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PERRIN LOVETT

~ Fiction, Freedom, and The West

PERRIN LOVETT

Tag Archives: book review

Review of UNSCHOOLED by Kerry McDonald

08 Monday Jun 2020

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book review, children, education, Kerry McDonald, Unschooled

Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom

Kerry McDonald, 2019

It’s no secret that, around here, the government schools are frowned upon as satanic prisons where children are abused and civilization is crushed into oblivion. What if it’s not the government part that’s the main problem? After reading this book and thinking about all I have seen, lived, and experienced, I think the idea of “school” itself is problematic. Such is McDonald’s premise in this excellent, methodical, and entertaining work.

I just gave it 5 stars at Amazon and Goodreads and I may go back and incorporate some of these words in a house review. First, there was one thing that caught me a little off guard in the pages. It’s something McDonald doesn’t shy away from and qualifies upfront. There is, to me, an inordinate amount of reference to the … alternative lifestyles. That said, by way of qualification, the author notes that the modern trend was largely started by radical leftists and leftover hippies, then followed increasingly by the Christian right. She also praises Andrew Carnegie, for whom I have no sociological use at all. But, at any rate, the whole tome is very well-balanced and apolitical.

And, though the current “movement” started in the 1970s, the concept is ancient. Until about 150 years ago, there were next to no schools anywhere. Or, at least there were no monstrosities of the kind that dot American towns and cities these days. There were colleges, elite academies, private tutors, and local private collective efforts, but the bulk of human education was left to the family … and to the children themselves. And it worked.

It still does.

I made something like 169 Kindle notes and highlights as I worked my way through. Most of them, I’ll leave off, here. What really stood out to me was the concept of what McDonald styles the “instruction assumption.” We, most of us, naturally (or unnaturally) assume that to learn one must be instructed. I wrestled with this, as likely you will as well. McDonald did. It is a fallacy.

Who taught you to stand up? To walk? To talk? To run? The answer is “you.” Believe it or not – and the book really helps – children can and will continue to self-educate, constantly and with all subjects. The purpose of an “instructor,” a parent, is to maintain a state of freedom, riddled with inspiration and opportunity, so as to facilitate what the child can do on his own.

“Public” schools are antithetical to this natural process, as are many (most) private schools, and even curriculum-directed homeschooling. A period of “de-schooling” may be required to dispense with the horrible habits of conformity and debasement.

Some quotes:

“The reason kids hate school is because it’s school.”

“It’s Not the kids. It’s the schools.”

Let those words sink in. If you’ve worked in a school or if you have a child in a school, then you subconsciously know. If not, then remember back to your own experiences so many years ago.

McDonald breaks down, as have many other analysts, how modern schools are designed to break spirits, foster useless conformity, and miseducate. This is the opposite of learning. For doubters – and I had my doubts – she presents example after example, to include academic studies and historical examples, that prove the laissez-faire approach not only works but that it generally works much better than the alternatives. It works for happy children and also for the greater society. Most of our titans of intellect and accomplishment, from Athens to London to Philadelphia, were unschooled and yet managed to change the world or parts thereof. Her example of “young Tom” was insightful and hilarious. *I understand that Tom Ironsides also read the book and is reconsidering his classical school model along more decentralized lines.*

Children can forego school completely, take no standardized tests, receive no useless credentialing paper, exempt the SAT, and still gain admittance to a good college. There, they typically outpace their schooled counterparts. College is not the only secondary path; it may not be the best one given a particular child. There are all kinds of alternatives. The keys are freely-informed consent, individual interest and pacing, and independent and critically-acquired knowledge. Those keys are natural. What goes on in the dull halls of the K-12 world is not.

The solution, as is often the case, is freedom, in this case freely allowing the child to pursue his own interests at his own pace. Even in our crazed, rule-plagued country, this is legal in all 50 states. I developed a sense of awe in the reading. I was also a little jealous; this could have and probably was the best (non) system for me. But, times change. Think of this, for those in the know, as a Sudbury School in the home.

Given human nature and especially the nature of Americans (or what passes for them), I doubt this self-directed methodology will appeal to the masses. But it should. UNSCHOOLED gave me a great, renewed sense of hope. If you have children or if you care anything about the future of intelligent civilization, then I highly recommend not only the book but at least an exploration of the ideas within it.

