Subject: New Wolfe essay

From: Matthew Davis <matthew at michaelscycles.freeserve.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 19:33:03 +0000

There's an essay by Wolfe about Tolkien in December's "Interzone": "The Best
Introduction to the Mountains". It's mostly autobiographical: how he
discovered LOTR in 1956, the experience of reading it, poetic inscriptions
he made in the individual volumes, and the transcript of a letter from
Tolkien to Wolfe.

In particular Wolfe praises the books because their medieval setting
embodies a system of social order and responsibilities, of defined duties
and freedoms - the Christian order itself, even if there is no sight of God
himself in the books.

Curiously, the ultra-Catholic Lafferty despised LOTR because he thought it
was a diminished fantasy world of second-hand people and concepts with a big
fence set up around it and a flashing sign that proclaimed "God Keep Out!".

Matthew Davis

---

From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 23:52:15 +0000

> and freedoms - the Christian order itself, even if there is no sight of

"No sight of God" is literally true, but God is busily arranging
coincidences, prophetic dreams, and stuff like that.  Sort of like TBotNS,
as a matter of fact.  I wonder whether Tolkien was Wolfe's model in that
book.

> fence set up around it and a flashing sign that proclaimed "God Keep

It's also interesting, at least to me, that as a child I felt a bit
betrayed when I realized that _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ was
Christian propaganda, and I'm glad LotR didn't do that to me.  Obviously
I've gotten over this, since I like Wolfe.

Jerry Friedman

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