Write a Real Review Already!
Originally published at Grasping for the Wind. Please leave any comments there.
What is is about using C.S. Lewis to validate a book or article that has been written? Don’t get me wrong, I love Lewis. He’s probably the most down to earth theologian I’ve ever read. Most who try are either trite or condescending, and Lewis was neither.
But enough already with validating what you write by throwing Lewis quotes everywhere! I read December’s issue of Christianity Today over the weekend and in the book review section there were no less than three (maybe four) appeals to Lewis as validation for the worthiness of a book. Either the book quoted Lewis, was Lewis like, or the review directly quoted Lewis. Enough already!
This sort of thing isn’t limited to Lewis alone. His contemporary and friend, J.R.R. Tolkien, gets compared to so many works of fantasy that to say that a book is “a saga in the vein of Tolkien” is to essentially say nothing. It’s wasted space on the dusk jacket.
I understand the need, in a review, to compare the works of one author to another, but must we always use the same writer? Is the culture at large so uneducated that we are not familiar with other authors and so the reviewer must use these staples of comparison? If so, we are lost, because then such comparisons lose all meaning and worthiness, and in no small way serve to demean the excellent writing of the writer who set the standard in a genre.
Lewis is one of the best layman’s theologians who has ever lived. His usefulness will extend to generations, but he is not the only evangelical theologian. He is not even the only worthy theologian. Enough with appeals to him as a standard, there are other standard setters, let’s use them.
Enough with comparing every fantasy book to Tolkien. The majority of them will be like Tolkien for the very fact that he created the modern fantasy genre almost single-handedly! Of course a modern fantasy will be like Tolkien, it almost has to be to be considered a fantasy! (Although I will admit this is changing.)
Am I the only one tired of constant comparisons to one writer in a genre and no others? It’s hard to know what to read, because the comparisons are meaningless.