This Week

07 Sunday Jun 2020

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book review, history, TPC

We have a great TPC/PL column scheduled for tomorrow in honor of the chief historic incident of the date. You’ll enjoy it.

And, I’ve finished UNSCHOOLED by Kerry McDonald. I made around 169 notes, so I’ll have to shift through before I can review it in full. It’s good.

Until then, P

“A GRITTY, REALISTIC LOOK INSIDE THE PUBLIC SCHOOL”

19 Tuesday Nov 2019

Posted by perrinlovett in Books For Sale

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book review, books, fiction, novel, The Substitute, Tom Ironsides

The first 5-Star review of THE SUBSTITUTE is now live at Amazon:

Thomas
5.0 out of 5 starsA GRITTY, REALISTIC LOOK INSIDE THE PUBLIC SCHOOL

November 17, 2019

It takes courage to write a book. Few things are as intimidating as sitting down in front of a blank computer screen day after day and trying to fill it with something worthwhile. Perrin Lovett is doubly brave. He has written an original, exciting, entertaining story. But he also had the courage to take on the most sacred cow in the vast American herd – the public schools. THE SUBSTITUTE gives us a vivid, realistic, inside look at the failing public schools based on real, day-to-day experience. Many non-fiction studies of public education have been appeared in the past few years. But THE SUBSTITUTE is the only novel on the subject I’m aware of that compares to the famous “muckraker novels” of the early 20th Century that exposed such social evils as child labor, worker safety, and political corruption. Writers like Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, and Lincoln Steffens changed America by using fictional truth to expose the social ills they addressed. I hope that Perrin Lovett’s novel will have a similar effect on how we look at public schools, which demand an ever greater bite of tax revenue while producing an ever worse result.

Perrin Lovett is a natural story-teller, with a superb command of language and a tone, sardonic at times, that is appropriate to his subject. And he has created a splendid protagonist, Dr. Tom Ironsides, the substitute of the title. Dr. Ironsides is also Colonel Ironsides, retired from the Marine Corps and from subsequent “black ops” with the CIA. He is an academic, trained in the Classics, and a warrior, trained to function in a world where survival demands competence.

At first I was concerned how Lovett would get such an engaging character from the battlefield against terrorism to the battlefield against ignorance. But he does it quite well, quite credibly. Ironsides is one of those people with the self-confidence and the idealism to want to spend his later life setting things right. What better venue for his knowledge, skills, and natural authority than the schools? But since he’s not officially certified, he has to start out teaching as a full-time substitute. As a substitute, he covers many different grade levels and subjects, giving the reader a genuine cross-section autopsy of an unsustainable system. It’s crushed by its own bureaucracy, treats its students more like inmates of a prison, destroys love of learning, and drains the heart out of the teachers. Most of them love their kids and aspire to teach them well, but they’re over-burdened with ever more testing and data-keeping and bureaucratic procedure. Instead of making the classroom a place of excellence in learning, public schools are creating sinkholes of mediocrity.

I won’t spoil the ending except to say it’s very satisfying. It’s fictional, of course, but it ends the only way the whole national public school debacle can end if America is to remain a strong, free, prosperous, self-governing nation. Only a well-educated people can keep it that way. If we do follow the new course described in THE SUBSTITUTE, we’ll have Perrin Lovett to thank.

 

Wow. That feels like a heavy responsibility. For my part, I’ve started making a few minor changes to the book. First, there are always little improvements to make, my pedantic CYA in the Afterword aside. Second, the formatting needs a little work, which I can accomplish soon. (For that, I blame the computer and the template).

Screenshot 2019-11-19 at 10.10.33 AM Screenshot 2019-11-19 at 10.10.59 AM

Let’s keep those going!

A Review of THE SUBSTITUTE

17 Sunday Nov 2019

Posted by perrinlovett in Books For Sale

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book review, books, fiction, novel, The Substitute

My advance copy of a review headed to The Substitute Amazon page. This is, frankly, better than any description I’ve ever attempted:

It takes courage to write a book. Few things are as intimidating as sitting down in front of a blank computer screen day after day and trying to fill it with something worthwhile. Perrin Lovett is doubly brave. He has given us an exciting, entertaining story. But he also had the courage to take on the most sacred cow in the vast American herd – the public schools. THE SUBSTITUTE gives us a vivid, realistic, inside look at the failing public schools based on real, day-to-day experience. Many non-fiction studies of public education have been appeared in the past few years. But THE SUBSTITUTE is the only novel on the subject I’m aware of that compares to the famous “muckraker novelists” of the early 20th Century who exposed such social evils as child labor, worker safety, and political corruption. These writers changed America by shining the light of truth on the social ills they addressed. I hope that Perrin Lovett’s novel will have a similar effect on how we look at public schools, which demand an ever greater bite of tax revenue while producing an ever worse result.

