Another LOTR Read-Along: The Ring Goes South (FOTR 2, 3)

The fellowship sets out at last, and I start to feel that the story is truly getting started. A lot happens here, and yet I don't have a lot to say. The bit on Caradhras is very exciting.

I spend a lot of time there being impressed by Boromir, of course. He's the one who suggests bringing wood. He's the one who worries that the snow will be "the death of the halflings" (p. 283). He's the one who suggests creating a path back down through the snow for the others to follow. And then he suggests carrying the hobbits through the path. So the last few pages of this chapter in my copy are full of little smiley faces in the margins, and the occasional heart. And sometimes a heart with a smiley face inside it if I'm particularly pleased.

I'm heartily amused by Legolas too, running around on top of the snow and making little jokes.

Favorite Lines:

"Books ought to have good endings" (p. 266).

Health and hope grew strong in them, and they were content with each good day as it came, taking pleasure in every meal, and in every word and song (p. 267).

"May the stars shine upon your faces!" (p. 274).

Discussion Questions:

Gandalf seems to possibly blame Sauron for the freak storm, but Gimli blames Caradhras itself. What/who do you think caused the storm? (In the movie, it's Saruman, but that doesn't seem to be an option in the book.)

Do you agree with Bilbo that books ought to have good endings? If so, what do you consider to be a "good ending"?

The Annotated-by-the-Author Giveaway!

Hey, guess what?  FOUR authors (including me) are running the coolest-ever giveaway right now.  We call it the Annotated-by-the-Author Giveaway... because we're each giving away a copy of our latest book which has been personally annotated by the author.  

That means the author of each book has inserted notes (I used sticky notes, and I'm assuming the others did similar things) into the book giving you all kinds of cool information about the story.  I don't know what the others are doing, but for Cloaked, I wrote about name choices, historical details, plot choices, and more.

Each author is also going to include some little surprises in the box.  So the winners will basically get a cool little subscription box, but for free instead of having to pay a subscription fee.

You can enter this giveaway right here or on my other blog, where I've provided more details about the books and authors.  Enjoy!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

(This is open to US addresses only.)

"The Brass Compass" by Ellen Butler

I got to hear Ellen Butler speak at my local library a couple of months ago on the topic of women in the OSS.  That's the Office of Strategic Services, if you don't know, the American intelligence service they created in the early days of WWII, which has since become the CIA.  I watched the Alan Ladd movie O.S.S. (1946) earlier this year and was curious as to how accurate that representation might have been, and I'm always interested by anything to do with WWII anyway.

Butler was knowledgeable and engaging, and I very much enjoyed her presentation.  I even raised my hand to ask if she'd seen Alan Ladd's movie and if it seemed accurate in light of her own research.  (She said she thought it was accurate overall, so yay.)  Butler has even managed to meet and interview some surviving female OSS agents, and her own grandfather served as a cryptographer during WWII.  I found her fascinating.

As for The Brass Compass, it was overall most enjoyable as well.  It follows Lily, a young American who speaks French and German flawlessly.  She joins the OSS because she's bored and purposeless and is soon behind enemy lines, posing as a nanny so she can spy on a high-ranking Nazi officer.  But her cover is eventually exposed, forcing her to flee across Germany in the dead of winter.  She's eventually reunited with the man she loves, an American airman, and goes on to have more spying adventures with and without him.  It's kind of an episodic story, with Lily having various spying escapades, and with the love story threading through all of it.  

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  a soft R for violence and torture, mentions of rape, description of a Nazi death camp, bad language sprinkled throughout (including an f-bomb dropped by a soldier confronted with said death camp), and some non-explicit love scenes.  Really, it's the torture that pushes my rating up from a PG-13.

Another LOTR Read-Along: The Council of Elrond (FOTR 2, 2)

Man, this is a long chapter -- good thing I hadn't planned to do more than one or two posts over the holidays. Where to start?

With Boromir, of course. Here he is at last, my beloved Boromir, this "tall man with a fair and noble face, dark-haired and grey-eyed, proud and stern of glance" (p. 234). There's a little smiley heart in the margins of my book here. To get here, he traveled for a hundred and ten days, all alone, making his way from Minas Tirith to Rivendell. I wish I knew what sorts of adventures he had on the way. That's a long time to be out in the wilderness.  Maybe one day I'll have time to write a long fanfic novel about his journey.

Also, it sounds in this like it was Boromir's idea that he come to Rivendell instead of Farmir. He says "since the way was full of doubt and danger, I took the journey upon myself" (p. 240), which sounds very nice of him. And full of pride, which is his besetting sin, but still, nice of him to spare Faramir all that doubt and danger.

I find it interesting that Bilbo, who was hired by Thorin to be a burglar (in The Hobbit), ends up being called a thief. Here, Sauron's messenger is quoted as calling Bilbo a thief while talking to Dain, and he later says "I only wished to claim the treasure as my very own in those days, and to be rid of the name of thief that was put on me" (p. 243). I assume he's referring to Gollum there, who accused him of stealing the ring. In the end, he was hired to be a burglar, and he did kind of do a bit of burgling here and there.

I'm always amazed by just how old Elrond is. His memory "reaches back even to the Elder Days" (p. 237). Holy cow.

Saruman reminds me mightily of Hitler. His voice is his greatest weapon.  Here, Gandalf says he was "lulled by the words of Saruman the Wise" (p. 244), and later on he'll tell his companions to beware of Saruman's voice. Also, Saruman says that his "high and ultimate purpose" is "Knowledge, Rule, Order" (p. 253). Doesn't that sound kind of Nazi-esque?

