Glamour Addiction // Juliet McMains

An exploration of the social and economic factors behind the glamorous world of competitive ballroom dancing, based on the author's personal experience, interviews, and limited research into similar ethnographies.  

 
Why I'm reading 
I've been participating in competitive ballroom dancing for nearly ten years now, so I wanted to check out what sort of literature is out there.

Where I got the book
Interlibrary Loan from the Berlin-Peck Memorial Library.

Expectations
A researched look into how the ballroom industry works. I've seen a preview, and it seemed a little wordy.

So how was it? 

Glamour Addiction is an exploration of the "Glamour Machine" that drives the American ballroom industry.

Honestly... I couldn't really get into it. She has some excellent insight, but ignores many aspects of the ballroom world that don't fit her model of an omnipresent oppressive glamor machine. Every point she made brought to mind similar experiences in my own ballroom career, but tons of counter examples too. And many of her points are just subjective opinion masquerading as fact.

Recommendation
This will really only appeal to ballroom dancers. I would recommend it to pro/am dancers (both pro and amateur). BUT I would only recommend with a warning: this is an interesting perspective, but not the be-all and end-all of the ballroom world.

Feels
Jaded. Even just a few pages in, I started to feel the author's resentment of her chosen profession. 

Favorites 
She makes a lot of painfully true points about the intersection of immigration and ballroom, and the image professional dancers must project. She's certainly made me think about certain relationships in the studios I visit... not rethink, because the relationships are pretty obvious, but to put them in the context of a bigger social system.

Least favorites 
Not one of her characters isn't hustling, struggling, or taking advantage of someone. No student who respects their teacher and just wants to dance. No am/am partnerships. No happy, fair, supportive studio owner with a white picket fence and two kids. No teens having fun and helping to pay for college. I know these people. I know they may not be the majority, but to simply ignore their resistance because they don't fit her thesis is a joke. 

Writing style
Bounces erratically between formal academic language and flowery prose. You can tell that the author has glued together several smaller essays.

The Lays of Beleriand // J.R.R. Tolkien

Unfinished epic poems ; mainly the Ley of Leithian (following Beren and Luthien) and the the Lay of the Children of Hurin (following Turin). 

Where I got the book
A very expensive birthday and Christmas present.

Why I’m reading
I’ve loved Tolkien’s works since I read LoTR, but the Silmarillion really sealed my fate. The world he created is amazing.

Expectations
I’m halfway through this section right now. I remember expecting… well, more of the same, after finishing the BoLT. I was also expecting much more fragmentary works. 

So how was it?

The lays are… lays! They’re written as long poems. For some reason, I was not expecting that. I also wasn't expecting it to be so pleasant to read; I usually hate poetry. It reminds me of a fanfic drabble: every word chosen carefully, lots of rich details but nothing extraneous. Maybe when I have the house to myself I will read them aloud. {EDIT: I did, and it was amazing.}

"The Lay of Leithian" is the familiar story of Beren and Lúthien. The rhyming couplets are perfect for this story; I prefer it over all the other prose versions. It also has a lot more detail. "The Lay of the Children of Húrin" is in alliterative verse, and I enjoyed it, although maybe not as much. I don’t know a lot about poetry, but alliterative verse was a much better choice than rhyming couplets, since it’s a much darker story.

Favorites
Lúthien faces down Morgoth. She is brilliant as always, but it’s the characterization of Morgoth himself that gets to me: you can feel his hatred of the Valar, how convincing he can be, and how twisted his view of the world. [Lúthien faces down Morgoth. She is brilliant as always, but it’s the characterization of Morgoth himself that gets to me: you can feel his hatred of the Valar, how convincing he can be, and how twisted his view of the world. (hide spoiler)]

Least favorites
None of it is finished! Luckily we know how the stories end, but I would love to read them all the way through in verse.

Writing style
Alliterative verse and rhyming couplets.

The Book of Lost Tales // J.R.R. Tolkien

A collection of very early manuscripts, including early versions of stories later included in the Silmarillion ; edited and commentated by his son Christopher Tolkien.

Where I got the book
A very expensive birthday and Christmas present.

Why I’m reading
I’ve loved Tolkien’s works since I read LoTR, but the Silmarillion really sealed my fate. The world he created is amazing.

