Llyfrawr, the academic imprint of CV&M

• A Tolkienian Mathomium:
  A Collection of Articles about J.R.R. Tolkien and his Legendarium by Mark T. Hooker.
  Includes bibliographic references and index. B&W illustrations.

Beyond Bree and Hither Shore say that there is "something here for everyone with even a passing interest in Tolkien. All of the articles are well researched, insightful, and highly informative."

Amon Hen (September 2006) says: "Highly recommendable."

Tolkien Studies (No. 4) says: a "pleasantly eccentric volume" . . . "Hooker has a wide variety of things to say that have not been heard before."

Lembas (no. 130) says: "All in all, certainly a book that's worth the effort of taking the time to go through peacefully. For linguists--language nuts or not--and also for others, certainly one of the better products of [Tolkien] fandom."

From the Foreword: Why would one wish, then, to read what Hooker has to say? Primus, the Mathomium is a kind of linguistic compendium for language nuts who love Tolkien. Not all Tolkien-fanciers are language nuts (alas!), but we’re out there! ... Hooker has probed and configured Tolkien’s linguistic landscapes and documented his findings with a dizzying body of research, in light of larger European traditions, even prehistoric material, including the archaeological record.

Secundus, ... I believe that Mark Hooker, from insightful analysis of Tolkien’s work, has some good ideas. If there are those to whom Hooker may not constitute orthodox Tolkien scholarship, these folks I would ask plainly: just how "orthodox" was our beloved Professor and hobbit-fancier himself in the beginning?

In the Mathomium one can glimpse Tolkien from another side much less frequented: the real dilatory Tolkien, who in between grading papers in Anglo-Saxon in his garage-study, cobbled together his linguistic landscapes of Middle-earth. Mark lets us hear Tolkien chuckling many a chuckle. Here is the mercurial jokester in "low linguistic jest," blowing linguistic smoke-rings fond or satirical, the man who loved beer and ribaldry, who certainly did read Buchan or Haggard, or Charles Dickens, perhaps even Boys’ Life, wherein he might find an inkling of Aragorn; the man who wrote imaginative Christmas letters to his children.

Tertius, the third reason: Hooker is proficient in a number of the exotic languages into which Tolkien has been translated, and has conducted a systematic study of these translations. For this reason, Mark mans an insightful observation post, from which he provides a rare and entertaining view of how Tolkien’s text has been translated, transfigured, abridged, twisted, botched, fractured, or even mutilated. Frequently the translator even succeeds, with a hilarious twist! Those who have ever had to translate will both cringe frightfully and chuckle unmercifully at some of Hooker’s revelations.

• James Dunning

About the Author: Mark T. Hooker is a specialist in Comparative Translation at Indiana University's Russian and East European Institute (REEI). Retired, he conducts research for publication. His articles on Tolkien have been published in English in Beyond Bree, Para Nölé, Translating Tolkien and Tolkien Studies, in Dutch in Lembas (the journal of the Dutch Tolkien Society) and in Russian in Palantir (the journal of the St. Petersburg Tolkien Society). He has presented papers at a number of MythCons and at the fourth Lustrum of the Dutch Tolkien Society. He is the author of Tolkien Through Russian Eyes (Walking Tree, 2003), Implied, but not Stated (distributed by Slavica, 1999) and The History of Holland (Greenwood, 1999). He has also written on the Harry Potter vs. Tanya Grotter controversy. He is a graduate of the Russian Advanced Course at DLIWC. He speaks Dutch at home.

A German reader called the book "whimsical," which the author considers a compliment to his writing style.