Perrin Lovett is a natural story-teller, with a superb command of language and a tone, sardonic at times, that is appropriate to his subject. And he has created a splendid protagonist, Dr. Tom Ironsides, the substitute of the title. Dr. Ironsides is also Colonel Ironsides, retired from the Marine Corps and from subsequent “black ops” with the CIA. He is an academic, trained in the Classics, and a warrior, trained to function in a world where competence equals survival.

At first I was concerned how Lovett would get such an engaging character from the battlefield against terrorism to the battlefield against ignorance. But he does it quite well, quite credibly.

Ironsides is one of those people with the self-confidence and the idealism to want to spend his later life setting things right. What better venue for his knowledge, skills, and natural authority than the schools? But since he’s not officially certified, he has to start out teaching as a full-time substitute. As a substitute, he covers many different grade levels and subjects, giving us a genuine cross-section autopsy of an unsustainable system. It’s crushed by its own bureaucracy, treats its students more like inmates of a prison, destroys love of learning, and drains the heart out of the teachers – most of whom love their kids and want to do well – burdening them with ever more testing and data-keeping and procedures instead of allowing them to instruct.

I won’t spoil the ending except to say it’s very satisfying. It’s fictional, of course, but it ends the only way the whole national public school debacle can end if America is to remain a strong, free, prosperous, self-governing nation. Only a well-educated people can keep it that way. If we do follow the new course described in THE SUBSTITUTE, we’ll have Perrin Lovett to thank.

Who writes that? Thomas Moore, author of A Fatal Mercy and Hunt for Confederate Gold. Hopefully, this will spark a string of five-stars!  I’ll have a picture added, here, once the review hit Amazon. Now, if it all falls apart, am I to blame?? This is the kind of accolade one wants but then feels the burden of. Thanks, Tom!

PS: TPC “preview” – I keep waffling on ideas this week. Whatever it is, it will be good. See that, mid-week.

Really Trying to Get it Right

20 Tuesday Aug 2019

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book review, collapse, economics

Daniel Markovits of Yale Law has a new book coming out. It may be interesting. The following is a snippet, pre-release:

The main obstacle to overcoming meritocratic inequality is not technical but political. Today’s conditions induce discontent and widespread pessimism, verging on despair. In his book Oligarchy, the political scientist Jeffrey A. Winters surveys eras in human history from the classical period to the 20th century, and documents what becomes of societies that concentrate income and wealth in a narrow elite. In almost every instance, the dismantling of such inequality has been accompanied by societal collapse, such as military defeat (as in the Roman empire) or revolution (as in France and Russia).

Nevertheless, there are grounds for hope. History does present one clear-cut case of an orderly recovery from concentrated inequality: In the 1920s and ’30s, the U.S. answered the Great Depression by adopting the New Deal framework that would eventually build the mid-century middle class. Crucially, government redistribution was not the primary engine of this process. The broadly shared prosperity that this regime established came, mostly, from an economy and a labor market that promoted economic equality over hierarchy—by dramatically expanding access to education, as under the GI Bill, and then placing mid-skilled, middle-class workers at the center of production.

An updated version of these arrangements remains available today; a renewed expansion of education and a renewed emphasis on middle-class jobs can reinforce each other. The elite can reclaim its leisure in exchange for a reduction of income and status that it can easily afford. At the same time, the middle class can regain its income and status and reclaim the center of American life.

Rebuilding a democratic economic order will be difficult. But the benefits that economic democracy brings—to everyone—justify the effort. And the violent collapse that will likely follow from doing nothing leaves us with no good alternative but to try.

Even “liberals” are sensing the problem. He’s on to something, a little late, about the conditions and the rigging. He’s off about the solution, I think. But, he grasps that violence is coming. That, I think is now unavoidable – partly because of the changes that Markovits hints around but doesn’t address (this ain’t the country it was in 1962). I do like his optimism though. Maybe consider the read in September.

