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:

Geoff: 
> > 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.

Alla:
> I do not think we do disagree on this point, I am in complete agreement with you that all these three writers write from Christian point of view, what we do (probably) disagree on, although considering your next sentence I again not sure how much is that I consider C.S.Lewis the least accomplished *artist* from these three writers, I am going to put a disclaimer one more time, but this would be the last time, I have only read Narnia, so I only judge him as the artist who wrote those works.

> I know you are aware that I am not a Christian (neither do I follow traditional Judaism while being Jewish), in fact I do not follow any traditional religion, but I most definitely believe in God. Amusingly enough for me (and this is not something I am prepared to debate, so could we please not?), a lot of ideas of Christianity I am drawn to and share, most significantly the love to each other and one God. But there are quite a few ideas and messages of Christianity which I most definitely do not share and not drawn to. I am rambling, but please bear with me. 

Geoff:
I would agree, speaking as a Christian, that some messages apparently from 
Christina sources are sometimes suspect, sometimes irrelevant. For me, and 
for many of my evangelical friends, Christian faith has, as its bedrock, two 
statements Jesus made: "For God so loved the world that he gave us his one 
and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal 
life" and "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father 
except through me".

I liken Christianity to owning a car. Some people insist that they cannot have 
a car without automatic transmission, power steering, air conditioning etc. 
but a car functions perfectly well without these... Some church folk insist 
that they cannot worship without rituals, confession, prayers to the saints -
 which flies in the face of the New Testament definition of the word.  This is 
where the line between religion and faith lies. A religious person can have 
true faith in Christ but many have not learnt what true faith is...

Alla:
My point is that for me (and not only for me), while I of course see *very* significant influence of Christianity in the works of JKR and Tolkien, I can relate to them, while I do not feel that Narnia is anything else but simple allegory of Christianity. I feel that Tolkien created the whole complex new world, which is while of course influenced by Christianity is *his* creation and Narnia, well, basically for me it comes down to "Yes, I get who the lion is, can we please see something more interesting and original". Not to mention of course that several things in Narnia books to me represent the ideas I most vehemently not drawn to and make me quite angry. Anyway, my main point is that I do know that these three are influenced by Christianity, I just feel that Lewis is the least succesful writer of them all.

> Geoff:
> I agree that CS Lewis is probably the most 
> > overt in his presentation of Christian themes.
 
> Alla: 
> For me this is an understatement, I would say very in your face and with very little presentation of his ideas in Narnia.
 
Geoff:
I wonder how well versed you are in the seven Narnia books?  The first "The Lion, 
the witch and the wardrobe" had a deliberate agenda on Lewis' part of presenting 
the story of Christ's coming and sacrifice in a form which would appeal to younger 
childfen. However, as he wrote more, story lines were not necessarily kept as close. 
There are broad hints at the Christian source - the lamb at the end of "The 
Voyage of the Dawn Treader" and the description of heaven at the close of "The 
Last Battle".

> Alla: 
> Yes, I know and that is why I was barely able to finish Cilmarion once and reread LOTR every year. But I would still place Cilmarion higher than Narnia, even as companion to LOTR. 

Geoff:
Bearing in mind what I said about "The Silmarillion", that is for me a strange 
decision on your part. Like you I have read LOTR many times; From first finding 
it as a mid-teenager until a growing family left me with insufficient time, I read 
it every year.

I have read the former book completely about three times since it was published 
posthumously in 1977 and have found it difficult going in places.