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Gifted Amateurs and Other Essays: On Tolkien, the Inklings, and Fantasy Literature
For more than four decades, David Bratman has established himself as a leading authority on J. R. R. Tolkien, the Inklings, and the enchanting realms of fantasy literature. Bratman’s scholarly articles, captivating Mythopoeic Conference presentations, and esteemed editorial work for the newsletter Mythprint and the journal Tolkien An Annual Scholarly Review have solidified his expertise. Now, in celebration of his profound contributions and recent distinction as the Scholar Guest of Honor at Mythcon 52, the Mythopoeic Press proudly presents Gifted Amateurs and Other Essays , an extraordinary collection of some of Bratman’s most insightful, engaging, and intellectually stimulating works.
Within these pages, discover the untold stories behind the “Top Ten Rejected Plot Twists from The Lord of the Rings ,” unravel the religious themes woven throughout Middle-earth, and delve into the surprising origins of hobbit names. Guided by Bratman’s unwavering curiosity and scholarly passion, explore the fascinating history of the Inklings and how they connect to the boundless expanse of the Pacific Ocean, unearth the dramatic works of Lord Dunsany and the overlooked masterpiece of Mervyn Peake, and revel in the mythopoeic genius of Roger Zelazny. Seamlessly blending scholarship and entertainment, Gifted Amateurs and Other Essays invites readers on a journey that illuminates the true essence and enduring power of mythopoeic storytelling.
Within these pages, discover the untold stories behind the “Top Ten Rejected Plot Twists from The Lord of the Rings ,” unravel the religious themes woven throughout Middle-earth, and delve into the surprising origins of hobbit names. Guided by Bratman’s unwavering curiosity and scholarly passion, explore the fascinating history of the Inklings and how they connect to the boundless expanse of the Pacific Ocean, unearth the dramatic works of Lord Dunsany and the overlooked masterpiece of Mervyn Peake, and revel in the mythopoeic genius of Roger Zelazny. Seamlessly blending scholarship and entertainment, Gifted Amateurs and Other Essays invites readers on a journey that illuminates the true essence and enduring power of mythopoeic storytelling.
- GenresFantasy
394 pages, Paperback
Published July 26, 2023
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August 14, 2023I've enjoyed David Bratman's writing for many years. He's also a terrific presenter at conferences and conventions, and because I know his voice, I can hear it reading these essays--and that means I catch the little grin in his voice when he slides a pun in, or another clever bit.
But that's an aside. I liked the first half of this book more than I liked the second half, though I found most everything interesting. I would cheerfully have paid the full price for Essay 7, a succinct, even-handed, informative yet entertaining look at the Inklings--who they were, when they started, and how they regarded themselves. It takes some detective work to get into these questions since they were never a formal club, or rather, there was a brief club that vanished and then sort of reappeared, evolving over the years before, during, and after WW II.
Another essay that I loved for its surprises as well as the humor was "Top Ten Rejected Plot Twists from Lord of the Rings: A Textual Excursion into "The History of LOTR." This is made possible because Tolkien saved everything. And it seems that David Bratman has read it all.
Another really valuable essay is the first one, an introduction to JRRT's work.
Then there are the essays on Tolkien's other work, and also other writers. I enjoyed the one that posits "Smith of Wootton Major" as a perfect fairy story, though I don't agree. Or maybe it's that definition of fairy story. I've never been much interested in fairies or the fae. My own preference is for "Leaf by Niggle," which I consider a perfect short story--the perfect short story, in fact.
Bratman also writes interestingly about Gormenghast, which I never liked, and still don't, but I can almost see what he finds valuable there, besides skilled prose; ditto with his exploration of Roger Zelazny, whose work I can enjoy in part, but mostly leaves me indifferent. Ditto the essay on Lord Dunsany, who I've found uncompelling, especially his female characters. (Oh gawd, those paper-thin female characters!) The essay on LeGuin's Earthsea is quite enthusiastic, and so on.
I have to say that I enjoyed the "Squiggles" section of the essays more than the ones on other authors, but only because there was a lot of humor, for example "The Condensed Silmarillion." And a heartfelt, poignant appreciation of Paul Edwin Zimmer, who was a friend, and who died far too young.
I enjoyed this book enough to feel that though I bought the ebook, I might actually like to have this in print, for easier dipping into for rereads.
