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Mythmakers Season 4 Wrap Up: Season Highlights · Mythmakers

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Hello and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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creators brought to you by the Oxford Centre for fantasy. My name is Julia Golding. I'm
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the director of the Centre but I am also an author and creative myself. And we've now
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reached the end of our season of Mythmakers and we're going to delve back into the highlights
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of what we've covered this year. So if you've missed our episodes listen out to our short
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excerpts and see if you want to dip back in yourself and see what we've been up to.
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These are our top five listens so and we're going to go in reverse order starting with the fifth
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most popular of our offerings this season and that is a conversation I had with a friend of the
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centre and creative himself Jacob Renica who as you'll hear from his accent is based in America
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and we spent one of our podcast discussing why go small. And then one thing which I think is
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should not be forgotten is the whimsy that you have if you go small. And I was thinking here of
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books like The Boroughers Series I don't know if that's well known in the US it's about a miniature
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family who live to they cobble together their environment from like matchboxes and safety pins
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and they go to see in like a or on the river on in a little boat it was made into a BBC TV series
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over here so it's quite well known as a sort of my year children's book and there was of course
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Mrs Pepperpot who was another delightful series where Mrs Pepperpot gets shrunk a bit like the
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Tom Thumb story so there's the whimsy to that to suddenly seeing the world and how the world
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would appear if you were but a couple of inches high and that led me to thinking about
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Bitrix Possa because in a way majority of her stories particularly things like The Tale of
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Too Bad Mice is definitely showing the whimsy of scale so the the mice hunka munker and the other one
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to Missina no that's the name one of the dolls and anyway I've forgotten the hunka munker I definitely
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remember as the name they move into the dolls house in the nursery and then get very annoyed that
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the fires aren't real and the plaster food is actually not edible and they start smashing
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it all up I'd love that story as a child because I could really relate to this thing of the
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disappointment of it not being real and the idea of the mice moving into a into what is your
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playhouse so there's this whimsy and that connected thought in much more of the current generation
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it led me to thinking about Ant-Man have you seen the first Ant-Man film yes 13 all of them yeah
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yeah of course you got a kiddie so of course you're going to see all of them yeah and but I
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absolutely adored the way the big finale happened on a train set I was much more interested in
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the hilarity of seeing like Thomas the Tank Engine being used as one of the big set piece
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things at that scale like the miniature world and I thought that was just wonderful and that's
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what Ant-Man should be doing in my view um all right so that that uses that scale thing to
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the whimsical advantage have you got any other favorite perhaps over in the US thing miniature
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miniature people stories which I and European listeners might not be aware of
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um there's the the one that comes to mind is in part right the the scale but it's also in terms
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of the nature of the being and that is the Indian and the covered series um the right this is
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you're kind of a precursor so it's I mean in the vein of like velveteen rabbit or an animal or
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like a toy story where toys actually have feelings thoughts some sort of inner life um and Indian
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covered series right follows the adventures and misadventures of these small figures uh as the
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local cowboys and Indians as they're referred to uh and you know what happens uh when the doors
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are closed when the children are away um that sort of thing so it's yes that that's another one
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area to the then you see that like the toy story films you know it's really accessible that
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it's in in part it's their size you see the world like the camera is entirely from their
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angle right someone does it look like under under the bed is their norm right where the the dust
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bunnies and everything are so that's their um odds and ends that have rolled under the bed like that's
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that's their geography um so it's interesting yes so so so so seeing the world um from that perspective
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and how uh silly something seemed when you're when you're pointed when when you're on the ground
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kind of pointing up um seeing what things other people are concerned with that people that are
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kind of closer to the ground and smaller don't seem to be as concerned about that's uh something
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they have they definitely see empirically used in uh in some of those films that of course soon you
