Dragaera

A question re: Beginning Fantasy for Youth

David Dyer-Bennet dd-b at dd-b.net
Mon Nov 25 21:30:24 PST 2002

"David Rodemaker" <dar at horusinc.com> writes:

> > On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 07:26:08PM -0600, David Rodemaker
> > <dar at horusinc.com> wrote:
> > > > Well, yeah. Except that for Lewis, the Christian mythos is absolutely
> > > > true about the universe. The fair question, as I see it, is: Did Lewis
> > > > expect the series to hit people this way, or could he reasonably have
> > > > expected it to? And if so, how did he feel about it? -- Not
> > necessarily
> > > > questions we can answer.
> > > The same argument could be made about LOTR, it's certainly as
> > Christian as
> > > Narnia is...
> >
> > Um, no.  Narnia is very much a direct analogy, and the author
> > admits it.  Tolkien in LOTR denies any allegory along those
> > lines, and it's a much weaker connection.
> >
> > I don't deny there are some parallels, but Narnia is several
> > large steps closer to Christianity than Middle-Earth.
> 
> Bah.
> 
> Denial does not equate actuality. The amount of mystical Christian allegory
> in LOTR is quite high, and any degree of 'less/more' really starts to hinge
> on the intentional/unintentional axis. Besides, while Narnia is a somewhat
> direct analogy, and explicitly so, of the NT, that does not mean that LOTR
> *isn't* a less explicit but no less direct analogy.
> 
> IIRC, his denials mainly tendered to the question that LOTR was written as a
> commentary of WWII.

That's the way I remember the particular denial of "allegory".  I'm
not absolutely sure whether he specifically limits the denial to the
case he's discussing; but even if he doesn't, in context such a limit
may have been applied. 

> (That is based btw, on reading done *many* years ago of his letters, etc.
> Specific denials of Ring=Nukes and a specific comment comes to mind along
> the obverse, 'Gandalf is an angel')

Nothing about nukes or angels that I remember. 

> I can't think of medium-to-large 'sized' concept from Christianity that I
> cannot find without difficulty in LOTR.

I can't think of one that's particularly unique to Christianity that
you *can* find in LotR.
-- 
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b at dd-b.net  /  http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
 John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net
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