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Post by mossie on Mar 24, 2015 19:16:11 GMT
Here is Questa's intro to this thread: I posted some pictures of Wellington New Zealand Airport with its many statues of characters from Lord of the Rings displayed there. It is in the thread "Quick trip to New Zealand March 2015" in the Compass Points board - Oceania. This led on to a lively discussion about Fantasy novels and movies made from the books. As in all good fantasy stories, we wandered off the path, got a bit lost and now, with the help of the "Wise Woman" have found new lodgings in "The Library". All that has gone before is with us still, so join in and share whatever is to come... And Mossie's comment in the original thread. This is what segued into the discussion on fantasy that morphed into this thread:Some really detailed shots of Gollum. I have to admit that I am too thick to see the point of these fantasy books and films.
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Post by questa on Mar 24, 2015 23:38:10 GMT
But Mossie, do they have to have a ""point". Aren't they just for escaping the tribulations of day-to-day and joining with the archetypes that appear in all cultures' stories.
Tolkein not only created a series of adventures, but different races of beings, their histories, languages and maps of their world. The appendices are almost as interesting as the story.
The world was building up to WW11 as he was writing LOTR and the anxieties of that are reflected in the battles between Good and Evil in his books. He had lost many friends and students in the Great War.
I don't think films can do justice to fantasy of this kind...it is all special effects and not much connection between viewer and the heart of the story. Reading the story, which flows off into many sub-stories takes you into another time and place where your own judgments and values are questioned.
Maybe that's the point?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2015 6:11:34 GMT
Having read the books many times and having seen the films more than once, I can say that the films very much respect the spirit of the book, although just like everybody else, I have various disappointments about things that were left out just because Peter Jackson would have had to make about 30 hours of Lord of the Rings instead of 10 hours to cover everything. As for The Hobbit, I didn't find that book nearly as interesting, so I didn't really care how the films were done in terms of literary respect. As it turned out, the thin plot was drawn out far too long and the 'filler' was a total excess of special effects. The Hobbit films can still be enjoyed visually, but they are completely empty emotionally and philosophically.
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Post by bjd on Mar 25, 2015 7:14:58 GMT
I never managed to read The Hobbit. I found it dull and stopped fairly quickly. Didn't bother with the movie either.
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Post by questa on Mar 25, 2015 9:16:34 GMT
"The Hobbit" was written for kids. Tolkein did not have the talent to write for kids and I agree, it is boring and turgid writing. He was friends with G K Chesterton and they read each others works in progress. Tolkein was working on LOTR and Chesterton saw the opportunity to write fantasy so quickly wrote "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", and got it onto the market first. Tolkein was furious and the two never spoke together again Tolkein wrote "The Hobbit" as an introduction to some of the story in LOTR. He worked fast to get his book in the shops ASAP and I think this shows in the way it was written
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Post by bjd on Mar 25, 2015 10:04:04 GMT
Oops, Questa. "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" was written by C.S. Lewis. I loved those books, and read them to my children too. Now they have copies of the set of 6 books too, to be read to their children in turn.
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Post by questa on Mar 25, 2015 16:19:39 GMT
Thanks, bjd. It is just me having a senior moment! Of course C.S Lewis is the name I meant to type. I guess it is something about names that consist of only initials and a surname...it makes it easier to confuse me.
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Post by nycgirl on Mar 26, 2015 1:22:50 GMT
Oh, I would love being in that airport. I'm a big LOTR fan (films and books) and those statues are amazing. The eagle carrying Gandalf is my favorite.
The Hobbitt films aren't nearly as good, although Bilbo (Martin Freeman) is an appealing everyman protagonist and the visual effects, especially the dragon, are impressive. The films are pretty soulless, though, and unnecessarily long.
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Post by questa on Mar 26, 2015 2:05:18 GMT
I was not a fan of Lion, Witch etc. One of my sons liked the adventures but labelled it as "Christian Propaganda" and went back to LOTR. He was a fan of Ursula Le Guin as well. This son of mine says that Samwise is the everyman archetype and Frodo is "The Unlikely Hero"...a new archetype he found when comparing various fantasy books.
Has anyone here read "the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant"?