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thank you for mentioning toy story because that would have been a big gap if we've forgotten that
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i love all how the um the the little plastic soldiers all move like they can't move there
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like separately because they're on those right there's no waddling the detail of that is so charming
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but because you're convinced by that world as being a complete world it doesn't mean it's low stakes
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the stakes there are high about survival friendship um being separate you know
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finding your way home they're all big stakes but within a small world uh yeah I don't know
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the stakes are higher because you're smaller right so the I'm reminded of the film honey I shrunk the
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kids um and not so much the sequels but right so it's it's changing perspective right so you're
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you're shrunk and so something that seems just every day or in your like the go the sprinkler uh
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going off like that has could have disastrous effects on these children who are you know the size
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the head of a pin um these these drops of water become deadly projectiles exactly
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so that's yeah and then that that film that is yeah it's great I'm saying like every day like
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what does it look like to be an ant like or something that usually you might want to step on or
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might be a nuisance how a small creature can actually you can connect with and can actually help
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if given an opportunity to so there's yeah there's there's lots of things that that you can do
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again with that kind of shift and perspective and make you look at the world and re-evaluate your
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assumptions about something is it valuable is it there's a trash is this worth the starting is
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that something that should be uh valorized um all those are questions that when you shift
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perspective they really raise those questions okay and so the last thing I thought of and do come
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up with any more um in this line the last thing I think that's happening is about access so you get
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acts if you go small you get access to worlds which you would otherwise not be able to see so
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you mentioned like the ant colony so that reminds me of films like ants for example and then there's
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the traditional tale of the ant and the grasshopper so you get access to little worlds that you wouldn't
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otherwise see ant and grasshopper of course is another setter um so they can do more than one
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thing at the same time but I was thinking particularly of Alice in Wonderland because that is one of
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the most famous scenes of shrinking and you know changing scale but there's the idea of going
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through the small door to this magical world uh and if you if only get it right that idea of a
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secret access if you get to be small enough to slip through down the rabbit hole again it presumably
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means a you know rabbit holes aren't personalized so there's a sense of access there um and that
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leads me to think of the the films where um I can't remember the name of the film but I remember
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watching it where they shrink to go inside a human body so that's inner space uh well there's one
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there's an episode there's an episode of the magic school bus that does the same thing but it was
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done yeah there's a martin short uh film called inner space yeah where they shrunk down and
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it accidentally injected or purposely camera virtual it was injected into somebody so you're seeing
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the human body from the inside of the perils of being microscopic yeah yeah so again it gives you
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access to this new world it's a kind of portal in a way by going small and I think all of this is
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joined together by the idea that in fantasy what you're doing by scale is reframing whatever is
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your ordinary world um by changing the scale it becomes a commentary on the ordinary world
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and now coming to the podcast at place number four this was our Halloween episode where Jacob
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and I looked into the history of vampires and werewolves in fantasy literature and the little
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section you're going to hear is about vampires the sexy fantasy creature enjoy so there's all
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these in the vampire folklore but I think there's a huge thing here which the 19th century vampire
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has then put into 20th century and 21st century which I'm sure we're going to talk about now
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is that vampires are considered to be sexy it's about a form of sublimated sex that the
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we without actually the idea of being bitten and having you're turning women into sort of
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vampire maidens um all this kind of stuff there's a kind of parrhymes thing that he has going
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there is an element of adult pleasure going on in vampires which you don't get with an ogre
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or a troll or anything like that um that usually yeah and I think there's you can see that thread
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who just think of who is cast in the movies to play these characters and what the modern version
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of vampires have done with it it has taken that element very much more strongly uh with some
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exceptions which we'll get to when we talk about the modern period I think that bram stoker and
