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Showing posts from December, 2007

The Platypus Reads Part XI

The recent flap over "The Golden Compass" has set me to thinking: what makes for an excellent piece of Science Fiction/Fantasy. In the case of "His Dark Materials" and "The Chronicles of Narnia," both series have been criticized as propaganda pieces for the author's respective world-views; Atheism and Christianity. Some opponents of the works, if I understand them correctly, claim that the artistry of these books is diminished or the enjoyment of them poisoned by the authors' attempts to use them as platforms for communicating their ideas/beliefs. This seems puzzling to me. After all, each book that comes out of an author's head carries in it the image of the author that produced it. The author may ignore them, or try deliberately to hide them, but his/her core beliefs and ideas are going to come through in some form. Beyond that, many authors intend for their ideas to come through in their work as a way of dialogging with their audie

Platypus Update

The holiday season seems to be a hard time for me to keep up on the old blog this year. There have been plenty of assignments to grade, I'm on my third T.A. this semester, I've had a tooth drilled and ground, just to name a little of what's been going on. There's been plenty to read too: N.T. Wright, Dune , the Harry Potter books, UnChristian , etc. Not much time for writing, video games, or nostalgia. I'm really looking forward to that two-week break. It'll be a good chance to get back to blogging!