Courtesy of an old acquaintance (lest he be forgot):
John Rogers: "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
I only wish he had left out that "of course," which spoils the joke.
[The following reply received:]
ReplyDeleteHi Karl,
I'm sorry, Karl: we’ve known each other a long time, but I find this feckless appeal to facile levity deeply offensive. Atlas Shrugged has meant too much to my development to permit condescension of this kind to remain unanswered. It is regrettable that Mr. Rogers and you alone seem able to discern the real world and that you apparently regard his derisiveness as worthy of dissemination. Thank you for listening.
Thanks for your understanding,
~Jack Gallagher
Well, I never judge a book till I've read it, so I must stay silent about Atlas Shrugged. But I found, and find, Frodo, Aragorn, Gandalf and the rest more real and believable than many of the characters on "reality TV." Of course, I don't watch reality TV either. :)
ReplyDeleteFond as I am of the Tolkien, I brought forward this quote because I enjoyed what seems (until the final torque of the rhetorical wrench) an unsympathetic & unforgiving panning of (probably) both Middle-Earth and us earthlings who there tarry. Is that disloyal to Tolkien? I've thought of it instead as no great distance from, when I think I've completed a new piece, subjecting it to a mental "stress-test" so that either I fix it, or am content that it will endure.
ReplyDeleteOf the Rand, I have no opinion, not having read it.