Such Bullshit

13

Comments

  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    Pegasus wrote:
    LOTR is not a children book anymore than Beowulf, its inspiration is.
    The Hobbit is.

    agreed. LOTR is not a children's story. neither is the golden compass. neither were beowulf, the odyssey, the iliad, or the aeneid.

    harry potter was a children's story (at least at first, the later books were at best for teenagers). the hobbit was a children's story.
  • OutOfBreath
    OutOfBreath Posts: 1,804
    Would depend on what you mean by children. I use the term loosely.

    Those books may be lost on 6-year-olds, but when children get 10-12 years old, they are more than ready for reading more serious and complex stuff. I stand by my assertion that children tend to be underestimated and too sheltered by "children's literature".

    Peace
    Dan
    "YOU [humans] NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?" - Death

    "Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    OutOfBreath wrote:
    Would depend on what you mean by children. I use the term loosely.

    Those books may be lost on 6-year-olds, but when children get 10-12 years old, they are more than ready for reading more serious and complex stuff. I stand by my assertion that children tend to be underestimated and too sheltered by "children's literature".

    Peace
    Dan

    ah, i think it's just a miscue on terms then, becos i use the term children's stories pretty narrowly to mean stories with little value outside of entertaining or teaching children. little red riding hood is a children's story. so is shiloh. golden compass and lotr have very strong literary merit and are and should be of interest to adults.
  • baraka
    baraka Posts: 1,268
    soulsinging wrote:
    agreed. LOTR is not a children's story. neither is the golden compass. neither were beowulf, the odyssey, the iliad, or the aeneid.

    With the exception of The Golden Compass & Aeneid, I read all these books before I was 13 years old. I read the Iliad and Odyssey in 7th grade and read the LOTR series in 5th grade. I remember that specifically because I got in trouble at school for reading it during class. It depends on the kid, I think.
    The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance,
    but the illusion of knowledge.
    ~Daniel Boorstin

    Only a life lived for others is worth living.
    ~Albert Einstein
  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    my mom forwarded me this email she received. she works at a catholic high school so it must have made the rounds of the staff. my favorite part is where he says that a poor financial result for this movie will somehow be a tribute to god's glory:
    Guys,
    What do you think?
    mom

    Folks, I just went out to the site provided and checked it out myself. If none of you are familiar with Snopes, its a website dedicated to determining the truth about many urban legends, Internet rumors, email forwards, and other such stories of uncertain or questionable origin.

    Unfortunately, Snopes says the below is true. I wish it wasn't...

    This Christmas, please be knowledgeable and choose not to take your kids to see this movie.

    Please send this information to as many people connected to children that you may know. My hope and prayer is God will allow this news to spread like wildfire and Christians around the world will not see this movie. I hope and pray it does not do well in the box office for God's glory.

    The Golden Compass

    I have heard of this movie although I did not know what it was about. Please check out the link. It is scary stuff.

    You may already know about this, but I just learned about a kids movie coming out in December starring Nicole Kidman. It's called The Golden Compass, and while it will be a watered down version, it is based on a series of children's books about killing God (It is the anti-Narnia). Please follow this link, and then pass it on. From what I understand, the hope is to get alot of kids to see the movie - which won't seem too bad - and then get the parents to buy the books for their kids for Christmas. The quotes from the author sum it all up. I'm going to tell everyone about this movie.

    http://snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp

    and my response to my mom and brothers:

    who is scott hoffman and what is his email address? i'd like to write him and tell him personally that he's a fucking idiot. if his religion is so weak that a movie based on a fantasy book will shake the very foundations of his faith, i can only "hope and pray" that he does not do well in life "for God's glory."
  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    baraka wrote:
    With the exception of The Golden Compass & Aeneid, I read all these books before I was 13 years old. I read the Iliad and Odyssey in 7th grade and read the LOTR series in 5th grade. I remember that specifically because I got in trouble at school for reading it during class. It depends on the kid, I think.

