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Apr. 15th, 2015 07:53 amSo I just read Here There Be Dragons, which is the one where a young J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams become the guardians of a fantasy universe, place a descendent of King Arthur on the throne, fight an evil overlord, and save the day!!!
...technically all that is a spoiler, especially the parts about how the protagonists are the young Inklings, which is a BIG LAST CHAPTER REVEAL, but, like, why would you read this book if you didn't want to know if C.S. Lewis turns temporarily evil in the middle? There is no reason.
C.S. Lewis does turn temporarily evil in the middle, for the record, although 'evil' in this case seems to translate to 'he was briefly impetuous and made a ill-thought-out but well-meant decision that one time.' EVIL!!! I actually got confused and thought C.S. Lewis was instead the pompous and sarcastic one who made friends with a talking badger with a quaint accent and food obsession a la Redwall, which seemed to make more thematic sense in terms of the context of his later writings, but no, that was Charles Williams, which confuses me because as far as I know he never wrote about talking badgers at all. (But I've actually never read anything by Charles Williams, which may be why I had trouble identifying him accurately. Should I?)
I mean, I'm pretty sure the reason that the Inklings are the protagonists of this book at all is because James A. Owen was like "I want to write the kind of fantasy that basically puts Middle Earth and Narnia in a blender, but ... how can I do it without people calling me derivative ...? OH OK OK I GOT IT, I'll set it up so that Tolkien and Lewis were both being derivative of me!" Brilliant! Now no one could possibly object to the talking badger, or the virtuous dwarves and elves and the evil goblins and trolls, or the ominous shadow-people, or chain of magical islands at the end of the world or the Rings of Power OR ANYTHING. My complaints have neatly been circumvented. His plan is sheer elegance in its simplicity.
Things I can (and will) complain about:
- a big chunk of the plot focuses on Tolkien not having adequately studied all the languages he was supposed to when he was a student, which, HAHAHAHAHAHA
- Magwitch is an evil Dickens character! MAGWITCH. As in, the hidden benefactor in Great Expectations, where half the point is to recognize his inner virtue despite his misfortunes ...?
- H.G. Wells is also a magical guardian, working to help put the rightful king on the throne! I'm not sure James A. Owen knows that H.G. Wells was an ardent Socialist, but if he does know, he SUPER doesn't care
- OK I admit I did laugh though when they're like "J.M. Barrie was a magical guardian but he basically just fucked off to hang around with the Llewelyn Davies family twenty years ago and never came back. DAMMIT BARRIE!"
- there is one female character in the book! She is of course the center of a love triangle between the long-lost king and Briefly Evil C.S. Lewis.
- there is (I think?) one character who is not white in the book! Guess who's also the one character who's killed off for real during the final battle?
- ...though I guess also a whole bunch of fauns who have worked closely with the main cast get literally eaten by wendigos in the middle of the book and no one really seems to care
- also, why wendigos, when literally everything else is taken straight out of Tolkien or Lewis or Arthuriana or Welsh mythology and there is basically no reference to the Americas at all? WHY NOT I GUESS
- at the end we get a list of other famous authors who have also taken on the role of Guardian Of This Fantasy Land. "Much of the cultural and scientific history of the entire human race!" says the narration, meaning of course LITERALLY NOBODY outside of Europe and North America. Mary Shelley is the only woman listed.
I don't think I'll be reading any of the sequels, but I did read a summary of the next one on Wikipedia! In summary form, it's HILARIOUS. "There, they are attacked by the descendants of the failed Roanoke exploration, led by Richard Burton. Escaping him, the protagonists reach Neverland, where Daedalus reveals to them that the Underneath is divided into nine districts (as in Dante's Inferno), and asks them to become children themselves to better understand Hugh the Iron and William the Pig, the sons of Jason and the original Lost Boys." Okay! Sure! I'm not sure how Hugh the Iron and William the Pig can be the sons of Jason (I'm assuming the Argonaut) and ALL the Lost Boys, it seems biologically improbable to say the least, but I can roll with it.