But that's an aside. I liked the first half of this book more than I liked the second half, though I found most everything interesting. I would cheerfully have paid the full price for Essay 7, a succinct, even-handed, informative yet entertaining look at the Inklings--who they were, when they started, and how they regarded themselves. It takes some detective work to get into these questions since they were never a formal club, or rather, there was a brief club that vanished and then sort of reappeared, evolving over the years before, during, and after WW II.
Another essay that I loved for its surprises as well as the humor was "Top Ten Rejected Plot Twists from Lord of the Rings: A Textual Excursion into "The History of LOTR." This is made possible because Tolkien saved everything. And it seems that David Bratman has read it all.
Another really valuable essay is the first one, an introduction to JRRT's work.
Then there are the essays on Tolkien's other work, and also other writers. I enjoyed the one that posits "Smith of Wootton Major" as a perfect fairy story, though I don't agree. Or maybe it's that definition of fairy story. I've never been much interested in fairies or the fae. My own preference is for "Leaf by Niggle," which I consider a perfect short story--the perfect short story, in fact.
Bratman also writes interestingly about Gormenghast, which I never liked, and still don't, but I can almost see what he finds valuable there, besides skilled prose; ditto with his exploration of Roger Zelazny, whose work I can enjoy in part, but mostly leaves me indifferent. Ditto the essay on Lord Dunsany, who I've found uncompelling, especially his female characters. (Oh gawd, those paper-thin female characters!) The essay on LeGuin's Earthsea is quite enthusiastic, and so on.
I have to say that I enjoyed the "Squiggles" section of the essays more than the ones on other authors, but only because there was a lot of humor, for example "The Condensed Silmarillion." And a heartfelt, poignant appreciation of Paul Edwin Zimmer, who was a friend, and who died far too young.
I enjoyed this book enough to feel that though I bought the ebook, I might actually like to have this in print, for easier dipping into for rereads.
October 1, 2023
https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/gifted-amateurs-and-other-essays-on-tolkien-the-inklings-and-fantasy-literature-by-david-bratman/
I’m a sucker for any serious Tolkieniana, and what I particularly liked about the essays collected here is their chronological scope, from a time before The Silmarillion had been publish to nearly the present day. The shape of the scholarly field has changed a lot in the meantime a there are several telling anecdotes about the early days. If I had to pick two of the Tolkien pieces that really struck me, I think they would be the Top Ten Rejected Plot Twists from The Lord of the Rings, and the exegesis of Smith of Wootton Major.
The other essays include four pieces about the Inklings (two on C.S. Lewis, one on Charles Williams and one on their links with the Pacific), and several on other fantasy topics, including a fascinating piece on Lord Dunsany as a playwright, and a standup encomium of Roger Zelazny. There is also a critique of the Peter Jackson films written presciently before they had actually been released.
There’s a lot of wisdom in these essays, and a fair amount of fun too.
I’m a sucker for any serious Tolkieniana, and what I particularly liked about the essays collected here is their chronological scope, from a time before The Silmarillion had been publish to nearly the present day. The shape of the scholarly field has changed a lot in the meantime a there are several telling anecdotes about the early days. If I had to pick two of the Tolkien pieces that really struck me, I think they would be the Top Ten Rejected Plot Twists from The Lord of the Rings, and the exegesis of Smith of Wootton Major.
The other essays include four pieces about the Inklings (two on C.S. Lewis, one on Charles Williams and one on their links with the Pacific), and several on other fantasy topics, including a fascinating piece on Lord Dunsany as a playwright, and a standup encomium of Roger Zelazny. There is also a critique of the Peter Jackson films written presciently before they had actually been released.
There’s a lot of wisdom in these essays, and a fair amount of fun too.
August 29, 2023
Disclaimer: I have been proud to call the author of this book a friend for nearly fifty years. As a result, that was the last time I will refer to him as "the author;" nor am I comfortable referring to him by his last name. Also, I cannot begin to pretend that this is an unbiased review.
David Bratman is one of the world's leading authorities on J.R.R. Tolkien. I have seen him deliver a few papers (none of which are in this book), and read a few others here and there (two of them are in this book). Alas, the one I most wanted to read is not in this book. It appears that I shall have to buy another book for that one. (Oh, woe pain and suffering... to actually _buy_ a book...)
