507 private links
Today is J.R.R. Tolkien's birthday.
Tolkien penned some of our civilization's greatest works, but you may not know why he did — or how.
His stories are so enduringly real because he actually lived them... (thread) 🧵
Why do fairy tales and fantasies grip us so? Why do they have such staying power? //
Fantasy takes spiritual realities and makes them physical. Nowhere besides fantasy (at least traditional fantasy) can we find in such a clear-cut manner the difference between good and evil, truth and falsehood, honor and ignominy. The villains in fantasy, such as a dragon or a dark sorcerer, are embodiments of evil itself. Traditionally, they are not complex characters with conflicting motivations. They are evil, pure and simple, because they stand for forces that are utterly corrupt, such as sin, temptation, or the demonic. True fantasy is highly moral in character.
This is not to say that fairy tales are, necessarily, mere allegory. And, in fact, I think the best ones are not. The two great fantasy masters, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, took differing approaches to this issue. Lewis’s fiction was marked by obvious parallels to Christianity, while Tolkien intentionally avoided allegory in his writing, though he did call “The Lord of the Rings” a “fundamentally religious and Catholic work.”
I think a better term than allegory is perhaps “echo.” Fantasy echoes and dramatizes the spiritual and moral struggles that all of us face in life. Monsters and spells, quests and true love—these things are real, perhaps the most real things in life. Each of us fights monsters: depression, poverty, illness, our own sins, injustice, loss, the daily grind, whatever it may be. Each of us encounters spells (both good and bad): the pull of a drug, the enchantment of music, the stillness of a softly settling evening, and the mysterious processes and powers of nature. Each of us faces desperate quests: the career we are chasing, the people we are trying to save, the person we are trying to become—and there are countless dangers that could draw us away from our quests. And there is love. We may not be able to bring a princess back to life through a kiss, but we can raise someone out of despair by showing them our love and kindness. Heroes are no fantasy. //
C.S. Lewis put it this way in a letter to Miss Matthews: “I’ve never met Orcs or Ents or Elves-but the feel of it, the sense of a huge past, of lowering danger, of heroic tasks achieved by the most apparently unheroic people, of distance, vastness, strangeness, homeliness (all blended together) is so exactly what living feels like to me.” //
As an example, writer K.M. Weiland recently mused on the power of Tolkien’s epic, “The Lord of the Rings” to take you “there and back again”—meaning, to bring the reader into the abyss of despair, and then draw him or her out again by restoring hope. Indeed, the trilogy is very much a book about despair, and yet it does not end despairingly. That is part of its immense power, and the power of all the best fantasy literature. This is the point that Tolkien himself makes towards the end of his essay “On Fairy Stories.” I will let the master speak for himself and conclude this essay:
The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending; or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous ‘turn’ (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially ‘escapist,’ nor ‘fugitive.’ In its fairy-tale—or otherworld—setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.
One-hundred miles north of St. Louis, Hannibal is still a rural Missouri community tied to agriculture and commercially proud of its literary history that brings in thousands of visitors from around the world and millions of dollars.
...
While there, I heard a story, and that afternoon drove a few miles west of town to see. There on the roadside, beneath the towering cedars of the old Big Creek Cemetery, lies enduring evidence of Mark Twain’s impact 139 years after the first book’s publication.
A granite headstone marks the resting place of Laura Hawkins, who was a pretty little girl when she lived across the street from and first caught the eye of a little boy named Sam Clemens. Many years later Clemens confided a secret to his childhood playmate. It was a secret she could not keep in death.
And so Laura Hawkins' gravestone carries two names. One is Laura Hawkins, who died in 1928. The other is Becky Thatcher, a pretty little girl granted eternal life by her childhood pal.
all the tags from https://b.plas.ml
1st-amendment 2nd-amendment 4th-amendment 5th-amendment 9/11 a8 abortion acl adhd afghanistan africa a/i air-conditioning amateur-radio amazon america american android animals anti-americanism antifa anti-semitism antiv antivirus aoip apollo apple appliances archaeology architecture archive art astronomy audio automation avatar aviation backup bash batteries belleville bible biden bill-of-rights biology bookmarks books borg bush business calibre camping capitalism cellphone censorship chemistry children china christianity church cia clinton cloud coldwar communication communist composed computers congress conservatives constitution construction cooking copyleft copyright corruption cosmology counseling creation crime cron crypto culture culture-of-death cummins data database ddt dd-wrt defense democrats depression desantis development diagrams diamonds disinformation diy dns documentation dokuwiki domains dprk drm drm-tpm drugs dvd dysautonomia earth ebay ebola ebook economics education efficiency electricity electronics elements elwa email energy engineering english environment environmentalism epa ethernet ethics europe euthanasia evolution faa facebook family fbi fcc feminism finance firewall flightsim flowers fonts français france fraud freebsd free-speech fun games gardening genealogy generation generators geography geology gifts git global-warming google gop government gpl gps graphics green-energy grounding hdd-test healthcare help history hollywood homeschool hormones hosting houses hp html humor hunting hvac hymns hyper-v imap immigration india infosec infotech insects instruments interesting internet investing ip-addressing iran iraq irs islam israel itec j6 journalism jumpcloud justice kindle kodi language ldap leadership leftist leftists legal lego lgbt liberia liberty linguistics linux literature locks make malaria malware management maps markdown marriage mars math media medical meshcentral metatek metric microbit microsoft mikrotik military minecraft minidisc missions moon morality mothers motorola movies mp3 museum music mythtv names nasa nature navigation navy network news nextcloud ntp nuclear obama ocean omega opensource organizing ortlip osmc oxygen paint palemoon paper parents passwords patents patriotism pdf petroleum pets pews photography photo-mgmt physics piano picasa plesk podcast poetry police politics pollution pornography pots prayer pregnancy presentations press printers privacy programming progressive progressives prolife psychology purchasing python quotes rabbits rabies racism radiation radio railroad reagan recipes recording recycling reference regulations religion renewables republicans resume riots rockets r-pi russia russiagate safety samba satellites sbe science sci-fi scotus secularism security servers shipping ships shooting shortwave signal sjw slavery sleep snakes socialism social-media software solar space spacex spam spf spideroak sports ssh statistics steampowered streaming supplement surveillance sync tarsnap taxes tck tds technology telephones television terrorism tesla theology thorium thumbnail thunderbird time tls tools toyota trains transformers travel trump tsa twitter typography ukraine unions united.nations unix ups usa vaccinations vangelis vehicles veracrypt video virtualbox virus vitamin vivaldi vlc voting vpn w3w war water weather web whatsapp who wifi wikipedia windows wordpress wuflu ww2 xigmanas xkcd youtube zfs