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Post by nycgirl on Mar 26, 2015 2:16:46 GMT
I liked it as a kid, especially the idea of being transported to a fantasy land through a mundane piece of furniture. But rereading it as a teen, I was surprised how heavy-handed the Christian metaphors were. There was even a Santa Claus character. It was off-putting.
Never read Thomas Covenant.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 26, 2015 3:56:22 GMT
I read CS Lewis's space trilogy years @40 years ago & couldn't put it down. If it had a Christian message, it escaped me.
Have you all read Lloyd Alexander's books? Fabulous stuff even for adults. And I love beyond measure George MacDonald's The Princess & the Goblin and The Princess & Curdie. Fantasy is good.
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Post by questa on Mar 26, 2015 7:19:29 GMT
I read CS Lewis's space trilogy years @40 years ago & couldn't put it down. If it had a Christian message, it escaped me. I think we are talking about different C S Lewis stories, Bixa. "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" is not a space trilogy but about some kids who enter another (Earth-like) world through the back of a wardrobe and have adventures there. The Lion that assists them gradually becomes Jesus metaphor, and not in a subtle way. It wrecked a good series of books in my opinion. Maybe we should move this to the books thread...we seem to have wandered...like Strider.
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Post by bjd on Mar 26, 2015 7:34:21 GMT
When I read CS Lewis's books as a kid, the Christian aspect totally escaped me. I only noticed it when I re-read the books to my children.
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Post by questa on Mar 26, 2015 9:46:35 GMT
I wonder how old children are when they begin to understand allegory?
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Post by bjd on Mar 26, 2015 11:51:46 GMT
About35?
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 26, 2015 12:44:15 GMT
What's an allegory?
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Post by questa on Mar 26, 2015 13:40:26 GMT
A creature similar to a crocodile covered in blood
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Post by questa on Mar 26, 2015 13:49:37 GMT
Seriously, Mark...
Allegory is a figure of speech in which abstract ideas and principles are described in terms of characters, figures and events. It can be employed in prose and poetry to tell a story with a purpose of teaching an idea and a principle or explaining an idea or a principle. The objective of its use is to preach some kind of a moral lesson
Below are some famous examples of Allegory in Literature:
1. “Animal Farm”, written by George Orwell, is an allegory that uses animals on a farm to describe the overthrow of the last of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II and the Communist Revolution of Russia before WW II. The actions of the animals on the farm are used to expose the greed and corruption of the revolution. It also describes how powerful people can change the ideology of a society. One of the cardinal rules on the farm for the animals is:
“All animals are equal but a few are more equal than others.” The animals on the farm represent different sections of Russian society after the revolution. For instance, the pigs represent those who came to power following the revolution; “Mr. Jones” the owner of the farm represents the overthrown Tsar Nicholas II; while “Boxer” the horse, represents the laborer class etc. The use of allegory in the novel allows Orwell to make his position clear about the Russian Revolution and expose its evils.
(Literary Devices)
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 26, 2015 14:10:11 GMT
And I thought Animal Farm was a bit of a serious kids story. Watership Down like stuff. You'll be telling me next that Jonathan Livingston Seagull has more to it as well.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2015 17:44:39 GMT
Those grapes that the mice were rolling around in Cinderella may have represented Prince Charming's testicles.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 26, 2015 19:17:22 GMT
Well, Cinderella was desperate to go to the ball.
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Post by mossie on Mar 26, 2015 19:21:43 GMT
And it's all balls to me as well
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Post by questa on Mar 27, 2015 11:17:07 GMT
So,Mossie, do you like science fiction? "The Day of the Triffids" , "The Midwich Cuckoos"...stories where fantasy things are played out in a normal setting?
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Post by bjd on Mar 27, 2015 11:37:00 GMT
I read those books when I was a teenager, although I don't remember thinking of them as "science fiction". I thought of myself as reading science fiction when I read Isaac Asimov and others I don't remember any more. Maybe I thought of the latter as more sciency?
Haven't read any for years now though.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2015 18:40:47 GMT
Until about age 20, I read science fiction and fantasy almost exclusively, although I was much more drawn to science fiction than to fantasy. Impossible creatures or talking animals just do not appeal to me if there is not some sort of "logical" explanation for their existence (bioengineering?). The Harry Potter books were a major exception in recent years, but I think it has a lot more to do with the quality of the writing than the actual subject. However, I am sure that I have missed out on a large number of fabulous fantasy novels and series just out of personal prejudice. I still have time to correct that problem.