 

Restoring the Promise Review Preview

23 Thursday May 2019

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book review, books, college, Vedder

I have just finished reading Richard Vedder’s Restoring the Promise. It’s good, spot-on in many places. Vedder is an economics professor so his take on academia is geared as such. Many, may charts and graphs, but most of the astoundingly worthwhile variety. He goes well beyond a purely financial analysis and he isn’t afraid of the tougher social issues. He essentially lays out two paths of redemption: the “conservative,” and the radical. Guess which one I favored?

More on this when I have time. There’s going to be a lot more, from me, on education.

BUY YOUR COPY TODAY

51IEZ0lTJdL

Vedder.

Vedder Vets the Academy

18 Saturday May 2019

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book review, books, college, education, Restoring the Promise, Richard Vedder

Today, I began my foray into “Restoring the Promise, Higher Education in America,” by Richard Vedder. I’m only the “praises,” the introduction, and chapter one in so far. And, so far, so good. This is a preliminary review preview, but for the most part, I like what I’m reading.

Sayeth Amazon and the Publisher:

American higher education is increasingly in trouble. Universities are facing an uncertain and unsettling future with free speech suppression, out-of-control Federal student aid programs, soaring administrative costs, and intercollegiate athletics mired in corruption. Restoring the Promise explores these issues and exposes the federal government’s role in contributing to them. With up-to-date discussions of the most recent developments on university campuses, this book is the most comprehensive assessment of universities in recent years.

An initial thought: The forward is a list of quotes by industry “leaders,” heavies in academia, many from government or NGO-ish positions, like Bill Bennett. That’s fine and to be expected. However, many of these folks have been around the business for a long time – all while the problems worsen. Not blaming, just saying. Vedder too, by his admission, is a seven-decade veteran. I’m wondering if those who are certainly in the know, because of their long involvement, also know how to extricate from the current dilemma (if that’s even possible). On the other hand, when a deep insider recognizes systemic failure, that says volumes.

We shall see. More on that, here, later.

51IEZ0lTJdL

Amazon/Independent Institute/Vedder.

PS: And, I mean HERE. Amazon would not run my (Amazon custom) review of  A Fatal Mercy, allegedly because it linked back to my review here. There’s also the “Terms” thing about authors not doing reviews, which never made full sense to me so long as one refrains from reviewing one’s own book(s). Anyway: Stars (only and only so long as that’s allowed), there, and review text, here (the CH thing with WP…). I am also wondering if this is part of the SJW/Tech push to shadowban. Promise and Fatal Mercy are both right-of-center. I note no reviews for either, even as I’m prompted to enter at least a star review, immediately upon purchase and without the benefit of reading. Odd.

 

A Review of “A Fatal Mercy, The Man Who Lost The Civil War,” by Thomas Moore

15 Wednesday May 2019

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"Civil" War, A Fatal Mercy, book review, books, fiction, Thomas Moore

A Review of “A Fatal Mercy, The Man Who Lost The Civil War,” by Thomas Moore

 

The boy had it right in quoting his grandfather: “courage and fortitude are never in vain … no good cause is ever lost because all good causes are lost causes.” Even if he didn’t exactly understand the last part of it, that quote expresses an oft-felt theme, if not a rule, of life and of a higher civilization. It is the theme of his grandfather’s story from 1863 through 1913.

 

Was Drayton FitzHenry the man who lost the War for Southern Independence? The man himself certainly thought so, perhaps with good reason. Then again, the reader can, likely will, come to understand that there may have been a good reason behind the losing. The story is simple in its complexity, and visa versa.

 

Moore has really written two books in one. A Fatal Mercy is an in-depth study of the human condition and of Christian morality, Western in origin – Southern by the grace of God. On the one hand, the book is a stirring rendition of The War. In that alone, it is fantastic martial fiction, at once woven by an elegant and commanding imagination and steeped in painstakingly researched history. The story is compelling, riveting.

 

That is especially high praise from me. Unlike my father, I am not a “Civil” War buff. As a child, the old man dragged me from battlefield to battlefield, constantly uttering information gleaned from his (separate) War library. I certainly gained a respect – and the good manners to at least phrase “Civil” with those all-important quotation marks – but I never developed the … obsession. This book, all through its 727 pages, engendered some of that. This is a work my father would have read – and liked. Those of you who knew him, know that is higher praise.

