As I don't have a yearning for religion, why would I have a yearning for a religion substitute? I don't think there's an empty religion-shaped space in me that wants filling. I suppose only people who've been religious in the past have that empty space.
I have my own morality that suits me well enough. Yes, LOTR has some moral content, but so do many other works of fiction. I think that no two moralities are ever exactly the same, and the morality of Tolkien or any author is unlikely to match mine, although there's usually a fair amount of common ground.
I can think of one thing I've lacked in my life: a job that I could throw myself into with real enthusiasm. I don't hate my work, but I'd have retired from working at any age if I'd inherited a fortune. There are things I like to do, but they don't tend to earn me money. I don't think I'm unusual in this.
“I can think of one thing I've lacked in my life: a job that I could throw myself into with real enthusiasm.”
Isn’t that another way of saying you lack a sense of meaning and purpose? As you point out, most people (including myself) lack a job they can throw themselves into. Couldn’t that mean they’re (we’re) looking for meaning and purpose in all the wrong places? Couldn’t it mean we’re trying to fill the religious void with something that cannot possibly fill it?
One could easily tell an evolutionary psychology story supporting the idea that such myth making helped or was part of something that enhanced group cohesion among hunter gatherers.
It is challenged by a position I associate with Nietzsche, the idea that sin and evil were innovations of Judaism and Christianity, that the ancient Romans and Greeks looked at things with a fundamental difference. The ancients had religion, but supposedly took a different perspective on its relation to violations of social mores. A perhaps oversimplified interpretation of that would mean that if you got away with braking some rule, that meant you were favored by some god, or actually accomplishing something on their behalf, and if you annoyed the gods, they would see to it that you regretted it.
I don’t know enough about the ancients to speculate about where they derived meaning, or whether they count as a counterexample to your thesis.
Hayek speculated that we are stuck with intuitions that are still appropriate to small tribes, which make us uncomfortable with the sort of arms length interactions required by large populations and a dispersed and decentralized web of production. This dualism gives us trouble.
“If we were to apply the unmodified, uncurbed, rules of the micro-cosmos (i.e., of the small band or troop, or of, say, our families) to the macro-cosmos (our wider civilisation), as our instincts and sentimental yearnings often make us wish to do, we would destroy it. Yet if we were always to apply the rules of the extended order to our more intimate groupings, we would crush them. So we must learn to live in two sorts of world at once. To apply the name ‘society’ to both, or even to either, is hardly of any use, and can be most misleading”
There is a story, told by both Tolkien and Lewis, which appears to be of Lewis saying to Tolkien that the Gospels were a fairy tale, and Tolkien asking Lewis, "Is there any fairy tale that would give you more joy if you learned that it was actually true?"—which led to Lewis becoming Christian (as he was not at that time). I have reflected, more than once, that if I were asked that same question, my answer would be, "Actually, yes: The Lord of the Rings and the rest of the legendarium." Even in the movies, flawed though they were, when Aragorn was described as having "the splendor of the kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world," it gave me chills. Though I suspect that Tolkien would have been appalled to find his (sub-) creation so regarded.
I'm not sure I have a theory to explain the appeal of art. But I wonder if a definition that Tolkien surely knew, "An outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," might be relevant? Perhaps art is a way of giving us visible (or audible, or narratable) images of value.
That’s an interesting question, which I’ve never thought about before. I find the situation hard to imagine, but I think my immediate reaction would be that my world had changed for the worse. Because I’ve been playing the game of life for 69 years now, and I thought I knew more or less how it worked, but in this hypothetical situation I’d suddenly find I was playing a completely different game with new rules, and it’s not even clear what the rules are. I don’t think any religion has a clear and authoritative statement of how it works and what its rules are, which is why each religion has divided into many different sects with somewhat different beliefs.
Furthermore, if God really exists, then I’m at the mercy of some superpowerful being whom I distrust and may well end up disliking. This is not a good situation to be in. I’m already at the mercy of politicians whom I distrust and don’t usually like, but at least they’re not superpowerful and immortal!
You’re a more hardcore libertarian than I am, I’d have thought you’d like this situation even less than I do.
