I’ve wrote, more books than I’ve read.
I love my wife and daughters, but I don’t feel that they’re on my side.
I’ve been reading The Screwtape Letters and having aot of fun with it. Lewis and Wormwood both know how to pull the levers to get an emotional reaction out of a person lol
I read Out of the Silent Planet at a fairly young age and it seemed incredible at the time. I also read the other 2 books of the trilogy and while Perelandra seemed fine, I had trouble getting through the last one.
Maybe it’s because I’ve become a pretty outspoken anti-theist, but after growing up and being exposed to better theological and philosophical arguments, I’ve come to the conclusion that Lewis is an overrated hack.
And yes, the Silent Planet books were absolute torture to get through.
Is it possible to go too far in one direction? You’ll never know unless you find out, and there’s no guarantee you’ll ever find out.
I think in his later years Feynman did LSD and started feeling more comfortable with the potential philosophical ramifications of his work. We have to draw a line somewhere as a starting point for our understanding of reality, but it’s important to always be willing to reconsider that line. That’s what good science is all about.
Well damn, I feel like I’m responding to my own soul from the past!
My experience was identical, back in the early 80s.
Why’s Tolkien so grumpy in this? I thought he was quiet funny in real life.
He was, but…
I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.
Note that LOTR was 100% informed by his experiences in WWI and he sought to impart readers with many of the same feelings. He’s just saying it’s not a 1:1 comparison. For example, World War One had no ents. He just put those in because they’re neat. LOTR isn’t a direct retelling of the great war, but it is supposed to make you think about what war does to people, and perhaps that will make you think about the great war.
He also claimed the war didn’t leave him with any bad memories, but he’s got a whole marsh where dead people pull other people into the bog to drown.
Weirdly totally not about the Somme according to Tolkien.
*has literal trees smashing industry*
I’ve been doing a bit of writing, and I feel this…
I want to write comparable experiences, but it can also come across as a heavy-handed author message if people feel too strongly that a certain place or character or event is a strong allegory for a real-life thing.
It’s more likely those fictional events were informed by those real events the author experienced, and it remains in fiction for people to reflect on.
