tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post8399025368747956646..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: William Morris among the hobbits - "You are very bitter about that unlucky nineteenth century"Amateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-62892210627316600642016-04-07T12:52:16.679-05:002016-04-07T12:52:16.679-05:00Welcome, and thanks. Your description of Morris&#...Welcome, and thanks. Your description of Morris's novel is quite appealing.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-81359709868789991582016-04-07T11:42:15.488-05:002016-04-07T11:42:15.488-05:00Just discovered your blog! Read everything on Balz...Just discovered your blog! Read everything on Balzac and Hardy and now ran across this bit about Morris. The Well at the World's End is one of my favorites. I would describe it like being inside a tapestry. Lovely old words like carles and carlines, greensward, etc. Weird plots. The air is different in there - golden and drowsy. It's abundantly clear that this is the beginning of fantasy literature, and it's exciting to be at the beginning, when anything was possible. I do hope you'll read more Morris.sylvesternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-54508424451019331822016-03-16T13:51:42.370-05:002016-03-16T13:51:42.370-05:00It's a duty, I think, to buy your unsold donat...It's a duty, I think, to buy your unsold donations back after a few years, and then donate them again a couple of years after that, etc. etc.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-22594137440136901142016-03-16T13:01:14.582-05:002016-03-16T13:01:14.582-05:00I owned an old copy of News From Nowhere for many,...I owned an old copy of News From Nowhere for many, many years before finally letting it go to a library book sale. You have me thinking about getting another copy and giving in a go at long last. I wonder if my local library will have a copy at their next sale...james b chesterhttp://jamesreadsbooks.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-11332724014732371262016-03-15T14:00:17.070-05:002016-03-15T14:00:17.070-05:00The Earthly Paradise is half Norse and medieval, a...<i>The Earthly Paradise</i> is half Norse and medieval, and includes a long verse translation of the <i>Laxdæla Saga</i>, so I have read that. Morris translated several other sagas which I have not read. He had a deep interest in those great stories.<br /><br />The C. S. Lewis quotation is insightful. Morris's early lyric and balladic poetry is so good that it is almost a shame that he gave it up. Given what he later accomplished, though, not such a shame.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-55686275673413311512016-03-15T12:57:24.208-05:002016-03-15T12:57:24.208-05:00morris was like george borrow in his fascination w...morris was like george borrow in his fascination with norse sagas and eddas; odin and the others form a constant presence in both authors works. borrow translated some of the sagas; don't remember if morris did...Mudpuddlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17194891656971454279noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-82322886415375342702016-03-15T12:49:27.295-05:002016-03-15T12:49:27.295-05:00I'm reading through C.S. Lewis' letters at...I'm reading through C.S. Lewis' letters at the moment and coming up in the letters, he apparently has a number of comments on Morris and his works. He doesn't mention News From Nowhere, but he does talk about Morris' other books and poetry (particularly enjoying The Well at the Worlds' End). I found one comment in a letter to his friend Arthur Greeves on July 1,1930 where he has an interesting comment on Morris through reading one of his poems:<br /><br /><i>[Morris] is the most essentially pagan of all poets. The beauty of the actual world, the vague longings which it excites, the inevitable failure to satisfy these longings and over all the haunting sense of time and change making the world heartbreakingly beautiful just because it slips away ... of what those longings really pointed to, of the reason why beauty made us homesick, of the reality behind, I thought he had no inkling. And for that reason his poetry always seemed to me dangerous and apt to lead to sensuality ... Now in Love is Enough he raises himself right out of his own world. He suddenly shows that he is at bottom aware of the real symbolical import of all the longing and even of earthly love itself. In the speeches of Love (who is the most important character) there is a clear statement of eternal values (coupled with a refusal to offer you crudely personal immortality) and also, best of all, a full understanding that there is something beyond pleasure & pain. For the first and last time, the light.of holiness shines through Morris's romanticism, not destroying but perfecting it."</i><br />Cleohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13152128642971612433noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-29021851596805077902016-03-15T10:38:30.788-05:002016-03-15T10:38:30.788-05:00For some real eye-strain, try the lovely Kelmscott...For some real eye-strain, try the lovely <a href="http://morrisedition.lib.uiowa.edu/Images/wellworldsend/pageflip/pageflip1-50.html" rel="nofollow">Kelmscott edition</a>.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-50933553284658163682016-03-15T10:21:03.023-05:002016-03-15T10:21:03.023-05:00I bet somebody has produced an OCR version by now....I bet somebody has produced an OCR version by now. Off to search the Internet!Jeanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14247515387599954817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-74124960140921163522016-03-15T09:41:33.386-05:002016-03-15T09:41:33.386-05:00Thanks, these are helpful comments. "Ornate&...Thanks, these are helpful comments. "Ornate" sounds good to me. I will probably have to read Morris electronically, too. I will pronounce the name "Rafe."Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-29179745086073790332016-03-15T00:34:59.689-05:002016-03-15T00:34:59.689-05:00Yes, very ornate. Also the hero is Sir Ralph, and...Yes, very ornate. Also the hero is Sir Ralph, and I wish he'd spelled it Ralf because that at least I can imagine as poetic. Although I suppose it's supposed to be pronounced like Rafe.<br /><br />I actually stalled out reading Well at the World's End, but that was largely because I was reading a scan on a tablet, and every time I turned the page I had to re-size the image to make it readable. That got old very quickly. I would like to read the whole thing.Jeanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14247515387599954817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-21515599769185120862016-03-14T23:43:47.017-05:002016-03-14T23:43:47.017-05:00Morris's fantasy novels are wonderful, easily ...Morris's fantasy novels are wonderful, easily the finest English books of that kind written in the nineteenth century. Their style tends to be much more ornate than that of News from Nowhere, but one adjusts to it quickly - at least I did. The Well at the World's End is the best, followed by The Roots of the Mountains and The Water of the Wondrous Isles. I wouldn't begin with The Wood Beyond the World: it's shorter and less richly-imagined than most of the others, but still worth reading if one relishes Morris.<br /><br />Daniel Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com