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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. <br>
<br>
On 3/15/2012 10:51 PM, Craig Brewer wrote:
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<div><span>Phantastes was a beautiful book! Never besmirch the
name of MacDonald! heh heh...<br>
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<div><span>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.</span></div>
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<div><span>That's a perspective I've had trouble explaining to
friends who had that "betrayal" reaction to Narnia.</span></div>
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<hr size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b>
David Stockhoff <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:dstockhoff@verizon.net"><dstockhoff@verizon.net></a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> The
Urth Mailing List <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:urth@lists.urth.net"><urth@lists.urth.net></a> <br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b>
Thursday, March 15, 2012 9:42 PM<br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b>
Re: (urth) Lupiverse(es)<br>
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On 3/15/2012 10:32 PM, António Pedro Marques wrote:<br>
> Wasn't MacDonald a good half century older? And he was
one of those mollified Presbyterians.<br>
> 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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
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