"... nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God."
"If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents—the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms."
By Lars Walker “The pages [of the original Frankenstein] reek with your bottomless self-pity so poorly disguised as regret, with the phoniness of your verbose self-condemnation, with the insidious quality of your contrition, which is that of a materialist who cares not for God and is therefore not true contrition at all, but only despair at the consequences of your actions. For centuries, I have been the monster, and you the well-meaning idealist who claims he would have undone what he did if only given…
While the Newt flames out after less than a week in the spotlight as the “Big Republican On Campus,” folks might want to think about something other than politics. How about a good story? But first, a few literary quotes on good and evil, and the love of books. “No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot.” – Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend “When I am king, they shall not have bread and shelter…
Kicking off this week’s entry: Sir Walter Scott, “Chivalry!—why, maiden, she is the nurse of pure and high affection—the stay of the oppressed, the redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the tyrant —Nobility were but an empty name without her, and liberty finds the best protection in her lance and her sword.” - from Ivanhoe: A Romance Short Fiction Favorite Son by Jennifer Haigh (from Virginia Quarterly Review) “Buck season opened-still does-on the Monday after Thanksgiving. In Bakerton it is a holiday…
Let’s call it the after-Christmas Merry Christmas issue (or maybe the Boxing Day issue). After all, Dickens noted at the end of A Christmas Carol, the day Christ is born is a day we should keep in our hearts all through the year. Therefore … This week’s issue focuses, naturally, on Christmas stories, particularly those of the mysterious variety. As Mike Gray notes, in his review linked below, “Some of the finest mystery authors regard the Yuletide season as the perfect opportunity for crime.” It…
It would be misleading to call this adaptation “faithful” to the book. This movie is more like the fruit of the book. Some elements of the story are minimized or skipped over; other elements, minor in the original, are magnified and dramatized for cinematic effect. The result is bigger, more spectacular, faster moving, and more unified in narrative.
Review of Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader The popularity of fantasy in contemporary cinema is an interesting phenomenon: the use of sensational, highly entertaining film content to deliver storylines representing largely positive values and even religious themes. In that regard, such films truly are modern fairy tales. The Narnia series of films exemplify this strategy. Full of fantastic creatures, exotic settings, and grand drama, the films convey religious and moral themes without becoming excessively didactic or having the ideas overwhelm the…
by Mike Gray For the author of the Narnia series of stories, “The Great Knock” wasn’t a thing but a person. Historian Lyle W. Dorsett, writing in his The Essential C. S. Lewis, explains: Young C. S. Lewis was not only separated from his brother for long intervals of time after 1910, he never developed a close relationship with his father. The widower never sufficiently recovered from his grief to be a close companion or guide. A significant change took place in Lewis’s life in…
by Mike Gray Materialist philosophy is neither new nor scientific, but one of the most ancient superstitious beliefs in the world. The ancient version held that matter has always existed and everything that exists consists of matter. According to the modern version, invisible dead-matter spontaneously generated itself from nothing, and then by way of evolution magically produced everything else. To believe this is to believe that the nothingness within the magician’s hat spontaneously generated the bunny. — Linda Kimball So who’s running the show, God…
By Mike Gray On WND, Ellis Washington continues his cruise through Benjamin Wiker’s 10 Books Every Conservative Must Read, discussing the author of The Road to Serfdom: Following the intellectual traditions of Aristotle, the father of political conservatism, as well as Burke, Tocqueville, Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Belloc and Voegelin, Hayek strongly advocated individual moral responsibility to expand one’s own abilities to take care of themselves and their society. Therefore, Hayek believed that the government should be a means “to help individuals in the fullest…
by Mike Gray One article recommended by Daniel Crandall recently is well worth your attention: “C. S. Lewis on Mere Liberty and the Evils of Statism,” by David J. Theroux and published by The Independent Institute. Theroux traces Lewis’s thoughts on individual liberty, natural law (the “Tao”), moral relativism and utilitarianism, liberty and equality, collectivism and statism, scientism, and the corruptions of power. A few quotes from Lewis himself: I do not like the pretensions of Government—the grounds on which it demands my obedience—to be…
For those who want a break from politics and public policy – from PG Wodehouse to Evelyn Waugh to Isaac Bashevis Singer, and from the Wall Street Journal to Esquire Magazine to Publisher’s Weekly, this week’s fiction post has it all … or at least enough to satisfy those visiting over the Labor Day weekend. Short Fiction: Short Story: ”A Sea of Troubles” by P. G. Wodehouse Short Story: “The Beekeeper” by Bill Shears Short Story: “Jesus Out to Sea” by James Lee Burke Commentary and…
by Mike Gray On WND, Ellis Washington explores a sneaking suspicion that C. S. Lewis, in his work The Abolition of Man (1943), was only slightly ahead of his time: The thesis of Lewis’ work addresses the modern attempt to completely master nature, an effort, Lewis warns, that will end in the subjection of human nature itself to total technological manipulation and exploitation, a tyranny of the minority over the masses of mankind – thus the end of conservatism, the end of liberalism … the…
News of publishing’s demise is greatly exaggerated. Wander into any bookstore, be it a so-called Big Box or your local independent bookseller, and you’ll be inundated with more books than you could possibly read in a lifetime. If you’re into technology and pick up an e-reader, then you can download gigabyte after gigabyte of text. This post begins a weekly offering of links to stories, news, reviews, and opinion from around the publishing world. My intent is to inspire interest in fiction of all sorts, from…
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