Narnia vs. Tolkien: Which is better?

[Alan]

[Edisonbaggins]

[quote="A#minor]David, it sounds to me like you are demeaning Tolkien's work b/c he used mythical creatures, but half of the inhabitants of Narnia are mythical creatures. How is that an argument at all?[/quote]

I think you either misunderstood David or I just understand his comment differently. The main point I got from his comment is that Tolkien expects you to take fairy tales a little too seriously for his taste. I can understand that. I still enjoy LotR, but the Hobbit is more fun and more like Narnia and more enjoyable to me.

[A#minor]

[Marcus_P_Hagen]

[NarniaLover89]

[Unicornguy]

[Glorfindel of Gondolin]

[Unicornguy]

[Glorfindel of Gondolin]

[David]

This comparison is kind of like comparing Shakespare and Sophocles and asking who is better. They do different things.

As for demeaning Tolkien, I wouldn't say I'm demeaning him, just stating my own preferences. I've never been a big fan of fantasy literature and to me I have trouble taking it seriously. Now, to a certain extent all literature is fantasy because it's all fictional. But I am more comfortable with fantasy when the author let's me know it's a story-telling game. Lewis does this in Narnia and Tolkien does it in The Hobbit, but not in Lord of the Rings.

[Unicornguy]

[Herald]

[Cuinn]

I tend to agree that this is apples and oranges that we are comparing here, but if you were to really ask for my preference between the authors, I'd have to say Lewis.

Lewis seems to have a heart with a passion much closer to mine than Tolkien. The power found in CoN, the Space Trilogy, and his apologetics hit me with a harder effect than the awe I find in reading of Middle-Earth. His language and rhetoric is much easier to follow--meant for the more common of men than for fellow scholars--and that always helps if I want to be able to easily appreciate any grains of wisdom he might have to give.

Tolkien, while I'm still blown away at the fact that he formed a complete world with cultures, histories, and languages, I can't help but feel that I'm...left out whenever I read The Lord of the Rings or The Silmarillion. I don't know what this says about my own intellect, but there are times when I just can't follow everything he says. While all the information available gives a sense of completedness, there can sometimes be too much. (It doesn't help that I have a tendency to want to absorb everything within a text as I read it, since there's so much there in his works. It took me five months of off and on reading to finish the LotR trilogy and understand everything he churned out to the reader!)

Tolkien's style is also... how shall I say... not the best? *ducks* He just focuses so much on being grammatically correct and fit everything that he wants to fit in that he completely loses any fluid form. That can end up hurting if the reader doesn't want to stop every fifth page and meditate on all that he/she just read.

Lewis doesn't seem to ever have this problem. Of course, granted, his more scholarly writings and essays have this kind of effect as well, but they're more geared to fellow scholars and not the common man. Perhaps I just appreciate the fact that Lewis is more down-to-earth than Tolkien and desires everyone to understand the point he's driving home.

So, I suppose that I should say that I enjoy and appreciate both Tolkien and Lewis, but it's only when I'm ready to strap myself in and really knuckle down am I able to fully absorb Tolkien. Lewis, on the other hand, I can pick up, read, and finish all in one bout without much migrane.

[David]

Said this elsewhere, but I like Narnia because it's funny and tongue-in-cheek. I have fun reading it. Tolkien is too solemn and serious--despite the hobbit songs and all that, I feel the solemnity all the time (except maybe in The Hobbit).

[mliebers]