Religious writers and audiences

David Duffy · 06 Jun 2010, 23:15 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: davidD at qimr.edu.au (David Duffy)
Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2010 09:15:27 +1000 (EST)
Subject: (urth) Religious writers and audiences
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On Sat, 5 Jun 2010, John Watkins wrote:

> Personally I find the "betrayal" narrative bizarre whenever I hear it.

Re LWW, my opinion of it did fall when rereading when older, and seeing 
"through" the plot.  By contrast, I was able to read _The Pilgrim's 
Progress_ ignoring any allegorical content ;)

> I know countless people, many of liberal predispositions, who
> have read and allegedly enjoyed The Fountainhead--and Rand is far preachier
> than Lewis, Wolfe, or even Card.  And Neil Gaiman has written about his
> feelings of betrayal as to Lewis's religiousity, but never expressed similar
> feelings toward, for example, Kipling's imperialism.
>

I quite like the concept that great art needs to have some kind of 
underlying complex system of ideas, but that those ideas don't have to be 
right to make the artwork successful.  I am quite willing to suspend 
disbelief (in every sense of the word), if the story works qua story.  So 
I put up with FTL travel, even though it clashes with my religous beliefs.

I think my problem (and that of Gaiman, Pullman etc) with LWW is the 
feeling that the setup is too setup: it feels clumsy/arbitrary and so 
can't carry all the emotional weight.  The ending of _The Last Battle_ is 
more successful, I think.

Just another 2c, David Duffy.

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