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Re: various books

On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, Don Smith wrote:

> 
> I like Harry Potter, I just don't understand why it's become the
> hottest thing since sliced bread.  It's not *that* good.  Still, maybe
> it'll turn kids on to the true classics.

harry potter.... good use of characters, good use of magic and
'other-world hero stuff'... i like them, they are fun. it helped me start
conversations about ethics, morals and situations with my little cousins
(5-8) in a realm that they could understand.

i read an article that a friend sent me questioning the good of it nad the
subversiveness towards christians.

one question in particular strck me:

"Could it be that in reaction to having inherited an intellectually arid
and sacramentally barren form of the Christian tradition, evangelicals are
now vulnerable to embracing anything that assuages their thirst for
symbolic realities more profound than those given them through
Enlightenment modernism?"

i have had this rolling around in my head for a month or so now, and i am
slightly closer to a thought, i think this is a huge question in general
for christians - or anyone striving to keep some sense of tradition or
integrity to a culture... maybe i am leaping too far out in my trains.

as to would i forbid or not my child to read something?  no. i woudl
rather be aware of what they are reading and what messages they impart. i
think i'd encourage them to wait for certian things, like... stephen king.
i got ahold of IT (at 8-9) way too early. no matter how good a reader a
child is, somethings need to wait.

now, i like some of king's work. others are... too pop.

> Love the dark is rising series, although I wish I had never read the
> last two pages.

yea... there is that.


> Love the George MacDonald stuff.  I confess I liked the Princess and
> Curdie more than the Princess and the Goblin.  Not exactly sure why.  
> I liked Curdie's quest, and all the delightful "uglies".  Also the
> idea of feeling the animal beneath the person's hand was delightfully
> creepy.

i forgot about that! we ran around for days after mom told/read us that
pretending that we were different animals. i was a gazelle.

> Oh, yes, especially when he made the analogy between the letters of
> the Torah and the base pairs of DNA, connecting information chaos with
> cancer.  That book is all about connections.  Amazing stuff.

i like books that connect things i wondered about. that connects things
i've not thought about. it creates new highways in my head for thoughts.

> The Stand is definitely King's best book, and I highly recommend it to
> anyone. Some very interesting philosophy disguised as a pulp novel
> about a deadly plague.  The characters are great, and the plot is
> gripping.

true... but i kind of liked Desperation and the companion book - The
Regulators. 

rhys

-- 
If you've done six impossible things before breakfast, why not round it off
with dinner at Milliway's, the restaurant at the end of the universe.


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