Harry Potter
and the Fairy Queen
Lest the incautious reader gain the impression from yesterday’s entry “The Real Hogwarts” that Christianity is anything other than a pack of damned lies, or that the phrase “oasis of civilisation” I used yesterday was meant otherwise than with tongue in cheek, I would like to nominate a well-known professional Christian liar as Queen of the Fairies this Midsummer Eve.
The reader is referred to
The Good Book:
Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart,
by the Rev. Peter Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard and pastor of that institution’s Memorial Church.
The Rev. Gomes, an acknowledged homosexual, gave a commencement address recently wearing a gorgeously red academic gown. This comported well with his contention that the real heroine of “Through the Looking Glass” was not Alice, but the Red Queen. The reason? The Red Queen, Gomes says, could believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast. Apparently this is a virtue in Christian Morals, at least at Harvard.
For a RealOne video of Gomes’s address, click on the link below:
(Actually, the queen who discusses “six impossible things” in Chapter 5 of Through the Looking Glass is the White Queen, but clergymen never let a little detail like truth stand in their way.)
My understanding of the “Red Queen” was that it was a metaphorical reference to a womans menstrual cycle.
The two queens were representative of a womans behaviors throughout. Or some such thing.
Comment by oOMisfitOo — Tuesday, June 24, 2003 @ 11:13 am
Humn. [affects very proper British Accent:] I suppose then the good reverend is out of his bloody mind?
Comment by oOMisfitOo — Tuesday, June 24, 2003 @ 11:15 am
Speaking of religion, blood, and the 23rd, perhaps Sissy Spacek should play both the Red and the White Queen in Looking Glass. Remember her prom night?
See my entry of May 23rd, The Prime Cut Gospel.
Comment by m759 — Tuesday, June 24, 2003 @ 2:46 pm