[HPFGU-OTChatter] Christians and LOTR

[Kathryn Cawte]

 Amy Z 
But what I most wonder about the HP-hating Tolkien lovers is whether 
they have ever read the Ainulindale (the creation story in The 
Silmarillion--the part you skip to get to the good stuff about the 
Silmaril). JKR's world is ours, created however you imagine ours was 
created, and you can even believe it was created 10,000 years ago if 
you choose. Tolkien, on the other hand, had the hubris to posit a 
very different cosmology in which the timeline of our world 
completely fails to match up with either the geological or the 
creationist version. And then there are all those gods. No matter 
how much you may try to make the Creator equivalent to the Christian 
God, you have some rather un-Christian loose ends. And wizards are 
angelic beings? JRRT seems to be risking his immortal soul with that 
idea.
 
Me -

Perhaps it's in part because while based in some ways on our world Middle
Earth is clearly not our Earth whereas JKR's world is ours. And really JRRT
was very clear that what he was creating was a mythology for England similar
to Scandinavian and Celtic mythology - so while it is bound to encompass
Christian themes (because the man was a Christian and that is bound to come
through) it is an entirely fantasy work in the way that the Narnian tales
are not (since they are allegorical). I dislike the way people lump them
together as if all fantasy literature is the same. It annoys me when people
flat out assume that all fantasy lit is the same - it's like assuming that
because they're all murder mysteries that Kay Scarpetta novels, Tommy and
Tuppence stories and uh Cadfael books are the same.

And seriously - there are good bits in the Silmarillion? So it really is
worth me trying to plough my way through it? Becuase I have it on audio tape
read by Martin Shaw and I've never got past the first side - it's the best
cure for insomnia I've ever found. I find it strange how I can devour The
Hobbit and LOTR but the Silmarillion strikes me as nothing more than a good
doorstop.

K