Absolutely surprised I was, when during the first corona lockdown, I sat down, and started reading Tolkien’s Hobbit, and immediately thereafter The Lord of the Rings, almost without significant interruption, in days to the end. The Hobbit only on the Kindle App. The Lord of the Rings in the 50th anniversary edition of Houghton Mifflin.

I was always reticent to start, because I had viewed some pieces from the movies. I was afraid it was more of some fantasy war stories.

Yet it gripped my intention as a kind of bildungsroman, as a path through life, going through difficult periodes in life. And all with great attention to feelings, thoughts, misery and happiness, of the surrounding earth, friendship, and especially for the feelings of others. Most of all struck me of course Frodo, the young one, with all his doubts, fear, and still going on. And of course Sam, the best of friends.

I have read from youth much of the great world literature. As in all those novels there are human and social relations which belong to other times than ours. This book is written in its own time, by Tolkien has been, in his time.

And I think to feel constantly the horrors of WWI and WWII, even as this is not the attention of the author.

I read first the Kindle edition. That’s fine for making notes and quickly rereading the most beautiful and memorable passages.

But after that I read Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings in the beautiful 50th anniversary edition of Houghton Mifflin. Because I thought this is a book that was made for reading with all the senses, with the beautiful black cover and the golden text of front cover and spine. The light brown pages are gentle for the eyes and for the mind. It was part of the same feeling, the beautiful gentle book in my hands and the wandering with these wonderful friends, especially when they were wandering through their natural world, of trees, flowers, animals, and human beings.

I was reading as I did as a child, in an easy chair, with all other senses away from the rest of the world, completely living in a wonderful world of nature, flowers, plants, mountains, travelling, fear, horror, cold, but above all human heroism and human friendship.

It is wonderful story, because Tolkien recreates his own world, and shares it with us. Tolkien, Frodo and Sam and Merry and Pippin…

‘Höre! Höre! Höre! Alles, was ist, endet.’

‘Mein Schlaf ist Träumen.
mein Träumen Sinnen,
mein Sinnen Walten des Wissens.’

From Wagner Rheingold and Siegfried

Erda is the most intriguing and wise woman.
A little homage to Erda and her wisdom at the end of 2018.

Erda Christa Ludwig
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hR0-qoTay8

Name changing of my site. Great Moments felt good for years. Made even a list of all my Great Moments from diary and catalogues and tickets and from memory. They are all always lively in my mind even after years.

Yet picturing these moments in plain words is nearly impossible, to me. Words fall short for all these emotions and feelings. And Life feels more as One Endless Continuing Great Moment, highs and lows, coming and going, in life and in memory. Life feels more and more as Streaming Thoughts. Floating through my mind as birds in the sky.

So better using this site for Streaming and Floating Thoughts. If I can hold them for a moment. And if I can give them words. English words and words from other languages, when I feel their sound or image more beautiful.

Zénon is the physician and philosopher from L’ Oeuvre au Noir by Marguerite Yourcenar.

Der Mönch am Meer Caspar David Friedrich

It is all image, color, dreaming, mind.
It feels so natural.To me.

It has been all my life a pleasure to wander through the bookshops. As it is nowadays through the wider world of the online bookshops. And I welcomed the ereaders and the likes from the moment they were there. Physical books or ebooks, I don’t mind, all are good, if I can read.

I read because I love the words, the language, the stories, the discoveries, the memories, the familiar and the unknown.
I only need my mind and the letters of the alphabet.

I read all kinds of books, novels, study books, art books, you name it. They all have 2 things in common. They show me familiar situations, to keep me reading. And they show me unknown situations, to keep me reading.

I write about my thoughts and feelings. Perhaps a short description. But do not expect any expertise here. And certainly no good or bad judgement or more or less stars. You will never hear me tell you, that you should read this or that book, or just not.

You will hear only some more or less loose, incoherent, coincidental thoughts and feelings. About books I feel close to.
Well, if I succeed to put them into words.

Will be continued…

Interesting info from Janson History of Art (2nd edition 1977)…
“Stone Age men were content to collect pebbles, as well as less durable specimens, in whose natural shape they saw something that rendered them ‘magic’; echoes of this approach can sometims be felt in later, more fully worked pieces. Thus the so-called Venus of Willendorf, one of many such female fertility figurines, has a bulbous roundness of form that recalls an egg-shaped ‘sacred pebble’; her navel, the central point of the design, is a natural cavity in the stone. ”

This reminds me of collecting pebbles as a child.
A kind of connection with unknown people long long ago.
And I feel again the joy of the lovely round forms of the warm pebbles in my hand.

Janson’s History of Art

Naturhistorisches Museum Wien