It Seems Tolkieno-Phobes Like to Pester Me

Q

Did Harold Bloom ever express any negative opinions about the Narnia novels?
https://www.quora.com/Did-Harold-Bloom-ever-express-any-negative-opinions-about-the-Narnia-novels/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

avid reader back when I had better sleep than now

13.XI.2024

It seems he did.[1]

It seems significant in this regard that, in the same chapter of Agon in which he reviews his own novel, Bloom holds up Lindsay as a counter to the fantasy writers known collectively as the Inklings: J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. With his trademark portentousness, Bloom announces that Lindsay’s The Voyage to Arcturus is

at the very center of modern fantasy, in contrast to the works of the Neochristian Inklings which despite all their popularity are quite peripheral. Tolkien, Lewis and Williams actually flatter the reader’s Narcissism, while morally softening the reader’s Promethianism. Lindsay strenuously assaults the reader’s Narcissism, while both hardening the reader’s Promethianism and yet reminding the reader that Narcissism and Promethianism verge upon an identity. Inkling fantasy is soft stuff, because it pretends that it benefits from a benign transmission both of romance tradition and of Christian doctrine. Lindsay’s savage masterpiece compels the reader to question both the sources of fantasy, within the reader, and the benignity of the handing-on of tradition.

As Bloom never clearly defines “Narcissism” or “Promethianism,” nor explains his assertions by offering examples from any of the authors concerned, it is not entirely clear what he means here. Evacuated of its gassiness, his argument amounts to a preference for romantic rebellion to religious tradition.

I happen to neither approve of the disparaging views of “Narcissism” (we are clearly dealing with Mozart / Elvis style Narcissism if any and not toxic narcissism of extreme dominance) nor of the praise of Prometheus.

I also do not approve of questioning the benignity of handing-on of tradition, unless it happens to be a false tradition. I e a non-Catholic one.

I’ll probably NOT become a reader of Harold Bloom.

And, by the way, Inklings aren’t Neo-Christian, they are Christian, and I hold no allegiance to “modern fantasy”, I love Inklings and a few more, like Lloyd Alexander and (with reservations) Astrid Lindgren.

Anyone who wishes to reeducate my tastes or positions or psychic make-up from Inkling to Lindsay or to Bloom is, as far as I am concerned, my enemy.

Footnotes

[1] Harold Bloom: Anti-Inkling? - Jewish Review of Books