Weekly blog links

John Watkins · 15 Apr 2009, 17:15 · from 2009-April.txt.gz

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From: john.watkins04 at gmail.com (John Watkins)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:15:06 -0400
Subject: (urth) Weekly blog links
In-Reply-To: <648506.37566.qm at web50711.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <93d4039f0904150818p6e33d7a4gecd54f9eb64a33e5 at mail.gmail.com>
	<648506.37566.qm at web50711.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <93d4039f0904151015q64f6ebdflbb707ebf5d17c2df at mail.gmail.com>

The obvious one, to me, is that the series is a trilogy set on three
different worlds.  The first is set on an old world and deals with a human
being coming into contact with that world's native race, which is tall and
slender in appearance and which is "better and wiser" than humanity.  He
discovers that the religion of this alien species is a cognate, at least in
some aspects, with his own.  The second book deals, in part, with that human
being's subsequent adventures on a jungle world in which he is wound unto
death and miraculously restored (albeit Lewis retconned the severity of
Ransom's wound a little.)  The third is set, in part, on the narrator's home
world.

I would also hazard that Ransom's shift in personality from the Tolkienesque
hero of Perelandra to the Williamsesque Christian/Arthurian figure of That
Hideous Strength may have intrigued Wolfe--a flaw in Lewis's books, Wolfe
makes the shifting nature of his narrator the strength and core theme of his
own.

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 1:07 PM, Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>wrote:

>
> --- On Wed, 4/15/09, John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Undoubtedly an inadvertent omission--SS has aspects of
> > Lewis's Ransom books.
> ...
>
> I'd be interested if you'd point those out (or some, if there
> are too many).
>
> My impression of /Pirate Freedom/ is what James Jordan confirmed--
> it was a YA book.  The time travel is obviously necessary if
> you want to have a contemporary (or quasi-modern) become a
> Pirate of the Caribbean.  Brother Ignacio's being the older
> Chris was predictable for someone who's read a lot of sf, and
> maybe unnecesary--Chris can try to go back just by going to
> the monastery in Cuba, without knowing who he's going to turn
> into.
>
> Jerry Friedman
>
>
>
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