Part of believing in a religion is believing that God really is wise, benevolent, etc. It might include believing that God is libertarian, that the reason evil exists in the world is that he believes it is better to leave people free to make their own decisions than to program them to be virtuous robots.
I think you need to do the thought experiment by imagining yourself into a character in the sort of fiction that successfully shows a world with a religion one can believe in. Bujold's Pennric stories would be an example.
To answer your question as I think you meant it, if I became honestly convinced (without brainwashing) that a god existed who was genuinely wise and benevolent, and that I could really look forward to a happy life of some kind after death, then I suppose that would increase my happiness somewhat. I don’t think it would provide a meaning to life (I have no idea how that could be done), nor would it provide me with new purpose, unless I had to earn my happy afterlife somehow—in which case the purpose would be imposed on me and not necessarily welcome. I currently work in order to get paid: same kind of thing.
I don’t know of any human religion with a god that I’d accept as wise and benevolent, but in theory I can’t rule out the idea that such a god may exist. I don’t believe in gods any more than I believe in the Discworld, but for all I know the Discworld may exist somewhere, and so may one or more gods. The universe is immense and could contain anything.
Hm, I thought you were proposing only to present me with a proof that the god or gods of some particular religion really exist as specified. Now you’re also proposing to brainwash me into worshipping said god(s) and accepting his/her/its/their wisdom and benevolence—which I think many religious people have sometimes struggled to do. Who knows, I might feel relatively happy after brainwashing, but I might feel even happier if regularly dosed with some euphoric drug, or if I became a wirehead as in Larry Niven’s stories. I’m reminded of Lehrer (”It’s the old dope peddler, with his powdered happiness…”) and Marx (“Religion is the opium of the people.”).
I’m a fan of the World of the Five Gods, and I reread all those stories regularly. Its theology is interesting, and relatively congenial compared with that of our world. If I were transported to that world, I think I’d be more dismayed by the state of its society and technology than by its gods—who are mostly hands-off and go completely unperceived by most people until after death. I doubt that the existence of the Five Gods would make a significant difference to my life or my happiness. There seems to be some kind of afterlife in that world, but what it consists of isn’t clear to me after reading all the stories, and it would probably be even less clear to the average inhabitant of that world. In the second Penric story, the shaman’s ghost asks whether there will be beer; he clearly has no idea what to expect of the rest of his afterlife.
The people don’t always have a favourable view of their gods. In a flashback in “The curse of Chalion”, Cazaril threw away the Brother’s medal, rejecting the god who he felt had abandoned him. And the Bastard in particular has a sense of humour that many people might not appreciate, if they ever run into it. I don’t think the people of that world worship the gods, exactly; they just accept that they exist in the background.
I don't think I'm looking for a sense of meaning, because I don't think life has any meaning. In the context of the universe, humans are a tiny, insignificant, and meaningless phenomenon. I suppose it may be nice to think that your life has meaning, that it will go on forever, that God loves you, and so on, but I can't help regarding it as a delusion.
On the other hand, it's certainly possible to have a sense of purpose. Since I was a child, I've wanted to write novels. If I were a good storyteller, I could find my purpose in writing successful novels: that would give me satisfaction. The problem is that I'm not a natural storyteller, and I lack various attributes that a good novelist should have, such as being observant and curious and having a good memory and a good understanding of other people. It's often said that the way to become a novelist is to work hard at it over a long period of time; but I've never done that, either. I'm too pragmatic to put in so much work for a very uncertain reward.
I like photography; as an amateur photographer, I think I'm quite good but not very good. I doubt that I'd achieve much success as a professional photographer, and I doubt that I'd enjoy trying. If I could somehow make a living from the photos I take for pleasure, that would be nice, but it seems most unlikely.
Of course I could get a sense of purpose by finding a way to make many people happier than they are. But that's like becoming a successful novelist: it seems beyond my capabilities.
Defeatism is a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you think you won't achieve anything, you won't. The problem is that the opposite attitude (victoryism??) is a lottery: if you imagine a horde of people who have an irrational belief in themselves and dedicate their lives to a purpose, I suppose that one of them will succeed and the rest will fail. I've always been too pragmatic to buy myself into that lottery. As a result, I end up neither a success nor a failure: I have a good enough life, but I somewhat regret lacking purpose.