Anyway, the full title/subtitle is: "Gifted Amateurs and Other Essays on Tolkien, the Inklings, and Fantasy Literature," and that describes the contents fairly well. It's in four parts:
- Tolkien
- The Inklings
- Others (meaning other authors of fantasy)
and
- Squiggles. I'll get to that.
The essays on Tolkien are, as one might expect, impeccable. David makes his arguments well and clearly, although in one case a bit eccentrically. The best in sheer scholarly terms is "The Artistry of Omissions and Revisions in _The Lord of the Rings_" while the most fun to read is "Top Ten Rejected Plot Twists from _The Lord of the Rings_." Both essays mine the volumes of _The History of Middle-earth_ which record the compositional history of _LotR_. The former is a serious bit of textual metacriticism; the latter lists not ten, but eleven, places where Tolkien, as he wrote, went down a wrong track -- though fortunately, at each one he turned back and found the right track. (For example: Strider, the True King of the West, began his textual existence as Trotter, a Hobbit with wooden shoes ... or are they wooden feet?)
However, this section contains the one essay I might wish had been omitted in favor of something else. (There is a _lot_ of "else," much of it referred to along the way, mostly in feetnote and "Works Cited" section at the end of the essays.) "Hobbit Names Aren't from Kentucky" is a demolition of a minor error that has occasionally crept into Tolkien studies, but it's like using an M16 to kill mosquitoes: not only is it overkill, the damn things will continue to breed.
The other three essays in Part 1 are pleasant, and informative without being obtuse, dry, or any of the other textual sins often associated with scholarly work.
Part 2 contains only four essays, the least of the bunch -- though it isn't the _shortest_ by a long way; the first essay, the titular "'Gifted Amateurs': C.S. Lewis and the Inklings" is longer than the entirety of Part 4, and argues that, though the Inklings was something more than "C.S. Lewis and his cronies," it was not in any sense a literary movement.
"The Inklings and the Pacific Ocean" is a potpourri of pretty much any connection between, well, the Inklings and the Pacific Ocean. There are more than you might think. "C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy: An Informal View" is a tour of those three books, from David's very informed point of view.
"Unmasquing Charles Williams" is particularly interesting, because David was the editor of a volume of the masques (short musical plays) Williams wrote for performance at the Oxford University Press, which was his main employer for most of his adult life. The essay walks through the masques, giving plot summary and pointing out interesting bits, all in the context of Williams's employment and social life at OUP. (It is also the only essay in this book where I believe David has made a factual error, and it concerns a few biographical facts about himself.)
Part 3 is a collection of seven essays on various topics in the general world of fantasy. Two are on general topics -- the nature and classification of fantastic worlds, and modern Arthurian fiction. The other five are about more specific topics: Lord Dunsany as a playwright; a valorisation of Mervyn Peake's final novel, _Titus Alone_; the geography of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea, the influence of his decades-long residence in New Mexico on the works of Roger Zelazny; and the "A Game of You" chapter of Neil Gaiman's (and several artists') comic _The Sandman_. I found them all quite entertaining.
Part 4 is a sextet of mostly-smaller bits and pieces. Four of them come at Tolkien from less-scholarly points of view: for example, a review of _The Fellowship of the Ring_ as David might have written it, had he been a book reviewer at a newspaper when it first came out (three years before he was born).
The final two are longer and more serious. The first is a valedictory essay on the occasion of the death of Paul Edwin Zimmer, a friend of David's, a bard and swordsman in the Society for Creative Anachronism, and a fantasy writer. The other is an autobiographical essay, specifically about David's life as a fan of Tolkien, from his discovery of _The Hobbit_ as a child to his current position as co-editor of the journal _Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review_, alongside his discovery of fandom and the good things that have come to him as a result thereof, including the dedicatee of this volume.
There is sufficient but not excessive apparatus: a general Introduction, prefatory Remarks on the essays in each section, the aforementioned footnotes and "Works Cited" sections, and a twenty-page Index that, from my rather cursory tour through it, seems pretty complete.
To conclude: I can recommend _Gifted Amateurs_ quite highly, but, for the reasons cited in the first paragraph of this review, you are entitled to take that recommendation with a grain of salt, a spoonful of sugar -- sorry, salt -- or a whole salt lick, based on your own inclinations.
David Bratman is one of the world's leading authorities on J.R.R. Tolkien. I have seen him deliver a few papers (none of which are in this book), and read a few others here and there (two of them are in this book). Alas, the one I most wanted to read is not in this book. It appears that I shall have to buy another book for that one. (Oh, woe pain and suffering... to actually _buy_ a book...)
