Terrific post, TT. I think this is quite common, an underlying message at odds with the surface. Of course, everybody cites Paradise Lost.
That's quite an interesting parallel. I mean, as CS Lewis reminds us, it would be a mistake to think that the surface meaning isn't important. Milton really does think that Satan is an evil lying rebel, just as Kipling really does think white men should rule over subject peoples. But whether intentionally or not, some other messages are coming through at the same time.
Lewis has a whole book on Paradise Lost (A Preface to Paradise Lost) where he argues that Milton knew exactly what he was doing when he made the devil such an attractive character, and that those who argue Milton was of the devil's party (knowingly or unknowingly) are falling for the devil's rhetoric and not picking up on the clues the poet has left them. After reading it, I agree with him.
It goes more or less like this: If you are going to have the devil (as presented in Scripture) as a character in your work, he must be attractive, and what he says must be a) false and b) very, very convincing. Otherwise you aren't doing justice to the character. But at the same time you've got the problem of signalling to your reader that this character is in fact not to be trusted. Getting the balance right is not easy, and for Milton in particular this is difficult, as his verse is purely splendid no matter what he's writing about. But if you pay attention to the actual facts presented in Paradise Lost (and don't lose yourself in the gorgeous rhetoric), you see the truth. Lewis lays this out very clearly with constant reference to the text, and he's not talking through his hat.
Of course, most people IMHO don't go to Paradise Lost with the intention of straining their brains, and with such splendid poetry, it's easy to get carried away and just accept what is, at bottom, bullshit.
D. L. Sayers faced the same difficulty with her Satan character and agrees with Lewis about Milton, IIRC.
Those who've mentioned John Wyndham reminded me of John Christopher, whose "Tripods" trilogy I spent one entire Christmas day reading as a child. I also remember children's sci-fi author Nicholas Fisk, whose "A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair" became a minor obsession with me.
Lewis has a whole book on Paradise Lost (A Preface to Paradise Lost) where he argues that Milton knew exactly what he was doing when he made the devil such an attractive character, and that those who argue Milton was of the devil's party (knowingly or unknowingly) are falling for the devil's rhetoric and not picking up on the clues the poet has left them. After reading it, I agree with him.
Wish I had read this before my A-levels. I can still remember having to do an essay on that very topic!
I also remember children's sci-fi author Nicholas Fisk, whose "A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair" became a minor obsession with me.
I discovered 'Grinny' at a children's camp. The illustration on the front cover gave me nightmares but I really enjoyed the book!
Mention of Vice Versa reminds me of a television version with Peter Bowles. And of course the original book of Freaky Friday by Mary Rogers, which was a favourite book of mine as a child.
I think Milton's problem isn't so much that his Satan is too attractive, but that his God is too much not. It was probably not a good idea to put his main defence of God's conduct in God's own mouth, and still less of a good idea to make it the substance of God's first speech. However much one intellectually understands the argument, one cannot warm to a character if the first thing they say is "it's not my fault".
I don't know if Mark Twain has been mentioned so far on this thread, but does anyone still read him?
Me! Not that I represent all humanity, but I have been gazing at my copy of "The Innocents Abroad" and thinking that I need to re-read it. It is a delight!
Lewis has a whole book on Paradise Lost (A Preface to Paradise Lost) where he argues that Milton knew exactly what he was doing when he made the devil such an attractive character, and that those who argue Milton was of the devil's party (knowingly or unknowingly) are falling for the devil's rhetoric and not picking up on the clues the poet has left them. After reading it, I agree with him.
Wish I had read this before my A-levels. I can still remember having to do an essay on that very topic!
I think Milton's problem isn't so much that his Satan is too attractive, but that his God is too much not. It was probably not a good idea to put his main defence of God's conduct in God's own mouth, and still less of a good idea to make it the substance of God's first speech. However much one intellectually understands the argument, one cannot warm to a character if the first thing they say is "it's not my fault".
You're so right. I can't stand Milton's God. I have all sorts of uncharitable speculations on why his God is so unattractive.
I thought Lewis made a pretty good case but I wouldn't agree with him on all points.
Although it's many years since I read him on it.
If Milton's God the Father is unattractive then his Jesus is even worse.
As for the Holy Spirit ... does he even get a look in?
Still, what should we expect from an Arian at worst, a Binitarian at best ... 😉
Great poetry but wonky theology.
Still, you have to admire the chutzpah of someone who set out to 'justify the ways of God to man.'
