Felt like most of the book was just retelling the storyline of each of the Chronicles without adding very much so it felt like you might as well just Felt like most of the book was just retelling the storyline of each of the Chronicles without adding very much so it felt like you might as well just read the books. ...more
An extremely enjoyable read! Makes you want to go read a good fairy story (though Tolkien is quite particular on what qualifies as such). His four catAn extremely enjoyable read! Makes you want to go read a good fairy story (though Tolkien is quite particular on what qualifies as such). His four categories of Fantasy, Recovery, Escape, and Consolation were very compelling and really helpful in encouraging more openness to reading more varied genres and how to read them, and even write them, well.
“The Gospel contains a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories… The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe (good catastrophe) of Man’s story. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends with joy.”
“The Christian has still to work…but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. So great is the bounty with which he has been treated that he may now, perhaps, fairly dare to guess that in Fantasy he may actually assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation.”...more
Really enjoyed the book! Mainly gave 4 instead of 5 stars because he gets a bit repetitive. But his overall premise is great and his diagnoses of the Really enjoyed the book! Mainly gave 4 instead of 5 stars because he gets a bit repetitive. But his overall premise is great and his diagnoses of the modern Ache is especially gripping. The modern man is full of longing, disenchantment, and skepticism and needs the fulfillment found in the enchanted faith of Christianity. From Tolkien to St. Patrick, he gives some great historic and practical examples of ways to recover the enchantment of our faith that are very compelling. I also greatly appreciated how charitable he is to various other denominations and gleans from them their practices of enchantment.
“Faith is a romance, a meeting with, in the words of Dante, ‘the Love that moves the sun and the other stars’…These ‘strange sights’ are not flights of fantasy or wishful thinking. They are the most reality-filled moments of our lives…”
Great book on imagination, specifically in its role for Christian living and rightly viewing the world. Helpful in distinguishing misunderstandings ofGreat book on imagination, specifically in its role for Christian living and rightly viewing the world. Helpful in distinguishing misunderstandings of imagination in the modern world and Ballard also unpacks the beauty of imagination as part of being in the image of God. “We should strive to live appropriately in reality as it exists by imagining it regularly and robustly in light of God’s Word.” ...more
Very helpful and interesting book from a more historic/philosophical perspective on magic in an age of science. He lays out four theories of magic, twVery helpful and interesting book from a more historic/philosophical perspective on magic in an age of science. He lays out four theories of magic, two historic and two modern and unpacks the implications of all four and follows them to their logical end.
According to Tyson, no all poets are not liars! Rather they “imaginatively articulate things that, in some manner, are really there”, those magical truths “beyond the ken of science”. ...more
Loved this book! Absolutely beautiful understanding of the imagination and its use for the Christian in explaining, coloring, and reviving familiar trLoved this book! Absolutely beautiful understanding of the imagination and its use for the Christian in explaining, coloring, and reviving familiar truths.
“The artist/poet makes a home in which [a] glimpse can root and grow, be found again and again, made knowable and available to us. We have that experience constantly in returning to poems, paintings, and sculptures which keep giving more than they have, flowing with new life on each visit…All great art is a bridge with one foot in the world of comprehension, the visible, the earth, and one in the realm of apprehension, the invisible, heaven.”
“…poetic imagination is not about lulling us, distracting us, or compensating with fantasy for the grim reality of the world, but rather: ‘awakening the mind’s attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and wonders of the world’…”...more