Anyway, the full title/subtitle is: "Gifted Amateurs and Other Essays on Tolkien, the Inklings, and Fantasy Literature," and that describes the contents fairly well. It's in four parts:
- Tolkien
- The Inklings
- Others (meaning other authors of fantasy)
and
- Squiggles. I'll get to that.
The essays on Tolkien are, as one might expect, impeccable. David makes his arguments well and clearly, although in one case a bit eccentrically. The best in sheer scholarly terms is "The Artistry of Omissions and Revisions in _The Lord of the Rings_" while the most fun to read is "Top Ten Rejected Plot Twists from _The Lord of the Rings_." Both essays mine the volumes of _The History of Middle-earth_ which record the compositional history of _LotR_. The former is a serious bit of textual metacriticism; the latter lists not ten, but eleven, places where Tolkien, as he wrote, went down a wrong track -- though fortunately, at each one he turned back and found the right track. (For example: Strider, the True King of the West, began his textual existence as Trotter, a Hobbit with wooden shoes ... or are they wooden feet?)
However, this section contains the one essay I might wish had been omitted in favor of something else. (There is a _lot_ of "else," much of it referred to along the way, mostly in feetnote and "Works Cited" section at the end of the essays.) "Hobbit Names Aren't from Kentucky" is a demolition of a minor error that has occasionally crept into Tolkien studies, but it's like using an M16 to kill mosquitoes: not only is it overkill, the damn things will continue to breed.
The other three essays in Part 1 are pleasant, and informative without being obtuse, dry, or any of the other textual sins often associated with scholarly work.
Part 2 contains only four essays, the least of the bunch -- though it isn't the _shortest_ by a long way; the first essay, the titular "'Gifted Amateurs': C.S. Lewis and the Inklings" is longer than the entirety of Part 4, and argues that, though the Inklings was something more than "C.S. Lewis and his cronies," it was not in any sense a literary movement.
"The Inklings and the Pacific Ocean" is a potpourri of pretty much any connection between, well, the Inklings and the Pacific Ocean. There are more than you might think. "C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy: An Informal View" is a tour of those three books, from David's very informed point of view.
"Unmasquing Charles Williams" is particularly interesting, because David was the editor of a volume of the masques (short musical plays) Williams wrote for performance at the Oxford University Press, which was his main employer for most of his adult life. The essay walks through the masques, giving plot summary and pointing out interesting bits, all in the context of Williams's employment and social life at OUP. (It is also the only essay in this book where I believe David has made a factual error, and it concerns a few biographical facts about himself.)
Part 3 is a collection of seven essays on various topics in the general world of fantasy. Two are on general topics -- the nature and classification of fantastic worlds, and modern Arthurian fiction. The other five are about more specific topics: Lord Dunsany as a playwright; a valorisation of Mervyn Peake's final novel, _Titus Alone_; the geography of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea, the influence of his decades-long residence in New Mexico on the works of Roger Zelazny; and the "A Game of You" chapter of Neil Gaiman's (and several artists') comic _The Sandman_. I found them all quite entertaining.
Part 4 is a sextet of mostly-smaller bits and pieces. Four of them come at Tolkien from less-scholarly points of view: for example, a review of _The Fellowship of the Ring_ as David might have written it, had he been a book reviewer at a newspaper when it first came out (three years before he was born).
The final two are longer and more serious. The first is a valedictory essay on the occasion of the death of Paul Edwin Zimmer, a friend of David's, a bard and swordsman in the Society for Creative Anachronism, and a fantasy writer. The other is an autobiographical essay, specifically about David's life as a fan of Tolkien, from his discovery of _The Hobbit_ as a child to his current position as co-editor of the journal _Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review_, alongside his discovery of fandom and the good things that have come to him as a result thereof, including the dedicatee of this volume.
There is sufficient but not excessive apparatus: a general Introduction, prefatory Remarks on the essays in each section, the aforementioned footnotes and "Works Cited" sections, and a twenty-page Index that, from my rather cursory tour through it, seems pretty complete.
To conclude: I can recommend _Gifted Amateurs_ quite highly, but, for the reasons cited in the first paragraph of this review, you are entitled to take that recommendation with a grain of salt, a spoonful of sugar -- sorry, salt -- or a whole salt lick, based on your own inclinations.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews