[ SECRET POST #3234 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3234 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.
[Golden Girls]


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02.
[Boku no Hero Academia]


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03.
[C.S. Lewis vs. J.R.R. Tolkien]


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04.
[Pokémon, Leah Remini]


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05.
[Tales of Zestiria]


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06.
[The Man In The High Castle]


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07.
[Marjorie Liu, Sana Takeda, Monstress]


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08.
[Sleepy Hollow]








Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 020 secrets from Secret Submission Post #462.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 2 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

03. http://i.imgur.com/bdYtube.jpg
[C.S. Lewis vs. J.R.R. Tolkien]

[kallanda_lee]

I agree about the writing style at the very least.

[philstar22]

I disagree. Lewis's writing style is very child-like to me. His stuff is okay, but it is very clearly young adult (at least Narnia), and even his other stuff isn't my cup of tea. I actually really like Tolkien's writing style. This wasn't always true, but it grew on me and now I wouldn't change a thing.

[(Anonymous)]

You can't really make the statement that Lewis' writing style is "child-like" when you only have experience in his books for children.

I suggest "Till We Have Faces" if you want to try some of Lewis' adult (and non-theological) works.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, first, I strongly disagree with everything you've said here that is positive about Lewis' writing. Second, I don't find Tolkien's writing dry at all. But those are subjective things.

Third, I would argue seriously that Lewis trying to write Lord of the Rings would have been a complete and total disaster, because Lewis' ideas, themes, aesthetics, and writing style but most especially his tone as a writer are so wholly at odds with the whole project of Lord of the Rings. It seems radically incompatible to me. Lewis doesn't have the same sense of age and time and doom that Tolkien did; he doesn't have quite the same aesthetic sensibility even for the England-y Shire bits, and he has nowhere close to the sensibility for the heroic saga bits. He would not have been capable of writing a character like Aragorn; I'm not sure he would have been capable of writing a character like Frodo.

It's possible to imagine Lewis' take on Tolkien, but God - why would you want to?

[(Anonymous)]

I dunno. Mr. Tumnus' tea party is very hobbit like, IMO.

[darnaguen]

Seconded.

[(Anonymous)]

Thirded, and well said!

[kryss_labryn]

I have to admit, I loved the Narnia books as a child (and still love Tolkien); but what strikes me now, trying to read them to my kids, is the terribly, terribly ham-fisted, heavy, unsubtle Christian allegory (which I loved as an Anglican kid once our pastor pointed it out--although I argued vehemently against its existence with my Mum earlier when she tried to, lol); and the terrible, terrible life lessons. The one that stands out right now is in "Prince Caspian", because that's where I stopped reading the series again: the lesson there is, hey, if you're lost in the woods (which is a real literal non-metaphorical thing that can happen here in Canada; hell, I had to worry about the kids getting lost in the woods without even leaving the property), or, hell, I suppose even metaphorically as well, whatever you do, DON'T use your brain and try to figure out the problem rationally, because that will just be wasted effort and get you nowhere.

Instead, just do whatever you think God is trying to tell you to do, even if it's diametrically opposed to what rational thought tells you to do and even if it looks like doing it will get you killed.

That is a bullshit life lesson, as is "Hey, when you're lost in the woods, if the others don't think following hallucinatory Jesus off a cliff is a good idea, wait until everyone else is asleep, and then follow hallucinatory!Jesus off a cliff. Without waking anyone up. Because of course that will end well.

As a parent with kids who have a fairly realistic chance of getting lost in the woods that makes me so angry you guys. And now that I am no longer a Christian, the allegory just irritates me (although of course that was the audience he was writing for).

As a fan of fantasy it makes me grit my teeth when Lewis switches between referring to dwarfs (not "dwarves"; that may actually be a bonus though as Tolkien Dwarves are awesome and this way I can separate them more easily) as "he" and "it", even when the dwarf is a good character helping the protagonists. Seriously, watch for it; he keeps saying "it said" instead of "he said"; he actually refers to the "DLF" as "it" more often than "he".

Loved Lewis as a child; now I actually can't read him anymore.

Loved Tolkien my entire life.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's definitely a matter of opinion. I like Tolkien's writing and I think his style is exactly what is needed for the story he's telling. Same for Lewis. There's gravitas and weight in Tolkien's writing style that helps the weight of the story. But whether you find it "entertaining" is completely subjective. I would say, though, that you might not find the story as entertaining in Lewis' style as I don't think he could capture the history and depth of the world and the stakes of the ring quest, which would drastically change the story that's being told.

I do agree about Lewis' allegory being ham-fisted. I always enjoy reading about the different notes and opinions each writer had about the other, and when they discussed their different writing projects. I really like their friendship. :)

[(Anonymous)]

I agree in some sense. Tolkien's writing isn't necessarily bad, but he's trying to recreate that historical flavor of Beowulf or Norse sagas. It can be beautiful at times, but it doesn't really feel authentic. Tolkien's characters especially rarely feel like actual people, they more often feel like mouthpieces for random quotes of wisdom/whatever.