    *sigh* good for you, but my point was not that nobody under 18 can or should read these works. the point is, none of those works were written solely to entertain kids. they contain very adult themes, much of which will be lost on all but the most mature children. it was a response to gue's dismissive post calling them children's stories and implying that anything that has monsters or whatnot is childish and should not be read to have any meaning or value beyond entertaining little kids.
  • baraka
    baraka Posts: 1,268
    soulsinging wrote:
    *sigh* good for you, but my point was not that nobody under 18 can or should read these works. the point is, none of those works were written solely to entertain kids. they contain very adult themes, much of which will be lost on all but the most mature children. it was a response to gue's dismissive post calling them children's stories and implying that anything that has monsters or whatnot is childish and should not be read to have any meaning or value beyond entertaining little kids.

    Oh, I don't disagree with your point. But, and maybe I am wrong, aren't these books touted as children's books, specifically LOTR ,the Narnia series, & The Golden Compass? Do you think that is misleading?
    The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance,
    but the illusion of knowledge.
    ~Daniel Boorstin

    Only a life lived for others is worth living.
    ~Albert Einstein
  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    baraka wrote:
    Oh, I don't disagree with your point. But, and maybe I am wrong, aren't these books touted as children's books, specifically LOTR ,the Narnia series, & The Golden Compass? Do you think that is misleading?

    the narnia series is, definitely. i don't think LOTR is touted as a children's book. the hobbit maybe, but even the movies were marketed to teens. their only appeal to children is that kids don't have gue's hangups about how they're only fairytales. i feel the same about the golden compass... it's in the sci-fi section or the young adult section, NOT the kids sections.
  • baraka
    baraka Posts: 1,268
    soulsinging wrote:
    the narnia series is, definitely. i don't think LOTR is touted as a children's book. the hobbit maybe, but even the movies were marketed to teens. their only appeal to children is that kids don't have gue's hangups about how they're only fairytales. i feel the same about the golden compass... it's in the sci-fi section or the young adult section, NOT the kids sections.

    Sci-fi makes sense.............these books were bought for me by my mom, so what did I know (I still have my original copies!) Oh, another favorite of mine was A Wrinkle in Time! That one alone was probably the most inspirational to me. Was this one a 'children's book' or sci-fi? I guess I always looked at these books as 'deep' children's books, certainly not for all children, but not all children enjoy reading.
    The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance,
    but the illusion of knowledge.
    ~Daniel Boorstin

    Only a life lived for others is worth living.
    ~Albert Einstein
  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    baraka wrote:
    Sci-fi makes sense.............these books were bought for me by my mom, so what did I know (I still have my original copies!) Oh, another favorite of mine was A Wrinkle in Time! That one alone was probably the most inspirational to me. Was this one a 'children's book' or sci-fi? I guess I always looked at these books as 'deep' children's books, certainly not for all children, but not all children enjoy reading.

    i think all of these fall in the young adult section at best. they are not simply kid fairy tales. they are meant to provoke thought through metaphor. wrinkle in time is awesome. though i found that one too preachy as well.
  • Pegasus
    Pegasus Posts: 3,754
    baraka wrote:
    With the exception of The Golden Compass & Aeneid, I read all these books before I was 13 years old. I read the Iliad and Odyssey in 7th grade and read the LOTR series in 5th grade. I remember that specifically because I got in trouble at school for reading it during class. It depends on the kid, I think.
    all those contain extremely adult themes.
    the fact they contain mythological or fantastical elements doesn't mean it's for children.. only very recently have those been looked down on by adults.

    by that measure, the Bible, or any religious book for that matter, are Children's books..
  • baraka
    baraka Posts: 1,268
    Pegasus wrote:
    all those contain extremely adult themes.
    the fact they contain mythological or fantastical elements doesn't mean it's for children.. only very recently have those been looked down on by adults.

    by that measure, the Bible, or any religious book for that matter, are Children's books..

    I don't disagree that they contain 'extremely adult themes', just that they are perhaps touted as children's books by literary critics, etc. And to me, if a child is interested in such literature, why not start early? If the child is not ready for such literature, they usually don't express interest. I guess I worry that it will be discouraged for children (all of these books in this genre) and these kind of books were very special to me as a child.

    I'm interested in His Dark Materials trilogy, so I wiki'd it yesterday. I found this:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Lights_%28novel%29

    "Northern Lights won the Carnegie Medal for children's fiction in the UK in 1995[2], and in 2007 it was selected by judges of the Carnegie Medal as one of the ten most important children's novels of the past 70 years."