I don't think purpose has anything to do with religion: it's just the quest for some achievement that would give me a sense of satisfaction. What gives me satisfaction is entirely subjective, like what foods I happen to enjoy eating.
I don't think religion is the only possible source of a sense of purpose and meaning, but it is one source.
Imagine yourself somehow convinced that one of the religions was true — in _That Hideous Strength_, the third book of C.S. Lewis's space trilogy, there is an atheist confronted with evidence that he has a hard time dismissing. Once you had accepted the new conclusion, do you feel as though your world had changed for the better? If you imagine yourself in a fictional world you know where religion is true, do you think you would be happier?
I think we often see, in a non-religious context, people looking for something that gives their life meaning.
I can't not 'like' a comment referencing That Hideous Strength! However, I am not sure I would like being in the position of the atheist therein. I think finding out the Earth had been ceded to being ruled by effectively Space Devil for a few millennia as a result of a celestial civil war and early humans' actions would be terrifying. That's a lot of humanity left to suffer for... what, exactly? Someone else's crimes?
As much as I love C.S. Lewis, and as compelling as I find his version of Christianity in e.g. the Great Divorce, I find he sort of elides over the horrors inherent of finding there are evil space overlords, whether or not there are good ones too, who are so far above humanity. It would be a bit like rabbits first discovering humans are real: you want to believe it if it is true, but it isn't a happy thing to realize, on whole.
I’ve already replied to this, but my previous reply seems to have disappeared somehow, I can’t find it again.
In addition to what I already said: If I could choose which religion turned out to be true, I think I’d choose Buddhism. I’m not tempted to become a Buddhist in real life; but, if I had to accept one of them as true, it seems (from the little I know about it) somewhat less repellent than the other available religions.
'The Lays of Fingal', 18th century, had a comparable boom to Tolkein's and gave the gaels of Wales, Ireland, and Scotland a mythology of their own. The author was a scoundrel who faked his scholarship, but he could tell short versified stories of True Love and heroes whose souls thirsted for battle in scenes set in days past where de white women at.
Their white arms moved slow to bend the bow and hunt the roe. Their white arms bent at the harp. Their white wrists were bound with a thong when they were kidna[[ed and ravished by a critter with burning red eyes and a misty form who later appeared in Dracula. The thong was cut from their white wrists by the king when he rescued them.
Hot stuff. Classy too. Napoleon had classy naked lady paintings done, when he was landing armies in Ireland and considering Scotland. Probably thought Gaels were nothing but Gauls misspelled.
No religious spirit in this, just patriotism and white race stuff. And I'd say the same of Tolkein's books. Tolkein was religious, and honest, and his world is created by a god and threatened by an outside god and protected by wizard angels. Yes. But Tolkein's elves are the Fair Folk and the books are set where de white women at. And hobbits are the deserving English poor, Men are Englishmen, and Elves are English aristocrats before they are anything religious.
Tolkien's world wasn't threatened by an outside god but by a fallen angel, roughly comparable in strength to the angels (Valar) that were protecting it. They defeated him, and the current threat is by an angelic being one step down who had been one of his servants. The wizards are angelic beings again one step down, weaker than Sauron but ultimately of the same sort, and forbidden to match power with power.
Are elves the Fair Folk or English aristocrats? Those are very different descriptions.
Are the Lays of Fingal in English and worth reading?
99 cents Kindle, I'd buy it to see. I got the 8.99 paperback and liked what I read. Short little verse stories about True Love as hotties bending their white arms at the harp when a hero whose soul bursts into flame at the song of battle roll their eyes at each other.
It's from the old ballads where everyone is beautiful and dies. I'd bet 'Percy's Reliques' about the same period was a big influence. Lots of set phrases, like 'swift-footed Achilles' but an eighteenth century Scotchman on the make's idea of gaelic . Every wind is a blast of storm, every blast of storm holds the ghosts of heroes from days past.
If you like Tolkien but wish it was just short stories in light verse about Viking-ish characters from old ballads who die with honor, this is for you.
Given the place of the messenger in the ancient semitic world and angels being messengers from God, I'd say angels and gods are pretty close.
