/lit/ - Literature

Mieville and Moorecock both lose their minds when confronted with Tolkien, like the citizens of Lovecraft do when confronted with an Elder God. It's as if Tolkien is so utterly beyond them that they have no reaction to him but to go mad.

>>11363876
>She did it better than even Homer or JRR tolkie

Let's wait and see if her work lasts half a century first.

>>11284453
Man, now that you think about it, the contrast between Tolkien as a person and the sort of person the average fantasy writer is couldn't be starker.

Reminder that Tom Bombadil is Tolkien's pleb filter.

>>10968951
Tolkien was an extraordinarily devout Catholic. In fact, if you want to know his political leanings, it's simpler just to say he was "politically Catholic," because he believed what the Church taught and didn't fit neatly into a more modern political framework.

It's kind of interesting to contrast Martin's obvious apathy towards ASOIAF, which >>10731223 points out, with somebody like Melville, or Milton, or even JRR Tolkien: men who worked all their lives on their literature, who were tirelessly, unendingly devoted to their great works.

It's this apathy, to me, that truly makes Martin a hack. He's to a certain degree a skilled writer, but he just doesn't seem to see his writing as art, something over which to strive and labor. For him it's essentially a meal ticket.

What is some great Catholic fiction written in the 20th Century? I mostly know the English Catholics, like Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh, and Graham Greene. Also Tolkien, but he's very different than those guys. Who else is good?

It bothers me because he hasn't backed it up. I know fantasy isn't exactly high literature, but LOTR is far and away a better literary work than ASOIAF. This is probably because Tolkien had a very strong, well-rooted philosophic perspective, while Martin is just a pop writer who latches on to the things that excite and arouse him.

I've read Tolkien. I also know about him enough to know that he would have abhorred Cline.

>>9738314
I find that connection between Lewis and Tolkien both interesting and not interesting. On the one hand, they were very good friends, and Tolkien was instrumental in Lewis' conversion to Christianity.

On the other hand, one always gets the sense that Lewis stopped where Tolkien proceeded. Maybe because Catholics can always beat up on the Anglicans for being a halfway house of a denomination, but the fact remains. One gets the sense that Tolkien had no fear, where Lewis was a bit bashful. This is perhaps the difference between the Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings. There is a grandeur to Tolkien's fantasy that isn't in Lewis's fantasy.

My 10-year-old brother's school teacher has assigned him a book to read over the summer. It looks pretty lame and he didn't seem interested in it at all so I gave him the Hobbit instead. He's really excited about it but he's struggling to get through it as he is a very weak reader.

Aside from the obvious tips like telling him to use context clues to figure the meanings of words and re-reading a difficult sentence many times, how do you help a kid develop reading skills? Is the Hobbit even ideal for his age group? I haven't read it myself. How old were you guys when you read it?

>>9630083
The Catholics' arguments are stronger. But they're also not nearly as secular.

>>9601291
Silly Anon, all truly honest intellectuals are Catholic, at least in the West.

>>9334045
Indeed.