i think all quiet on the western front and the lord of the rings are in direct conversation with each other, as in theyre the retelling of the same war with one saying here’s what happened, we all died, and it did not matter at all and another going hush little boy, of course we won, of course your friends came back
someone should remake lord of the rings as a grandfather telling a fantasy story to his grand child with flashbacks to world war one showing the dead boys and men the characters were based on. grandpa why didn’t they just fly. because they didn’t. they didn’t.
i’m fine
I will never get over how Tolkien & Lewis took the horrors of war and spun them into fantasy.
Shivering in the trenches dreaming of cozy hobbit holes, shaking as bombs pockmark a forest and imagining each shallow mud-filled crater contains a new world—that maybe there are still as many beautiful things in the universe as there are bombs—that maybe the world is bigger than this moment and this ugliness and one day this will be a peaceful forest again full of small ponds.
I mean look at these photos of the shell craters in Sanctuary Woods, near Ypres Belgium and tell me it’s not the Wood Between The Worlds:
grandpa why didn’t they just fly. because they didn’t. they didn’t.
You get your wings only after its all over
And if every human being had an entire world inside them, and many human beings sheltered in those shell craters, and sometimes died there…
Can we talk about how descending into one of them leads to a dying world? And descending into one of them leads to a world being born? How maybe when you die you go into another world full of life? And maybe if you lived you felt a new world when you got to go home? But maybe you also saw the decay and corruption that had led the entire world into this conflict. And it wasn’t fixed by your sacrifice. It wasn’t fixed.
Because the Narnia books take place in another war that comes later. And if the end of the First War had been handled differently by those with power, we might not have had that second one.
Because it is greatly a question of greed and power for the wealthy. And the young men, the poor men, are the ones who actually suffer. The Magician’s Nephew is a good allegory for all of this. It has the uncle who sends children into the unknown for his own gain. It has the bravery and honor of those children. It has true evil in the witch that attaches herself to them on their travels.
The uncle is also clearly a representative of a group that cannot see the miracle of a new world being born, and only sees the money to be made there. (Colonialists, anyone?)
And the witch is what? The evil that spreads out and cannot be held off once it is in the world? Shell shock, that causes soldiers to bring violence into their own families?
hardcover or paperback? bookstore or library? bookmark or receipt? stand alone or series? nonfiction or fiction? thriller or fantasy? under 300 pages or over 300 pages? children’s or ya? friends to lovers or enemies to lovers? read in bed or read on the couch? read at night or read in the morning? keep pristine or markup? cracked spine or dog ear?
Anyway, here’s a link to the actual artist’s instagram page. And a link to the merch shop where you can get this on a t-shirt. In case you wanted to credit and/or support the original artist.