I never got real inklings of transcendence from Iluvatar himself. It just felt like a powerful dude making stuff. Remember Tolkien's phrasing wasn't all that old-timey when he wrote. Arthur Bryant was making the Imperial Chief of Staff sound like Tolkien to our ears.
I think the Valar are seen from one side as Greek gods, from the other as archangels under a single God who is different from them in nature not merely degree.
I’m always struck by the contrast between LOTR and the Narnia books. Also I think today LOTR can seem old fashioned. But as you say, adult fantasy literature is pretty much based on it.
I enjoyed the Narnia books, but they feel much more superficial than LOTR. And while there is a lot of modern fantasy in some sense descending from it, I don't think there is anything better, perhaps nothing as good.
The best of the later stuff feels less closely tied. C.J. Cherryh's first books, the Morgiane series, contain a non-human race. I think it was only reading the third book that I realized they were based on Tolkien's elves, because in the first two they were basically hostile to humans, only in the third acting as an older and wiser brother race. The books as a whole did not feel like Tolkien imitations, despite that.
The other things that struck me about the first book was the introduction by Andre Norton, who at the time was a leading author of young adult fantasy and science fiction. She said that she wished she could write that well. And that was right — the Cherryh book read like an Andre Norton book written by a substantially better writer. That Norton could see that in the first book of a new author and was willing to say it, was very much to her credit.
I remember going to a talk by Cherryh many years ago in Birmingham (UK). About a dozen sci if nerds in attendance. She struck me as deeply sensible! I always found her books a bit hard going but remember enjoying Merchanter’s Luck.
My favorite Cherryh book is _The Paladin_, which isn't either fantasy or science fiction but a historical novel in an invented setting. It was to some extent the inspiration for my first novel, _Harald_, which is in the same genre and dedicated to her and two other people. But I have very much enjoyed many others of her books, am hoping for another volume in the Foreigner series to come out, worried that she may be too old or in bad health.
I read Tolkeins at age 18 growing up in India. It was enjoyable but I wasn't bowled over or anything that extreme. A friend introduced it to me, calling it "a fairytale for adults". That made me buy the series.
Your analysis about it filling a hole created by disappearance of religion reminded me of this quote :
"When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything." --G.K. Chesterton
I thought of that quote while looking through one of my draft chapters, which may get turned into a post, commenting on a poll reported in the WSJ that found religious believers considerably less likely to believe in non-religious things such as ghosts, Bigfoot, and the like than non-believers.
Apparently it hasn't been found in anything GKC wrote although it was attributed to him, perhaps from a talk or interview, not much after his lifetime.
The relative popularity of different works of fiction seems to me impossible to account for. People’s tastes vary, and the total popularity of a story is derived from many people whose tastes are all different, and who like or dislike the story for different reasons.
I like “The Lord of the Rings” and have read it repeatedly over the years, but I don’t worship it, it’s not my favourite story, it’s just one good story among others, and I read it as I read any other story. I regard the Good versus Evil theme as rather a disadvantage; in general, I prefer stories in which both sides of the conflict have rational motivations that one can understand.
As I’ve never been religious in my whole life, I have no yearning for religion in any form. I’ve got along perfectly well without it; I have no need or desire for it.
The success of the Harry Potter stories puzzles me more than the success of “The Lord of the Rings”. I could understand them being somewhat successful; but why so vastly successful? It’s a mystery.
Do you have no yearning for a religion substitute, or do you have one? Is there something that, for you, plays the role I attributed to LOTR in the post?
I reluctantly read The Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy in the early 70's. It seemed to be on the required reading list for conversation around a campfire at the place and time I found myself in. Other titles on that list were "A Seperate Reality" by Carlos Castenadas, and Herman Hesse's "Steppenwolf" and "Siddhartha"
The Rings only bored me. Carlos was fun at the time. But I only really retained an appreciation for Hesse though. Love "The Glass Bead Game" and "A Journey to the East".
As I don't have a yearning for religion, why would I have a yearning for a religion substitute? I don't think there's an empty religion-shaped space in me that wants filling. I suppose only people who've been religious in the past have that empty space.
