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November 13, 2005
Narnia vs. Tolkien?
I'm a little puzzled by Charles McGrath's article The Narnia Skirmishes
this could be the mother of all screen battles - not just your basic struggle of good and evil but a $200 million smackdown between the religious right and godless Hollywood, between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien
followed shortly by:
If you read between the lines - and sometimes right there in them - these stories are all about death and resurrection, salvation and damnation. From a moviemaking point of view, this is excellent news if you are hoping to reach the crowd that packed the theaters to see Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ," probably not so great if you're also hoping to lure all those wizards-and-weapons fans who made the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy such a hit
Reading this, you would swear that the audiences were totally distinct. However, I don't know of many people who read Tolkien (at least before the Jackson movies) who didn't first read Narnia. Narnia's target audience is younger, but anyone who read them and enjoyed fantasy literature was almost certain to pick up The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as they got older. Sentimental reasons alone will pull these people in (I count myself as one of them).
As far as godless Hollywood vs. the Religious Right, well, the Tolkien books have typically gotten a pass from the Religious Right because Tolkien was such a devout Catholic. Tolkien doesn't have the hit-you-over-the-head Christian overtone to it, but neither is it hostile to it, so it's hardly a concern.
I'm sure there are some hardcore fans of each author that doesn't like the other for one reason or another, but generally, fans of one will enjoy the other. I just don't understand the desire to pit these two works against each other like a prize fight.
McGrath did close with one thing I can agree with:
Like all the great children's books, they're not really concerned with explaining or defending this or that orthodoxy. They're interested in mostly the same thing Hollywood is: escape.
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Comments
I read Tolkien before Narnia, The Hobbit being the book that got me to love reading. Luckily, my big brother introduced me to the world of Narnia (via the BBC TV versions) a few years later.
Frankly, I don't think this guy understands what he's talking about. The majority of people who go to see The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe probably won't consider themselves members of the "religious right", just as the majority of those who saw The Lord of the Rings trilogy probably consider themselves Christian.
What I wonder is how the wacky parents who will not let their kids near Harry Potter because of witchcraft and spells and magic will treat TLTW&TW? Now there's an article worth writing.
Posted by: Brian Medcalf at November 13, 2005 11:53 PM
Nemo,
I agree that the article is strange. While Narnia focuses more on direct allegory, and Rings on instilling magical Christian thinking into readers, both are part of apologist literature.
Posted by: Dan tdaxp at November 14, 2005 10:17 AM
Tolkien and Lewis would not have understood it either since the former is the one who weaned the latter away from atheism in the first place.
Posted by: mark safranski at November 14, 2005 12:18 PM