Posts Tagged ‘J. R. R. Tolkien’

The ancient Greeks tragedies saw all of man’s efforts overruled by cruel and blind fate.  Karl Marx said man was subject to economic determinism.  B.F. Skinner contended that human behavior was determined by genetics and environment.  For atheistic existentialists, like Sartre, the human condition is to be trapped in a meaningless universe from which there is no escape.   Both fairy tales and the Bible disagree. Read the rest of this entry »

Last year we as a faculty at Cair Paravel Latin School had the enriching pleasure of reading and discussing “The Light Princess,” “The Golden Key” and The Princess and the Goblin, three delightfully profound fairy tales by George MacDonald.  The experience led me to take another whack at MacDonald’s Phantastes, and I’m mostly glad that I did. Read the rest of this entry »

            If you want to enjoy The Desolation of Smaug, you need to forget Tolkien’s The Hobbit because Peter Jackson’s movie strays quite a bit from the novel.  Read the rest of this entry »

            My father was a successful businessman and a decorated World War II pilot who retired as a lieutenant colonel.  The natural assumption is that he would have been well-organized and a meticulous planner.  He wasn’t.  In fact, planning seemed to be anathema to him, especially when it came to family outings.  For me the prime example of Poppa’s freewheeling chaos will always be our infamous Brown County camping trip. Read the rest of this entry »

           Last weekend I saw Peter Jackson’s version of The Hobbit.  I was entertained but disappointed. Read the rest of this entry »