I have my own morality that suits me well enough. Yes, LOTR has some moral content, but so do many other works of fiction. I think that no two moralities are ever exactly the same, and the morality of Tolkien or any author is unlikely to match mine, although there's usually a fair amount of common ground.
I can think of one thing I've lacked in my life: a job that I could throw myself into with real enthusiasm. I don't hate my work, but I'd have retired from working at any age if I'd inherited a fortune. There are things I like to do, but they don't tend to earn me money. I don't think I'm unusual in this.
I tried to explain in the essay what I meant. I don't think it requires having been religious in the past.
Do you want things you do to feel meaningful, worth doing? If so, how do you decide what qualifies and why?
“I can think of one thing I've lacked in my life: a job that I could throw myself into with real enthusiasm.”
Isn’t that another way of saying you lack a sense of meaning and purpose? As you point out, most people (including myself) lack a job they can throw themselves into. Couldn’t that mean they’re (we’re) looking for meaning and purpose in all the wrong places? Couldn’t it mean we’re trying to fill the religious void with something that cannot possibly fill it?
Interesting hypothesis.
One could easily tell an evolutionary psychology story supporting the idea that such myth making helped or was part of something that enhanced group cohesion among hunter gatherers.
It is challenged by a position I associate with Nietzsche, the idea that sin and evil were innovations of Judaism and Christianity, that the ancient Romans and Greeks looked at things with a fundamental difference. The ancients had religion, but supposedly took a different perspective on its relation to violations of social mores. A perhaps oversimplified interpretation of that would mean that if you got away with braking some rule, that meant you were favored by some god, or actually accomplishing something on their behalf, and if you annoyed the gods, they would see to it that you regretted it.
I don’t know enough about the ancients to speculate about where they derived meaning, or whether they count as a counterexample to your thesis.
Hayek speculated that we are stuck with intuitions that are still appropriate to small tribes, which make us uncomfortable with the sort of arms length interactions required by large populations and a dispersed and decentralized web of production. This dualism gives us trouble.
“If we were to apply the unmodified, uncurbed, rules of the micro-cosmos (i.e., of the small band or troop, or of, say, our families) to the macro-cosmos (our wider civilisation), as our instincts and sentimental yearnings often make us wish to do, we would destroy it. Yet if we were always to apply the rules of the extended order to our more intimate groupings, we would crush them. So we must learn to live in two sorts of world at once. To apply the name ‘society’ to both, or even to either, is hardly of any use, and can be most misleading”
Good point by Hayek. I should have a discussion of gift economies in one of my posts.
There is a story, told by both Tolkien and Lewis, which appears to be of Lewis saying to Tolkien that the Gospels were a fairy tale, and Tolkien asking Lewis, "Is there any fairy tale that would give you more joy if you learned that it was actually true?"—which led to Lewis becoming Christian (as he was not at that time). I have reflected, more than once, that if I were asked that same question, my answer would be, "Actually, yes: The Lord of the Rings and the rest of the legendarium." Even in the movies, flawed though they were, when Aragorn was described as having "the splendor of the kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world," it gave me chills. Though I suspect that Tolkien would have been appalled to find his (sub-) creation so regarded.
I'm not sure I have a theory to explain the appeal of art. But I wonder if a definition that Tolkien surely knew, "An outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," might be relevant? Perhaps art is a way of giving us visible (or audible, or narratable) images of value.
That’s an interesting question, which I’ve never thought about before. I find the situation hard to imagine, but I think my immediate reaction would be that my world had changed for the worse. Because I’ve been playing the game of life for 69 years now, and I thought I knew more or less how it worked, but in this hypothetical situation I’d suddenly find I was playing a completely different game with new rules, and it’s not even clear what the rules are. I don’t think any religion has a clear and authoritative statement of how it works and what its rules are, which is why each religion has divided into many different sects with somewhat different beliefs.
Furthermore, if God really exists, then I’m at the mercy of some superpowerful being whom I distrust and may well end up disliking. This is not a good situation to be in. I’m already at the mercy of politicians whom I distrust and don’t usually like, but at least they’re not superpowerful and immortal!
You’re a more hardcore libertarian than I am, I’d have thought you’d like this situation even less than I do.