 

Perhaps highest of all, is what that aforementioned history and the associated culture, presented alive and burning, generates with regard to what I see as the second grand interpretation, a thoughtful, reasoned, and unapologetic defense of relevant antiquity, classical knowledge, honor, and the grandeur of Western Civilization.

 

I am a student of classical Greco-Roman tradition. Here, Moore writes as well and true as any: “One reason we study the Classics, apart from the value of the knowledge itself, is for what they may teach us about our times.” With this sentiment, Cicero concurs: “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?”

 

Today, most Americans, Southerners included, are ignorant of history, children easily led astray from their ancestral heritage. Moore addresses this issue, with direct examples, slightly dramatized, through the eyes of his protagonist. Drayton’s book-long dilemma revolves around a momentary eye of the storm at Gettysburg. Rather, around the eye of the fish hook, as Shelby Foote put it if we stretch Foote’s geographic definitions to include Little Round Top (and it is, topography-wise, a sub-eye). See: The Civil War, a Narrative, Stars in Their Courses, p. 479, Random House, New York (1963).

 

Of that terrible battle and its defining outcome, Bruce Catton wrote: “There was no pattern to any of this, except for the undesigned pattern that can always be traced after the event.” Never Call Retreat, Encounter at Gettysburg, p. 186, Doubleday, New York (1965). If this is true – and who doubts Catton – then Drayton’s dilemma is understandable. Drayton lived out the maxim: “Iniuriam facilius facias quam feras – Easier to do a wrong than to endure one.” – Syrus, Maxims. As he refrained from the former, so he endured the latter. Both counts are attributable to – and tribute to – his wisdom and honor.

 

And, there is an honor, and a wisdom, about Drayton FitzHenry that is rare among literary creations. Odysseus has it, as does Frodo. That wisdom moves beyond the narrative of the War, the horrors of Reconstruction, and into the following age. Along with other, innumerable truths, a lesson and a warning speak directly to us. It finds different ways of expression:

 

  • The kindly nature of a freed slave towards her former master;

 

  • The correct realization that the War ended the original American Republic, freeing one class of slaves only to create another;

 

  • Understanding the force and effect of the demonic legal trilogy of 1913: to this end, three separate quotes, conjoined (by me, for my purposes): “Power transmutes into Empire. Empire begets hubris. Hubris brings ruin. … [O]ur virtues will be needed by America, perhaps even the world, more than ever. … We must do the best we can and leave the consequences to God.”

 

Moore’s articulate, enrapturing characters witness the end of a Republic. We stand at the very possible end of an Empire. Then, in the fable, and now, in our reality, both intelligent free will and resolve to honor Providence properly combine. Sayeth the poet: “Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo – If I can’t move Heaven, I’ll raise Hell.” – Virgil, The Aeneid, VII, 312. The men at Gettysburg, of both sides, did exactly that. A Fatal Mercy does the same, does both in fact, recalling the horror and heroism of combat while instilling pride in the genteel, the cultured, the learned, the respecting, and the respectable. It is all of powerful magnitude.

 

The Author states: “My principal goal was not just to write the best contemporary novel of the War, but also to place my protagonist in an excruciating moral and emotional dilemma and see how he would resolve his inner conflict.” Moore has done that, and greater still. This book is a timeless Classic.

 

Also: The letters… The burning of the letters, Chapter Seventeen, moved me. The reader will, I trust, understand soon enough.

 

(Picture: Amazon/Green Altar Books – Shotwell/Moore)

 

A Fatal Mercy, The Man Who Lost The Civil War, Thomas Moore, Green Altar Books, Columbia, SC (2019).

A Full Review (and then some) of The Fall of Gondolin

13 Thursday Dec 2018

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book review, books, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fall of Gondolin, TPC

FROM TPC. Here, in full, via direct syndication:

13 December 2018

[Perrin Lovett] – A Book Review of Tolkien’s “The Fall of Gondolin”

 

A story a century in the making. A book published 45 years after the author’s death. The latest in a long line of best selling works. Earlier this year came the “completed” master legend of the last days of Turgon’s hidden kingdom. Here follows my account of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fall of Gondolin, the good, the great, and the quirky.