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there's also a connection here to the theater because I think bram stoker often wrote I think it
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might even started as a melodrama but anyway he was from that world of the Victorian stage so
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there's a connection there to uh you know the moustacheo twirling villain of Victorian
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tying maidens to train tracks it's got that kind of heightened silly drama in it which is quite
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enjoyable if you sort of go with the make believe um and the other thing I'd say about it that
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actually there's some interesting female characters in Dracula and I think her name is mini I think
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not Lucy the one who was sticking in but the other one because she's got a tight writer and she's
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sort of an early woman a new woman um sort of doing she is more active than sometimes the heroines
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were in um Victorian novels of the same period so you can see how that then transfers for them to be
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the vampire hunters of the female van Helsing and um of course Buffy later on you can see there's
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also a growth of a female character coming out of that so streaming one from bram stoker because
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I think what this sentence is of course that the story gets picked up by early Hollywood
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it's one of the sort of early films isn't it where you get that yeah Bella let's go see
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yes kind of iconic uh yeah as as as as count Dracula and that's yeah so it has a yeah a life
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uh definitely on film uh uh in other novel adaptations um some the one that I'm probably most
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familiar with and then the early early early or period is the uh mid the 50s uh with Richard
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Matheson's I am legend which is a kind of development um of vampires so in in in in I am legend and
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it was adapted into a film with both both Smith but in that in in the film adaptation the vampires
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are more depicted more as zombie like uh creatures whereas in the the novel itself uh they're
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they're definitely vampires um had referred to as such what's interesting with Matheson's
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treatment is he kind of tries to come up with scientific reasons why vampires would react the way
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they do to garlic to sunlight uh to metals and so he's it's it's it's it's it's it's really interesting
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in that sense kind of trying to provide a more kind rationalistic explanation for how if vampires
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existed how might that work because this is also one of the first uh or not one of the first and
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it's an early example of a novel that takes the idea of a pandemic ravishing you know ravaging
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the the globe and then transforming the population into some decimating or transforming the
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population into something monstrous and so yeah so the pandemic is responsible for turning
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most of the world into these kind of vampiric creatures and so you have yet kind of this kind of
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semi-scientific way of rational approach to how that might develop um to make it more I guess
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real reasonable uh plausible even perhaps kind of it so it does more kind of like a science
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fictiony strain um but not going into space science fiction but rather trying to route trying to
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take the vampire mythos and route it in science or tie it in some way to uh scientific process of
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method which which I found is really uh interesting uh kind of a different take on a vampire
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and then it's my next sort of stepping stone is the kind of an rice vampire series
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uh and then the film interview with a vampire which I've seen they've just remade haven't they
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um I haven't watched it yet but I saw there was a trailer a new trailer cut out.
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Adaptation uh there's oh I know there's the there's the uh series uh the television series
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oh the series is it more long form television yeah so I think was it interview was that an early
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Tom Cruise film oh my god that yes yes yes yes Tom Cruise Christian Dunstbrough
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Brad I believe is there so it was just yeah so when you were talking about the people that they cast
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as vampires and you don't get much more of a uh of an attractive slant to vampires and you do
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with the film interview with the vampire. So so there's that um and then the and rice books I think
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more maybe the films as well have spawned a whole genre of urban fantasy um I think we can just
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hit on a few sort of headlines on that though there are some that follow pretty much the same
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um playbook uh of the the sort of sexy uh gentleman vampire type um which you you see in um
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actually that's the kind of thing you get in buffy the vampire slayer isn't it they're all incredibly
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good looking and you know they they they have that appeal to them um but then you get
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there's a whole very long series by a writer Christine Feenan that has what she does is she
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separates out the vampires into like the original kind of healthy um unfold and uh
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carpathian people and then they have a subset who are the ones who are sort of degenerating and
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they're like the vampires so she's sort of able to keep a healthy relationship going between her