Part of believing in a religion is believing that God really is wise, benevolent, etc. It might include believing that God is libertarian, that the reason evil exists in the world is that he believes it is better to leave people free to make their own decisions than to program them to be virtuous robots.
I think you need to do the thought experiment by imagining yourself into a character in the sort of fiction that successfully shows a world with a religion one can believe in. Bujold's Pennric stories would be an example.
To answer your question as I think you meant it, if I became honestly convinced (without brainwashing) that a god existed who was genuinely wise and benevolent, and that I could really look forward to a happy life of some kind after death, then I suppose that would increase my happiness somewhat. I don’t think it would provide a meaning to life (I have no idea how that could be done), nor would it provide me with new purpose, unless I had to earn my happy afterlife somehow—in which case the purpose would be imposed on me and not necessarily welcome. I currently work in order to get paid: same kind of thing.
I don’t know of any human religion with a god that I’d accept as wise and benevolent, but in theory I can’t rule out the idea that such a god may exist. I don’t believe in gods any more than I believe in the Discworld, but for all I know the Discworld may exist somewhere, and so may one or more gods. The universe is immense and could contain anything.
Hm, I thought you were proposing only to present me with a proof that the god or gods of some particular religion really exist as specified. Now you’re also proposing to brainwash me into worshipping said god(s) and accepting his/her/its/their wisdom and benevolence—which I think many religious people have sometimes struggled to do. Who knows, I might feel relatively happy after brainwashing, but I might feel even happier if regularly dosed with some euphoric drug, or if I became a wirehead as in Larry Niven’s stories. I’m reminded of Lehrer (”It’s the old dope peddler, with his powdered happiness…”) and Marx (“Religion is the opium of the people.”).
I’m a fan of the World of the Five Gods, and I reread all those stories regularly. Its theology is interesting, and relatively congenial compared with that of our world. If I were transported to that world, I think I’d be more dismayed by the state of its society and technology than by its gods—who are mostly hands-off and go completely unperceived by most people until after death. I doubt that the existence of the Five Gods would make a significant difference to my life or my happiness. There seems to be some kind of afterlife in that world, but what it consists of isn’t clear to me after reading all the stories, and it would probably be even less clear to the average inhabitant of that world. In the second Penric story, the shaman’s ghost asks whether there will be beer; he clearly has no idea what to expect of the rest of his afterlife.
The people don’t always have a favourable view of their gods. In a flashback in “The curse of Chalion”, Cazaril threw away the Brother’s medal, rejecting the god who he felt had abandoned him. And the Bastard in particular has a sense of humour that many people might not appreciate, if they ever run into it. I don’t think the people of that world worship the gods, exactly; they just accept that they exist in the background.
I don't think I'm looking for a sense of meaning, because I don't think life has any meaning. In the context of the universe, humans are a tiny, insignificant, and meaningless phenomenon. I suppose it may be nice to think that your life has meaning, that it will go on forever, that God loves you, and so on, but I can't help regarding it as a delusion.
On the other hand, it's certainly possible to have a sense of purpose. Since I was a child, I've wanted to write novels. If I were a good storyteller, I could find my purpose in writing successful novels: that would give me satisfaction. The problem is that I'm not a natural storyteller, and I lack various attributes that a good novelist should have, such as being observant and curious and having a good memory and a good understanding of other people. It's often said that the way to become a novelist is to work hard at it over a long period of time; but I've never done that, either. I'm too pragmatic to put in so much work for a very uncertain reward.
I like photography; as an amateur photographer, I think I'm quite good but not very good. I doubt that I'd achieve much success as a professional photographer, and I doubt that I'd enjoy trying. If I could somehow make a living from the photos I take for pleasure, that would be nice, but it seems most unlikely.
Of course I could get a sense of purpose by finding a way to make many people happier than they are. But that's like becoming a successful novelist: it seems beyond my capabilities.
Defeatism is a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you think you won't achieve anything, you won't. The problem is that the opposite attitude (victoryism??) is a lottery: if you imagine a horde of people who have an irrational belief in themselves and dedicate their lives to a purpose, I suppose that one of them will succeed and the rest will fail. I've always been too pragmatic to buy myself into that lottery. As a result, I end up neither a success nor a failure: I have a good enough life, but I somewhat regret lacking purpose.
