Spike's Bitches 38: Well, This Is Just...Neat.
[NAFDA] Spike-centric discussion. Lusty, lewd (only occasionally crude), risqué (and frisqué), bawdy (Oh, lawdy!), flirty ('cuz we're purty), raunchy talk inside. Caveat lector.
I really must read the rest of the Narnia series. I've only read TLTWATW.
Even as a child, I much prefered The Hobbit, though I liked both books quite a bit. I still maintain this is because of my Catholic upbringing (though it was a sort of Catholic lite, as I never went to Catholic school, and my mom was not very into it, and turned Methodist by the time I was about 10).
Even my atheism has a very ex-Catholic flavor to it. I'm quite sure my love of Kevin Smith's
Dogma
is due to its grounding in Catholicism. My preference for Lord of the Rings, as well.
But then, the teachings of Cathol can be quite moving.
I like Lewis better than Tolkien for reasons that have nothing to do with theology and everything to do with their writing. Tolkien's characters always feel apart from me, as if I'm observing them from a distance. With Lewis, I'm either in the characters' heads or right next to them.
When I don't love a book people who know my tastes expect me to enjoy, it's almost always because I feel distant from rather than intimate with the characters. I've never been able to put my finger on what about writing style, POV use, etc. makes the difference, though. E.g., Bernard Cornwell has stated that when he started writing Sharpe he was trying to produce something like the Hornblower series, which he loved--and I can see all those similarities. But still, as a reader, Hornblower leaves me cold because I feel too distant from the characters, while I'm a great big Sharpe fangirl because the character connection is just right.
ETA I'm heretic enough to prefer the LOTR movies to the books because Peter Jackson, the actors involved, etc. did for me what Tolkien's books didn't--enabled me to connect to the characters and care about their fates on a gut level.
Great news GC!! That should make the holiday time a bit merrier.
I was completely oblivious to the Christian thing when I read the books. I've wanted to read them again to get a better sense of them.
Sad to say, but P-C is me. I read the series fresh out of undergrad. I was doing summer stock, and the house host had a TON of books, and saw the whole lot of them and just flipped the pages until they were all read. I recall rolling eyes a few times thinking "o gawd, thats as bad as blind faith in church", but school had fried the brain, and summer stock wasn't helping either, so I didn't hear the clue phone ringing.
Huh. Which number in the series was it for you when you were wee? 'Cause it was Book 1 in the editions I was reading as a kid, I'm pretty sure (ah, Narnia! My first ever fandom, back before I knew what fandom was).
Fay is me. Susan, my series (also from the early 80s) started with TMN, too. To be honest, it always bugged me when people started with TLTWATW because of the whole chronological thing. But I'm weird that way.
Great news, GC!
But then, the teachings of Cathol can be quite moving.
Ba-dum-bum.
I am with Susan in preferring the hairy hobbit movies to the books - I quite like technical histories, and I quite like adventures, and I quite dislike a mash-up of the two.
As for faith - for having gone to a Catholic elementary school and a Lutheran college, matters of faith have never touched my inner core. Much like Granny Weatherwax, I'm perfectly happy leaving the gods to do their thing as long as they let me do mine.
And what I'm angry and Lewis for is not that he expressed his own emotional truth here, but that he never saw that an atheist can have an opposite emotional truth just as joyous and rich.
Much of
Mere Christianity
pinged me this way. Much of the "argument" was "this is so obvious there can't possibly be another way to look at it."
The funny thing is, that in spite of Lewis often driving me into a blind rage, I enjoy him as a writer. I was aware of (and often angered by) the Christian thing in Narnia, but still enjoyed the series. In terms of of allegory vs. alternative Universe - no question he is still preaching. The specific scene in the Silver Chair definitely has a flashing "authors message" light blinking behind it. Which does not not stop the book from being magnificent.
I am with Susan in preferring the hairy hobbit movies to the books
I am Juliana and Susan in this. Tolkien bores the crap out of me. Love the concept; respect the innovation; can't stand the books. And yes, this comes from a girl who was OMGWTFBBQ obsessed with fantasy forever. Bad reader! No biscuit.
Also, that way we got live-action Legolas and Aragorn and Borimir and Farimir and Eomer and NOMNOMNOM.
Anyhow, for those having a bad day/week/month/time of it, here is a video: [link] Sound not required, as it is only a song playing about having a bad day.
Strangely, i find myself yearning for a cubicle-based job all of a sudden. hrm.