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characters by having the real the real evil done by a separate separate sect of people um and then
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another way it was handled is of course in twilight where you've got uh the the story that that
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series basically has vegetarian vampires if you think that's i think they call themselves that um
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so um Jacob's gender Jacob's world which way around is it i have to answer the word yeah Jacob
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Edward Edward's Edward's Edward's Edward's Edward's
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that's right um okay so i'm with terrible my memory of twilight is fading um yeah
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yeah exactly family are are sort of basically controlling their appetites with very strict rules
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and this is where i think that the uh the the connection to sex is a parent because it's all about
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restraints and i've got this little theory that in the same way as you can have romance really
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intense romance as you can is something like a Jane Austen with very little um physicality there's
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there isn't a Jane Austen sex scene no it's not necessary because it's all intense emotion and
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romance i think what was happening in twilight which obviously was a YA book and before they get
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married in the last book but it was all about a very intense sublimated romance
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with the metaphor of of not going too far was about sucking you know her him sort of succumbing
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to the temptation of drinking her blood and it's quite funny when you actually sort of see that
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because it's a kind of language that allows young teen readers to feel all those emotions without
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doing a sort of erotica um 50 shades which is where it went next by someone did fanfiction
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so that those intense rules connected twilight to a sort of romance world of vampire uh and so it
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meant that the people who were the bad vampires um were the ones who were living outside the strict
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rules they weren't basically very promiscuous in terms of their blood drinking and I'm murderous
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so yeah it's quite fascinating watching how that develops
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so i hope you enjoyed being spooked by the vampires and werewolves from that episode
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moving on at number three i had the great pleasure of talking to Dr Holly Ordway
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who is one of the new generation of Tolkien scholars i met her first in her wonderful wonderful
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book called Tolkien's Modern Reading which i highly recommend but she published more or less around
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the anniversary of Tolkien's passing the 50th anniversary her book Tolkien's Faith
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Holly herself is a convert to Catholicism so it was very interested in this aspect of Tolkien
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and i learned a lot talking to her about the actual nature of Tolkien's Faith because i'm afraid i
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had a rather sort of broad brush view of what it meant to be a Catholic and she did a deep dive
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into a particular form of Catholicism which is based on the uh the oratory movement and links
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that to the nature of worship and spirituality in middle earth it's very much you don't have to be
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a uh Christian or a Catholic to enjoy this it's quite revealing the way she talks about
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how Tolkien's Faith fed back into Lord the Rings that thing you said about how the liturgy
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is very Tolkienian or Tolkien was inspired is fascinating i can't wait to read your books so
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that i can find out the detail of that but what do you think that there was in the english version
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of Catholicism in particular that inspired Tolkien creatively is there anything you can think
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oh yes there's some kind of aesthetic here some sort of feeling about his faith that then becomes
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that in woven into the creation of middle earth well yes this is a this is a huge a huge question um
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i to to kind of narrow it down a little bit you know to to be a Catholic in England was
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it's own experience which which we've already sort of lightly lightly touched on um
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but specifically i think he was really influenced by the by oratory and spirituality which is
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um a charisms within your Catholicism i think often people who are not Catholics and many who are
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tenethe of Catholicism as as uniform like well this is what all Catholics do there are obviously
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many things that all Catholics do um but there's a lot of diversity of sort of spirituality is
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within Catholicism you know the Dominicans are are very much you know their ministry is preaching
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their church is going to be much um sort of simpler like blackfires in an Oxford very sort of
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simple plain design um you know there's the Francis Kins with emphasis on poverty of life um
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and so there's different sort of spiritualities within Catholicism and oratory and spirituality
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is not very well known this is the the um congregation founded by Saint Philip Neary who was a
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Italian saint um 16th century who inspires the oratory in Rome and it goes it spreads to other
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places and John Henry Newman brought it to uh to England and there are a couple of interesting
