[Bananafish] reading and rereading

[Amber B. Raley]

I'm working on my masters thesis right now so not too much pleasure reading is
happening at the moment.  However, I'm rereading Phillip Pullman's His Dark
Materials trilogy.  I've heard him called the anti-Lewis.  Any thoughts on
that?

Swimmingly,

Amber
--
Amber B. Raley
araley at rice.edu
713-348-3902
www.owlnet.rice.edu/~araley/




Quoting "Yocum, Daniel R Civ 21 CES/CEOE" <daniel.yocum at Peterson.af.mil>:

>
>
> What about the rest of you lay-abouts, what are you reading?
>
>
>
> Mike,
>
> According to Humphreys and various other Inklings Lewis and Tolkien were
> complaining about the lack of good books in fantasy and scientification
> (science fiction), this was back in the 30's I think.  So they decided
> to write them themselves, Tolkien a natural for fantasy (the father of
> modern fantasy) and Lewis for science fiction.  Tolkien was way ahead
> with the Hobbit for his children and his epic poetry he played with
> being a philologist and a fan of all the pre-English ancient myths and a
> member of the coal-biters.  Lewis fiddled with a few short stories until
> he got on with his space trio.  Dark Tower was an attempt to make good
> on a decision to write a time travel story but he eventually gave up on
> it.  Kathryn Lindskoog claims that it is a forgery, an elaboration on a
> Lewis fragment, Walter Hooper being accused of the forgery or rather
> elaboration. I don't know.
>
>
>
> Lewis fought in the trenches at the Somme during World War I and was
> wounded, he wrote a narrative poem called Spirits in Bondage, he was an
> atheist at the time.  It is interesting stuff.  Tolkien was in the
> trenches too.  According to King his Dark Tower was inspired by the
> intersection of Tolkien's stuff and Clint Eastwood's Django spaghetti
> westerns.  I'm a fan of Spaghetti Westerns especially the Trinity series
> that is why the Dark Tower caught me.
>
>
>
> Donaldson spoke about how he got his ideas and they all his stories are
> intersections of two or more ideas, This is true in my (humble) efforts
> as well.
>
>
>
> The Narnia stuff was written for the children who stayed in his home who
> were evacuated from London during the Blitz, and that is how he bonded
> with his step sons, one became an evangelical preacher and the other an
> Orthodox Jew.  His wife Joy was Jewish and wrote an interesting book
> called Smoke on the Mountain.
>
>
>
> I groove on Flannery O'Connor's stuff too, she is better than Faulkner
> with Numinousness.
>
>
>
> I found Don Camillo on our base Library swap shelf years ago and read
> the entire Don Camillo series plus everything else published in English
> by Giovanni Guareschi.  He is a favorite too.
>
>
>
> A Fan's Notes?  Never heard of it, I'll look for it.
>
>
>
> The authors (fiction) I enjoy reading are, in other words - I re-read;
>
> Salinger, HEY!
>
> Helprin
>
> Steinbeck
>
> Cervantes
>
> Kafka
>
> Singer (Bashevis)
>
> Borges
>
> O'connor
>
> Guareschi
>
> Lewis
>
> Charles Williams
>
> Tolkien
>
> Sir Walter Scott
>
> Coleridge
>
> Blake
>
> Frank Herbert (Dune Series)
>
> Donaldson
>
> Orwell
>
> Bradbury
>
> Fray Angelico Chavez
>
> Forester
>
> Wallace
>
> Golding
>
> Nichols
>
> Probably a few other that escape me.
>
>
>
>
>
> Daniel
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: bananafish-Michael Anello
> Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 11:01 AM
>
>
>
> "I like Perelandra best, I love how Ransom's expectations concerning his
> confrontation with Weston are more complicated then they had to be."
>
>
>
> Spot on.  The way Ransom ended up handling things with Weston got me
> wanting to do same, to be honest.  I'm not sure what else to say about
> me and Ransom, other than I should probably reserve judgement until I've
> finished the book.  And even then...judgement is not mine, sayeth the
> me!
>
>
>
> I wasn't sure I'd like Lewis, as I have not usually been a fan of the
> fantasy genre (LOTRings, TCONarnia), but after I fell in like with the
> short stories in The Dark Tower and Other Stories, I knew I had to try
> something else by him.  Turns out "The Dark Tower" story was an aborted
> attempt at a book to follow the space trilogy.  I may have to read it
> again with the trilogy behind me for more perspective, as Ransom is a
> main character in it.  That story alone was really good, except that the
> compilation contained stories that were either unfinished or came from
> incomplete manuscripts, and this one was one of the unfinished.  Got you
> going, left you hanging.  The parallels between it and Stephen King's
> Dark Tower series are there somehow, and I'm not sure how, as it was
> published after King had started his series out I believe.  Strange
> coincedences abound though, perhaps because I was looking for them.
>
>
>
> The "Other Stories" in that compilation were what really grabbed me.  It
> was that short story writer in Lewis that made me want to read more.
> And these were the stories that he didn't really like all that much, or
> his muse was going away during.  Just the same, I thought they were
> great.  Same thing happened to me with Fitzgerald.  I read "The Price Is
> High" (50 short stories he wanted released only after his death because
> he thought they were crappy) before everything else and thought, man, if
> his worst are this good, I've got to read the rest!
>
>
>
> I have a book of all Flannery O'Connor's stories, so I'll probably be
> doing that next, though I do look into everything suggested to me.  ;)
>
>
>
> The Watchmen won't disappoint if you like 50's type comic book heroes.
> It's supposed to be the "holy grail" of graphic novels.  I thought it
> was pretty good.  As I said, Hellboy tells the stories my heart wants to
> hear.
>
>
>
> Did you ever get into the Don Camillo series?  I ended up buying all the
> books, they were that special to me.
>
>
>
> And you skipped my question in regard to Fred Exley's "A Fan's Notes."
> Did you ever try that one?  Seems like a book you'd like somehow.  Just
> a hunch.
>
>
>
>
>
> !DSPAM:152,47152e5e64761602120137!
>