Tolkien’s Fiction, a zillion times over. MIddle Earth is a real place to me, and, at times, I am homesick for it. Reading LotR is like reading about a place I lived in a long time ago, when I was a different person.
I find Narnia unreadable, both because of the sledgehammer allegory and that condescending to children voice, which I already loathed even when i was a child. The Out of the Silent Planet trilogy is barely readable, and I dislike it greatly.
However, I do enjoy Lewis’s non-fiction, what I’ve read of it. The Screwtape Letters is still very relevant. EG, the bit when the senior devil talks about how important (from the devil’s point of view) to get women to hate their bodies and diet all the time.
A long, long time ago, I read two of Williams’ books, but I think I was too immature to get them at the time. Reading the descriptions, I think I should try again.
Re: his line on Christianity strikes me as mostly a joyless one: he seems rather good at shooting down and refuting and denying to Christians, things that I like – or hope might be – in this life or the next. (Will get specific, if requested
I’d be curious to hear your specific criticisms, sure. Not that I’m trying to convince you to like Lewis, or anything. Taste in literature is inherently subjective. And there’s no doubt that everything Lewis wrote was in service of a particular vision of the world (though he was better about doing it in a compelling and artistic way than, say, Chesterton).
I certainly don’t agree with everything Lewis believed, or wrote, but if I restricted myself to reading (or hanging out with) people that I agreed with on everything, I’d have few friends and fewer beloved authors.
For me, it’s Tolkein, and it’s not even remotely close.
I remember when I was young, I tried The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe a couple times, but never finished it. Then I picked up Magician’s Nephew without realizing it was a Narnia book, and enjoyed it well enough to go back and read the Narnia books. I read them all out of order, and to be honest, I’m not sure I ever did read The Sliver Chair and The Horse and His Boy. The only one I really liked was in fact Magician’s Nephew, and The Last Battle really turned me off. Later, I read Screwtape Letters, and found it OK. My thoughts towards Lewis then was that he was an OK writer who was perhaps more interested in making a point then making an enjoyable story.
The only other Lewis book I’ve read is Till We Have Faces for a book club I used to be in. I ended up really hating it, and it has turned me off of any Lewis in the future. The takeaway I took from it is that we’d all be a lot happier if we’d stop questioning God and accepted the world in all its unfairness. Frankly, I’m shocked to see so many recommend it as the ‘enlightened’ Lewis work, since that’s not what I got from it at all.
JRRT. After devouring all his ME works over and over and over in the early 70’s, I learned that Lewis was a friend and colleague of his, and they gave each other feedback on their literary efforts.
So I rushed to check out Lewis. I plodded thru Narnia, being semi-entertained along the way, but had no desire to ever read them again. And the Space Trilogy stopped me cold; I couldn’t finish the first one.
vontsira, I think your statements about Lewis are wrong. However, you aren’t interested in debating them, and I guess I’m not interested either. It would take many long hours of work to go into as much detail as it would be required to examine all those statements, clarify them, find examples or counterexamples of each of them, work out to what extent they’re true, and come to some overall assessment of Lewis. I don’t have the time for that, and I guess you don’t either.
Now, see, this right here is a philosophy which I can’t understand. Of course he thinks that everyone ought to agree with the conclusions he’s come to. If he didn’t think that, he wouldn’t have come to those conclusions. Someone else might obviously come to different conclusions, but everyone always thinks that the conclusions they themself come to are the correct ones.
Despising those who come to other conclusions, of course, is another matter, but I’m not really sure how much of that there is in Lewis’s writings. Pitying, perhaps, but not in an unkind way.
To pity people who are not asking for pity, especially doing it just because they have a different world-view, pretty much is to despise them. I certainly saw the despising in Lewis. As I said in my earlier post, I have not read the Narnia books, so I do not know if it shows up there (or to what degree), but it was very clear to me in Out of the Silent Planet, and in spades in The Shoddy Lands, which is just dripping with contempt. Sure it is superior, pitying contempt (full of fucking Christian compassion, no doubt, for those he considers his moral, aesthetic and intellectual inferiors), rather than the angry hateful sort, but that scarcely makes it better.
Isn’t this sentence itself an example of superior, pitying contempt?
Sorry, I don’t see it as a great feat of insight to figure that out by the sixth book in the seven book series.
Tolkien, btw. I just don’t trust a Lewis work to not turn out to be Christian allegory and/or apologetics. It’s what he does, after all, in the same sense that movies with “surprise twist” endings are what M. Night Shyamalyan* “does.”
*or however the infernal putz spells it.