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points about the oratorians one is that they place a particular emphasis on um ministering to
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the more highly educated in the community they always go into cities and they so Birmingham for
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instance and they all they place a great emphasis on music um and beauty and liturgy and this
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is then an aesthetic he grew up in in this this real sense of beauty and we can't take that for
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granted because not all English Catholic churches are or certainly would have been then um beautiful
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or with good music because as partly as a result well as a result of the reformation and the
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establishment of the uh of the Church of England all of the existing churches which had been Catholic
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after that point were converted to Anglicanism Catholics no longer had places of worship um and
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even after me and for and for a long time it was illegal to be a Catholic to to attend mass um
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even after those penalties were lifted it wasn't until 1791 that Catholic could even build churches
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and even then there were restrictions they couldn't for instance put steeples on them for a long
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time so it would call too much attention to these you know these Catholic places and of course
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Catholics in England were much poorer significantly poorer than their Anglican counterparts so the
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churches tended to be cheaper and uglier generally speaking and so there's a real cost in lots of
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ways to becoming a Catholic not just socially but even aesthetically and that would have been
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something that Tolkien would have been well aware of in the oratory he had the great privilege
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of being able to grow up surrounded by beauty um and interestingly he would also have seen
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that happening because when he and his mother and his brother started worshiping at the
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Burmese moratory it was not the big beautiful church that we see now if we go and visit it
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that was built um during Tolkien's teenage years he was originally a very small shabby kind of
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blah um building that was then rebuilt into this big beautiful church sort of built up around him
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so he has this early exposure to beauty um and music and a sense that it's important
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it's not just a little optional extra that it's an important way that we worship that we express our
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faith and one other point they'll just make briefly although I talk about it at much greater length
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in the book oratory spirituality really puts a great emphasis on joy um it's a spirituality of joy
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but it's a spirituality that incorporates sorrow joy is not the same thing as happiness
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and I think that this has profound influence on Tolkien and we can see it in many ways throughout
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his whole his whole work all of his his ability to to get through these sorrowful periods
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and still have a sense of joy that's very that's very much in line with with the spirituality of
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the oratorians I suppose the one big difference thinking about it between middle earth
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perception of faith and what we might or might not believe is they knew the gods were there
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the valla were over in the undying lands and there's nobody who says oh Eru Eluvatar doesn't exist
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it's not a world of doubt do you agree um it can be a world of despair but
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well that's a really interesting question um I mean Tolkien is obviously writing middle earth
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from a point of view of natural theology this is a pre-Christian world he's very clear it's
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pre-Christian world um so so there obviously there isn't any christ figure in it um and he's also
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very clear that the valla are are angels angels are archangels and he makes the point in one of his
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letters that um the that um the cabinet's middle earth might call on the valla as a Catholic
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wood on a saint so they're intercessory figures but of course Eru Eluvatar you know the
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Tolkien's quite clear is is god as he as he understands and the one god the god um I mean he's
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he is not visible to the people of middle earth in that sense just as you know just as now um
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may perhaps much less so because this is pre-incarnation and we see not so much in the Lord of the
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Rings but in the in the legendarium and the story of of Numenor is the story of um you know
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worship of Eru perverted into you know you know human sacrifice and and worship of uh of uh
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Morath so I think Tolkien's not specifically working in the modern um the very modern
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struggle with does god exist because he's working in a natural theological framework
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in which he's taking it for granted that god does exist but he's still certainly giving plenty
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of room for the people of middle earth to act as if god doesn't exist and to go no that's true
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and there's and there's also plenty of room for the bad guys and the fallen good guys to try and you
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know achieve a power that is not appropriate for mortal or immortal people even um you know
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like the ring for example because it corrupts but but this theme is making me think some interest