Okay, I'll say one last thing about Boromir. I love how he stands up for Rohan here. Gandalf and Aragorn discuss whether Rohan might be sending a tribute of horses to Sauron. Boromir says, "It is a lie that comes from the Enemy. I know the Men of Rohan, true and valiant, our allies" (p. 255-56). I love him especially much there. You'll see in the next book that I'm a big fan of Rohan.

Favorite Lines:

"'The time of my thought is my own to spend,' answered Dain" (p. 235).

"The might of Elrond is in wisdom not in weapons, it is said" (p. 239).

"If simple folk are free from care and fear, simple they will be, and we must be secret to keep them so" (p. 242).

"And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom" (p. 252).

"May your beer be laid under an enchantment of surpassing excellence for seven years!" (p. 257). (I've always wanted an opportunity to say this to someone, but nobody I know brews their own beer.)

"...only a small part is played in great deeds by any hero (p. 263).

"This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the Great" (p. 264).

Discussion Questions:

I'm always struck by the fact that Aragorn attends Elrond's council "clad in his old travel-worn clothes again" (p.233). Why do you suppose he does that? Is he trying to keep a low profile and not draw attention to himself? Trying to impress on people the fact that he's good at the whole wandering-around-and-being-brave thing? Boromir "looked again at Aragorn, and doubt was in his eyes" (p. 241), so clearly he didn't think Aragorn looks particularly kingly. But why does he make a point of this?

Elrond says that "The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it" (p. 262). Do you think this is a foreshadowing of what will happen with Boromir (strong) and Gandalf (wise) -- that they (embodying strength and wisdom) will not finish the journey with Frodo?

"Amahl and the Night Visitors" by Gian Carlo Menotti, Illustrated by Michele Lemieux

When I was probably about ten, and my brother would have been about five, my mom got this book out of our library on a whim.  Or at least, I think it was a whim -- she might have heard of it somewhere and been delighted to find it, but as well as I can remember, she just randomly found it in the stacks.  

The three of us were enchanted by this story of a lame beggar boy and his mother encountering the wise men, who are on their way to visit the Christ child.  We got it from the library multiple times.  

And then, while on vacation, we discovered that one of my aunts had a videorecording of the opera this book is based on!  So we got to watch it!  I have no idea anymore which production it was, as the opera was written specifically for TV in the 1950s, and there were many productions over the years.  I do know that we watched that version several times over the next few years.  And my mom, my brother, and I will still sing, "This is my box!  This is my box!  I never travel without my box!" at appropriate moments. 

This is the same edition that I read as a kid, illustrated by Michele Lemieux, and I still love these pictures.  I was so excited that our library had the same edition!  The ending still gives me goosebumps.

This is technically a picture book, but pretty long -- 64 pages with a LOT of text.  I read it to my kids in two parts because we didn't have time to read the whole thing in one sitting.  

This is my third book review for the Literary Christmas 2017 link-up hosted at In the Bookcase.

"Christmas in Williamsburg" by K. M. Kostyal and Lori Epstein

I picked this book up earlier this month when I was in Colonial Williamsburg with my kids to see all the Christmas decorations.  I spent all day looking in various shops there for some kind of cool Christmasy book and not finding one.  The last place we went was the big bookstore over in Merchants Square, and I spotted this book right when we walked in.  Exactly what I was looking for!

This book explains what Christmas celebrations were like in the colonial era, that they were really much more subdued than our own.  It talks about where our own various decorating and celebrating customs come from too, and then about how old and new are combined in Colonial Williamsburg now.

The book is chock-full of great photos.  It also has a bunch of recipes for things like hot chocolate and Twelfth Night Cake and a non-alcoholic version of syllabub.  And it has some ideas for Christmastime crafts too, like decorating wreaths and making cool gingerbread houses.

On a whole, the book is a little bit aimed at school children, but I learned a lot from it too.  I'll definitely be trying some of the recipes out.  And I'll probably use this book to teach my kids some history at some point.

This is my second book read and reviewed for the Literary Christmas link-up hosted In the Bookshelf.  I signed up to read at least two books, so I've hit that mark now, but I'm hoping to get another Christmas-oriented book or two in before the end of the month.  Here's hoping!

Meanwhile, Merry Christmas!

Another LOTR Read-Along: Many Meetings (FOTR 2, 1)

This may be one of my favorite chapters. I love peaceful Rivendell, and would love to spend some time resting there myself.

And I find the relationship between Bilbo and Aragorn so sweet. How Aragorn, with all the things requiring his attention and time, still willingly pauses to help Bilbo compose a song. And this is not the first time he's done so.

Did you notice that Frodo has now twice been found lying on his face with a broken sword under him? Gandalf says that's how he was found after the flood passed, and back when Frodo was stabbed on Weathertop, that's exactly how his friends found him then too, back on page 192. Hmm.

Favorite Lines:

Frodo lay down again. He felt too comfortable and peaceful to argue, and in any case he did not think he would get the better of an argument (p. 213).

"There are many powers in the world, for good or for evil. Some are greater than I am. Against some I have not yet been measured. But my time is coming" (p. 214).

Frodo was now safe in the Last Homely House east of the Sea. That house was, as Bilbo had long ago reported, 'a perfect house, whether you like food or sleep or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all'. Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear, and sadness (p. 219).

Discussion Questions:

Bilbo says, "Don't adventures ever have an end?" (p. 226) Do you think they do, or do they just lead on to more adventures?

Of Rivendell, Tolkien writes, "Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear, and sadness" (p. 219). Do you have anywhere in your life that feels like that?