Category: Fantasy Criticism

A visitor to this blog drew my attention to a quote from J.R.R. Tolkien, preserved in one of his letters:

“The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion,’ to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.”

In my life I have read LOTR (and The Hobbit) many times and have yet to discern anything Catholic about it. Indeed, the most unreal thing about Tolkien’s imaginary world is the total absence of places of worship, clergy of any kind, sacred writings, explicit references to any deity or deities, and so on. Here on Earth there has never been a civilization that looked like that. Where would archeology be without temples, shrines, idols, etc.?  Meanwhile, I’d give a lot to see the manuscript of Lord of the Rings as it was before Tolkien revised it.

Continue Reading “Tolkien’s Camouflage” →

I have found a book that is almost indescribably bad: Misfit, by Jon Skovron. I’ve only revealed the title and the author so that you will know to avoid it.

Had the author’s only crime been to use every known cliche except “My wife doesn’t understand me,” I wouldn’t be writing this. No. By “bad” I mean intolerable; toxic; spiritually polluting; intellectually stultifying; reprehensible; unfit for human consumption. Worst of all, its target audience is teenage girls. Apparently this is what passes for teen literature, these days–which is a sad commentary on our times, as Caligula might say. I suppose Caligula might have written a book like this, had he been a teen lit author instead of a depraved Roman emperor who thought he was a god. But he’d be very hard put to come up with something worse.

If Mr. Skovron were here, I would ask him the following questions:

Continue Reading “A Really Stinky Book!” →

Our nation’s leaders have blurred the line between fantasy and reality so you can hardly see it anymore.

Item: Arne Duncan, our Secretary of Education, says we need a “national starting salary” for public school teachers–$60,000. Teachers should be paid “the same as engineers,” babbled the secretary. Is the man insane? Or is he just anticipating union dues from hundreds of thousands of highly-paid teachers flowing into the campaign chests of the Democrat Party? Gee, the world’s most expensive public education system is–let us put it as charitably as possible–a shameful failure. Better throw more money at it!

Item: An official report by a NASA panel headed by somebody named Shawn Domagal-Goldman has recommended that we go back to living like 12th-century peasants so that potentially hostile space aliens won’t spot our carbon footprint and come over and conquer us. Maybe we should also get rid of electronic communications, especially TV and radio. Haven’t you seen this exchange a thousand times in 1950s science fiction movies? Terrified Earth Person: “But how is it that you speak our language?” Bug-Eyed Space Monster: “For many years we have monitored your radio transmissions…”

Item: Maxine Waters, a member of the United States Congress, recommends that the government “tax the banks out of existence.” How can we even comment on such a statement by a person in a position of responsibility and leadership?

Item: Former Vice President and almost-president Al Gore said recently that “climate change deniers” are “like racists,” ignorant, bigoted, superstitious, evil, blah-blah… and they should be treated like racists. Chimes in The Democrat (what else?) Examiner, climate change deniers should be “ostracized and marginalized” until they repent of their “moral failure.”

Are all these people crazy? If they believe the fantasies they put out there, the answer is yes. But if they say all these wacky things and don’t believe in them, isn’t that even worse?