Man behind the Mythology

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Me Bad. I could have sworn that “contrasistency” was a word of Tolkien’s own, but I was apparently wrong. Cami sent me the following via PM but I think it deserves to be posted here. It is from the Prologue to Kilby’s Tolkien and the Silmarillion:

I felt that Tolkien was like an iceberg, something to be reckoned with above water in both its brilliance and mass and yet with much more below the surface. In his presence one was aware of a single totality but equally aware at various levels of a kind of consistent inconsistency that was both native -- perhaps his genius-- and developed, almost deliberate, even enjoyed. The word, if there were one, might be "contrasistency." If my account of him is sketchy and is itself inconsistent, it has the virtue of reflecting my real impression of the man.

Blame my increasingly faulty (near-hallucinatory, as it turns out) imagination on my own definition of the term. As to the idea of being consistent “at the time of writing”…well, it’s not “constrasistency” but I’m still sure that I read that somewhere about Tolkien… Probably best to assume I got that wrong, too, however (until, that is, I can track down the source or somebody more learnéd than I does it for me *note to self: contact davem*

But on with the game!

What did Tolkien have in common with Ava Gardner? (Again, painfully easy, but I’m still reeling with shame.)