c0b1f90c   
   XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis, rec.arts.books, rec.arts.books.childrens   
   XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: Troels@ThisIsFake.invalid   
      
   In message   
      
   Arindam Banerjee  spoke these staves:   
   >   
      
      
      
   First a thank you to Ann for bringing this back up ;)   
      
   And since we're having all these cross-posts (and I don't know where   
   Arindam is posting), I'd better hurry to say that I usually haunt the   
   Tolkien groups.   
      
   > Saying a book (presumably, a secular work, a work of fiction, a   
   > novel, so nothing apparently religious on the surface) is "wrong"   
   > amounts to a brief criticism of it.   
      
   Would you consider that what could be a 'brief criticism' of one work   
   might be considered derogatory if applied to another work?   
      
   When applied to Golding, I presume that you mean that you find the   
   basic premise of the book to be wrong? (I haven't actually read it,   
   but I know the very basics of the plot -- enough to interpret your   
   statement in this way and to disagree with the dismissiveness of the   
   statement, even if I don't find the premise 'correct').   
      
   Tolkien's work is in many ways fundamentally different from   
   Golding's, and simply dismissing it as 'wrong' doesn't really make   
   sense (to me, at least). Not that there's anything wrong with   
   disliking it (many excellent people do so), but as a criticism,   
   'wrong' would, in itself, be wrong :-)  it would feel like dismissing   
   all fantastic literature as 'wrong' simply because it isn't   
   realistic, which would of course be a complete misunderstanding   
   regardless of whether one likes that sort of thing or not.   
      
   But I'm really more interested in the general question. My thinking   
   goes like this: a criticism intended for one work will, if applied to   
   another, normally appear to be misunderstanding the work, and, in   
   particular if very brief and sharp, may therefore quickly come to   
   appear as an arrogant dismissal by someone who doesn't know what   
   they're talking about (something which, in my experience, is likely   
   to cause some aggravation).   
      
   --   
   Troels Forchhammer   
   Valid e-mail is    
   Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.   
      
       If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was   
       standing on the shoulders of giants.   
    - Sir Isaac Newton   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)