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My usual Monday drabble series, penned this time from the comfort of my desk at home. (Yay, mental health days!)
fetid \FET-id; FEE-tid\, adjective:
Having an offensive smell; stinking.
"The air was fetid, heavy as the breath of a large animal."
-Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, Bad Dreams
"He grew up between the river and the vineyard-covered slopes, between the fetid smell of the tannery and the fine aroma of crushed grapes."
-Patrice Debré, Louis Pasteur (translated by Elborg Forster)
Etymology
Fetid derives from Latin fetidus, from fetere, "to stink."
Synonyms
noisome, rank, rancid, smelly, stinking.
gimcrack \JIM-krak\, noun:
A showy but useless or worthless object; a gewgaw.
adjective>:
Tastelessly showy; cheap; gaudy.
Examples
"Yet the set is more than a collection of pretty gimcracks."
-Frank Rich, Hot Seat
"In those cities most self-conscious about their claim to be part of English history, like Oxford or Bath, the shops where you could have bought a dozen nails, home-made cakes or had a suit run up, have shut down and been replaced with places selling teddy bears, T-shirts and gimcrack souvenirs."
-Jeremy Paxman, The English: A Portrait of a People
"And as for coincidences in books -- there's something cheap and sentimental about the device; it can't help always seeming aesthetically gimcrack."
-Peter Brooks, "Obsessed with the Hermit of Croisset," York Times, March 10, 1985
Etymology
The origin of gimcrack is uncertain. It is perhaps an alteration of Middle English gibecrake, "a slight or flimsy ornament."
And this is one of Felak's favorite words! (The noun form "banality," anyway.) And one of the examples is from one of my favorite authors!
banal \BAY-nul; buh-NAL; buh-NAHL (British)\, adjective:
Commonplace; trivial; hackneyed; trite.
Examples
"Perhaps it's just the arrogant, knowing way in which reporters ask the most banal of questions."
-Alfred Alcorn, Murder in the Museum of Man
"How does the poet transform his banal thoughts (are not most thoughts banal?) into such stunning forms, into beauty?"
-Joyce Carol Oates, "Speaking of Books: The Formidable W.B. Yeats," New York Times, September 7, 1969
"All that her late companions can draw from her is the banal declaration, that she 'never knew what happiness was before.'"
-New Monthly Magazine, LIX. 458, 1840
Etymology
Banal comes from the Old French word ban, an edict, which had the adjective banal, "of or relating to compulsory feudal service," which evolved to signify "merely obligatory," hence "commonplace."
In his Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations, Charles Harrington Elster notes, "Banal is a word of many pronunciations, each of which has its outspoken and often intractable proponents. Though it may pain some to hear it, let the record show that BAY-nul is the variant preferred by most authorities (including me)."
Please be forewarned that there is blood and violence in this drabble series. Proceed with caution.
The Price I Paid
I. Angband
The air of Angband screams as the whip rends it, to fall across my back, unzipping my flesh with only a whisper. For I do not--will not--scream.
I have lost count of the marks upon my flesh, a body that has become but a wound. The smell of my fetid flesh—rotting upon my back—comforts me at night, for it convinces me that I have not yet died. I live still, to complete my quest, to recover from Morgoth the Silmarils.
Another scream and a whisper—and tears spring to my eyes.
It is worth it.
II. Nirnaeth Arnoediad
Who would have thought that grief would become a banality?
Who would have thought that we—the People of the Light—would cease to wonder at tears, would cease comforting those in mourning. No one stops to wonder why a general as stoic as I falls to his knees among the dead and weeps, why—silently—I strike with my blade at the cloud of vultures, decapitating one and leaving its blood to mingle with yours, in senseless anger, for it does what it must. As do I.
And so I sacrificed my greatest friend. Why?
For Light.
III. The Chasm
I hold it, at last, this treasure of my father’s. The Light of the Trees, we’d believed we’d pursued, but this does not do them justice, this gimcrack bauble sizzling in my hand.
It does not soothe; it burns.
I see now why the Valar had been puzzled by Atar’s reluctance to relinquish it.
They think pain of the flesh is unbearable? Laughable!
And I do: manic, agonized laughter that stabs the air. Blades, whips, hammers rending flesh; the dizzying circles of carrion birds: These were the prices I had paid. It is not worth it!
And so I fall.
fetid \FET-id; FEE-tid\, adjective:
Having an offensive smell; stinking.
"The air was fetid, heavy as the breath of a large animal."
-Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, Bad Dreams
"He grew up between the river and the vineyard-covered slopes, between the fetid smell of the tannery and the fine aroma of crushed grapes."
-Patrice Debré, Louis Pasteur (translated by Elborg Forster)
Etymology
Fetid derives from Latin fetidus, from fetere, "to stink."
Synonyms
noisome, rank, rancid, smelly, stinking.
gimcrack \JIM-krak\, noun:
A showy but useless or worthless object; a gewgaw.
adjective>:
Tastelessly showy; cheap; gaudy.
Examples
"Yet the set is more than a collection of pretty gimcracks."