Oddly enough, I am currently reading Beautiful Creatures, but the reason for that is rather odd. I almost accidentally saw the movie, which I thought was pretty bad (and I think it flopped, so it will not become a series), but there were plot elements that intrigued me, and I felt that the book must be far better than the movie. Too soon for me to tell, because I have only gone about 40 pages so far, but if I find it well written, I am in danger because I know that there are four more books in the series.
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Post by mossie on Mar 27, 2015 19:59:38 GMT
Sorry Questa, I am just a thick ancient country bumpkin whose education was cut short and poorly comprehended. We were well grounded in the essential 3 R's, and I am still so well grounded that my feet are practically nailed to the floor. Everything has to be straight down the middle, pure black and white. Fantasy etc is for dreamers, I cannot get my head round the concept and have no imagination.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2015 20:14:12 GMT
My parents had exactly the same attitude as Mossie. However, when my parents were living in France and it was very difficult to obtain sufficient reading matter in English (this was the late 1970's), I gave my father the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings to try, and he thought they were very good. However, my mother never touched them. He even read Samuel Delany's Dhalgren and liked it, which I found amazing, since he was very much a James Michener/James Jones type of reader.
His adventure streak was clearly much stronger than my mother's.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2015 14:06:47 GMT
I was and still am a huge fan of Maurice Maeterlinck (The Blue Bird). Of course Alice in Wonderland. The Hobbit did nothing for me nor did The Trilogy. All in all, I am not a big fan of Fantasy books or movies. I don't know if Beatrix Potter qualifies as fantasy. If so, I'm in on all her work.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Mar 28, 2015 16:25:23 GMT
I am a big kid me...I still read fantasy and science fiction and always have at least one on the go. I loved C S Lewis as a child, and growing up in an atheist household didn't notice any of the religious significance they were the first books I remember reading to myself when I was 6 or 7 years old. I didn't read The Hobbit until I was 11 and went on to read LOTR but found it tedious...skipped all the songs, wanted to slap Frodo. I did love Aragorn tho... Other Children's fantasy writers such as Alan Garner ( The Moonstone of Brisingamen, The Moon or Gomrath and Elidor etc) were a favourite of both myself and my Father. When he still had his eyesight I would pass on books to him to read, we read the Thomas Covenant Series back in the 70s, along with good old Anne McCaffery and David Eddings (ah but we were young then) we both enjoyed the early Game of Thrones books by George R R Martin but went off them...he liked Terry Brooks but I didn't...and we both quite liked the early Sword of Truth books (Terry Goodkind) and then there were the brilliant Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams...and Jasper Fforde's quirky Thursday Next books (altho I like all his other books too) I enjoyed reading Philip Pullman's Northern Lights series, and The Triskellion series by Will Peterson both aimed at children...and I've read all of Terry Pratchett's books including his collaborative work with Stephen Baxter and Neil Gamon. Fantasy writers that I enjoyed reading in the past were people like Raymond Fiest, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Robin Hobb...I recently came across Elizabeth Moon's Paksennarion books and just gobbled them all up...splendid. In the past few months I've read some books by Peter Brett, Michael J Sullivan, Ian Irvine, Jennifer Fallon and Anthony Ryan and really enjoyed them. I've just finished a Sci-Fi series called the Wool Trilogy by Hugh Howey too. OH enjoyed that as well. It sometimes feels like I have to apologise for liking science fiction or fantasy books, as if it's a bad thing to do! but it's people like me who keep book shops open! I also read 'proper fiction' but it has to be very well written to hold my attention. I always go back to my fantasy writers...I'm obviously not an intellectual
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Post by bjd on Mar 28, 2015 17:09:09 GMT
No apologies needed, Cheery. I always figure reading anything is better than not reading.
When I see your list, I note many books either I have read (Douglas Adams and Jasper Fforde, a few Terry Pratchetts) or else my son who read loads of Feist, George Martin and any fantasy world books he could get his hands on.
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