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it's intriguing me and I'm sure is this is what I'm going to be reading your book to find out is
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things like well why can't men um and other races go to the land the undying world why can't they
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go there why are they separated why are only elves allowed because that's the place where the angels
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hang out why do men not know what happens happens to them after death whereas elves
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do know that they wait in the halls of mandos um and there's some suggestion that they sort of come
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back again they don't leave the confines of the world he's already perplexing theological questions
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in a sense um but they're very different from the kind of theological questions we would
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be asking in all well because we don't have those dilemmas um maybe disagree
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because I think we're asking those questions I mean we don't ask them the same way as the elves
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because we were humans not elves but what happens when we die is quite possibly the question right
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you know what what does happen can we be sure where where do we go um that's as profound a question
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how um as it would be for you know barren um in middle earth but what I mean was there isn't a group of
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people who have like special access you know like a that part the big division between elves and men
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the mortal and that obviously isn't our lived experience so right the the theology of that why
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that is set up like that is something which is made up for middle earth uh and that's
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I think Tolkien's his way he's exploring he's exploring certain
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now obviously fundamentally Tolkien is telling a story oh yeah yeah it's the narrative of the
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characters I mean his his elves come out of his languages um so we mustn't ever ever fall into
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the trap of thinking that he had a theological puzzle he wanted to work out and so therefore
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he he acts winds he characters utterly antithetical it's Tolkien's way of thinking
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but that doesn't mean that he didn't think about these things and weave them in
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because he he writes for instance that the the main theme of Lord of the Rings is death and the
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desire for deathlessness and this is a theme that he explores throughout the whole legendarium
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and the elves allow him to do this in a really interesting way because the elves don't experience
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death in the same way that humans do so what it effectively allows them to do by contrast is to
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explore what does what does death mean in what way is is death a gift to human to the human race
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why might elves view it as a gift when we might view it as a burden that so the separation of the
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elves as these as these people who did have a chance to see the lights more directly and yet
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they still manage to to fall in rebel I mean the whole the holster is similar and is fan or please
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stop it yeah exactly oh give up give up they're not yours coming in in second place is a compilation
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of interviews I had with four experts on the four main inklings so the first met in 1926 at a
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meeting of the English faculty and they both actually recently joined the English faculty
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Lewis had been in Oxford before but he just got his job here at Mordelin and Tolkien had just
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arrived as the new Rawlinson and Bosworth professor of Anglo-Saxon from Leeds University and they met
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there at that meeting where they were discussing syllabus reform of rather dry topic but actually
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it was quite heated because there's been there was a lot of antagonism between the English literature
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side of the course and the English language people and Tolkien and Lewis found themselves on
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opposite sides of that debate but despite that they got to know each other got on very well because
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they both shared this love of the mythologies of the Anglo-Saxons and Norse mythology
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and so they quickly came to become close friends even though they were on opposite sides of that
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debate and they went on to have regular meetings in a reading group didn't they can you tell us
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something about the coal biters so one of the things that Tolkien set up shortly after he came to Oxford
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all the Icelandic reading group which was called the coal biters it was sort of modeled on a
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Viking club that he'd set up at Leeds and what he was trying to do was to promote the understanding
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of an ability to read Icelandic literature in the original Old Norse and he invited Lewis to join
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that group and Lewis had already fallen in love with all the Icelandic literature even as a child
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13-year-old he discovered the poetry of the Vikings essentially and but he couldn't read it in the
34:19
original so this was a great opportunity for him and Tolkien invited a number of distinguished
34:24
philologists from around the university so the professor of Celtic was a member of it the professor
34:31
of Byzantine Greek the professor of comparative philology so it was a pretty high brow get together
34:37
and they essentially were set chunks of sagas or poems to translate in advance and then they turn
34:44
up at the meeting and Tolkien would kind of help them through essentially and how did that coal
34:49