Certainly not lacking in ambition.
We have a running joke in my poetry group, 'Milton was wrong!'
So declared a chap who thinks that all poems must rhyme.
When it was pointed out to him that Paradise Lost doesn't rhyme - and the reasons Milton gave for that - he pronounced, 'Then Milton was wrong ...'
Milton was wrong about a lot of things. He was expecting the English Commonwealth to join forces with Protestant Europe, oust the Pope and usher in the reign of Christ.
The Restoration of the Monarchy put the kibosh on that.
I think those who see Paradise Lost as a thinly veiled political allegory with Satan as the heroic rebel Cromwell are being far too literal but I wouldn't be surprised if elements of it came from that shock to Milton's system and worldview.
To me the interesting thing about Kipling is that these imperial paens - which are really front and centre; he often says explicitly that he is doing this - are at odds with something else which is also going on. So in "Jungle Book" the "official" Kipling line is that Mowgli, being a human, is intrinsically superior to the animals; he is able to impose his will and it is his right to do so. But actually the focus is often elsewhere - the wisdom and tolerance of Baloo - the loyalty of the wolves who take Mowgli in - the rules under which the Jungle operates. And this "something else" is what makes the stories attractive.
I think there is a similar tension in nearly all Kipling. For example in McAndrew's Hymn the eponymous Scots engineer is strongly in favour of Calvinism and steam engines. But there is an extraordinary section in the midst of the poem where he finds himself almost persuaded by a pantheistic nature mysticism... but then he rejects this as a cunning temptation... and Kipling "officially" agrees with him, but one gets the idea that Kipling could surely not have written the "temptation" so powerfully without being "tempted" in this way himself....
It is quite true that Kipling is a jingo imperialist, perhaps even by the standards of his age. But he is aware that there could be a different way of looking at things, and I think he has an underlying yearning to escape from his official pith helmet.
Yes, you're right about the complexity, I recall reading some eerie lines in Puck of Pook's Hill and wondering about Freemason symbolism in The Man who Would Be King, something subversive at moments.
There's another issue I'd forgotten: that Kipling changed as a writer after losing his son John in WWI. He lost much of his patriotic enthusiasm, was described by friends as haunted and bitter, preoccupied with the Imperial War Graves Commission, deeply critical of British military bungling in trench warfare. Because he had spent time in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer war ( he was a close friend of Rhodes, Rider Haggard and John Buchan), he was aware of British ineptitude on the veld and that the military had not learned anything from fighting the Boers.
The Kipling who won the Nobel prize in 1907 and who had written the heroic poem If was not the same older Kipling who wrote "If any question why we died / Tell them, because our fathers lied" after the First World War.
Although it's notorious that good characters are difficult to portray, and the baddies have all the fun. I'm thinking of Henry Fonda in that terrific Western, although Fonda was good at being good.
<snip>There's another issue I'd forgotten: that Kipling changed as a writer after losing his son John in WWI. He lost much of his patriotic enthusiasm, <snip>
His situation was made worse by the wet he’d had to pull strings and call in favours to enable his short-sighted son to enlist.
His patriotic enthusiasm was not uncritical, and there was quite a ‘patriotic’ backlash to his poem Recessional written for the diamond jubilee.
Yes, Kipling did undergo something of a change but I think that can be exaggerated at times.
But he was certainly a 'sadder and a wiser man' later on.
I don’t hold any brief for Freemasonry but to its credit it could have an inclusive effect in places like British India with its caste system compounded by imperialist snobbery.
Regarding Paradise Lost: Overly Sarcastic Productions has a humorous summary on YouTube which mostly agrees with this thread's posts (though it does boil down one section to "Daddy Issues").
Do people remember Isaac Asimov? I was reading his books in the 70s. Mostly the Foundation series. I also read I, Robot and on looking it up was surprised to find it was published in 1950.
There's been a TV series of Foundation quite recently, and a film of I, Robot.
He's not the foundational SF writer that he used to be, though, and his reputation was tarnished when it became common knowledge that he was a horny old goat with young female SF fans at conventions.
Unimaginative about female roles in his earlier fiction, perhaps, but "misogynistic" is a little strong. Bayta Darrell from the original Foundation series is an iconic character, as is Bliss in the sequel novels. Do you remember any specific examples?
I don't know if Mark Twain has been mentioned so far on this thread, but does anyone still read him?
