Writers and other artists of 20 century which in your opinion will be remembered

[Geoff]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" <dumbledore11214 at ...> wrote:

Alla:
I wondered about C.S.Lewis of course when I thought of Tolkien, but I may have said it in the past - Lewis' books popularity (as works of art) is something I just do not really understand, to me his books are just very "in your face" retellings of Christianity for kids and some of them, especially last one got so preachy that I wanted to throw the book against the wall, but of course he is quite popular and it is possible that his popularity will stand. I mean, of course Tolkien is somebody who was deeply influenced by Christianity in his writings, but for me Tolkien wrote something very universal and what people of any faith (or atheists) can love. Lewis' writings just make me angry.

Geoff:
I'm coming to this thread late. Having flipped through OTC regularly and 
thought "Oh dear, nothing new", I came today after a couple of days gap 
and looked, gobsmacked, at the number of new posts.

Alla, I fear that I shall disagree with you over this.  JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis 
and JK Rowling all share something in common in that they are all writing 
from a Christian point of view. I agree that CS Lewis is probably the most 
overt in his presentation of Christian themes. However, if you read JRRT, 
especially in "The Silmarillion" he placed Middle Earth well inside the 
ideas of Christianity. The sections dealing with the creation of the world 
by Eru and the Ainur, who are given oversight of mortal races, deliberately 
parallel the real world; we have a fallen "Angel", Melkor who becomes 
Morgoth and who is comparable with Lucifer whose fall leads to him 
becoming Satan. JKR has also made many nods in the direction of 
Christian belief in the Harry Potter canon. 

As has been pointed out, CS Lewis (and for that matter JRR Tolkien) were 
not a priori fiction writers. They were both University lecturers and also 
close friends. CS Lewis, after his conversion, became a great apologist 
and wrote many, many devotional  and teaching books; I recall having 
been deeply influenced by his writings as a young Christian in the 1960s. 
The Screwtape Letters and their sequel, were specifically written as a 
warning, albeit couched in humorous terms, to believers of the way 
in which their faith could be undermined and their witness weakened. 

In addition to these and the Narnia books, he also wrote the Ransom 
trilogy of science-fiction books (Out of the Silent Planet, Voyage to 
Venus and That Hideous Strength) which again also referenced Christian 
faith within their story.

There is a truth in that these books can be appreciated by folk who are 
not Christian believers because there is some element of God in all of 
us whether we have connected with it or not.

If I might digress to the question of the 20th century, I believe that 
much of our appreciation of lasting art, in its widest interpretation, 
has been progressively shaped and reshaped by the changing face of 
the media, probably greater in the 20th century than in any other. 

Consider that in 1901, films and sound recording were in their very 
infancy. Seeing a photograph or going to a concert; making a film 
or even reading a book was for varying sections of the population 
beyond their reach or considered as esoteric scientific exercises which 
would "never come to anything". 

I think that many of the books which have been mentioned have 
reached the lists because they have initially been successful and have 
been expanded by their creators until their characters have been so 
well delineated that we feel we know them as friends and even family. 
Isn't that the case with Harry,  with Frodo and with some of the earlier 
writers? And doesn't it become even more so when those "friends" are 
brought to visual life in TV and film adaptations?  My wife is a huge 
fan of the Forsyte Saga and Galsworthy's world has been  made even 
more vivd by the brilliant TV adaptations of some decades ago. And 
I have to confess that, in the Potterverse, although my love is first for 
the books and second for the films, I see the characters as I read, in 
the personae of the films, Dan as Harry, Tom as Draco and so on.

I won't go on much further (sigh of relief) but how much has music in 
the last century been increasingly produced for films or stage 
performance rather than the concert platform?. What do I think of 
when John Williams' name or Howard Shore's is mentioned? Film 
scores. The number of 20th and 21st century composers who 
produce full works for, say, concert performance in the tradition of 
Beethoven, Brahms or Mendelssohn, is becoming increasingly limited 
as we look at music as a part of a whole emotional and aesthetic 
experience.

As has been suggested, we probably need to be another 25-30 years 
down the line before we can see what pattern the changing likes of 
readers and listeners and the ever-changing technical developments 
of artistic media will have shaped.