Lupiverse(es)

David Stockhoff · 16 Mar 2012, 02:42 · from 2012-March.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2012 22:42:31 -0400
Subject: (urth) Lupiverse(es)
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On 3/15/2012 10:32 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
> Wasn't MacDonald a good half century older? And he was one of those mollified Presbyterians.
> But is it fair to criticise didacticism which didn't pretend to be anything else? I mean, neither MacDonald nor Lewis, that I know of, tried to present their books as doctrinally free. At least MacDonald was overt as to their didactic nature. It isn't Lewis's fault if the Narnia books got popular that they were pushed everywhere as mere children's books without a caveat that they were had a religious undercurrent. Maybe the real issue is that they are popular because that undercurrent pleases people, just as Praise of Empire pleased others, and those who take exception to that way of writing resent the popularity.

Well, if it's boring, it's boring. And it depends on what you mean by 
"didn't pretend"---as with Lewis, most of his readers were children. If 
you have no idea what you might be reading, you can't know whether it's 
pretense or not.

Certainly Lewis wasn't responsible for whatever marketing got his books 
in my local library and into my hands. But I doubt they were and are 
popular because they are religious: rather, they probably are popular 
because they are accessible, imaginative (sometimes magical, as you 
said), action-packed, well-written, comforting (Aslan always appeared to 
set things right), and morally nonthreatening. Girls read them as much 
as boys did, and no parents objected to them.

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