(urth) Lupiverse(es)

[David Stockhoff]

On 3/15/2012 5:56 PM, António Marques wrote:
> David Stockhoff wrote:
>> 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.
>
> That part of my argument should have used 'dishonest' rather than 
> 'covert'.
>
>> 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.
>
> Gee, that could be because I made no box for it. I made a box for a 
> specific case. If it isn't yours, it isn't. Oh - I see I used the 
> 'impersonal you' again. Sorry, even after a number of episodes where 
> it seems to have caused confusion, it seems it's crept into my english 
> and I don't even notice when I shouldn't be using 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.
>
> Correct. What I said above is that someone who didn't like that aspect 
> of it from the start shouldn't be feeling betrayed by it. Someone who 
> did, could feel betrayed, but should also think 'I should have known 
> better'.
>
>> 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.
>
> Would you say you felt more betrayed by Lewis than by Narnia itself? 
> Or did the creature turn out to be unwelcome itself? Or - did the 
> final book do away with the 'illusion of depth' you had managed to 
> keep regarding the bits you liked?

This is clearer!

I think "I should have known better" is probably a high standard for a 
9-year-old, but it is probably closer to what I experienced. 
Burned---tricked, in any case. By Lewis himself---and yes, there was an 
illusion of depth that vanished, replaced by a perception of cynicism 
that may not have been entirely fair---but what did I know.

You do invest some time in a work of that length whether you embrace it 
wholly or not, and you accept the characters as what they seem intended 
to be. You cut the author some slack, and become comfortable with him 
and his characters, and keep going with the implicit understanding that 
there will be a payoff. So there is a trust issue whether you fall head 
over heels or not.

In any case, Narnia stands, for me, as a prime example of what results 
when an author prioritizes message over medium. I can understand how 
someone who has no issue with "bible stories" will not mind being told 
what seems to be a really cool bible story. But I am not sure how one 
could enjoy both bible stories and any kind of ambiguity or 
open-endedness---I can only assume that if you enjoy bible stories, 
either you love being told what to think or you have only read good ones 
and have discovered something within them that was not revealed to me.

For myself---well, I remember being angry with my teacher in second 
grade because we had already covered Thanksgiving in first grade, and I 
didn't want to hear about turkeys and Pilgrims again. So I'm sure I'm an 
outlier in terms of my tolerance for flat repetition.