[CLUE-Talk] Tolkien and allegory

[Dennis J Perkins]

Jed S. Baer wrote:

>On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 14:42:33 -0700
>Dennis J Perkins <djperkins at americanisp.net> wrote:
>
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>>I'm not a believer in literary analysis and avoided literature classes 
>>in high school and college whenever possible.  The purpose of most 
>>stories is simple... tell an entertaining story.  Good stories have real
>>plots to hold our attention.  They do not require analysis to understand
>>them, altho some people might enjoy analyzing them.  And trying to apply
>>analysis to stories from another era or culture is bound to produce 
>>ludicrous results.
>>
>>I remember Asimov's autobiography saying that someone once told Asimov 
>>what he meant in one of his stories..  The guy justified it by saying, 
>>how would Asimov know what he meant?
>>    
>>
>
>I'm reminded of the movie "Back to School" (Rodney Dangerfield), where
>Dangerfield's character hires Kurt Vonnegut to write a book review (term
>paper?) for him (of one of Vonnegut's books). The paper gets and F or a D,
>with the professor (Sally Kellerman) saying it was the worst analysis of
>Vonnegut she'd ever read.
>
>jed
>
My college roommate had his grade go from an A to a C because the 
university changed instructors midway thru the quarter.

I remember watching 2001 as an assignment and the instructors saying 
that Kubrick was trying to say that our technology was out of control. 
 Considering that Arthur C. Clarke wrote the screenplay and was involved 
with Kubrick in making the movie, I find that doubtful.  And 2010 
attributed Hal's breakdown to conflicting programming, not as a message 
that technology is out of control.

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