Expectations
I’m writing this having already started and finished the BoLT volumes, so I will try to remember my expectations going in. I did try to read a little bit of the HoME/UT as a teenager, in these awful paperback books, and just couldn’t get into it. So I expected a struggle. I also went into it with a huge preference for elves and elvish history, and wasn’t so excited to read stories about humans. In retrospect, I might have been struggling through The Children of Húrin back then...

So how was it?

First of all, what IS The Book of Lost Tales? It’s a collection of Tolkien’s unpublished and unfinished writings, brought together and annotated by his son Christopher Tolkien. It includes rejected ideas, drafts, outlines, and variations as well as comparisons and notes on the evolution of the texts. Ever wanted to know how Tolkien developed his iconic elves, what Melian was originally named, or a more detailed account of Gondolin? BoLT is your book.

No idea what I’m talking about? Check out my post on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

The BoLT blew my mind, especially Part I. These are Tolkien’s very early writings, before his concept of the world was fully developed. And wow, I’m very glad that he did develop it further. His elves were once decidedly closer to fairies and gnomes. He had an entirely different framework for telling these tales, one which he eventually (and in my opinion, rightly) discarded. Some of the concepts and ideas were very whimsical and childish (like “the cottage of lost play”) and don’t seem to fit Tolkien’s high-fantasy world.

Part II and the later sections of Part I are much closer to Tolkien’s finalized world. There are all sorts of familiar stories, not always “accurate” to published canon, but often with much more detail; most of these stories were revised and shortened before being added to the Silmarillion. The tales were not yet sewn together by the story of the Silmarils; the jewels were a side-story at best, and the Sons of Fëanor were not fully realized. I don’t think I appreciated how intricately Tolkien wove the Silmarillion together until I read BoLT.

Favorites
Glorfindel! He’s a side character at best, but one of my favorites. The BoLT contains the full narrative of the Fall of Gondolin, which is only summarized in the Silmarillion. Gondolin itself, while not a “character,” is one of my favorite sections, especially Tuor and Idril. I won’t lie; I broke out the sticky notes to mark Gondolin sections. The detailed variations on the creation story, the sun and moon, the trees, etc., were also wonderful. It was fascinating to watch the Silmaril narrative develop.

Least favorites
Oh god, Ælfwine. The original framework was the story of Ælfwine, an Englishman who journeys to an elven land and hears tales of elvish history. It ties the story together and embeds it into English history… but the entire thing is just too whimsical and fairytale-like. I love the sort of nonsense whimsy you find in children’s bedtime stories, but it just isn’t right for Tolkien’s world. [ The original framework was the story of Ælfwine, an Englishman who journeys to an elven land and hears tales of elvish history. It ties the story together and embeds it into English history… but the entire thing is just too whimsical and fairytale-like. I love the sort of nonsense whimsy you find in children’s bedtime stories, but it just isn’t right for Tolkien’s world. (hide spoiler)]

Writing style
Tolkien paints a wonderfully full, detailed, high-fantasy world, full of fantastic characters and beautiful scenery. Lots of repeated themes: betrayal, greed, love, oaths, etc. Many of the stories seemed darker than in the Silmarillion, which I very much appreciated.

I recently had a friend (a reader and a fantasy fan) complain that Tolkien “interrupts” his story too often. I can see where she’s coming from; but to insist that side stories like the Entwives were interruptions and just bad writing, not world-building? This is what happens when you speed read through everything, children. ಠ_ಠ

Finally, you can’t tackle BoLT without warning: CHRISTOPHER TOLKIEN IS SUPER PEDANTIC. No criticism is intended; it’s just that he has taken great pains to present and interpret his father’s drafts, notes, corrections, re-writes, name changes, etc. etc. as accurately as possible. So be prepared to read (or skip through) his analysis and explanations for every section.

Similar books

• Christopher Tolkien’s notes are similar to what you would find in a study Bible.
• Most of these stories can be found in their final form in the Silmarillion.
• The stories of Tuor and Eärendel are similar to the epic tales of Aeneas (the Aeneid) and Odysseus (the Odyssey) while Túrin’s is closer to the Oedipus tragedy.
• The story of Beren and Lúthien (Tinúviel) shares themes with Romeo and Juliet, although to me it has always felt like Baucis and Philemon. And, of course, it is similar to the love story between Arwen and Aragorn.