XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.fan.tolkien, alt.books.cs-lewis   
   XPost: rec.arts.books   
   From: jwkenne@attglobal.net   
      
   On 3/25/09 3:36 PM, Steve Morrison wrote:   
   > Steve Hayes wrote:   
   >> On Sat, 21 Mar 2009 19:48:01 -0400, John W Kennedy   
   >>    
   >> wrote:   
   >>   
   >>> On 3/21/09 2:41 AM, Steve Hayes wrote:   
   >>>> On Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:09:31 -0400, Steve   
   >>>> Morrison wrote:   
   >>>>   
   >>>>> For me, the problem is that I've hardly read anything by   
   >>>>> Inklings other than JRRT and CSL; I did read WIlliams's   
   >>>>> /All Hallows' Eve/ years ago, but that's it. Do you have   
   >>>>> any recommendations for books by the other Inklings?   
   >>>> I'd recommend Williams's other novels.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> My favourites are "War in heaven", "The place of the lion" and "The   
   >>>> greater   
   >>>> trumps"   
   >>> Might as well include "Descent into Hell" and "Many Dimensions".   
   >>> "Shadows of Ecstasy" is somewhat more dated than the others.   
   >>   
   >> "Shadows of ecstasy" was also Williams's first novel, and while it   
   >> starts off   
   >> OK, at the end the plot tends to dissolve into abstract philosophical   
   >> dialogue.   
   >> It, and "Descent into hell" have always been the ones I've liked least   
   >> partly   
   >> for that reason, but recently I've read a couple of novels that have   
   >> made me   
   >> want to re-read "Descent itno hell".   
   >   
   > Thanks for the suggestions; I've put some of Williams' novels on my   
   > shopping list.   
   >   
   >> I found a book in the library with the title "Four Gothic novels", and   
   >> I took   
   >> it out because I'd read about them, but hadn't read any of them and   
   >> thought   
   >> I'd familiarise myself with the genre.   
   >> It has "The castle of Otranto" by Horace Walpole, the progenitor of   
   >> the genre,   
   >> and "Vathek" by William Beckford - both moral tales about wicked and   
   >> unjust   
   >> rulers who got their come-uppance.   
   >   
   > I've never read any of those; however, I am reading /Northanger Abbey/   
   > at the moment. It might have been better to have read Walpole first,   
   > since it's one of the novels which Catherine and Isabella read, before   
   > Catherine has learned that Real Life Is Not Like A Gothic Novel!   
      
   There is also the quasi-Inkling, Dorothy L. Sayers, who wrote the Lord   
   Peter Wimsey mysteries, then wrote several religious dramas ("The Zeal   
   of Thy House" and "The Man Born to be King" are the best known), and   
   wound up translating and commenting on Dante.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)