Reviews for Past watchful dragons

The average rating for Past watchful dragons based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-09-12 00:00:00 Richard Spiering Hooper too clearly is not only a Christian but almost idolatrous in his regard for Lewis, to the point where he interprets Aslan not as a fictional interpretation of Jesus but as a spot-on portrayal. Hooper never sees that unjust and cruel things take place in Narnia without the help of the villains; he draws a parallel between Edmund Pevensie and Judas Iscariot without noting that Edmund's "treachery" took place after a boy of ten had been fed magical candy which caused anyone who ate it to do anything for, if there was a chance of just one more taste. He keeps talking about how sublime and beautiful The Last Battle is, when I know for a fact that that is the book which angers more readers than any other, what with its mistreatment of Susan Pevensie and Lewis deciding that the end of the world made for the happiest possible ending. Moreover, Hooper keeps saying things like, "How can we help but love X?" without bothering to consider that some people might indeed find X unappealing, undesirable and, yes, unlovable. The one interesting thing in the book was the "Lefay Fragment," an early opening to what later became The Magician's Nephew in which Polly Plummer's actions and words cause Digory Kirke to cut a branch off of a Talking Oak in his aunt's garden and lose the ability to understand the speech of plants, animals and birds. A woman in a garden tempting a man to do something that he knows he shouldn't do which will damage him spiritually. *snort* How original. Honestly, the best part was of Mrs. Lefay, Digory's godmother, who seems both clever and insightful. But that really wasn't enough to compensate for Hooper's lack of critical thinking and lack of objective analysis. This was basically a set of essays by a fanboy who did not even think of writing critically about his friend's work; his focus was on praising his friend's skill while disregarding the idea that flaws even existed.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-06-01 00:00:00 James Mahoney Hooper gives some interesting personal antidotes (he was Lewis' secretary), but as a whole, I knew much of this already (Lewis' thoughts on mythology, not reading Lewis as allegory, etc.).