Kevin's Watch

Why is it that whenever I make a Christian comparison to the plot and events of the Chronicles I am accused of coming from a biased Christian perspective? I am not a Christian - however, such comparisons almost shriek at me from between the lines of SRD's novels.

I just want you to know that Christianity IMBUES our culture with its influence. So when a certain writer I know of, who is an atheist, analyzes Atlas Shrugged, written by an atheist, in terms of its Christian symbology, I am forced to take it seriously because the comparisons are all over the place and cannot be denied. (And the fact is that the author of Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, was raised in the constant presence of the Old Testament as a child.)

DID TC make a sacrifice at the end of TPTP? Indeed he did. But was that a Christian form of sacrifice? Wasn't there redemption involved? Indeed there was. Didn't this Christian symbology even involve Covenant's own last name? Indeed it did, the covenant of the OT versus the covenant of the NT.

Does this mean the Chronicles are about Christianity? Absolutely not, no more than Atlas Shrugged was.

It should be, I would think, possible on an intellectual level to point out the fact that symbols can be meaningful without actually invoking the religions they are drawn from. And whether you believe in them or not, these symbols can be of great service in authoring fiction novels. Borrowing their symbols and concepts is not a crime, and pointing it out is certainly not a sign of bias. At the end of the third Matrix movie, Neo sacrificed his life to redeem Zion, and his body in the end was laid out in the form of a cross. Does that mean the Matrix was about Christianity, or that Neo was a Christian? Does pointing these things out mean that I am a Christian? No more than pointing out the fact that the name "Zion" is Jewish makes me a Jew.

TheWormoftheWorld'sEnd wrote:Why is it that whenever I make a Christian comparison to the plot and events of the Chronicles I am accused of coming from a biased Christian perspective?

Probably because "whenever" seems to be "all the time." You seem to be on a mission, in that regard. That's your prerogative. But it's also mine to disagree.

I could be entirely wrong. I think I back up my points well from the GI and from the books. But for all I know Donaldson could be reading my posts and seething with anger at my interpretations. I don't pretend to speak for Donaldson.

We're all passionate, and we all love these books. Personally, when I see things like "perhaps God was telling Covenant that he deserved his leprosy because he is guilty of original sin," my reaction is: that's like saying Lord Foul is the good guy of the series. It just seems to miss the mark so wide, that I feel I must defend my favorite author . . . even if I'm wrong.

I'd do the same thing if someone were saying The Chronicles of Narnia are an atheist manifesto, or had anything in common with Nietzsche.

You could accuse me of reading a secular humanist existential meaning into the Chronicles because I'm an atheist. And you'd be right to an extent. I see what I want to see in it. But at the same time, you'd have to provide examples why I'm wrong.

P.S. I don't believe I (or anyone else? I may have missed it) accused you of "coming from a biased Christian perspective." I think I said something in the Gap forum about your "supernatural beliefs." I made this comment because you have said things like, "guilt is a religious concept, i.e. original sin," and "redemption is a spiritual concept, not psychological." You put your beliefs about things like redemption and guilt into your posts--things which aren't in the books. Donaldson never said that guilt = original sin, you did. It's your opinion, your belief. And he never said that redemption = spiritual redemption. In fact, the examples he gave in the GI weren't spiritual.

So your beliefs are part of your posts. You may not even notice that you are putting them in there. But they stick out like a sore thumb to an atheist.

Just to defend myself a bit further, I also get my ideas from the GI and SRD's book. But they are also just the basis, my ideas start there, they just don't end there. Furthermore, I'm not a "believer." My analysis consists of concepts I've picked up over the years.

I don't take the GI as gospel, only as a series of clues as to the way in which SRD thinks when he's writing. I'm trying to move with those clues, not against them.

If SRD had said that the core of his being consisted of Kantian philosophy instead of Christian concepts, my analyses would move in that direction. I could do that anyway, but that would be far more disastrous in the eyes of posters here.

I don't see SRD as a deeply philosophical thinker. He has his own idiosyncratic philosophy. Don't you find it puzzling sometimes? I do. It's really a melange. Then he tosses in weird statements that take me years to comprehend, such as "so she could trust herself later." Trust herself later? Why? Doesn't she trust herself now? What, is there some esoteric philosophy about the concept of "trust" behind this? Then one day I have a sudden realization, a "doh!" moment as it were. And the meaning turned out to be really quite simple after all, only the way SRD writes obscures things. His writing isn't "turgid" (as some have criticized him for), and it's not usually dense. But there is a certain puzzling obliqueness to it, and I could give many more examples from his books than just that one.

And so that's what I need this forum for, to help me understand what SRD is trying to say. Not that there is a hidden message somewhere, but his writing makes me pause and ponder.

SRD grew up in an environment imbued with Christianity. He absorbed and apparently clings to a lot of those ideas, which will inevitably shape his writing in some form. However, you can only push such analogies so far-- and I am coming from a Christian perspective.

I have to laugh as I read about his writing being called "dense". Last night I realized that he took two full pages-- approximately 1,200 words-- to describe Linden going down some hallways from one place to another. No dialog or action, just her thought process. That tries even my patience!!

deer of the dawn wrote:SRD grew up in an environment imbued with Christianity. He absorbed and apparently clings to a lot of those ideas, which will inevitably shape his writing in some form. However, you can only push such analogies so far-- and I am coming from a Christian perspective.

I have to laugh as I read about his writing being called "dense". Last night I realized that he took two full pages-- approximately 1,200 words-- to describe Linden going down some hallways from one place to another. No dialog or action, just her thought process. That tries even my patience!!

Stephen King takes ten pages to describe 10 seconds of action. Victor Hugo wins the prize for density, in my mind. SRD's best writing, IMO, would be his descriptive narrative.