“To those who participate in them, these stories provide not only models of virtuous and vicious behavior but a sense of purpose – a sense that our lives and our choices are not arbitrary but that they are ‘going somewhere’”
– Louis Markos
“To those who participate in them, these stories provide not only models of virtuous and vicious behavior but a sense of purpose – a sense that our lives and our choices are not arbitrary but that they are ‘going somewhere’”
– Louis Markos
The above quote, of course, refers to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit, and The Chronicles of Narnia. I have read each of these somewhere between five and ten times, and I wouldn’t have thought I could appreciate them any more than I already do. Well, I was wrong. Lou Markos’s book, On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis, is an eye-opener. He delves into the values and virtues of these amazing stories with the mind of a scholar and the enthusiasm of a true appreciator of Tolkien’s and Lewis’s work.
“No hard and fast distinction was made between children’s literature and adult literature, fairy tales and ‘serious’ fiction; all drank from the same narrative well. The creating and telling of stories could be as much a vehicle of truth as science or math or philosophy.”
“The purpose of this book is to enter, to embrace, to engage. Not to study, but to learn from, not to judge but to be challenged by, not to analyze but to love.”