Lewis was much better at writing characters and his writing style is a lot more modern. It'd be interesting to see how he tackled LOTR, as long as he refrained from making it too preachy.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree in some sense. Tolkien's writing isn't necessarily bad, but he's trying to recreate that historical flavor of Beowulf or Norse sagas. It can be beautiful at times, but it doesn't really feel authentic. Tolkien's characters especially rarely feel like actual people, they more often feel like mouthpieces for random quotes of wisdom/whatever.

Well, yeah, but he only does that for the characters who are supposed to be saga-like heroic figures. And they're not really supposed to be actual characters. When you look at the characters who aren't supposed to be saga-like heroic figures (mostly, the hobbits), he writes them in a totally different way that's much more contemporary to his time. It's very noticeable.

[philstar22]

I don't think Lewis was any better at writing characters, he was just bad in different ways. His characters also feel very flat to me. I never feel their motivations at all. And even his adults feel very child-like in not good ways. I understand Tolkien's characters better, even when they are used for roles rather than deeply characterized.

[forgottenjester]

I kind of... partially agree with you?

The thing is, Tolkien can write in a non-dry way, if I recall correctly. I read Roverandom yeeeaaarrrrssss ago and it went well. Then again, in that novel he was writing for small children. Too bad there couldn't be a happy medium.

[kryss_labryn]

It depends what you're looking for in writing. I mean, some of my friends who I managed to get to read Tolkien found it so painfully dry they couldn't finish the Party scene. And a few of them loved it.

Me, I think the end of the chapter of "The Ride of the Rhohirrim" is the most incredible thing ever written. Others will disagree. And they will be wrong. ;)

[diet_poison]

I'd read it!!

[(Anonymous)]

I don't find Tolkien's writing dry. I love it. But different strokes and all.

[darnaguen]

I think 'wry' would be a better word. At times anyway.

[(Anonymous)]

Oooh! Would also like to read that.

[(Anonymous)]

I hated Tolkein's writing and did find it very dry. I couldn't make it through the series any of the times I tried to do so. I don't think C.S. Lewis would fare very well there either, however. I think it is too much of a radical departure for him. I would love to see a different, more expressive and character-driven writer do a take on the Fellowship, but I doubt anyone ever would as it is considered pretty sacrosanct.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't have an opinion on C.S. Lewis as it's been too long since I've read his work, but I did read Tolkien much more recently and I also found it dry. In the text, it seemed he lavished a lot of attention on the world, the languages, and the landscape, but the characters' personalities were filled in only on a peripheral level, with the exception of the hobbits.

As some commentators above have pointed out, that may have been a stylistic choice. However, from my reading perspective, it made them really hard to relate to. One of the reasons why I preferred the films, where all of a sudden, all of those characters felt like real people. In the book, they just don't do that for me.

Obviously others have different takes on it, but I have to agree with your last sentence about seeing how it would have been different with a "more expressive and character-driver writer".

[philippos42]

I can't believe you're going to make me defend Tolkien's writing style.

But somehow, this sounds really odd to me. Jack and Tolkien were very, very different in their approaches to setting, and I almost think Jack couldn't do what you're saying.

Note that Jack was a huge influence on me as a child, and I later went back and read some of his work and started really picking it apart. This idea appeals less to me now. Maybe I do find him juvenile. (Well, he and Tolkien both were, a bit.)

I'm not a great Tolkienian. I think I got through a few chapters of Quenta Silmarillion. He can be dry. And my favorite stories by him are not really the great world-building ones. But handing the scripting off to Jack Lewis? Eh, no.

Tolkien could do a pretty good short story. He was capable of writing clear little stories, we just get misled because LotR was such a drag. I don't think he needed Jack, and I don't think Jack was up to the worldbuilding and use of language.

[(Anonymous)]

Who is Jack?

[cbrachyrhynchos]

Most of the Silmarillion is barely beyond second-draft stuff. But Tolkien wasn't a "world-builder" and treating him as such is almost certainly a terrible reading.

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Ehh... I have never read anything by either of them besides LotR and Narnia, so solely based on those two... no. Just no.

I finally got around to reading The Hobbit for the first time (after having the book on my shelf for years) around when the LotR movies came out. It was also around the time the LWW movie came out and I bought an omnibus edition of the Narnia chronicles. The comparison of how each writer wrote for children was huge, and for me it was eye-opening for Narnia, as I had read those books before, when I was a kid.

Tolkien may be dry and not very deep in characterisation, but I never felt he talked down to his audience. Lewis I felt talked down and was practically condescending in tone in the Narnia books. I would prefer Tolkien's dryness to Lewis's condescension any day.

Then again, keep in mind that I first read LotR around 12 or 13 (though I get what people say about how remote characters besides the hobbits are), and I am the person who frequently compares the Silmarillion to the Bible, and I went through the Silm like crazy when I first read it. I can do dry pretty well.