-Frank Rich, Hot Seat
"In those cities most self-conscious about their claim to be part of English history, like Oxford or Bath, the shops where you could have bought a dozen nails, home-made cakes or had a suit run up, have shut down and been replaced with places selling teddy bears, T-shirts and gimcrack souvenirs."
-Jeremy Paxman, The English: A Portrait of a People
"And as for coincidences in books -- there's something cheap and sentimental about the device; it can't help always seeming aesthetically gimcrack."
-Peter Brooks, "Obsessed with the Hermit of Croisset," York Times, March 10, 1985
Etymology
The origin of gimcrack is uncertain. It is perhaps an alteration of Middle English gibecrake, "a slight or flimsy ornament."
And this is one of Felak's favorite words! (The noun form "banality," anyway.) And one of the examples is from one of my favorite authors!
banal \BAY-nul; buh-NAL; buh-NAHL (British)\, adjective:
Commonplace; trivial; hackneyed; trite.
Examples
"Perhaps it's just the arrogant, knowing way in which reporters ask the most banal of questions."
-Alfred Alcorn, Murder in the Museum of Man
"How does the poet transform his banal thoughts (are not most thoughts banal?) into such stunning forms, into beauty?"
-Joyce Carol Oates, "Speaking of Books: The Formidable W.B. Yeats," New York Times, September 7, 1969
"All that her late companions can draw from her is the banal declaration, that she 'never knew what happiness was before.'"
-New Monthly Magazine, LIX. 458, 1840
Etymology
Banal comes from the Old French word ban, an edict, which had the adjective banal, "of or relating to compulsory feudal service," which evolved to signify "merely obligatory," hence "commonplace."
In his Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations, Charles Harrington Elster notes, "Banal is a word of many pronunciations, each of which has its outspoken and often intractable proponents. Though it may pain some to hear it, let the record show that BAY-nul is the variant preferred by most authorities (including me)."
Please be forewarned that there is blood and violence in this drabble series. Proceed with caution.
The Price I Paid
I. Angband
The air of Angband screams as the whip rends it, to fall across my back, unzipping my flesh with only a whisper. For I do not--will not--scream.
I have lost count of the marks upon my flesh, a body that has become but a wound. The smell of my fetid flesh—rotting upon my back—comforts me at night, for it convinces me that I have not yet died. I live still, to complete my quest, to recover from Morgoth the Silmarils.
Another scream and a whisper—and tears spring to my eyes.
It is worth it.
II. Nirnaeth Arnoediad
Who would have thought that grief would become a banality?
Who would have thought that we—the People of the Light—would cease to wonder at tears, would cease comforting those in mourning. No one stops to wonder why a general as stoic as I falls to his knees among the dead and weeps, why—silently—I strike with my blade at the cloud of vultures, decapitating one and leaving its blood to mingle with yours, in senseless anger, for it does what it must. As do I.
And so I sacrificed my greatest friend. Why?
For Light.
III. The Chasm
I hold it, at last, this treasure of my father’s. The Light of the Trees, we’d believed we’d pursued, but this does not do them justice, this gimcrack bauble sizzling in my hand.
It does not soothe; it burns.
I see now why the Valar had been puzzled by Atar’s reluctance to relinquish it.
They think pain of the flesh is unbearable? Laughable!
And I do: manic, agonized laughter that stabs the air. Blades, whips, hammers rending flesh; the dizzying circles of carrion birds: These were the prices I had paid. It is not worth it!
And so I fall.
Tags:
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-27 03:34 am (UTC)Well written! (Since I can't exactly say "lovely!" given the subject!)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-27 02:10 pm (UTC)Wholly agreed! But hindsight is 20/20 ;)
Well written! (Since I can't exactly say "lovely!" given the subject!)
LOL! True! But thank you :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-27 02:45 pm (UTC)But hindsight is 20/20
True. Although some of those things in the distant past are growing kind of blurry...;)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-27 03:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-27 06:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-27 10:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-27 02:27 pm (UTC)Of course, to revert to my usual historical song and dance, it is unlikely that the "author" of the section of The Silmarillion that occured in Middle-earth would have wanted to express that the Feanorians were capable of grief and regret, if he even had a chance to witness it for himself. I doubt it would have been a popular move at the time, in Gondolin, to speak of how regretful and haunted the Sons of Feanor were by the consequences of their Oath.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-27 02:41 pm (UTC)At least some of them, anyway. Perhaps not the three C's - but even they weren't really evil. If it hadn't been for the oath Celegorm and Curufin would have been good for Nargothrond when Finrod went off on his quest.
I doubt it would have been a popular move at the time, in Gondolin, to speak of how regretful and haunted the Sons of Feanor were by the consequences of their Oath.
Possibly high treason! How about a Silmarillion translated from the Red Book of Himling?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-27 03:14 pm (UTC)I have trouble seeing even the three C's as not suffering some. While I doubt they showed as much suffering as M&M, I have no doubt that they felt regret for what was done. This is only my inclination, of course, nothing more.
