Dragaera

A question re: Beginning Fantasy for Youth

Tue Nov 26 19:15:20 PST 2002

Matthew Hunter wrote:
>
> 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.
>
 
Ummm ... I would be willing to make an extended argument that the
_Ainulindale_ is at least as Christian as anything in the Narnia books.
 
There's some later writing published in _Morgoth's Ring_ which goes even
further (a dialogue between Finrod and a human wise-woman).

-- 
James Burbidge			jamesandmary.burbidge at sympatico.ca