biter group become the Inklings well it didn't directly in the sense that Lewis was going to
34:57
lots of sort of reading groups discussion groups pretty much every night he went to something
35:04
so he set up the Mikkelmas club here in Mordelin which was a kind of philosophical debating
35:09
society he was going to the Socratic club a kind of religious debating group and he had beer and
35:16
bear wolf with his undergraduate students and the Inklings itself started off as a group at
35:24
university college which is where Lewis had been an undergrad and he and Tolkien were invited
35:30
along as senior members but it was essentially an undergraduates reading group where they
35:35
read their own compositions to each other and commented on it and it kind of fizzled out because it
35:40
was being led by undergraduates who left the university and then the Inklings itself started
35:48
borrowed the name from that group and it was really centered around Lewis himself and Tolkien who
35:55
was a particularly close friend by that point and there are other friends and associates not
36:00
necessarily all members of the university but connected with it and many with the same kinds
36:06
of interests and it became a kind of group for sharing work in progress and commenting on it.
36:13
So what do you think a meeting of the Inklings would have been like because we are actually sitting
36:18
here in the new building where they met in very much a room very similar to where they met every
36:24
week? That's right yeah so they would have turned up I think about nine o'clock and it began with
36:31
Lewis essentially saying who's got something to read and then somebody would begin by just reading
36:38
a section of something that they had been working on if it was Tolkien it was likely the next
36:44
installment of the Lord of the Rings or the new Hobbit book as Lewis always referred to it.
36:50
In Lewis's case he read them the problem of pain and his science fiction works that out of the
36:57
silent planet in Pere Landre the great divorce and essentially they went around the room and read a
37:04
bit and then made comments on each other's work it would often lead into other kinds of discussion
37:10
on sort of themes that had emerged even though they were quite different many of the contributions
37:16
so Warnie Lewis Lewis's brother was a member and wrote 17th century French history.
37:23
Lewis's family doctor Humphrey Havard was an Inklin and would give accounts of his latest
37:29
mountaineering holiday and you wonder how they managed to find common themes with this but that's
37:35
seemingly what happened and this would go on quite often until quite late in the night.
37:40
So you hold Lewis's position now at the college as professor of English language and literature.
37:47
What aspects of Lewis's interests in medieval literature and earlier literature did he share
37:53
with Tolkien in particular? Well both Lewis and Tolkien were interested in medieval literature
38:01
broadly conceived so Tolkien had the chair of Anglo-Saxon literature and was particularly
38:07
engaged with the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf. It's a work that he was involved in translating
38:15
his translations and he recently been published. He gave a very important lecture about Beowulf
38:23
which kind of stimulated lots of new work on as a poem and so that was a work and that
38:29
Lewis himself would have been teaching regularly had his Beowulf sessions with his undergraduate
38:34
students and you can see that certainly influencing both of their fiction. I mean it's the most
38:39
obvious I suppose in the Hobbit because it's the story of a dragon sitting on a treasure hoard
38:46
somebody steals a cup from the treasure he takes out his vengeance on the local town burning it
38:52
down and then Beowulf has to come and kill the dragon and it's clear echoes there of the events
38:58
at the end of the Hobbit and they both would have taught widely across the Middle Ages so
39:05
Sagawein and the Green Knight and Arthurian poem which Tolkien himself edited at the edition
39:12
that he edited is still one that we use today with students and there's a nice copy of it that
39:18
survives at the Lewis's own copy of Sagawein in the Green Knight and the Bodian Library heavily
39:22
annotated and you can see his reactions to some of Tolkien's editorial decisions not always
39:28
favourable and so that again is a work that you can see cropping up in both of their fictions
39:34
particularly in the Narnian stories I suppose where Arthurian literature has an important part to play
39:43
that was Owen Barfield talking about his grandfather the original inkling Owen Barfield
39:50
Colin Duryes was talking to us about Tolkien Alicia Smith took on the wonderfully mystical
39:59
Charles Williams and Professor Simon Horobin who holds the chair that was held by C.S. Lewis at
40:06
Mordland was talking about C.S. Lewis this was an evening that we had with these four experts
40:14
running a inkling's meeting and we've put out two parts of that evening I'm afraid I ran into
40:21
some technical hitches with the other parts and I hope to dig them out of my files at some point
40:25
but you can also listen to those if you have a look at season four of Mythmakers so we're still waiting
40:32
for the Charles Williams and the C.S. Lewis parts but the Owen Barfield and the Tolkien parts are
40:39
ready up so what was our number one listen of this season it's not that surprising because we
40:47
know here at Mythmakers that anytime we mention the characters surrounding the Peter Jackson version
40:54
of Lord of the Rings that certainly gets a lot of you listening and we had the pure delight of
41:01
listening to the Andy Circus version of the Silmarillion when it was released over the summer
41:07
and a friend of the centre who's done some of our courses a wonderful writer from Australia called
41:15
Andrew Head who is blind and so accesses most of these texts by the audio version so it is my
41:22
go-to expert he and I discussed Andy Circus and the strengths and otherwise of his reading of the
41:30
Silmarillion so Andrew but when we've talked about these versions before you and I have both
41:38
agreed that we really liked the earlier version which I think was only from maybe 2015 it's not
41:44
that old the Martin Shaw version reading of the Silmarillion do you have any words to say on that
41:52
I mean if someone's already got the Martin Shaw version does they need to get this one what would
41:58
they be missing out if they didn't get this one well they're certainly missing out on the extra
42:03
information you get in the forward and the yeah preface and the talking letter because Martin
42:10
Shaw version doesn't have it so if you're you know especially from a blind person's point of view
42:18
I was quite I did not expect those three little beginning parts so I was quite chuffed to
42:26
and it's always interesting to to read more on Christopher Tolkien's point of view and
42:32
Gerard Tolkien's point of view and Christopher Tolkien in particular provides good insight into
42:38
how and why he wanted to publish the Silmarillion after his father passed away.
42:45
I think that the Martin Shaw is very you know his voice is lovely it's a very another voice
42:51
not that dissimilar to Andy Circus it's resonant it's got a sense of gravity about it
42:57
I would say that he has a couple of little mannerisms which Andy Circus had avoided
