The fashionable substitute for belief

Acrylic-bob · 04-09-2005, 12:07

I was a little perplexed to read the other day that St. Bartholomews Church in Snuffy Errod held a flower festival last week.

Nothing strange in that, I hear you say, and ordinarily I would agree with you. Were it not for the fact that among the Aisle displays of horticultural dexterity which interpreted the works of C.S.Lewis (Narnia) Paul Bunyan (Pilgrims Progress) and Dickens (Christmas Carol) was an entry celebrating the work of that well known son of the church Oscar Wilde.

Yes, that's right, the same chap who was condemned to two years imprisonment with hard labour for having the temerity to be honest in public about his emotions. The same chap who was, no doubt, condemned from the pulpit in the very same church where this tribute stood. How times change

Two films, A west end Musical and more biographies than you can shake a stick at, every word still in print a century after your death. Pace Oscar, you will never be forgotten.

SPUGGIE J · 04-09-2005, 12:28

Mabe society is like the humble daisy opening and closing depending on the season light and warmth. We came out of the dark into the light but soon could be back in the dark again.

Acrylic-bob · 04-09-2005, 12:47

Maybe, Spuggie, Maybe. But not if I have anything to do with it!

garinda · 04-09-2005, 13:12

Oscar Wilde was his own worst enemy. If he hadn't taken the bait and took the Marquis of Queensberry to court for leaving a note at his club, which was addressed to Oscar Wilde posing as a sodomite [sic], he would have been able to carry on with his life untouched and feted by a society that worshipped success. The same couldn't be said for the ordinary people who had a similar orientation but who were regularly gaoled, and before that hung for the same 'crime'.

Was the display made up of green carnations?

Acrylic-bob · 04-09-2005, 14:12

I don't honestly know, I only read about it. But it would be nice to think that it was.

WillowTheWhisp · 04-09-2005, 14:13

Oscar Wilde wrote some really beautiful stories. I dare bet there are many people who love the stories and haven't a clue about the life of the man who wrote them in spite of films, biographies and a West End musical. The depths of ignorance in the general public never ceases to amaze me. There are people out there who actually confuse him with George Bernard Shaw!

Just a thought off on a tangent here - if a murderer wrote a wonderful children's story would the fact of his crime diminish the quality of the tale?

Acrylic-bob · 04-09-2005, 14:16

Interesting dilemma. But wasn't there a case in the papers recently that touched on this very subject???

garinda · 04-09-2005, 14:30

Lewis Carrol was a man of dubious morals, but it doesn't diminish from his skill as a writer of great children's books.

WillowTheWhisp · 04-09-2005, 14:38

I now have to admit my ignorance that I don't actually know a thing about Lewis Carrol but I do love the Narnia stories.

garinda · 04-09-2005, 22:44

Apparently his interest in Alice Liddell, the model for Alice through the Looking Glass, was rather a strange one, and so were the photographs he took of her posed semi naked.

vorlon24 · 05-09-2005, 15:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by WillowTheWhisp

if a murderer wrote a wonderful children's story would the fact of his crime diminish the quality of the tale?

Of course not - Jonathan King wrote some good songs and Gary Glitter was popular as well. The fact that they are both disgusting perverts doesn't detract from the contributions they made to music, but I bet they don't sell much of it any more

WillowTheWhisp · 05-09-2005, 16:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by garinda

Apparently his interest in Alice Liddle, the model for Alice through the Looking Glass, was rather a strange one, and so were the photographs he took of her posed semi naked.

Now I'm intrigued. What was his reasoning behind the photos?

garinda · 05-09-2005, 16:16

No one knows. They are quite ethereal, but by today's way of thinking rather odd to say the least.

Acrylic-bob · 05-09-2005, 18:10

Lewis Carrol was certainly an oddity. His relationship with the Liddel Family was equally odd. This much was recognised by Mrs Liddel who actually forbade Dodgson (Carrol) from seing her daughters, though this was after the publication of Alice in Wonderland. To know what Mrs Liddel made of Dodgsons behaviour, one would have to think like a Victorian upper middle-class matron.

The Victorian moral landscape is complex and often contradictory. What was unacceptable in public was often de-riguer in private life and their attitudes towards the expression of both sexuality and the emotions was so far removed from what we now expect as the norm as to make analysis and understanding nigh on impossible. Similarly their attitude towards, and the values they placed on, children was often shockingly different to to our own.

Did Dodgson harbour peadophilliac fantasies about Alice? Did he ever act out those fantasies? We will probably never know, since his neice edited and excised large portions of his diaries after his death.

WillowTheWhisp · 05-09-2005, 19:42

Just before I had to leave I was reading something online from the TLS and had a link all ready to post but then we were ready to go so I never got round to it! Check it out here

I had just finished reading the interesting fact that in those days a girl of 12 was considered to be of marriagable age.

Have you actually seen the photos Rindy?