Me! Not that I represent all humanity, but I have been gazing at my copy of "The Innocents Abroad" and thinking that I need to re-read it. It is a delight!
I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for the first time earlier this year. A masterpiece. And at least once a year I re-read Twain’s novella The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg. It was written late in Twain’s career and displays his curdled view of human nature. I think it is really funny and a spot-on look at the hypocrisy and greed that can be found even in the “nicest” people.
A few names from my list of “does anyone still read …?”:
Taylor Caldwell (potboiler historical novels; some about Biblical figures which I loved as a teenager but, ahem, have not aged well.)
Leon Uris (potboiler historical novels which I loved as a teenager about WWII, the Holocaust, and the creation of Israel with larger-than-life male protagonists that Uris clearly saw as wish fulfillment. They too have not aged well.)
Sergeanne Golon (husband and wife team who wrote a slew of bodice-ripping historical novels about Angelique, a rather Zelig-like character who interacts with notables in 17th century France and “new world” Canada while being ravished by seemingly every man she meets. Again, these do not bear re-reading.)
Lois Lenski (writer/illustrator of children’s books set in different regions of the US. I loved these as a girl and still re-read them.)
The Peterkin Papers by Lucretia Peabody Hale. This came out in 1880 and is about an eccentric family who get rescued from their hare-brained ideas by the common sense of the Lady from Philadelphia. This is a children’s book which was OLD when I read it in the early 1960s. I still like it.
The great humorist SJ Perelman wrote a series of hilarious essays entitled “Cloudland Revisited.” He went back and reread popular novels and re-watched popular movies he had loved as a teenager. His plot descriptions are priceless, and the essays show that fortunately, our taste does evolve with age. (Usually.) These can be found in an omnibus collection of his humorous essays entitled The Most of SJ Perelman. I’m not sure if anyone else reads SJ Perelman these days, but this is one of my desert island books.
I first ran into Asimov around the age of 8 at the Children's branch of the local library. The first book of his I read was a non-fiction book on the elements. I alternatively spent months reading mysteries followed by months of science fiction there. The mysteries had a skull on the binding while the science fiction had an atom and a rocket. That library was my refuge.
I only started reading Asimov a few years ago. In many ways the Robot stories were ahead of their time; the issues of the self-driving car, the robot that collects all the data and gives you the misleading answer that it has calculated will please you (as happens with AI), etc.
I enjoyed S.J. Perelman when I was in junior high/high school and found The Most Of in the school library. I still remember:“With a blow she sent me groveling. I returned half an hour later with a basket of freshly-picked grovels.” 🤣
I’ve read some Asimov back in the day, especially his short stories, but I never really got into some of his longer science fiction that relied on what appears to be atheistic materialism, without free will, as a basic plot point.
One thing I find striking about Kipling is that while he believed that white men had the right to rule over others, he had nothing but contempt for white men who couldn't be bothered to understand the people they ruled over.
When I was in high school we had to keep a reading diary, that our parents signed off each week. I began to run out of things to read in the school library, so Dad got me onto some Asimov short stories which I really enjoyed. I'm not a super sci-fi fan, but they came at a good time in my life. I'm not really across who would be good science fiction writers to read now.
Thinking of science fiction, I'm reminded that there was a whole load of stuff that tended to be marketed as "feminist" science fiction: Suzette Haden Elgin, Joan Slonczewski, and so on?
To continue the tangent, I don't really "do" short stories (although Asimov was definitely at his best in them (IMHO)), but I've heard good things about Ted Chiang's Exhalation, if you're looking for stuff from the last decade...
My personal favourite is First Lady, my 30 days upstairs in the White House by Martha Dinwiddie Butterfield as told to Patrick Dennis. I've still got a copy from my parents' bookshelf!
I have meant to come back to this thread and keep getting distracted!! I loved Little Me and I think my sister might have kept the family copy. Dennis did have knack for storytelling!
Unimaginative about female roles in his earlier fiction, perhaps, but "misogynistic" is a little strong. Bayta Darrell from the original Foundation series is an iconic character, as is Bliss in the sequel novels. Do you remember any specific examples?
At the risk of being un-Heavenly, you don't have the right to tell me what I think is misogynistic.
I haven't read Asimov for years, but I do remember the misogyny was most obvious in his detective stories. It wasn't so clear in the Foundation trilogy because there were very few female characters. I am not going to reread books I didn't particularly enjoy, just to give more specific examples.
The real ‘Miss Read,’ lived near us and her husband taught in one of the local schools.
