Posted on 10/15/2015 7:05:25 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
Two authors who collectively have sold hundreds of millions of copies of their books decades after their deaths receive scant attention in academia.
C. S. Lewis, according to Publisher’s Weekly, had sold 18 million copies by 2013. J. R. R. Tolkien, according to answers.com, has sold about 250 million copies.
But try finding a panel on either of them at the Modern Language Association. Perhaps it has something to do with the outlook of this literary pair.
Indeed, even during their lifetimes, despite spending most of their working lives as Oxford dons, both Lewis and Tolkien were more widely appreciated outside of academic and literary circles than within them.
“Both were out of step with their time,” historian Joe Laconte noted in a lecture at the Family Research Council last week. “They wrote epic tales with morals.”
“Most writers were writing anti-war novels.” Laconte, an associate professor of history at The King’s College in New York City, is the author of A Hobbit, a Wardrobes, and a Great War: How J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Catyclysm of 1914-1918.
“World War I led to cynicism and agnosticism in Europe for the ideals of the West but not for C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien,” Laconte averred.
30 years ago I had a job in a Christian Book Store.
I also worked at a Liberal Protestant Seminary in their Book Department.
At the Bookstore, the favorite Book was the Bible. We had shelves of them, KJV, Interlinear, RSV, NIV, The Living Bible, The Good News, The New American Bible(RCC), The Jerusalem Bible, Strongs Concordance, Vines, Bible Dictionaries, Bible atlases, and also books about grief, parenting, cults, meditation, prayer, politics, America, Jesus, Sunday School, Ministry, Christian Counselling, and a full line of Vacation Bible School and Sunday School supplies. (Real Life)
Meanwhile, at the seminary, the only Version of the Bible was the RSV, and the shelves were replete with books by feminists like Rosemary Reuther, Liberation Theologians like Gustav Gutierez, and Liberal Bible Critics (Textual criticism, redactive critics, etc) (Academia)
The divide was so obvious that the seminary became a place of oppression and drudgery for me, while the Bookstore “for the People” was a delight.
Oh...and C.S. Lewis and Tolkien were nowhere to be found in the seminary, but had an entire shelf dedicated to them in the bookstore.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1045069/posts
A thread from back in the day. An essay by Catholic Christian sci-fi/speculative fiction author Gene Wolfe on Tolkien called ‘The Best Introduction to the Mountains.’
Surprisingly Gene Wolfe is pretty much considered the best of the best American speculative fiction writer going today by both ultra-libs and newer conservative sci-fi writers like John C Wright. This despite Wolfe being a traditionally minded Catholic and old white male, which are just about the worst things to be in the tiny world of contemporary sci-fi/fantasy.
Freegards
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