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From: chrisa@azure.UUCP (Chris Andersen)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Wounded Land series
Message-ID: <285@azure.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 20-Jun-85 04:47:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: azure.285
Posted: Thu Jun 20 04:47:49 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Jun-85 23:57:50 EDT
References: <2261@topaz.ARPA> <175@westo.kcl-cs.UUCP> <200@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: chrisa@azure.UUCP (Chris Andersen)
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 58
Summary: 

In article <200@umcp-cs.UUCP> mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) writes:
>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.

I will agree that after the first trilogy, it does bog down a bit (and
a lot in _The One Tree_).  That is one reason why I consider the first
trilogy to be the supior(sp?) of the two.

>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." 

How does this imply a connection between T.C. and LOTR?

>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.  

I have read the Silmarillion and I cannot see *ANY* parallels betwen Sauron
and Lord Foul (except that they are both the bad guys).  Could you point
out some clear parallels?

>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.

Again, what 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.

Most of that can be blamed on this being Donaldsons first works  (even Tolkien
had to have had some rough first works (unless he was a prodigy)).

>
>Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe


Chris Andersen