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stefanie_beanI just finished re-watching seasons 4, 5, and 6 of LOST, and am digesting it right now, so don't have too many written thoughts about it. For my visual impressions, though, see my newest tumblr Lostpiration. (To get a quick snapshot of everything so far, see the Archive.) It's a "pictionary" of art collected around various LOST themes.
Talking with someone today about LOST led me to draw up a kind of "apostolic succession" of English-language popular fantasy, but not focusing on horror or "gothic." They're best described as what T.S. Eliot called "supernatural thrillers," "because they explore the sacramental intersection of the physical with the spiritual while also examining the ways in which power, even spiritual power, can corrupt as well as sanctify." (link.) An admittedly-incomplete list follows:
Some of the earliest are:
George MacDonald's 1858 Phantastes and Lilith (1895)
G.K. Chesterton's 1908 The Man Who Was Thursday
Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows (1908)
David Lindsay (1920) A Voyage to Arcturus (sounds sci-fi, but has strong mystical elements; CS Lewis claimed it influenced his Screwtape Letters.)
Somewhat later we have the more familiar ones:
The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (written 1937-1949)
Charles Williams: War in Heaven (1930); The Greater Trumps (1932); Descent into Hell (1937)
William Golding's Lord of the Flies (1954)
CS Lewis: The Space Trilogy (1938-1945); Chronicles of Narnia (1950-1956)
As we move into the modern era, things get a little darker:
Richard Adams, Watership Down (1972)
Stephen King's The Stand (1978)
John Crowley's Little, Big (1981)
I think LOST deserves a place on this list, and will still be watched decades from now.
Talking with someone today about LOST led me to draw up a kind of "apostolic succession" of English-language popular fantasy, but not focusing on horror or "gothic." They're best described as what T.S. Eliot called "supernatural thrillers," "because they explore the sacramental intersection of the physical with the spiritual while also examining the ways in which power, even spiritual power, can corrupt as well as sanctify." (link.) An admittedly-incomplete list follows:
Some of the earliest are:
George MacDonald's 1858 Phantastes and Lilith (1895)
G.K. Chesterton's 1908 The Man Who Was Thursday
Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows (1908)
David Lindsay (1920) A Voyage to Arcturus (sounds sci-fi, but has strong mystical elements; CS Lewis claimed it influenced his Screwtape Letters.)
Somewhat later we have the more familiar ones:
The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (written 1937-1949)
Charles Williams: War in Heaven (1930); The Greater Trumps (1932); Descent into Hell (1937)
William Golding's Lord of the Flies (1954)
CS Lewis: The Space Trilogy (1938-1945); Chronicles of Narnia (1950-1956)
As we move into the modern era, things get a little darker:
Richard Adams, Watership Down (1972)
Stephen King's The Stand (1978)
John Crowley's Little, Big (1981)
I think LOST deserves a place on this list, and will still be watched decades from now.