Because I tend to look at things psychologically, I see the mass murder committed by the Feanorians as stemming from three sources: 1) psychopathology, 2) the desire to *end* the Oath so that such things need not happen anymore, or 3) the mentality that "we have come this far already" and that to give up is to waste all of the efforts/lives expended so far. I have trouble saying that Elves suffer from psychopathology, as a lot of it is rooted in biological imbalances, so I think it is a combination of the latter two. Just the thoughts of a psych student; I'm sure plenty of people would *heartily* disagree with me!
But I think it's a better attempt than to simply say, "They're just evil," which is what so many people do, and it makes the story shallow, I think, to be so black and white about it.
Crap! Now I'm going to have to write an essay on the psychology of the Feanorians motivations! ;)
Possibly high treason! How about a Silmarillion translated from the Red Book of Himling?
Don't think I haven't considered it! ::attempts to dislodge Urban Legends nuzzie:: Ai....
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-27 03:29 pm (UTC)I don't think that they could suffer in the same way that Maedhros and Maglor do at the end once they've got the Silmarils because they don't believe that what they did is wrong. To the Teleri and the Valar it's murder, but to them it's self-defence (the Teleri did start the killing) and justified. They don't need to feel guilty or suffer. But that's just the impression I got.
I have trouble saying that Elves suffer from psychopathology, as a lot of it is rooted in biological imbalances
Some elves (Miriel, Luthien) suffered from illnesses to the extent that they died, so Elves in Arda Marred might have biological imbalances. Not that I'm tying to complicate matters.
Now I'm going to have to write an essay on the psychology of the Feanorians motivations! ;)
Yay!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-27 04:49 pm (UTC)Yeah right ;)
Yay!
Oh, jeez, now you've encouraged the beast! :D I'm going to rummage through my social psych books when I get home. While making lunch, I was thinking about Milgram's obedience studies and how they apply to the Sons of Feanor....
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-30 10:10 am (UTC)They certainly did do some awful things, but reading between the lines of the Sil, one can see the regret and grief they had. And it's really tragic that the Sil ended the way it did, with Feanor's House falling to ruin and being rejected by the other Elves. But several quotes show that the Feanorians were remarkably honourable and decent folk (when they aren't driven by the Oath, that is).
Er... Maedhros in especial. The other Sons of Feanor don't get many lines.
Examples:
For Maedhros begged forgiveness for the desertion in Araman; and he waived his claim to kingship over all the Noldor, saying to Fingolfin: 'If there lay no grievance between us, lord, still the kingship would rightly come to you, the eldest here of the house of Finwë, and not the least wise.'
And:
But Maedhros restrained his brothers, and they departed from the council, and soon afterwards they left Mithrim and went eastward beyond Aros to the wide lands about the Hill of Himring. That region was named thereafter the March of Maedhros; for northwards there was little defence of hill or river against assault from Angband. There Maedhros and his brothers kept watch, gathering all such people as would come to them, and they had few dealings with their kinsfolk westward, save at need. It is said indeed that Maedhros himself devised this plan, to lessen the chances of strife, and because he was very willing that the chief peril of assault should fall upon himself; and he remained for his part in friendship with the houses of Fingolfin and Finarfin, and would come among them at times for common counsel.
And also:
Maedhros did deeds of surpassing valour, and the Orcs fled before his face; for since his torment upon Thangorodrim his spirit burned like a white fire within, and he was as one that returns from the dead. Thus the great fortress upon the Hill of Himring could not be taken, and many of the most valiant that remained, both of the people of Dorthonion and of the east marches, rallied there to Maedhros; and for a while he closed once more the Pass of Aglon, so that the Orcs could not enter Beleriand by that road.
In those days Maedhros son of Fëanor lifted up his heart, perceiving that Morgoth was not unassailable; for the deeds of Beren and Lúthien were sung in many songs throughout Beleriand. Yet Morgoth would destroy them all, one by one, if they could not again unite, and make new league and common council; and he began those counsels for the raising of the fortunes of the Eldar that are called the Union of Maedhros.
There's also one about Caranthir, usually the most maligned of them:
Then Caranthir looked kindly upon Men and did Haleth great honour; and he offered her recompense for her father and brother.
And Celegorm and Curufin, in Finrod's words:
And now Celegorm and Curufin are dwelling in my halls; and though I, Finarfin's son, am King, they have won a strong power in the realm, and lead many of their own people. They have shown friendship to me in every need...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-30 02:06 pm (UTC)No worries! You are talking to Teh Ultimate Maedhros Fangurl ;) The first time I read the Sil, I hated it. Maedhros and his story was the only one I clearly remember comprehending *and* enjoying. Being stubborn, I read it again and liked it better and...well, you can imagine the rest :) But Maedhros is still my favorite.
Your quotes illustrate excellently that the Feanorians are *not* evil. I always saw them as complex and tragic characters and have always been dismayed by the way they are often portrayed in fan fiction. The whole reason I began AMC, incidentally, was because I read one too many evil!Feanorian stories, and I decided to write my own, to explore the complexity that is their characters.