I don't think purpose has anything to do with religion: it's just the quest for some achievement that would give me a sense of satisfaction. What gives me satisfaction is entirely subjective, like what foods I happen to enjoy eating.
I don't think religion is the only possible source of a sense of purpose and meaning, but it is one source.
Imagine yourself somehow convinced that one of the religions was true — in _That Hideous Strength_, the third book of C.S. Lewis's space trilogy, there is an atheist confronted with evidence that he has a hard time dismissing. Once you had accepted the new conclusion, do you feel as though your world had changed for the better? If you imagine yourself in a fictional world you know where religion is true, do you think you would be happier?
I think we often see, in a non-religious context, people looking for something that gives their life meaning.
I can't not 'like' a comment referencing That Hideous Strength! However, I am not sure I would like being in the position of the atheist therein. I think finding out the Earth had been ceded to being ruled by effectively Space Devil for a few millennia as a result of a celestial civil war and early humans' actions would be terrifying. That's a lot of humanity left to suffer for... what, exactly? Someone else's crimes?
As much as I love C.S. Lewis, and as compelling as I find his version of Christianity in e.g. the Great Divorce, I find he sort of elides over the horrors inherent of finding there are evil space overlords, whether or not there are good ones too, who are so far above humanity. It would be a bit like rabbits first discovering humans are real: you want to believe it if it is true, but it isn't a happy thing to realize, on whole.
I’ve already replied to this, but my previous reply seems to have disappeared somehow, I can’t find it again.
In addition to what I already said: If I could choose which religion turned out to be true, I think I’d choose Buddhism. I’m not tempted to become a Buddhist in real life; but, if I had to accept one of them as true, it seems (from the little I know about it) somewhat less repellent than the other available religions.
'The Lays of Fingal', 18th century, had a comparable boom to Tolkein's and gave the gaels of Wales, Ireland, and Scotland a mythology of their own. The author was a scoundrel who faked his scholarship, but he could tell short versified stories of True Love and heroes whose souls thirsted for battle in scenes set in days past where de white women at.
Their white arms moved slow to bend the bow and hunt the roe. Their white arms bent at the harp. Their white wrists were bound with a thong when they were kidna[[ed and ravished by a critter with burning red eyes and a misty form who later appeared in Dracula. The thong was cut from their white wrists by the king when he rescued them.
Hot stuff. Classy too. Napoleon had classy naked lady paintings done, when he was landing armies in Ireland and considering Scotland. Probably thought Gaels were nothing but Gauls misspelled.
No religious spirit in this, just patriotism and white race stuff. And I'd say the same of Tolkein's books. Tolkein was religious, and honest, and his world is created by a god and threatened by an outside god and protected by wizard angels. Yes. But Tolkein's elves are the Fair Folk and the books are set where de white women at. And hobbits are the deserving English poor, Men are Englishmen, and Elves are English aristocrats before they are anything religious.
Tolkien's world wasn't threatened by an outside god but by a fallen angel, roughly comparable in strength to the angels (Valar) that were protecting it. They defeated him, and the current threat is by an angelic being one step down who had been one of his servants. The wizards are angelic beings again one step down, weaker than Sauron but ultimately of the same sort, and forbidden to match power with power.
Are elves the Fair Folk or English aristocrats? Those are very different descriptions.
Are the Lays of Fingal in English and worth reading?
Poems of Ossian Paperback – December 28, 2020
by James Macpherson (Author)
99 cents Kindle, I'd buy it to see. I got the 8.99 paperback and liked what I read. Short little verse stories about True Love as hotties bending their white arms at the harp when a hero whose soul bursts into flame at the song of battle roll their eyes at each other.
It's from the old ballads where everyone is beautiful and dies. I'd bet 'Percy's Reliques' about the same period was a big influence. Lots of set phrases, like 'swift-footed Achilles' but an eighteenth century Scotchman on the make's idea of gaelic . Every wind is a blast of storm, every blast of storm holds the ghosts of heroes from days past.
If you like Tolkien but wish it was just short stories in light verse about Viking-ish characters from old ballads who die with honor, this is for you.
Given the place of the messenger in the ancient semitic world and angels being messengers from God, I'd say angels and gods are pretty close.
