Theodora Elucubrare

Read Tolkien's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which I was not expecting to start with the fall of Troy?? (Only briefly mentioned as a sort of city, state, country, continent, Planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy approach to setting the scene of Arthur's Britain, but I did find myself momentarily baffled about whether I'd opened the correct e-book.) Interesting to finally read the poem after having seen/read various retellings/adaptations of it— for one thing, it turns out the answer to why would Gawain jump straight to "chop this guy's head off" when presented with the challenge of "whatever blow you deal now, I'll return in one year's time"? is because the challenge was, in fact, set up that way. (Of course, even with the Green Knight kneeling and helpfully baring his neck and making unsubtle comments like I'll tell you where to find me in a year's time afterwards... if I can! If not, you're off the hook!, he could have not done that, but I guess it's a load-bearing detail of Arthuriana that absolutely no one can see a trap when they're about to walk into one or else no one would have weird adventures.) For another: ohhhhh, okay, the OT3 reading is not a stretch of the imagination at all. It also spent more time describing food, clothing, armor, horses' gear, castle architecture, and other luxuries than I would have expected - on the other hand, it also spent quite a lot of time on how to disembowel a deer?? - and each stanza ended with an ABABA rhyme scheme, although I guess in this case, we are not meant to pronounce Gawain as Gar-win—

'What is here, all is your own, to have in your rule          
and sway.'
'Gramercy!' quoth Gawain,    
'May Christ you this repay!'     
As men that to meet were fain     
they both embraced that day.

Later, it also rhymes Gawain with retain, so I guess the pronunciation is supposed to be "Ga-wayne," which is frankly how I always assumed it was pronounced, until The Green Knight (2021)...?

In War and Peace, Dolokhov (of the "just fought a duel over sleeping with Pierre's wife" incident) has fallen in love with - and proposed to - Sonya, the poor Rostov cousin/ward who is in love with Nikolai but (spoiler!) he ends up jilting her for Princess Mary, and Sonya ends up never marrying and moves in with them to care for their children. ANYWAY. We are not there yet; Dolokhov has proposed to Sonya, Sonya refused out of love for Nikolai, and Dolokhov proceeded to take his revenge by needling Nikolai into gambling himself into financial ruin, because Nikolai has the backbone of a chocolate eclair as well as one (1) singular brain cell just bouncing around thinking about how much he loves Emperor Alexander.

Read Beowulf— or, first, I saw Beowulf, A Retelling, a one-man show in a pop-up bar at a local arts center, which was a very good introduction to Beowulf, since it was literally just a guy telling the story in his own (conversational, compelling) words, weaving in references to modern heroes and villains* as a sort of touchstone for how parts of the story would have resonated in ye olde days and using instruments for sound effects (e.g., a violin bow across the strings of an electric guitar for Grendel's dying screech). It was very cool! Obviously then had to actually read Beowulf (the Francis Gummere translation was the first one available) and I'm glad I had the crash-course version first; it helped to know the shape of the story and have something to mentally translate it back to. (Plus, if I'd had to figure out how to mentally pronounce Healfdene and Ecgtheow on my own, I think I simply would have not.) What really struck me was the sheer sense of time of it all— the oldest known Old English poem, and possibly a story that was hundreds of years old by the time it was written down, and still there were recurring mentions of "heirlooms", which might be a quirk of translation but does suggest the weight of history behind this story that's already really, really old, and at the same time, I found myself thinking about its history in the other direction— reading/listening to it like, okay, yes, I can see what Tolkien got from this.

( footnote )

Read Home Sweet Homicide by Craig Rice, an absolutely delightful 1944 murder mystery in which the three precocious children of a widowed mystery novelist go meddling in the murder investigation next door, while - as a side project - trying to set their mother up with the lead detective on the case.

In War and Peace, I've hit the first scene that made it into Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812— Pierre challenged Dolokhov to a duel (technically over a minor affront at a club dinner! actually over rumors of Dolokhov having an affair with Pierre's wife!) and, to everyone's surprise, managed both to hit Dolokhov and to avoid being hit— and recalled how many of the lyrics are just verbatim lines from the book. At the same time, Andrei (presumed dead after the battle of Austerlitz) returned home just in time for his wife, Lise, to die in childbirth. :( One thing I've started to notice is that everything in this book seems to happen in pairs: Pierre's and Andrei's marriages ended, albeit in very different ways, in almost back-to-back chapters; Nikolai and Andrei had foil-like experiences of meeting their heroes at Austerlitz; Kuragin successfully maneuvered his daughter Helene into a marriage to Pierre and then immediately failed to marry off his son Anatole to Mary Bolkonskaya...?