peeplj wrote:Yeah, the Silmarillion is pretty dry reading...the myths is relates are touching and beautiful, but it's work to dig them out of the dust pit.
--James
I love the creation story in the silm. And the underlying thread of Feanor's jewels that ties most of it together is great.
There is a whole lot of elvish people doing elvish things in the middle of the cycle that gets old and detracts from the larger work. But the tragic story at the heart is worth it.
I too loved the Chronicles of Narnia when I was younger. Now, looking at the books my children enjoy, I find that there are others more subtly written. My husband (who didn't read them growing up) says the Christian allegory and the descriptions of guilt or joy really hit too hard between the eyes. But he is neither a child nor a Christian. I agree that compared to Tolkein there's a lot of difference. But LOR wasn't written as children's literature. And I think that the Chronicles of Narnia as fantasy children's literature really sparked something wonderful.
Is there a modern comparison? Has anyone else read a children's book or series, not written as formulaic Christian crap (forgive the language, but I worked in a Christian bookstore for a while and there's a lot written that reads too much like the formula of a Harlequin romance) but with a theme that deals with religion? Christian or other? I'd be interested.
I think I was in love with Prince Caspian until well after my first year in college.
Jennie wrote:
Is there a modern comparison? Has anyone else read a children's book or series, not written as formulaic Christian crap (forgive the language, but I worked in a Christian bookstore for a while and there's a lot written that reads too much like the formula of a Harlequin romance) but with a theme that deals with religion? Christian or other? I'd be interested.
I think I was in love with Prince Caspian until well after my first year in college.
Jennie
If you haven't checked her out already, you might enjoy the works of Susan Cooper.
Her "The Dark Is Rising" series of children's books deals are wonderful and deal with some extremely serious themes. These are some of my favorite books of all time.
I have never read the Chronicles of Narnia. Maybe I should. I have a first edition first printing of the Silmarillion. It is the one with the error in the credits. I need to go back and re-read it. Maybe I will understand it better now.
Though I'm fully aware of the religious content of the Chronicles of Narnia (one of my college deans was a Lewis scholar), I come across folks saying Lewis was an atheist. What's the deal? Even when I read the Chronicle as a youth I knew about the religious themes but I thought all of the centaurs and talking animals were cool. That's why I read them.
I think it took me 3 tries to read the Silmarillion. As a teenager I just didn't have the attention span and/or the reading skills. After reading LotR a bunch of times I had accumulated enough unanswered questions to where I had to read the Silmarillion.
I find Tolkien's religious content to be so subtle that I think much of it was semi-conscious. I think it's mostly an impression that is left by the events and characters. It's a bit like Melville and Moby Dick. Melville didn't write a tale of man v. nature... he was just writing an adventure story about whaling. I'm sure Tolkien was a bit more conscious of his religious themes than that but after all he was just creating a history of the Elven languages and maybe create some English mythology too.
With the impending film, I may have to reread The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe .
" have never read the Chronicles of Narnia. Maybe I should. I have a first edition first printing of the Silmarillion. It is the one with the error in the credits. I need to go back and re-read it. Maybe I will understand it better now.
Ron"
Don't read it - put it somewhere safe and dry, and when the film comes out, there's your pension! You lucky thing.
AaronMalcomb wrote:
I find Tolkien's religious content to be so subtle that I think much of it was semi-conscious. Aaron
Tolkien is, in a nutshell, obsessed with decay and "The Fall from Grace", with a bit of redemption tacked on at the end. Pretty much everything evil in LOTR and the Silmarillion is a corrupted form of something that was once good.
C.S. Lewis also wrote a Science fiction trilogy with strong religious allegorical overtones,consisting of 'Out of the Silent planet','Perelandra' and 'That hideous strength'.
I read the first one when I was about twelve,and enjoyed it very much at the time,the second was o.k.,but I found the final book to be rather heavy going at that time.
I wonder how they would read now?
jim stone wrote:I believe Tolkien and Lewis were indeed friends
and colleagues.
I think I read somewhere that Tolkein was attempting to convert Lewis to the "Romish" faith, but he became High Anglican instead. He had been an atheist beforehand, but I remember reading something a while back saying that he had his conversion on the back of a motorbike, on the way to the zoo or something. I don't remember the details, though.
Someday, everything is gonna be diff'rent
When I paint my masterpiece.
Jennie wrote:
Is there a modern comparison? Has anyone else read a children's book or series, not written as formulaic Christian crap (forgive the language, but I worked in a Christian bookstore for a while and there's a lot written that reads too much like the formula of a Harlequin romance) but with a theme that deals with religion? Christian or other? I'd be interested.
What do you think of Madeleine L'Engle? I confess, I've not read a whole lot of "fantasy fiction" of any sort. My 5th grade public school teacher read us a few of the Narnia books, and, as a teenager I read A Wrinkle in Time and Wind in the Door. I also read A Swiftly Tilting Planet.
Jennie wrote:.
Is there a modern comparison? Has anyone else read a children's book or series, not written as formulaic Christian crap (forgive the language, but I worked in a Christian bookstore for a while and there's a lot written that reads too much like the formula of a Harlequin romance) but with a theme that deals with religion? Christian or other? I'd be interested.
Jennie
'His Dark Materials' By Philip Pullman.
This work recently came in at no.2 behind LOTR in a UK all time greatest book poll. It deals with religious issues (particularly organised religion) brilliantly - a recommended read.
If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it's probably me - playing a whistle!
I've read both Susan Cooper and Madeleine L'Engle's series as well.
Susan Cooper's-- good recommendation-- do deal with the question of evil. My more sensitive daughter, who's now eleven, didn't want to read them when she started them a couple of years ago. Now maybe she'd be ready.
Madeleine L'Engle's books for "juveniles" were among my favorites when I was a teenager. She wrote a science fiction trilogy, and some others which involve some of the same characters. She writes from a definitely Christian perspective, and her characters bring up lots of questions which don't always find immediate answers. I appreciate L'Engle leaving some room for her readers to make their own decisions about the characters' actions. I also appreciate her sense of hope, even in the face of tragedy and evil. Some of her adult novels I find a little too obvious in their analogies.
It's interesting that religion is such an untreated subject in much of popular literature. Or maybe I'm not reading widely enough. I guess it must not be PC to write about religion in a way that might offend someone. So it's just left out. I'd like to see books for kids that allow them to explore what they think and believe without being didactic.
Haven't yet read Philip Pullman.
There is a trilogy that deals with established religion in a very different and unorthodox way. Let's see if I can remember the titles: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass. For more mature juveniles, I'd say. I enjoyed them too. Talk about questioning authority and tradition! I'll probably read them again when my daughter does. Lots of room for discussion and questions, and lots to do with religion though definitely not from an orthodox Christian perspective.
