(urth) Lupiverse(es)
David Stockhoff
dstockhoff at verizon.net
Fri Mar 16 21:08:53 PDT 2012
Just for the record, I can't find the "dull" MacDonald story I thought I
was looking for, and I can only guess it's buried among the many ebook
collections of his fiction on my old hard drive.
But /Lilith /certainly fits the bill, and /Phantastes /is not far
behind. No worse than William Morris, though.
/Photgen and Nycteris /is one of my favorites, along with several others
I can't locate at the moment.
On 3/16/2012 4:32 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:
> I plan to read it to my daughter when she's old enough---in a year or
> two. That's why I collected all the MacDonald I have, though there was
> a selfish motivation as well.
>
> I have to apologize for shocking everyone, however. It wasn't The
> Golden Key I was thinking of at all. Had I read that as a child I
> might recall it more clearly than I did in fact---probably as much as
> Curdie---but I enjoyed it nevertheless.
>
> I am not sure which story it was that struck me as stilted and dull,
> only that the protagonist was a girl. But I shouldn't venture to opine
> until I get back home and find the physical books.
>
> Auden is amazing---no, not dull at all. But then he never wrote
> stories for children, or did he?
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Daniel Petersen <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com>
> *To:* The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
> *Sent:* Friday, March 16, 2012 3:30 PM
> *Subject:* Re: (urth) Lupiverse(es)
>
> I really enjoy the edition where it's printed as its own small book,
> with illustrations by Maurice Sendak and an afterword by W. H. Auden.
> (And I'll side with Auden over Stockhoff as to the story and its
> author's worth - but maybe the Stock finds Auden dull as well? [If so
> only further proving my theory that he is inhuman.])
>
> You know, I actually first read that edition aloud to my daughter when
> she was 5 or 6 and that was the go that really bowled me over. David,
> do you know of any bairns you can read it aloud to?
>
> (Does anyone have experiences reading Wolfe aloud? I've never done
> that, I don't think. Lafferty gains whole new dimensions when you do
> it with him - I wonder what it would be like with Wolfe. I picture it
> being more of a reading to fellow adults scenario, rather than to
> children.)
>
> -DOJP
>
> On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 7:11 PM, Antonin Scriabin
> <kierkegaurdian at gmail.com <mailto:kierkegaurdian at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> The Golden Key was a favorite of mine growing up. I wish I could
> find my copy!
>
> On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 3:09 PM, Daniel Petersen
> <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com
> <mailto:danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's the BEST!
> You have no soul! You are not human, you are machine!
>
> (To be honest, it was on a second read that it blew me away.)
>
> -DOJP
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 5:11 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF
> <dstockhoff at verizon.net <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>> wrote:
>
> Golden Key: THAT's the one. Dull, dull, dull, dull, dull.
>
> ;)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com
> <mailto:crushtv at gmail.com>>
> *To:* The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net
> <mailto:urth at lists.urth.net>>
> *Sent:* Friday, March 16, 2012 10:19 AM
> *Subject:* Re: (urth) Lupiverse(es)
>
> Try some of his short stories and novellas:
>
> Photogen and Nycteris (aka Day Boy & Night Girl, aka Son
> of the Day, Daughter of Night)
> Light Princess (aka Little Daylight)
> Golden Key
> Translations for Novalis
>
> Lewis and MacDonald never met. But Lewis credited
> MacDonald's fiction as an important element in his
> conversion. He (and the reception of his children) were
> important in the publication of Alice in Wonderland.
> Although he was a pastor for a time, his sermons and
> theology got him in trouble and he was eventually pushed out.
>
> J.
>
> On 3/16/2012 8:09 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:
>> I'm not sure which of MacDonald's books I consider
>> stilted and boring, although I encountered those as an
>> adult. But I loved the Curdie books my mom read to me
>> when I was four or five.
>>
>> On 3/15/2012 10:51 PM, Craig Brewer wrote:
>>> Phantastes was a beautiful book! Never besmirch the name
>>> of MacDonald! heh heh...
>>>
>>> As someone who was raised in a relatively a-religious
>>> family, I usually just ignored the obviously religious
>>> bits of Lewis/Tolkien/whoever else. But as I got older,
>>> I found that the non-"preachy" manner of fictional
>>> Christian works actually worked to explain why faith was
>>> interesting and attractive. After all, here was some
>>> fantasy that might be real on a certain level, or at
>>> least a number of people thought so.
>>>
>>> That's a perspective I've had trouble explaining to
>>> friends who had that "betrayal" reaction to Narnia.
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> *From:* David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
>>> <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>
>>> *To:* The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
>>> <mailto:urth at lists.urth.net>
>>> *Sent:* Thursday, March 15, 2012 9:42 PM
>>> *Subject:* Re: (urth) Lupiverse(es)
>>>
>>> On 3/15/2012 10:32 PM, António Pedro Marques wrote:
>>> > Wasn't MacDonald a good half century older? And he was
>>> one of those mollified Presbyterians.
>>> > But is it fair to criticise didacticism which didn't
>>> pretend to be anything else? I mean, neither MacDonald
>>> nor Lewis, that I know of, tried to present their books
>>> as doctrinally free. At least MacDonald was overt as to
>>> their didactic nature. It isn't Lewis's fault if the
>>> Narnia books got popular that they were pushed
>>> everywhere as mere children's books without a caveat
>>> that they were had a religious undercurrent. Maybe the
>>> real issue is that they are popular because that
>>> undercurrent pleases people, just as Praise of Empire
>>> pleased others, and those who take exception to that way
>>> of writing resent the popularity.
>>>
>>> Well, if it's boring, it's boring. And it depends on
>>> what you mean by "didn't pretend"---as with Lewis, most
>>> of his readers were children. If you have no idea what
>>> you might be reading, you can't know whether it's
>>> pretense or not.
>>>
>>> Certainly Lewis wasn't responsible for whatever
>>> marketing got his books in my local library and into my
>>> hands. But I doubt they were and are popular because
>>> they are religious: rather, they probably are popular
>>> because they are accessible, imaginative (sometimes
>>> magical, as you said), action-packed, well-written,
>>> comforting (Aslan always appeared to set things right),
>>> and morally nonthreatening. Girls read them as much as
>>> boys did, and no parents objected to them.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Urth Mailing List
>>> To post, write urth at urth.net <mailto:urth at urth.net>
>>> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Urth Mailing List
>>> To post, writeurth at urth.net <mailto:urth at urth.net>
>>> Subscription/information:http://www.urth.net
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Urth Mailing List
>> To post, writeurth at urth.net <mailto:urth at urth.net>
>> Subscription/information:http://www.urth.net
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net <mailto:urth at urth.net>
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net <mailto:urth at urth.net>
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net <mailto:urth at urth.net>
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net <mailto:urth at urth.net>
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net <mailto:urth at urth.net>
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20120317/7f17d3fe/attachment-0004.htm>
More information about the Urth
mailing list