(urth) Lupiverse(es)
David Stockhoff
dstockhoff at verizon.net
Thu Mar 15 14:44:22 PDT 2012
On 3/15/2012 5:19 PM, António Marques wrote:
> David Stockhoff wrote:
>> My disappointment was not, after all, that Lewis was a Christian. Who
>> cares? I would be equally wary of books written by psychologists. The
>> disappointment lay in his didacticism and dishonesty. What I had been
>> led to believe was one thing was revealed to be another. Whatever
>> aspects of the story I enjoyed were apparently not considered the main
>> point by its author. Worse, Narnia made me think I believed things I did
>> not believe.
>
> Regarding this and the hypothetical anti-christian Wolfe (a thought
> exepriment which I think is by no means new) what I have to say is
> that, like all demons who turn to be unknowingly doing the work of the
> Increate, the joke would be on the writer, not on the readers who
> enjoyed the book. *Provided* the readers enjoyed the book. If the
> readers don't enjoy the book [other than fueling their own beliefs],
> then the joke's both on them and the writer, whether the writer is
> honest or dissimulate.
>
> Iow, if the work is good, it stands, no matter what the author thinks.
> But I think the odds are very small indeed that a covert author would
> produce a really good book.
>
> In this case, if you like Narnia, then you like it, and realising
> after the fcat that it is propaganda should only turn you off, I
> think, if what had made you like it were all the propagandistic bits
> fitting in with each other. Otherwise, it makes no sense to disown it.
> Of course, since you say you never liked it all that much, you're just
> being coherent.
Actually, I think a covert author is quite capable of producing a really
good book, IF the necessity for covertness is externally imposed.
After that, I'm not sure I'm following you, Antonio. I think my logic
might not quite fit into the box you have made for it. What I liked
about Narnia was probably not in fact all the "bits" fitting together,
which I would identify most prominently as the personal, moral choices
characters had to make. Those were uninteresting and contrived, and, I
felt, increasingly so.
If I felt betrayed, it was not because I fell in love with the Narnia of
the books after LWW, but because I gave Lewis the benefit of the doubt
after having betrayed the first time, after LWW, and obtained some
partial enjoyment as a result. The discovery of propaganda did not come
after the fact, but in the course of reading. I stuck it out
nevertheless. TLB revealed what was, to me, the mendacity of Lewis's
project.
More information about the Urth
mailing list