Sci Fi, Fantasy, and Faith, II

Someone wanted to know why I didn't discuss Tolkien. Elliot already has. I read the Lord of the Rings while in high school. They had just come out in the Ace Paperback edition (cover art by Jack Gaughin) in America and Tolkien was disturbed because Ace had not gotten his permission. Later Ballentine came out with an authorized edition with a message from Tolkien on the back: 'buy only this version' was essentially it. At first I wasn't interested, but my older brother read one, loved it, talked to me incessantly about it, and even offered to pay me if I made an illustration for it, which I did. Of course I had to read it to get some idea of what I was to draw, and one thing led to another and I read all three of them, plus the Hobbit, plus the Tom Bombadill book, plus most everything else I could by him. In '83, when I was in France for several months and desperate for something to read in English i walked into a bookstore and bought the only two books in English in stock I could tolerate: The Silmarillion and Ivanhoe. Of the two, Silmarillion was the one that kept my attention the most.

As most people know Tolkien was a devout Catholic, a member of the Inklings writing group, along with C S Lewis, and an astonishingly inventive writer. He was also an expert on Anglo-Saxon and other Medieval languages, and used his linguistic skills to create his own languages. The way he told it, once he had the languages, like Elfen and Orcish, etc, he felt the need to make up stories about them. 'It was a tale that grew in the telling'. I have my doubts about this. Never believe things authors say about their work. Tolkien also claimed that there was absolutely nothing to be read into his stories. They were just little stories (with a thyroid condition). Right.

Anyone who is a Christian could probably find parallels, though I never thought Tolkien was trying to produce Christian allegory like Lewis (Tolkien disliked the Narnia stories). Yet the Ring Trilogy deserves to be in our list because its main theme, that informs almost every scene, is the struggle between Evil and Good: of the creation of evil, how it corrupts, and how Good can triumph at great sacrifice. It's told on an epic scale in a totally none Christian world, but its theme is the essence of Catholicism. Of Christianity in general.

And that brings us to perhaps the greatest and earliest writer of Christian fantasy, one who also worked on an epic scale to elucidate the struggle between good and evil: John Milton and Paradise Lost. I read it a few summers ago and was bowled over by it. Almost against Milton's will Satan becomes the 'hero' - or at least the protagonist. It is not for nothing that in the Star Trek TV episode that sets up the 'Revenge of Khan,' Khan tells Capt Kirk 'better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven!' Certainly, Satan gets all the best lines and the best scenes. Without him, nothing moves. I recommend taking the time to read it. If nothing else it will expand your vocabulary.

Next time: Satan in drag. Milady De Winter.