Has Elinor Brent-Dyer had a mention yet? I still have most of my (sadly abridged) Armada editions of her Chalet School
novels . Does anybody here renember a ‘let’s believe’-type thread on the old Ship with a distinct school story vibe to it? I remember Rowen (R.I.P) was especially good in this.🙂
I love the Chalet School books. I was really happy when I found more or less the whole series in the stacks of one the libraries I worked on. When I left one job I was given a copy of the fan-fiction book 'The Chalet School Librarian' which I really loved having been a school librarian for most of my career.
You might enjoy this episode of the Shedunnit podcast podcast about school series, and Chalet school in particular.
Apologies, the first link is the episode on school series, this episode is a crossover episode focused exclusively on the Chalet school series - with a focus on the ideas of health portrayed in the series.
The Chalet School books inspired me to study languages. Totally unrealistic of course, but when you're suffering through secondary school you want escapist literature about schools, not gritty realism. I still have my collection, although it's not complete.
Comments
That's quite an interesting parallel. I mean, as CS Lewis reminds us, it would be a mistake to think that the surface meaning isn't important. Milton really does think that Satan is an evil lying rebel, just as Kipling really does think white men should rule over subject peoples. But whether intentionally or not, some other messages are coming through at the same time.
My italics.
Meanwhile, I remember a film based on the Don Camillo stories when I was a kid. Must read them.
I don't know if Mark Twain has been mentioned so far on this thread, but does anyone still read him?
It goes more or less like this: If you are going to have the devil (as presented in Scripture) as a character in your work, he must be attractive, and what he says must be a) false and b) very, very convincing. Otherwise you aren't doing justice to the character. But at the same time you've got the problem of signalling to your reader that this character is in fact not to be trusted. Getting the balance right is not easy, and for Milton in particular this is difficult, as his verse is purely splendid no matter what he's writing about. But if you pay attention to the actual facts presented in Paradise Lost (and don't lose yourself in the gorgeous rhetoric), you see the truth. Lewis lays this out very clearly with constant reference to the text, and he's not talking through his hat.
Of course, most people IMHO don't go to Paradise Lost with the intention of straining their brains, and with such splendid poetry, it's easy to get carried away and just accept what is, at bottom, bullshit.
D. L. Sayers faced the same difficulty with her Satan character and agrees with Lewis about Milton, IIRC.
Wish I had read this before my A-levels. I can still remember having to do an essay on that very topic!
I discovered 'Grinny' at a children's camp. The illustration on the front cover gave me nightmares but I really enjoyed the book!
Mention of Vice Versa reminds me of a television version with Peter Bowles. And of course the original book of Freaky Friday by Mary Rogers, which was a favourite book of mine as a child.
It’s still very much worth reading now! ❤️
You're so right. I can't stand Milton's God. I have all sorts of uncharitable speculations on why his God is so unattractive.
I remember seeing, years ago, a film or TV series
Although it's many years since I read him on it.
If Milton's God the Father is unattractive then his Jesus is even worse.
As for the Holy Spirit ... does he even get a look in?
Still, what should we expect from an Arian at worst, a Binitarian at best ... 😉
Great poetry but wonky theology.
Still, you have to admire the chutzpah of someone who set out to 'justify the ways of God to man.'
Certainly not lacking in ambition.
We have a running joke in my poetry group, 'Milton was wrong!'
So declared a chap who thinks that all poems must rhyme.
When it was pointed out to him that Paradise Lost doesn't rhyme - and the reasons Milton gave for that - he pronounced, 'Then Milton was wrong ...'
Milton was wrong about a lot of things. He was expecting the English Commonwealth to join forces with Protestant Europe, oust the Pope and usher in the reign of Christ.
The Restoration of the Monarchy put the kibosh on that.
I think those who see Paradise Lost as a thinly veiled political allegory with Satan as the heroic rebel Cromwell are being far too literal but I wouldn't be surprised if elements of it came from that shock to Milton's system and worldview.
Yes, you're right about the complexity, I recall reading some eerie lines in Puck of Pook's Hill and wondering about Freemason symbolism in The Man who Would Be King, something subversive at moments.
There's another issue I'd forgotten: that Kipling changed as a writer after losing his son John in WWI. He lost much of his patriotic enthusiasm, was described by friends as haunted and bitter, preoccupied with the Imperial War Graves Commission, deeply critical of British military bungling in trench warfare. Because he had spent time in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer war ( he was a close friend of Rhodes, Rider Haggard and John Buchan), he was aware of British ineptitude on the veld and that the military had not learned anything from fighting the Boers.