43:03
and Tolkien rather overuses the word therefore and when it comes up in the text and
43:09
Martin Shaw lands rather heavily on that therefore therefore and I once I noticed I got a little bit
43:17
okay and Andy Circus doesn't do that I was listening out for it so I think that possibly the
43:24
Andy Circus narration as that edge just as an an territorial voice he gives it more variety
43:31
he pushes the drama a bit further I wouldn't have thought there was a huge amount of difference
43:36
between the narrations in the chapters where they're less dramatic episodes where it's more an
43:44
account of the ages they're just two different voices but I would say if we're going to do a toss
43:51
up between the two I would now go if I was starting a fresh up now go for the Andy Circus one
43:57
yeah so I think I would too but it's always a bit of a I guess it depends on your mood because
44:03
I do still quite like Martin Shaw's version he has a great voice as well as you say
44:08
so yeah next next reading next time reading around I'm unsure which one I will do
44:15
well there's nothing stopping us there's nothing stopping us shuffling between the two
44:20
yeah it's a bit of a variety have one voice read one chapter and one voice read another I can see
44:25
an advantage to doing that oh that's a good idea the other thing I like about the Martin Shaw
44:32
version is you get music in that one sort of at the at the end of each of the main sub stories oh
44:39
yes you're right although I love it you're right there's great music it's like a sort of
44:46
picks up the feeling of the the incoming tide and you know it's got a really atmosphere
44:51
yes you're right they should have done that with the Andy Circus one yeah I think it's his name
44:55
publisher so they missed a trick there oh yeah lovely punctuation marks yeah it really adds
45:02
adds a bit to the atmosphere and effectiveness of the tale yeah yeah it seems to do music as much
45:08
in audiobooks these days well didn't they also this has been quite you know not many people
45:16
will have noticed this but I think the old Lord the Rings reading by I've got this name Robert
45:23
Lingles also have music in at the end of each book it does yes yeah bring that the music
45:34
so let's talk about our favorite parts we can put aside you know the two narrators well done
45:39
both for such a then reading quite a difficult book what is your favorite part of the summer
45:45
if you were just going to dip back in and listen to one or two chapters what would you go for oh
45:51
now I've I stumped you there haven't I yes that's a difficult one
45:57
well you said it a couple so it would have to be Baron and Lothian and then it would have to be
46:06
the calendar saw the downfall of Numenor oh okay that's interesting so Baron and Lothian are like
46:13
the precursor to Argonne and Arwin they are the man and an elf who fall in love and talking
46:21
identified very much Baron and Lothian in fact on his grave stone he and his wife are known as
46:26
Baron and Lothian so it was his heart story and I completely agree I think it's two chapters
46:32
one of in the Andy circus it's extremely well read as well and it has the talking dog so what's
46:37
not not not to like there's the folkloric structure of the hero being set an impossible task
46:44
he has to go and get one of the silmarials from the hand of Melkor who's like the biggest
46:51
baddie of them all in his is very much like one of those fairy tales he sets off and Lothian who
46:57
is actually really the hero of the tale let's face it she goes with him array one of the
47:04
what's the word are we allowed to say kick ass pair of ends of talking doesn't feel very tall
47:08
yeah feisty maybe that's a bit more talking um I'm not sure I'd go for the Numenor section
47:16
but I would go so it is fascinating I actually like the poetry of the language of the
47:22
very beginning which is the Ina I can never say this I know linda linda yeah that is the setting
47:31
up of the world I love the image of the music and how it's described it this does feel very
47:37
biblical or actually meltonic in the way it's described and I just think it is such the language is
47:45
so beautiful I wouldn't mind if it was Martin Shaw or Andy circus both of them read it very well
47:51
so perhaps on my either or I'll do Martin Shaw for that and then I'll do Baron and Lothian with
47:57
Andy circus and then everybody's happy to know I pick and then the last question to you is
48:05
which of these stories would you most like to have seen written up into a full length book you told
48:12
me before we started this call that you've actually read some of the later curated longer length
48:19
versions of these stories and you have views on them like to share us those views and then tell us
48:24
what you would like to have seen written up in the same way as sort of Lord of the Ring's style book
48:29
yes well you've got the children of urine which is a full length standalone novel it's had you know
48:38
parts from the Silmarillion and unfinished tales that aren't quite exactly the same brought together
48:46
and then a bit from the history of history of middle earth I believe as well turned it into a
48:52
yeah full length seven hour audio well book but the audio book seven hours and for those that
48:59
don't know that is read by the wonderful Christopher Lee who played Saraman in the movies so that's
49:07
well worth a listen that one and then you have Baron and Lothian and the fall of Gondolin there the
49:16
other two longer tales and there's bits you know bits are from the Silmarillion and other papers
49:24
that have all other writings that have been brought together but they're actually they're actually
49:29
dispersed with the so you get story but then interspersed with Christopher Tolkien's notes and
49:37
sort of showing you how the stories changed over time so you get characters with different names
49:44
and different happenings in the events in the story and then Christopher Tolkien's writings come
49:52
in and explains how it's changed over the many many years and then you get the next part that's
49:59
I don't know I put it similar sort of shows the story evolving over time
50:06
it's what the successive draft for the story yes yes that's it thank you yes and he sort of
50:13
all brought them together and you still don't get me wrong you still get the the story and as I say
50:20
it's interesting to hear that it does if you're expecting a story it does at times make it a little
50:28
bit tedious and a bit difficult to get through even for me who enjoys hearing more about the
50:35
processes as an author it can be a bit challenging to get through yes because what we're really
50:42
listening to is a story of how a story is written isn't it rather than the actually that kind of
50:48
it's been better so that's our number one listen we look forward to creating a new season
50:58
of myth makers after our holiday break and if you have any ideas of writers you'd like us to
51:06
reach out to to be interviewed or indeed any anybody who you think might be an interesting
51:12
guest to come along from other forms of fantasy creativity such as music or gaming or anything else
51:19
we are open to your suggestion so do send us a message and we'll see what we can do but until
51:25
the new year wish you very happy listening
51:33
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