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"I really love the superstitious Skaa. “She’s not a mistwrath, you idiot. I brought her out into the sun and she didn’t disappear see?”" — Apr 16, 2024 02:41AM
"I really love the superstitious Skaa. “She’s not a mistwrath, you idiot. I brought her out into the sun and she didn’t disappear see?”" — Apr 16, 2024 02:41AM
“I’m not hurt. I’m appalled.”
― Political Correctness: The Munk Debates
― Political Correctness: The Munk Debates
“In the materialistic perspective described so far, interpersonal relations are seriously impoverished. The first to be harmed are women, children, the sick or suffering, and the elderly. The criterion of personal dignity-which demands respect, generosity and service-is replaced by the criterion of efficiency, functionality and usefulness: others are considered not for what they "are", but for what they "have, do and produce". This is the supremacy of the strong over the weak.”
― Evangelium Vitae: The Gospel of Life
― Evangelium Vitae: The Gospel of Life
“As for imagery, actions, moods, and themes, I find myself unable to separate them usefully. In a profoundly conceived, craftily written novel such as The Lord of the Rings, all these elements work together indissolubly, simultaneously. When I tried to analyse them out I just unraveled the tapestry and was left with a lot of threads, but no picture. So I settled for bunching them all together. I noted every repetition of any image, action, mood, or theme without trying to identify it as anything other than a repetition.
I was working from my impression that a dark event in the story was likely to be followed by a brighter one (or vice versa); that when the characters had exerted terrible effort, they then got to have a rest; that each action brought a reaction, never predictable in nature, because Tolkien’s imagination is inexhaustible, but more or less predictable in kind, like day following night, and winter after fall.
This “trochaic” alternation of stress and relief is of course a basic device of narrative, from folktales to War and Peace; but Tolkien’s reliance on it is striking. It is one of the things that make his narrative technique unusual for the mid–twentieth century. Unrelieved psychological or emotional stress or tension, and a narrative pace racing without a break from start to climax,
characterise much of the fiction of the time. To readers with such expectations, Tolkien’s plodding stress/relief pattern seemed and seems simplistic, primitive. To others it may seem a remarkably simple, subtle technique of keeping the reader going on a long and ceaselessly rewarding journey.”
―
I was working from my impression that a dark event in the story was likely to be followed by a brighter one (or vice versa); that when the characters had exerted terrible effort, they then got to have a rest; that each action brought a reaction, never predictable in nature, because Tolkien’s imagination is inexhaustible, but more or less predictable in kind, like day following night, and winter after fall.
This “trochaic” alternation of stress and relief is of course a basic device of narrative, from folktales to War and Peace; but Tolkien’s reliance on it is striking. It is one of the things that make his narrative technique unusual for the mid–twentieth century. Unrelieved psychological or emotional stress or tension, and a narrative pace racing without a break from start to climax,
characterise much of the fiction of the time. To readers with such expectations, Tolkien’s plodding stress/relief pattern seemed and seems simplistic, primitive. To others it may seem a remarkably simple, subtle technique of keeping the reader going on a long and ceaselessly rewarding journey.”
―
“I should like to save the Shire, if i could - though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them.”
―
―
“What we all dread most is a maze with no centre.”
― A Father Brown Mystery: The Head of Caesar
― A Father Brown Mystery: The Head of Caesar
Reading the Church Fathers
— 328 members
— last activity Jan 02, 2025 09:30PM
There is an immense library of Christian philosophy, theology, history, apologetics, biblical commentary, and devotion written in the first seven cent ...more
The Catholic Book Club
— 2538 members
— last activity 5 hours, 1 min ago
This reading group is for Catholics and anyone else interested in reading and discussing Catholic literature from devotional and theological writings ...more
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