The Kipling who won the Nobel prize in 1907 and who had written the heroic poem If was not the same older Kipling who wrote "If any question why we died / Tell them, because our fathers lied" after the First World War.
Sorry, I'll see myself out ......
A reflection, alas, of the puritan mindset and the society they sought to create (think 'Taliban').
Re another thread, don't you mean 'Once upon a Time in a Vest'?
His patriotic enthusiasm was not uncritical, and there was quite a ‘patriotic’ backlash to his poem Recessional written for the diamond jubilee.
But he was certainly a 'sadder and a wiser man' later on.
I don’t hold any brief for Freemasonry but to its credit it could have an inclusive effect in places like British India with its caste system compounded by imperialist snobbery.
Kipling was a keen Freemason of course.
https://youtu.be/-NMDtsPgfD0?si=HvfCIj6truZ-neLh
He's not the foundational SF writer that he used to be, though, and his reputation was tarnished when it became common knowledge that he was a horny old goat with young female SF fans at conventions.
I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for the first time earlier this year. A masterpiece. And at least once a year I re-read Twain’s novella The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg. It was written late in Twain’s career and displays his curdled view of human nature. I think it is really funny and a spot-on look at the hypocrisy and greed that can be found even in the “nicest” people.
A few names from my list of “does anyone still read …?”:
Taylor Caldwell (potboiler historical novels; some about Biblical figures which I loved as a teenager but, ahem, have not aged well.)
Leon Uris (potboiler historical novels which I loved as a teenager about WWII, the Holocaust, and the creation of Israel with larger-than-life male protagonists that Uris clearly saw as wish fulfillment. They too have not aged well.)
Sergeanne Golon (husband and wife team who wrote a slew of bodice-ripping historical novels about Angelique, a rather Zelig-like character who interacts with notables in 17th century France and “new world” Canada while being ravished by seemingly every man she meets. Again, these do not bear re-reading.)
Lois Lenski (writer/illustrator of children’s books set in different regions of the US. I loved these as a girl and still re-read them.)
The Peterkin Papers by Lucretia Peabody Hale. This came out in 1880 and is about an eccentric family who get rescued from their hare-brained ideas by the common sense of the Lady from Philadelphia. This is a children’s book which was OLD when I read it in the early 1960s. I still like it.
The great humorist SJ Perelman wrote a series of hilarious essays entitled “Cloudland Revisited.” He went back and reread popular novels and re-watched popular movies he had loved as a teenager. His plot descriptions are priceless, and the essays show that fortunately, our taste does evolve with age. (Usually.) These can be found in an omnibus collection of his humorous essays entitled The Most of SJ Perelman. I’m not sure if anyone else reads SJ Perelman these days, but this is one of my desert island books.
I’ve read some Asimov back in the day, especially his short stories, but I never really got into some of his longer science fiction that relied on what appears to be atheistic materialism, without free will, as a basic plot point.
An author that just came to mind is Patrick Dennis, writer of Auntie Mame, does anyone here remember him?
To continue the tangent, I don't really "do" short stories (although Asimov was definitely at his best in them (IMHO)), but I've heard good things about Ted Chiang's Exhalation, if you're looking for stuff from the last decade...
Of course! Though I think of the movie and musical more than the books… Mame is also a gay icon! ❤️
Like you, @Sojourner, I was totally innocent!!
At the risk of being un-Heavenly, you don't have the right to tell me what I think is misogynistic.
I haven't read Asimov for years, but I do remember the misogyny was most obvious in his detective stories. It wasn't so clear in the Foundation trilogy because there were very few female characters. I am not going to reread books I didn't particularly enjoy, just to give more specific examples.
Has Elinor Brent-Dyer had a mention yet? I still have most of my (sadly abridged) Armada editions of her Chalet School
novels . Does anybody here renember a ‘let’s believe’-type thread on the old Ship with a distinct school story vibe to it? I remember Rowen (R.I.P) was especially good in this.🙂
Does anyone read Hitch hikers Guide to the Galaxy?
Our grandson Is fascinated by the Romans and has become a fan of Asterix
https://ggbp.co.uk/
Apologies, the first link is the episode on school series, this episode is a crossover episode focused exclusively on the Chalet school series - with a focus on the ideas of health portrayed in the series.