Every Christmas is much the
same; every Christmas is very different. My Christmas this year was very calm
and very quiet. It has long been a tradition at Nolte Street that Susan and
Andy and their kids and their kids’ spouses would gather, first for a breakfast
of pancakes, fried eggs, and bacon, which I would prepare in enormous
quantities, and then we would all open presents. Well, this year they all went
to gather at Kaitlyn and Ryan’s house in San Antonio, which is most appropriate
as that is where the little kids are. I stayed at home, as I could not really
travel in their vehicle (too high, and I felt a little too queasy for the
trip); I didn’t have to cook, and I was able to keep an eye on the house.
Susan, Andy, and Kameron
returned in the late afternoon, and we all left to eat supper at the Grand
Buffet Restaurant (Chinese, Japanese, and Asian cuisine). As it was one of the
few eateries open at Christmas, you can imagine it was doing a brisk business.
I got a fortune cookie at the end of the meal, of course. My fortune read “You
will soon receive a gift with great gratitude.” And for once the fortune came
true, soon, and in spades.
Returning home we settled
down and opened our Christmas presents. I received $100, a 1 pound 12 ounce
fruitcake, and a microwave from Susan and Andy (they just found out I’d been
doing without a microwave for almost a year). That was surprising and
appreciated and received with quite a bit of gratitude. But I also got a couple
of books as gifts.
Beowulf: Translation and
Commentary, Revised and Expanded, Translated by Tom Shippey,
Edited by Leonard Neidorf (Uppsala Books, 2024). The main body is the poem Beowulf
in Anglo-Saxon, and on alternate pages is Shippey’s translation, informed by
his decades-long study of the poem. Almost 200 pages (a little under half of
the 430-page length) are notes and appendices. I am pleased as punch to get
this book; my appreciation of Tom Shippey has deepened over the past year.
Besides being a reading experience, it adds to my pile of both Shippey and
Beowulf books.
A Dictionary of Tolkien, by David Day (Thunder Bay Press, 2024?) Well, yet another sausage grind from his The Tolkien Bestiary, The A-Z of Tolkien, and Tolkien: An Illustrated Encyclopedia. On the other hand, it does claim to have some new writing and there are a few new illustrations (of no great skill or distinguished quality). While I confess that it has always been hard to capture a likeness of the Professor, it has the worst portrait of him I have ever seen. It is a beautifully bound book, and its size is much more handleable than my old Tolkien Bestiary, whose cover is starting to crumble. And it has a bookmark! All-in-all, I am pleased to have it, although it is not something I would have bought myself (don’t particularly want to put any more money in Day’s coffers). But it is still Tolkien, for a certain value of Tolkien. I wouldn’t rely on it as a source, but it is a good-looking book. And I do love expanding my Tolkien Archive. So on the balance, yes, I am grateful and happy to receive it, though it may not exactly sound like it (lot of qualifiers there!).
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