Lasciel may have read them in modern publishing/chronological order (a mistake in my view, but that is a separate topic), in which case TMN would be first on the list… on the other hand, Aslan doesn’t turn up until at least halfway through the book, and is completely unheralded (as you’d expect in a world in which he’s the first thing you see other than the sky and the ground).
Concerning the line about “everything you might enjoy in this world or the next”, I think that is beautifully handled in The Great Divorce, where one of the visiting Ghosts is a youngish man with an imp on his back, which from context represents his sexual desires. He realizes that the world he’s in is no place for that sort of thing and is doing his best to keep it quiet, but is persuaded by an angel that this is not good enough and the only way to deal with it is to let the angel kill it, which it cannot do without his permission. When he reluctantly gives the necessary permission, the experience of losing it is agonising - but then to his surprise the dying imp transforms into a majestic stallion which recognises him as master and rider, and the pair gallop off towards the joyous sunrise at a tremendous pace which they both revel in. In other words, a mere fleshly desire, once surrendered to God (or his agent), returns to the individual in a form which it is not only right for him to keep and to enjoy but will positively help him become closer to God.
Re off-putting-for-me stuff from Lewis, concerning Christianity; first off, I recognise that I am badly biased and prejudiced against him, whereby some at least of my reactions are likely neither fair nor rational.
Things which one would “like – or hope might be – in this life or the next”: a couple, follow. First (I’ll admit to its being relatively trivial) – I recall Lewis opining somewhere, that because of the lost-and-fallen status of Earth, contaminated by Satan’s influence – the only properly “natural” animals, are domestic ones – because of their thus being linked, even if tenuously, to redeemable humans. My reaction to that, is – well, thanks a bundle, CSL ! I’ve been a lifelong wildlife fan and nature-lover, and until I read this gem from you, had never hitherto encountered any suggestion from Christians – other than lunatic-fringe ones – that that particular avocation is on the Christian faith’s list of “no-no” ‘s. Now you are at least implying to me, that it is. (OK, that is probably misreading and misinterpretation on my part – I just get from the bloke, such hectoring, patronising overtones – “I disapprove of so-and-so; thus, so should everyone else”.)
Elsewhere, Lewis expresses the opinion that – if I understand rightly, because mankind’s ruined and fallen nature is so far apart from what God wants and requires of us – for those of us who successfully become Christians and reach heaven, we will not recognise and become re-acquainted with other “saved” people, whom we knew and loved during our life on Earth – it will just be a matter of eternal blissful union with God – a completely different ball-game. He adds that he knows that this suggestion will be distressing to the many Christians who look forward keenly to reunion in heaven, with loved ones from whom they were parted by death; but as ever, it’s “I’m right; if you think otherwise, you’re an ignorant twit, to be pitied”. He opines elsewhere, that heaven will be very much an “acquired taste”. Once again, thank you so much, Mr. L. : way to – for me – take much of the joy out of, even what I see as the rather small amount of joyful content offered by the Christian deal.
Also; I had got the picture that Lewis was in the Christian enemies-of-sex camp – the line “by far best to be celibate – otherwise, it’s for procreation only, and in that context you shouldn’t enjoy it when it has to be done”; but Malacandra’s post #150, suggests that I may have Lewis wrongly there.
Fair enough, “agreeing to disagree” seems to be the way to go. Quite likely, my hate against Lewis is to a considerable degree subjective and irrational.; and extensive further perusal of his writings, might cause me to change my mind. But, I being at a fairly advanced age, I’ll readily accept that I won’t explore further,and will go to my grave hating his works. In the fairly improbable event of my becoming “saved” and getting to heaven, I’ll see the light re CSL, and will readily apologise to him – wait, though, the old dork thinks that we won’t know or recognise each other in heaven…
I understand that they disliked each other’s writings – a thing which they valued, because each knew that the other’s criticisms would be honest and unsparing-of-feelings.
I like the anecdote of Tolkien giving to Lewis to critique, an early chapter of LOTR. He got it back, with just one thing written in the margin, in red ink: “OH, NO ! NOT ANOTHER FUCKING ELF !” A thing which has me feeling a bit more kindly toward Lewis – he wasn’t always Mr. Christian-Perfect, and could be goaded into petty and sinful behaviour; such as bad language, which he usually eschewed. Shows him, for a moment, as reassuringly human…
That comment came, not from Lewis, but from Hugo Dyson—see this article which is well worth reading anyway for Tolkien enthusiasts. I’ve never heard that Lewis was anything but positive toward the LOTR. (“Lewis was the first Tolkien addict, and there have been many since”)
I don’t know that Tolkien disliked all of Lewis’s writings, but he did dislike some, including Narnia. For an explanation why, see here or here.