I never got real inklings of transcendence from Iluvatar himself. It just felt like a powerful dude making stuff. Remember Tolkien's phrasing wasn't all that old-timey when he wrote. Arthur Bryant was making the Imperial Chief of Staff sound like Tolkien to our ears.
I think the Valar are seen from one side as Greek gods, from the other as archangels under a single God who is different from them in nature not merely degree.
I'll get the Kindle.
I’m always struck by the contrast between LOTR and the Narnia books. Also I think today LOTR can seem old fashioned. But as you say, adult fantasy literature is pretty much based on it.
I enjoyed the Narnia books, but they feel much more superficial than LOTR. And while there is a lot of modern fantasy in some sense descending from it, I don't think there is anything better, perhaps nothing as good.
The best of the later stuff feels less closely tied. C.J. Cherryh's first books, the Morgiane series, contain a non-human race. I think it was only reading the third book that I realized they were based on Tolkien's elves, because in the first two they were basically hostile to humans, only in the third acting as an older and wiser brother race. The books as a whole did not feel like Tolkien imitations, despite that.
The other things that struck me about the first book was the introduction by Andre Norton, who at the time was a leading author of young adult fantasy and science fiction. She said that she wished she could write that well. And that was right — the Cherryh book read like an Andre Norton book written by a substantially better writer. That Norton could see that in the first book of a new author and was willing to say it, was very much to her credit.
I remember going to a talk by Cherryh many years ago in Birmingham (UK). About a dozen sci if nerds in attendance. She struck me as deeply sensible! I always found her books a bit hard going but remember enjoying Merchanter’s Luck.
My favorite Cherryh book is _The Paladin_, which isn't either fantasy or science fiction but a historical novel in an invented setting. It was to some extent the inspiration for my first novel, _Harald_, which is in the same genre and dedicated to her and two other people. But I have very much enjoyed many others of her books, am hoping for another volume in the Foreigner series to come out, worried that she may be too old or in bad health.
On the subject of ‘historical’ fiction can I recommend Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord trilogy. Don’t think anyone has done King Arthur better than this.
Beautiful essay.
I read Tolkeins at age 18 growing up in India. It was enjoyable but I wasn't bowled over or anything that extreme. A friend introduced it to me, calling it "a fairytale for adults". That made me buy the series.
Your analysis about it filling a hole created by disappearance of religion reminded me of this quote :
"When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything." --G.K. Chesterton
I thought of that quote while looking through one of my draft chapters, which may get turned into a post, commenting on a poll reported in the WSJ that found religious believers considerably less likely to believe in non-religious things such as ghosts, Bigfoot, and the like than non-believers.
Apparently it hasn't been found in anything GKC wrote although it was attributed to him, perhaps from a talk or interview, not much after his lifetime.
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/will-nonbelievers-really-believe
The relative popularity of different works of fiction seems to me impossible to account for. People’s tastes vary, and the total popularity of a story is derived from many people whose tastes are all different, and who like or dislike the story for different reasons.
I like “The Lord of the Rings” and have read it repeatedly over the years, but I don’t worship it, it’s not my favourite story, it’s just one good story among others, and I read it as I read any other story. I regard the Good versus Evil theme as rather a disadvantage; in general, I prefer stories in which both sides of the conflict have rational motivations that one can understand.
As I’ve never been religious in my whole life, I have no yearning for religion in any form. I’ve got along perfectly well without it; I have no need or desire for it.
The success of the Harry Potter stories puzzles me more than the success of “The Lord of the Rings”. I could understand them being somewhat successful; but why so vastly successful? It’s a mystery.
Do you have no yearning for a religion substitute, or do you have one? Is there something that, for you, plays the role I attributed to LOTR in the post?
I reluctantly read The Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy in the early 70's. It seemed to be on the required reading list for conversation around a campfire at the place and time I found myself in. Other titles on that list were "A Seperate Reality" by Carlos Castenadas, and Herman Hesse's "Steppenwolf" and "Siddhartha"
The Rings only bored me. Carlos was fun at the time. But I only really retained an appreciation for Hesse though. Love "The Glass Bead Game" and "A Journey to the East".