John
Fenton's wife, Linda, is about twenty years younger than he is.
There is a very young baby, which was crying or gurgling most of
the time, and a Burmese cat, a very friendly-looking animal -
which is apparently pregnant by an alley cat. Linda wanted to
know if cats could have abortions, because they didn't want a
litter of mongrel kittens. Frank Cranmer came in, and we had a
right merry time with this Barnes. He was a graduate from
Lampeter, an institution in Wales. Whenever anything was
mentioned that was inefficient or nutty about the church, he
applauded it loudly. He appeared to think that New Zealand was
still a crown colony, and the idea that New Zealanders no longer
thought of England as "home" horrified him. When he acclaimed the
startling (to me) and radical revelation that the Bishop of
Durham lived at Bishop Auckland, and the Bishop of Jarrow lived
in Durham, Linda kicked a box of tissues at him, he was, of
course, an arch-Tory, and Frank said afterwards that he probably
was a fan of King Charles the Martyr, and wanted the Jacobites to
return to the throne. At 4:15 Barnes and Graham Mitchell and I
went with the Vice Principal to the Castle for the matriculation
of graduate students. We wore academic dress. I had to borrow a
gown, and a hood from Reading, which resembled, in a vague sort
of way, the Natal BA hood. The Vice Principal seemed rather
suspicious of it. We sat in the huge mediaeval dining hall, and
the Vice Chancellor gave a chatty little speech of welcome, and
then we all signed our names in the books provided. On the way
back the sight of Graham walking next to the vice principal, in
full academic dress, seemed very strange. The vice-prin, known as
"the Brang", was a short, dark, flashy little man, an
administrator, looking at home in his formal academic dress.
Graham, taller, with shaggy blond hair, beard and glasses, looks
the scholar, who is normally untidy, but has more than earned the
distinction his robes proclaim. We went to a Greek tutorial with
Father Hugh Bates in the library, then evensong and supper. In
the evening I finished reading The Lord of the Rings - a truly
magnificent work - the last two books in particular being very
relevant to the situation in South Africa today, especially the
chapter on the Scouring of the Shire.
---
But I've been told that "The scouring of the shire" was left out of the film.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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