...technically all that is a spoiler, especially the parts about how the protagonists are the young Inklings, which is a BIG LAST CHAPTER REVEAL, but, like, why would you read this book if you didn't want to know if C.S. Lewis turns temporarily evil in the middle? There is no reason.
C.S. Lewis does turn temporarily evil in the middle, for the record, although 'evil' in this case seems to translate to 'he was briefly impetuous and made a ill-thought-out but well-meant decision that one time.' EVIL!!! I actually got confused and thought C.S. Lewis was instead the pompous and sarcastic one who made friends with a talking badger with a quaint accent and food obsession a la Redwall, which seemed to make more thematic sense in terms of the context of his later writings, but no, that was Charles Williams, which confuses me because as far as I know he never wrote about talking badgers at all. (But I've actually never read anything by Charles Williams, which may be why I had trouble identifying him accurately. Should I?)
I mean, I'm pretty sure the reason that the Inklings are the protagonists of this book at all is because James A. Owen was like "I want to write the kind of fantasy that basically puts Middle Earth and Narnia in a blender, but ... how can I do it without people calling me derivative ...? OH OK OK I GOT IT, I'll set it up so that Tolkien and Lewis were both being derivative of me!" Brilliant! Now no one could possibly object to the talking badger, or the virtuous dwarves and elves and the evil goblins and trolls, or the ominous shadow-people, or chain of magical islands at the end of the world or the Rings of Power OR ANYTHING. My complaints have neatly been circumvented. His plan is sheer elegance in its simplicity.
Things I can (and will) complain about:
- a big chunk of the plot focuses on Tolkien not having adequately studied all the languages he was supposed to when he was a student, which, HAHAHAHAHAHA
- Magwitch is an evil Dickens character! MAGWITCH. As in, the hidden benefactor in Great Expectations, where half the point is to recognize his inner virtue despite his misfortunes ...?
- H.G. Wells is also a magical guardian, working to help put the rightful king on the throne! I'm not sure James A. Owen knows that H.G. Wells was an ardent Socialist, but if he does know, he SUPER doesn't care
- OK I admit I did laugh though when they're like "J.M. Barrie was a magical guardian but he basically just fucked off to hang around with the Llewelyn Davies family twenty years ago and never came back. DAMMIT BARRIE!"
- there is one female character in the book! She is of course the center of a love triangle between the long-lost king and Briefly Evil C.S. Lewis.
- there is (I think?) one character who is not white in the book! Guess who's also the one character who's killed off for real during the final battle?
- ...though I guess also a whole bunch of fauns who have worked closely with the main cast get literally eaten by wendigos in the middle of the book and no one really seems to care
- also, why wendigos, when literally everything else is taken straight out of Tolkien or Lewis or Arthuriana or Welsh mythology and there is basically no reference to the Americas at all? WHY NOT I GUESS
- at the end we get a list of other famous authors who have also taken on the role of Guardian Of This Fantasy Land. "Much of the cultural and scientific history of the entire human race!" says the narration, meaning of course LITERALLY NOBODY outside of Europe and North America. Mary Shelley is the only woman listed.
I don't think I'll be reading any of the sequels, but I did read a summary of the next one on Wikipedia! In summary form, it's HILARIOUS. "There, they are attacked by the descendants of the failed Roanoke exploration, led by Richard Burton. Escaping him, the protagonists reach Neverland, where Daedalus reveals to them that the Underneath is divided into nine districts (as in Dante's Inferno), and asks them to become children themselves to better understand Hugh the Iron and William the Pig, the sons of Jason and the original Lost Boys." Okay! Sure! I'm not sure how Hugh the Iron and William the Pig can be the sons of Jason (I'm assuming the Argonaut) and ALL the Lost Boys, it seems biologically improbable to say the least, but I can roll with it.
