Linkapalooza!
AND NOW, in an utterly unrelated link to another essay, let me urge you all to go read NerdFighter on Chesterton, with words which tickled my fancy and won my admiration:
http://nerdfighters.ning.com/profiles/blogs/g-k-chesterton-and-my-xbox-360
The couch potato explains his love for a video game on the grounds that, unlike flat modern conflicts fought with scientific weapons, the powered armored troopers of the future must face their foe with courage and honor, as much any Arthurian knight of old. Please take note all military SF guys and fans of STARSHIP TROOPERS (the sane version, not the movie).
And while you are at it, read his essay on Puddleglum and INCEPTION.
http://nerdfighters.ning.com/profiles/blogs/inception-and-narnia
My comment: “I’m on Aslan’s side even if there is no Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.” You tell ’em, Marshwiggle! Puddlglum the dreary pessimist is given the most joyful and optimistic line in the whole Narnia oeuvre.
I call it optimistic, yes. For recollect the scene: Puddleglum and the children are trapped in the gray-litten, morose and monster-haunted world of underground where never a whisper of laughter is heard, and bewitched, and have forgotten that any other world exists. Nothing but hope and joy can make one vow loyalty to the sunlight world and green enchanted land when one knows no other world.
And, while I am madly posting links, here is another:
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/introduces/chesterton.htm
This is David Langford’s reprint of an 1980 essay on GK Chesterton as one of the few ‘forgotten SF writers’ worthy of being remembered.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
