91ֱ��

As Keeper of the Red Book, Avi Hyman (Computer Science 2024) both retained and recorded the history of .

“It was one of the draws towards coming to Cambridge,” Avi says. “It’s been going since 1983 and has got some storied traditions. We have our Foreyule Feast, which is a Christmas-style dinner and the recipes have been the same for almost 30 years; we have run Eagle Debates – like a balloon debate but there are no balloons in Tolkein’s world – since at least 2002; and, games nights such as ‘Tinúviel Pursuit’ have existed since at least 1998.”

Cambridge, Oxford, and Edinburgh are the only University Tolkien societies that are official Smials of the . Cambridge Tolkien Society is the longest-serving University Tolkien Society in the UK. “Legend has it that the society was named Minas Tirith back when there was no Oxford society for the express purpose of implying that an Oxford society would correspond to Minas Morgul,” Avi adds.

Avi’s main responsibilities as were communicating with members and recording meetings. He was elected Steward (President) at the Annual General Meeting in Lent Term and will hold the position for the next year.

He adds: “The particular Red Book we’ve got has been going since 1998 and has term cards going back to that time, lots of notes from AGMs, committee meetings, previous keepers’ notes, quiz scoresheets and wax-sealed type-written letters. It’s fascinating.”

There is an annual Varsity quiz, which has been going for 29 years. The Cambridge team won in Lent Term, widening their overall lead, and Cambridge have not even trailed Taruithorn (Oxford’s team) since 2014.

He first read The Hobbit when he was eight or nine before going on to the Lord of The Rings trilogy. He admits not being sustained by the journey and pausing at the Path of Caradhras, before returning a little later. He read The Silmarillion in his mid-teens.

“My involvement with Tolkien outside of the books has evolved over time as well,” Avi adds. “There’s this constant thread of connection with his work through my life, but in evolving ways.”

He enjoys the films, but feels less of a personal connection, preferring more niche associations. The immersive recreation of Middle Earth in the MMO games (Massively Multiplayer Online), specifically the game Lord of the Rings Online, and the musical genre of power metal, “a very fantasy-inspired genre”, are more attractive to Avi. 

“There’s one particular band called Blind Guardian, who have this album called Nightfall in Middle Earth, which is one of the few adaptations of The Silmarillion in existence, and it’s a metal album,” Avi says.

“There’s just so much to explore because of the depth of Tolkien’s work,” Avi adds. “He spent his life creating a secondary reality. Discussions between members of the society never exhaust talking points as there’s always new ways to interpret well-covered aspects, and there’s always more lesser-known details to explore.”

Avi feels connections throughout Tolkein’s work, including with Dwarvish, which the author based on Hebrew.

He is also a member of the University’s mahjong society and the University’s Jewish Society. He keeps Shabbat, observing the Sabbath as a day of rest.

He says: “The amount of work and time I put into my degree can be a lot, but I tell myself that my faith is non-negotiable, and I haven’t had any major issues keeping it. In fact, I find the forced time off from Shabbat helps me de-stress each week in a way that I otherwise wouldn’t find possible.”