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Concerning Tolkien’s surprising insights on the meaning of life…
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On this week’s episode, we take a close look at Tolkien’s 1969 letter to Camilla Unwin (granddaughter of the original Hobbit publisher) on “the purpose of life”. This is Letter 310. His insights are definitely worth pondering!
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2 Responses
I don’t understand the new criticism on Tolkien and Lewis. I have heard people say things like this,”I don’t like fantasy (or science fiction) because it’s not true to life”. I once heard someone say they didn’t like Star Trek because “it’s like fiction”. But this new criticism is really stupid. The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Chronicles of Narnia are being condemned because they promote and teach witchcraft and smoking (none of that is true). All fantasy literature is being condemned as bad and evil. Is it because people are confusing one group of writers with another, or are they misinterpreting something they have read in The Bible, or are they just being ignorant or holier – than- thou? I do not like all fantasy literature, and there is a lot of science fiction that I wish had never been made, but I am not going to condemn an entire genre just because certain authors have misused it. There are other genres that should be condemned, such as horror and pornography. Why is it that no one is going after those works (Fifty Shades of Grey and Game of Thrones should be illegal). And what about dystopian literature?
As for the “I don’t like this because it’s like fiction”, I have never heard anyone complain about Heidi or The Secret Garden for being fictional stories. My advise is to tell these people to grow up.