Every year, I like to write a little postscript to my September Series posts — something that, while it might be congruent with them in some way, is nonetheless a digression. This year, given that the Series has been comprised entirely of creative works by me, I wanted to do something a little different, and something a little self-indulgent — I wanted to write up a few comments on each piece, to explain something of their origins and what I was interested in working with. This is, of course, a wholly unnecessary exercise in many ways. Ideally, each piece should…
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But the “consolation” of fairy-tales has another aspect than the imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires. Far more important is the Consolation of the Happy Ending. Almost I would venture to assert that all complete fairy-stories must have it. At least I would say that Tragedy is the true form of Drama, its highest function; but the opposite is true of Fairy-story. Since we do not appear to possess a word that expresses this opposite—I will call it Eucatastrophe. The eucatastrophic tale is the true form of fairy-tale, and its highest function. The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy…
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To the elvish craft, Enchantment, Fantasy aspires…Uncorrupted, it does not seek delusion nor bewitchment and domination; it seeks shared enrichment, partners in making and delight, not slaves. On Fairy Stories, by J.R.R. Tolkien I’m really stuck on On Fairy Stories at the moment. I mean, if I’m honest, I’ve been thinking about OFS on some level ever since the very first time it truly made an impact on me some years back. But at the moment, it’s obviously really playing on my mind, because wherever I look, I see some fresh relevance to it in my day to day life…
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It is, at long last, time to fulfil one of the promises of the Blog of Mazarbul. Ever since I started writing this blog, I have held true to my idea that it will mostly be about Tolkien. I have veered from the course from time to time to touch on broader concepts in fiction or on specific fictional works, or even to touch on games and the arts and theology. Heck, I’ve even expanded the blog’s scope a little and given myself licence to publish a few short original works of my own on it. But there is one…
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Please do read this short story first, if you have not already – the following article is merely an unjustified and unrequested attempt at an author’s commentary upon that work! This is a short creative work that I was inspired to write some months ago, by way of a prompt offered by an artist group I’m part of. The prompt itself was simply to explore ‘Faerie’ (and perhaps inspired this entire blog series!) and, from the first, I knew that I wanted to examine it through a slightly novel perspective. I love Bilbo. I have always loved Bilbo as a…
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