But, first, a few notes on how to read Tolkien, especially this tome. A virgin perusal is possible, provided the reader is possessed of what passed for, say, an eighth-grade education, circa 1960. (What that translates to, today, I do not know, though I suspect it leans towards the graduate level). While I’m about to highly recommend the book, I do not recommend it as an initial foray into Arda (the physical World of the Legendarium). Hence,

Start with The Hobbit. Read it at least twice. Then, read The Lord of the Rings (“LOTR”) – cover to cover – to include the important Appendixes. Read LOTR again. Next, read The Hobbit and LOTR, back to back. Then, read The Silmarillion – thrice. The initial criticism of Christopher Tolkien’s editing work will be manifestly obvious and seemingly justified during the initial and subsequent reading. What he painstakingly assembled immediately following his father’s passing at first looks like a neverending cobbling of names, places, dates, and more names. The basis for concern melts with the third reading as a thing of pure majesty presents itself. Somewhere around the twelfth consideration, the work takes on a pleasure all its own as the now academic reader skillfully seeks out well-known favorite passages.

Read The Hobbit, LOTR, and The Silmarillion in succession. Then, and only then, one may (and should) move into The Lost Tales, Unfinished Tales, the various volumes of The History of Middle Earth and other, associated works. Somewhere, during this time, a gander at the various explanatory Letters Tolkien sent is advisable.

Nearing finality in this educational process, one approaches The Children of Hurin, Tolkien’s grand tragedy to rival (I say “to best”) anything by Sophocles. Released in 2007, Hurin fully completes the tale glimpsed in some of the above works, a good novella stretched into a great novel. Hurin also set the stage for the first of two “disappointments” in the saga.

Last year we were treated to the full-length version of that base tale of eternal romance, Beren and Luthien. I say “disappointment” only because, unlike Hurin, Beren is not a completed telling. Rather, it is a “how the story was crafted over many decades” book, literally tracing the development, draft by draft, from WWI until near the time of Tolkien’s death. It’s fascinating, but what you get in the end is essentially the final product recorded in The Silmarillion 40 years earlier. Still, fans, we take what we can get, right?

So it is with The Fall of Gondolin. This is not an end-to-end expose of, perhaps, the most dramatic, action-packed legend in all the annals. But, it does, in primitive and rather disjointed format, link everything together. And, it’s all awesome.

Here, I pause to credit the masterful dedication of Christopher T. in revising, editing, and publishing so much we would otherwise miss. He says, and I believe him, that this is his finale. Then again, he hinted as much when Beren hit the shelves. If this is his end, the end of 70+ year tenure as vice-regent of Middle Earth, so to speak, he’s more than earned the retirement (and all the honor and gratitude we can heap on him). Thank you, Sir!

It occurs to me that more stories lurk in that vast archive housed, in all places, at Marquette University. Something tells me another generation or other appointed editor is already sifting through it. With any luck, a hundred years after people have forgotten the tedious Crowleyisms of Rowling’s inexplicably popular rubbish, they’ll still look forward to something new from the master of the Anglo-Saxon, our Literary Professor Emeritus.

Now – and, thank you for bearing with the preface – on with the book:

I have, here, no real Easter eggs. As I warned, The Fall is not really for the uninitiated, the faint of heart, nor the post-literate. I warped through it, the first time, in about an hour. This is due to: my pre-existing knowledge of the story; my understanding of Christopher’s editing style; the prior reading of Beren; some excellent outside reviews, and; the terrific, easy, and user-friendly layout of the Kindle version.

By the way,

BUY THE FALL OF GONDOLIN

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Picture courtesy of Amazon, Tolkien, Tolkien, and Lee!

The first hint the casual reader may discover, of the grandeur of Gondolin, is in The Hobbit. This was the fabled city from whence came the blades of Gandalf and Thorin, originally made for the Goblin Wars. Therein, encircled and protected by near-impenetrable mountains, reigned Turgon, upon a time High King of the Noldorin Elves.

Of Tuor and His Coming Into Gondolin, we know from the Unfinished Tales. Orphaned Tuor, tallest of mortal Men, found the unlikely favor of Ulmo (Poseidon), Lord of Waters. He came to Gondolin following adventures wet and cold. There, he found the favor of the King and the love of his daughter, Idril. Theirs was one of a mere handful of mixed marriages and breedings (of Men and Elves), the progeny thereof being Earendil, future father of Elrond and Elros.

