[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hickli

No, it's not a political statement: it's an emotional statement. "It was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort:" you don't have to be a Freudian to see how womby it is. Tolkien was calling up his own nostalgia-gilded memories of the place where he was a little boy, with a mother and everything. Political matters weren't an issue for seven-year-old Ronald; and in the Shire he could sweep them away with a sort of 'if men were angels' sleight of hand.

Yes, this is precisely my point. Tolkien's Shire is gilded with nostalgia, in contrast to some very non-nostalgic Victorian views of womby things. Pullman's Dust falls over all, but it doesn't gild things. His fantasy is all the more intriguing because it isn't rosy.

(Incidentally, pre- and early agrarian societies were hardly some nonviolent Rousseauvian golden age of Noble Savages: recent research indicates that in late Paleolithic and Mesolithic societies 40 to 50% of the population died at the hands of their fellow humans. And the Vikings, my God: a sanguinary epoch of murder, outlawry and blood-feud- and that's just among themselves.)

Again, you are mischaracterising my comments, this time as Rousseauvian rather than Marxist. Careful now. The traditional view of Vikings has recently come in for some rethinking, particularly as that notion of them comes down to us from those who fought with them. Rome, after all, had a vested interest in explaining just how and why she was conquered.

Which isn't remotely Lewis' philosophy/theology. He had no problem at all with the physical and material- a boisterous, active man who relished his pipe, his beer, his dinner and his friends. No aescetic he! What Lewis dstinguished was the important from the unimportant, which is a very different thing. (I should point out also that , based on The Four Loves, Lewis had a perfectly healthy attitude towards eros).

So Lewis can have his pipe, his beer, his dinner and his friends, but Susan may not because he determined that she was placing too great a value on her friends, her parties, her salon. Role playing kings and queens in Narnia might not have been all that different from role playing drama queen wannabe--in fact, it might have 'preconditioned' Susan to enjoying stylish things and powerful people.

Thank you, Child, for mentioning Till We have Faces. It's a hard book to find (I'm always too lazy to special order) but I'll keep looking for it.