Word: tolkien
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...tendency to utilize J. R. R. Tolkien’s muted disapproval of the work—“It really won’t do, you know!”—as “proof” that Lewis is all wrong. Tolkien was, of course, a devout and serious Christian believer who succeeded in converting Lewis from militant atheism. Somehow, critics imply, this should mean that Lewis’ work is sub par or meaningless. Why Tolkien’s critique should disqualify Lewis’ work is not clear, unless one expects Christians...
...success of films like ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Harry Potter,’ we realized we could do it.”Others make subtler allusions to the towering shadow cast over the market by Peter Jackson’s Tolkien adaptations. Deftly dropped keywords keep the tone of the discussion properly superlative.“People come into the movie wanting to see four kids and a house, a small British movie,” says director Andrew Adamson. “To me this is a family drama taken...
...decades later. After the war, Lewis went to Oxford and stayed there for nearly the rest of his life. In time, Lewis became the large, loud, Medievalist who laughed deeply and held late-night meetings for friends and intellectuals. He developed close companionships with fellow academics, most notably J.R.R. Tolkien. On a walk one evening with Tolkien and another friend, Tolkien convinced Lewis that his lifelong yearning for a feeling which he called Joy was, in fact, a longing for God. The friends debated until sunrise, when the middle-aged Lewis became a Christian.Lewis’ conversion from atheism...
...work in the grand epic-fantasy tradition, Martin is by far the best. In fact, with his newest book, A Feast for Crows (Bantam; 784 pages), currently descending on bookstores and ascending best-seller lists, this is as good a time as any to proclaim him the American Tolkien...
What really distinguishes Martin, and what marks him as a major force for evolution in fantasy, is his refusal to embrace a vision of the world as a Manichaean struggle between Good and Evil. Tolkien's work has enormous imaginative force, but you have to go elsewhere for moral complexity. Martin's wars are multifaceted and ambiguous, as are the men and women who wage them and the gods who watch them and chortle, and somehow that makes them mean more. A Feast for Crows isn't pretty elves against gnarly orcs. It's men and women slugging...