I don’t know about not meeting loved ones in Heaven or not recognising people that you do meet - but I think the idea is that you would value everyone you met for their own sake, not because of their blood ties to you or because of some achievement that won them temporal fame.
You also - if I’m following Lewis aright - are not tormented by the absence of any loved ones that opted not to receive salvation. People can choose to imprison themselves in their own misery, but they can’t drag anyone else in with them.
Lewis liked Tolkien’s writings. Indeed, The Lord of the Rings might never have been finished if weren’t for Lewis’s encouragement. It’s very annoying that some people have transferred that comment of Dyson’s to Lewis. It appears that some people hear the story about what happened at an Inklings meeting and afterwards can’t remember who said the comment and so quote it as being from Lewis, since it’s apparently too difficult for them to remember that there were many members of the Inklings.
Tolkien thought Lewis wrote too much and thus worked too fast. For him a great work of fantasy required spending as much time on it as he did on all the works set in Middle-earth (from some point during World War I till he died in 1973). He thought that the background for Narnia was shoddy because Lewis spent too little time on it. He also thought some of Lewis’s nonfiction wasn’t thought through enough. I think a reasonable criticism of some of Lewis’ fans is that they treat Lewis’s writing on Christianity as if they were the Summa Theologica instead of some extended essays. I think, for instance, that people need to quit treating the trilemma (from Mere Christianity) as if it were supposed to be a knock-down proof of Jesus’s divinity. It’s not intended as that. It’s just intended to eliminate one conception of Jesus, not to show that only one conception is correct.
I like them both, but I’ll vote for Lewis.
Presumably, one likes and loves at least some of one’s fellow-Christians whom one knew on Earth, and would like to meet them again, and have their company for eternity, in heaven. Plus, renowned Christians from earlier in history, whom one happens to admire – or whom one abhors, but has failed to see their good qualities. The lack there, of people you loved but who rejected Christianity and are thus not in heaven, is regrettable – but “that’s the deal”.
Quote the exact point in Lewis’s nonfiction where he said that no one who wasn’t a Christian in life would be in heaven. Not his fiction. He intended fiction to be, you know, like fiction. He didn’t claim that it was how the world actually worked. Where did he say explicitly that no non-Christian could be in heaven?
This seems unusually snarky for you, are you ok?
And yes, as I thought was obvious, I read the series first in in-world chronological order. It wasn’t my idea, the series was assigned reading by the Christian school I attended, and the teacher wanted us to experience the life cycle of Narnia as a way of emphasizing the theological underpinnings of the beginning and upcoming end of our own world.
More or less. As to the first of this, I don’t know where - in his fiction or in his apologia - you got the idea that you wouldn’t meet your fellow-Christians or renowned ones. In TGD of course, someone may be a renowned person in Heaven who never was at all famous on Earth; the conspicuous example is the “angel of the slums” who didn’t do anything very much more remarkable on Earth than brighten the lives of everyone around her by countless small deeds of love and kindness, and in Heaven she is ceaselessly attended by bands of angels, such that the narrator briefly mistakes her for Mary. But (again if we look at Narnia as a showcase for Lewis’s theology) when the Friends of Narnia reach Aslan’s Country at the end of TLB, they meet everyone who was ever famous in all of the other Narnia stories, up to King Frank and Queen Helen themselves.
As to the people who rejected Christianity*, you are free to love and cherish their memory all you like, but they are not free to torment you with their absence. It would be monstrously unjust if they were.
*And “reject” may be more complicated than some would make it. Remember Emeth from The Last Battle; all he wanted was one sight of Tash the Mighty even though his dreadful god might put him to a thousand deaths for his temerity. But when he saw Aslan he recognised at once that he should have been seeking the Lion, not Tash; and he was too honest to lie to Aslan even though the price of truth might have been eternal damnation. Aslan, of course, accepted him on the spot since he saw that Emeth’s heart would not have been so steadfast in seeking Tash had not the qualities he sought in Tash have been Aslan’s all along.
If I, as wicked as I am, can see that there are many on Earth who have been turned from seeking Christ by the desperately poor example of those who claim to speak for him - what allowance will Holy Love not make? And I think that’s there in Lewis’s writing. (Screwtape complains at one point of “the Enemy’s” dreadful leniency towards many humans on the feeble excuse that they were following the best they knew and couldn’t be expected to know any better.)