One of the most idiotic of all criticisms limply cast at Tolkien is his alleged forsaking of romance and of strong women. Forgetting, if it’s possible, Eowyn, Arwen, Galadriel, Gilraen, Morwen, Nienor, Luthien, Rose Cotton, “Gimli’s women,” Lobelia, Melian, Varda, Yavanna, and the literally scorching-hot Arien, Idril holds her own against both counts of libel. Her enduring love of Tuor and her unrelenting bravery in the defense of her people and her child suffice. When violently assailed by her wayward and lusting cousin, we learn she fought “like a tigress.” And, her plan was the contingency that saved the remnant, quite possibly preventing the First Age from ending prematurely and with total victory for Morgoth (Lucifer). Tolkien didn’t write weak women. Nor did he write weak fiction.

Not weak, but, as edited by necessity, confusing – hence my approach advice in the delving. The last telling of Tuor’s arrival, essentially that of Unfinished, comes towards the end of this book. A link is provided (in Kindle), instantly redirecting the reader back to near the beginning and the actual Fall of the most beautiful city of Beleriand.

In studying this demise it is helpful to know, in advance, something of how the peoples and the histories converged toward finality, of who made the cut and who didn’t, who became whom, and so forth. The Gnomes, for instance, were working placeholders; the “men” of the Gondolidrim are, in fact, Elves – Tuor being the only actual Man in the Kingdom at the time (though not in history). A healthy peremptory education prevents getting lost in an otherwise incomprehensible tangle of names, races, titles, and descriptions. But, once one has it – whoa!

Now comes the action, more action, and then, some more riveting action. Imagine, those of you of mere LOTR acquaintance, Minas Tirith falling, in spectacular fashion, during Sauron’s assault during The Return of the King. Imagine the peak valor and feats of heroism of that work, augmented and repeated side-by-side over and over again.

In The Fall we learn a bit more about Morgoth’s creation of the dragons, the slithering and winged. We also find out that Balrogs can be slain without the accompanying death of the slayer. Glorfindel (sorry Peter Jackson victims) finds and ends his “buddy” up on the mountainside. Ecthelion takes out three demons in rapid succession, only meeting his end killing the fourth – Gothmog, no less. Tuor slays five and grievously wounds a dragon and does so mostly unscathed.

Towers fall. Wolves run. Eagles fly. Snakes crawl. Evil wins the glorious day (night, rather) only to set up its eventual defeat at the hands of the temporarily vanquished. It’s a wild, violent, noble ride worthy of any acclaim ever aimed at the creation of Eru Iluvatar.

So… Five Stars. Highly recommended. Applause. Buy it today, read it when you’re ready.

And, another hardy thank you to Christopher Tolkien, illustrator Alan Lee, and, especially, to our most prolific Survivor of The Somme, Sir John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Excellence mirroanwe!

jrr-tolkien1

THE Legend. Picture from Biography Online.

The Last Closet and Jedi: Future Reviews

17 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by perrinlovett in Other Columns

≈ Comments Off on The Last Closet and Jedi: Future Reviews

Tags

book review, books, Dracula, Star Wars, The Last Closet

As usual I am, now, plugging through several books, some I’ve mentioned before. Some may be reviewed here and at Amazon. One which definitely will (eventually) is The Last Closet by Moria Greyland, Castalia, 12/12/17.

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Castalia/Amazon.

It’s a 5-star book but my recommendation is qualified. For full “enjoyment” one requires, I think: a slightly higher IQ; an interest in the darkness of society (very dark), and; a cast iron stomach. The subject matter is horrendous, as related first-hand by a victim. Not going into details yet but this book covers some of the worst evil imaginable.

A side affect is that, as sometimes happens, this book has prompted me to reread another, older book. In this case: Dracula by Bram Stoker. The Last Closet, non-fiction, is vastly darker, scarier, making Harker’s expedition seem like a run-of-the-mill real estate closing.

Speaking of dark … a new Disney SJW Star Wars movie is in theaters. This is the first one that I am not thrilled about seeing. I will see it because: 1) Star Wars, and 2) 40 years of devotion. I do not like the look and feel of the reviews and spoilers I read. The Last Jedi may be the last Star Wars movie for me. Not sure until I see it. You’ll hear back, then.

And, yes, there are those other reviews I said were coming. Just you wait. BBQ a porg to pass the time.

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Perrin Lovett

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