    Then if you wiki the trilogy series: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Dark_Materials

    "Although the series is marketed to young adults, the audience includes many adult readers."
    The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance,
    but the illusion of knowledge.
    ~Daniel Boorstin

    Only a life lived for others is worth living.
    ~Albert Einstein
  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    baraka wrote:
    I don't disagree that they contain 'extremely adult themes', just that they are perhaps touted as children's books by literary critics, etc. And to me, if a child is interested in such literature, why not start early? If the child is not ready for such literature, they usually don't express interest. I guess I worry that it will be discouraged for children (all of these books in this genre) and these kind of books were very special to me as a child.

    I'm interested in His Dark Materials trilogy, so I wiki'd it yesterday. I found this:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Lights_%28novel%29

    "Northern Lights won the Carnegie Medal for children's fiction in the UK in 1995[2], and in 2007 it was selected by judges of the Carnegie Medal as one of the ten most important children's novels of the past 70 years."

    Then if you wiki the trilogy series: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Dark_Materials

    "Although the series is marketed to young adults, the audience includes many adult readers."

    in all of my years as a lit major i never once heard anyone touting the aeneid, homer, or lotr to children.

    i think there is (as in all of pop culture) a big grey area between children and adults that we consider "young adult." they call it children's book once, then young adult later. i consider children's to be solely for young elementary kids. once you're old enough to read a novel, i consider it all adult lit. maybe some is marketed to "younger" adults, but to me it's all the same.
  • catefrances
    catefrances Posts: 29,003
    soulsinging wrote:
    agreed. LOTR is not a children's story. neither is the golden compass. neither were beowulf, the odyssey, the iliad, or the aeneid.

    harry potter was a children's story (at least at first, the later books were at best for teenagers). the hobbit was a children's story.

    just curious. how old is a child? :)
    hear my name
    take a good look
    this could be the day
    hold my hand
    lie beside me
    i just need to say
  • MahoganySouls
    MahoganySouls Posts: 357
    OutOfBreath wrote:
    Would depend on what you mean by children. I use the term loosely.

    Those books may be lost on 6-year-olds, but when children get 10-12 years old, they are more than ready for reading more serious and complex stuff. I stand by my assertion that children tend to be underestimated and too sheltered by "children's literature".

    Peace
    Dan

    Children today grow up too fast. Let them be kids. There is nothing wrong with allowing children to hold onto their innocence. We all know how rough it is in the real world. No reason to push them before they have to be aware. Fantasy and fairytales are a rite of passage. Leave the "serious and complex stuff" for adults.
    "When you're climbing to the top, you'd better know the way back down" MSB
  • Pegasus
    Pegasus Posts: 3,754
    MahoganySouls wrote:
    Children today grow up too fast. Let them be kids. There is nothing wrong with allowing children to hold onto their innocence. We all know how rough it is in the real world. No reason to push them before they have to be aware. Fantasy and fairytales are a rite of passage. Leave the "serious and complex stuff" for adults.
    yeah, because Fairy Tales about parents abandoning their children in the woods, children being eaten, etc is innocent :D
  • catefrances
    catefrances Posts: 29,003
    Pegasus wrote:
    yeah, because Fairy Tales about parents abandoning their children in the woods, children being eaten, etc is innocent :D

    yes but in the end the children are triumphant. :)
    hear my name
    take a good look
    this could be the day
    hold my hand
    lie beside me
    i just need to say
  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    catefrances wrote:
    just curious. how old is a child? :)

    pre-puberty/adolescence. once they become more interested in pussy/penis than sports and barbie, they are no longer children ;)
  • Pegasus
    Pegasus Posts: 3,754
    soulsinging wrote:
    pre-puberty/adolescence. once they become more interested in pussy/penis than sports and barbie, they are no longer children ;)
    mmm...I always suspected most men are children...:p
  • Deni
    Deni Posts: 233
    MahoganySouls wrote:
    If there is no God, then how can there be demons?

    There is a difference between a demon (which is an evil spirit) and a daemon (which is a representation of one's soul). I understand that they are spelled sort of the same and pronounced sort of the same, but they are two completely different concepts. Demons are tricksters, and daemons are helpful entities... at least conceptually speaking for the purposes of His Dark Materials Trilogy-- and in other literary and anthropological ways.
    "Ideas are bulletproof." --V

    Peace and Love
    Deni
    :)

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