Episode 191: The Best of Series Leaf by Niggle Part 2, Ep. 59
On this week\u2019s episode of The Literary Life, we bring you another installment in our \u201cBest of\u201d Series. Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks continue their discussion of J. R. R. Tolkien\u2019s short story \u201cLeaf by Niggle\u201c. If you missed the Back to School 2020 Conference when it was live, you can still purchase access to the recordings at MorningTimeforMoms.com. Angelina opens the book chat highlighting Tolkien\u2019s mirroring of Dante\u2019s Divine Comedy with Niggle\u2019s journey, and our hosts move through a recap of the story. The questions we should be asking as we read are whether this story deals with the recovery of our vision and whether it ends with a eucatastrophe.
Cindy brings out more of the autobiographical nature of this story for Tolkien. Angelina tosses around the idea that Parish and Niggle may be doubles and be a picture of Tolkien\u2019s two selves. Thomas talks about what Niggle has to do in the \u201cpurgatory\u201d section of the story. They also talk about the themes of art and the artist, sub-creation, and redemption. Come back next week to hear a discussion about why we ought to read myths.
Commonplace Quotes:It is when a writer first begins to make enemies that he begins to matter.
Hilton Brown
Kill that whence spring the crude fancies and wild day-dreams of the young, and you will never lead them beyond dull facts\u2014dull because their relations to each other, and the one life that works in them all, must remain undiscovered. Whoever would have his children avoid this arid region will do well to allow no teacher to approach them\u2014not even of mathematics\u2014who has no imagination.
George MacDonald
On the Death of Dr. Robert LevetThere were people who cared for him and people didn\u2019t, and those who didn\u2019t hate him were out to get him. . . But they couldn\u2019t touch him. . . because he was Tarzan, Mandrake, Flash Gordon. He was Bill Shakespeare. He was Cain, Ulysses, the Flying Dutchman; he was Lot in Sodom, Deidre of the Sorrows, Sweeney in the nightingales among trees.
Joseph Heller
by Samuel Johnson
Condemned to Hope\u2019s delusive mine,
\xa0\xa0\xa0 As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blasts, or slow decline,
\xa0\xa0\xa0 Our social comforts drop away.
Well tried through many a varying year,
\xa0\xa0\xa0 See Levet to the grave descend;
Officious, innocent, sincere,
\xa0\xa0\xa0 Of every friendless name the friend.
Yet still he fills Affection\u2019s eye,
\xa0\xa0\xa0 Obscurely wise, and coarsely kind;
Nor, lettered Arrogance, deny
\xa0\xa0\xa0 Thy praise to merit unrefined.
When fainting Nature called for aid,
\xa0\xa0\xa0 And hovering Death prepared the blow,
His vigorous remedy displayed
\xa0\xa0\xa0 The power of art without the show.
In Misery\u2019s darkest cavern known,
\xa0\xa0\xa0 His useful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless Anguish poured his groan,
\xa0\xa0\xa0 And lonely Want retired to die.
No summons mocked by chill delay,
\xa0\xa0\xa0 No petty gain disdained by pride,
The modest wants of every day
\xa0\xa0\xa0 The toil of every day supplied.
His virtues walked their narrow round,
\xa0\xa0\xa0 Nor made a pause, nor left a void;
And sure the Eternal Master found
\xa0\xa0\xa0 The single talent well employed.
The busy day, the peaceful night,
\xa0\xa0\xa0 Unfelt, uncounted, glided by;
His frame was firm, his powers were bright,
\xa0\xa0\xa0 Though now his eightieth year was nigh.
Then with no throbbing fiery pain,
\xa0\xa0\xa0 No cold gradations of decay,
Death broke at once the vital chain,
\xa0\xa0\xa0 And freed his soul the nearest way.
Rudyard Kipling by Hilton Brown
A Dish of Orts by George MacDonald
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Letters from Father Christmas by J. R. R. Tolkien
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