Lewis vs Tolkien vs Pullman: Death Match in the Cage!

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

The heavy-handed tactics are what I meant by "hitting one over the head." Probably every book ever written is imbued with an ideology, LotR no less than others; it's when you stand up on a soap box and start fumbling for your megaphone that I start to see problems.

I must say, though, I'm rather taken aback by his statement that he does not like Narnia because he doesn't like Lewis' answers. Really? For myself, I have no problem enjoying a book, a movie, or whatever, just because I find myself in fundamental disagreement with its ideological commitments. What matters for liking or not liking a story is the skill with which it is told and with which issues are handled, not whether or not, in the final analysis, I agree with the answers given.

I agree, though of course there are cases where the author's didacticism overcomes his/her story-telling. Pullman in "The Amber Spyglass" (Book 3), Lewis in "The Last Battle", (though oddly enough I really enjoy the extremely propagandistic "That Hideous Strength", probably because it's so far over the top), Ursula K. LeGuin in "Tehanu" ( Book 4 of the Earthsea series).

See "Avatar"; Cameron, James.

In my experience this theme is associated with Anglicanism and with "Anglo" modes of thought, more than which Protestantism as such. It's what enables people (usually British people) who tend towards a militant secularism, such as Dawkins, to maintain a certain benevolence towards liberal Protestantism, and especially Anglicanism, as "religion for people with a brain;" as an aside, this conception of Anglicanism is what leads to the revisionist notion of the Blessed Virgin Elizabeth I as an enlightened and free-thinking monarch, who consistently pursued policies of religious tolerance and freedom of worship.

Disagree on this- I'm not talking about liberalism; more of what emerges when you set a righteous Protestant down with nothing but his or her conscience and a copy of Holy Scriptures- more Lutheran, Puritan, Baptist, or Presbyterian than Anglican, which after all has Bishops and Deacons, however flexible in dogma.

Recall one of Chesterton's Father Brown stories, in which the key to the murder is that an old-style Prot, who is also a general, has read the Bible without priestly guidance, resulting in his willingness to commit mass murder- all that Old Testament ethnic cleansing.

Or Cromwell to the Presbyerian Elders of Scotland, trying to get them to reach an agreement without a war: "I beseech you, in the Bowels of Christ, to consider that you may be wrong". As Scottish historian John Prebble remarked, "they had never thought so before, and saw no reason to start now."

And so the fissiparous nature of Protestantism

Indeed, but he's more interested in what we live than in what we think, since he holds that we think what we think by necessity, rather than freedom. I'm more worried than SK's thought may be too selfish, than that it may be too Protestant.

Exactly- but that's why he rejects any claims to systemic rational thought about God. The selfishness of his claim to absolute freedom (which means being free to absolutely submit to God- by the terms that he has independently arrived at ) is Protestantism's claim to to individual liberty of judgement carried to extremis.

[inked]

GM, apparently you failed to read this part or it failed to register. So, like a writer of old, I repeat, because it is important...

GM, "So you finally read him?"
Only his published writings on the nature his work and assumptions. I haven't wasted my time on the novels. But, you see, I believe the author when he says he has an intention and attempted to communicate it. Now, whether or not he succeeds (see, for instance, the discussion of JKR's alleged gayness of Dumbledore discussions elsewhere on this site) is a matter of another discourse. I make no such judgment. I honor the author's stated goals.

Capiche?

See here:

http://www.philip-pullman.com/assets...e_universe.pdf

http://filmchatblog.blogspot.com/200...ed-e-mail.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/oct/14/religion.books
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"Mr. Pullman's book offers an explicit alternative to C.S.Lewis' CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, with their pervasive Christian message. ...the meaning is clear: the heroes find true happiness only after death....

"It is a conclusion with which Mr. Pullman thoroughly disagrees. "When you look at what C.S. Lewis is saying, his message is so antilife, so cruel, so unjust" he said. "The view that the Narnia books have for the material world is one of almost undisguised contempt. At one point the old Professor says, "It's all in Plato" - meaning that the physical world we see around us is the crude, shabby, imperfect, second-rate copy of something much better.

"Instead, Mr. Pullman argues for a "republic of heaven" where people live as fully and richly as they can because there is no life beyond. "I wanted to emphasize the simple physical truth of things, the absolute primacy of the material life, rather than the spiritual or afterlife." NEW YORK TIMES, November 6, 2000, article by Lyall.

"Pullman has made clear in a lovely essay called "The Republic of Heaven" that he is passionately against any religion that puts it vision of the spirit and the afterlife above human life and the natural world, where our moral and spiritual tests as well as our pleasures are found... ." NEW YORK TIMES January 20, 2002, article by Jefferson.
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I think Harry Potter and the Pullman books are antithetical in their world views. The styles are different but so is the intent of the authors. Its pretty obvious that JKR believes in the Great Truths and life as prepatory for what comes after. Pullman has publically stated that his goal is to convince readers that this world is all there is period and he thinks that a platonic understanding of reality is false.

This doesn't mean he doesn't write well. It is just that he asserts a materialistic world view with the intent of incultating it.

One critic makes a case for Gilderoy Lockhart being a literary portrait of Pullman (see THE HIDDEN KEY TO HARRY POTTER or LOOKING FOR GOD IN HARRY POTTER both by John Granger).

Does anyone who has read both authors to date in full think similarly to me? or differently?
__________________
inked
"Aslan is not a tame lion. Safe?
No, he's not safe, but he's good."
CSL/LWW
see:http://www.sf-fandom.com/vbulletin/s...Philip+Pullman
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These assessments of Pullman and his proclaimed "philosophy" are not pulled out of nowhere, GM. But I plainly stated that I had not wasted my time with the books, did I not. Poor me, just reading the author's stated, iterated, and re-iterated positions. What is the world coming to?

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

Disagree on this- I'm not talking about liberalism; more of what emerges when you set a righteous Protestant down with nothing but his or her conscience and a copy of Holy Scriptures- more Lutheran, Puritan, Baptist, or Presbyterian than Anglican, which after all has Bishops and Deacons, however flexible in dogma.

Recall one of Chesterton's Father Brown stories, in which the key to the murder is that an old-style Prot, who is also a general, has read the Bible without priestly guidance, resulting in his willingness to commit mass murder- all that Old Testament ethnic cleansing.

Note that when I say "liberal," I am not referring to a political ideology, but to anti-authoritarianisms that are more influenced by Enlightenment philosophies than by the reactionaries of the Reformations. I think part of the problem is that what we are talking about are in fact two rather similar things. The main difference lies in cultural associations, I think, and the one I'm talking about often derives from an idealized conception of what you're talking about.

As an aside, it hardly needs saying, but Father*Brown is an excellent example of the heavy-handed pedagogy that turns me off.

Or Cromwell to the Presbyerian Elders of Scotland, trying to get them to reach an agreement without a war: "I beseech you, in the Bowels of Christ, to consider that you may be wrong".

Ah, if only Cromwell would ever have taken his own advice.

Exactly- but that's why he rejects any claims to systemic rational thought about God. The selfishness of his claim to absolute freedom (which means being free to absolutely submit to God- by the terms that he has independently arrived at ) is Protestantism's claim to to individual liberty of judgement carried to extremis.

At least in the works I've read, he does not reject claims to systemic thought about God. He distinguishes between objective and subjective thought; certainly for him, the subjective thought is far and away the more important, but so far as I know he does not deny the validity of objective thought, either about God or about anything else. He only insists that it loses all value if not accompanied with the subjective element.