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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Wounded Land series
Message-ID: <200@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 15-Jun-85 21:58:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.200
Posted: Sat Jun 15 21:58:19 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Jun-85 02:15:59 EDT
References: <2261@topaz.ARPA> <175@westo.kcl-cs.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 32

I've read 5 books of T.C., which I found compulsive reading.  There are
certainly some good ideas in the books, but I would shy WAY back from a lot
of the statements that have been made about the series.  There is a certain
dreary sameness of tone in the books which eventually killed my interest.
Something that I didn't notice originally was that great tracts are
tremendously overwritten or contain other stylistic faults.  I am told
(although I confess I don't remember the passage) that the following
sentence is taken from a T.C. book:

            "The horses were virtually protrate on their feet."

One could, I suppose, take this to be poetic; but it gets to you after a
while.  This same problem occurs in what is otherwise a very good story:
"Unworthy of the Angel".

What really struck me as absurd was someone's statement in an earlier
article that there was no connection between the Land and Middle Earth.
Donaldson himself has said that "I consider fiction to be the only valid
tool for theological inquiry."  Certainly there is a strong mythopoeic
quality to the books; what is more important is the cosmology stated in the
very first book.  Anyone who has read the _Silmarillion_ should be able to
recognize the obvious parallels between Sauron and Lord Foul.  This is not
to say that I think there is any plagarism involved; but when two writers go
to write mythopoeic fiction dealing with cosmological issues, and when both
come out of a well-learned Judaeo-Christian background, it is to be expected
that there should be some parallels.

I would not say that the T.C. books are great literature (as I would, for
instance, say of LOTR).  On the other hand, there is obvious talent there in
spite of the various problems.

Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe