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oyceterI reread these while I was on vacation in Taiwan. I forgot so much from these books, but I still remember so much as well! And it reads so much faster now than it did when I was six. Amazing ;).
I think a lot of people complained about Peter Jackson taking out the comforting hobbity bits of LotR; I didn't mind personally, but that's because my own memories of the book focus more on Eowyn and grand battles and sacrifices. The Narnia movie, on the other hand, rubbed me the wrong way because there was too much big battle and not enough... Britishness, for lack of a better word.
When I reread the first three books of Narnia (I still think of them as the first three because I read them in that order; I'm not a very ardent defender or detractor of the current reordering), the tone is what I remember most. I remember the narrator specifying why Peter and Lucy leave the door of the wardrobe open a crack while Edmund doesn't or tea with Mr. Tumnus, I remember the smaller lion bouncing around excitedly with a mustache still drawn on his muzzle. To me, Middle-Earth was grand and heroic, but Narnia was friendly.
I'm not sure why there was this difference for me; it could have been because I read Narnia earlier than LotR (when I was 7ish as opposed to 11ish), it could be because the Pevensies and Eustace and Jill were from my world and had to think about things like school.
Anyhow, rereading, I found all these lovely little details that I had forgotten -- Mrs. Beaver wants to save her sewing machine even as the Secret Police are after them, the Bulgy Bear licks his paws at the wrong time, etc.
I know there was a lot of discussion on LJ a while back on the religious overtones of Narnia, but the oddest thing is that it never bothered me because I simply never picked up on it. My fourth grade English teacher actually read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to us and told us that Aslan symbolized Christ, but since she also refused to call me by my Chinese name and told my mom she'd name me Judy after herself if I didn't have an English name, I mostly figured she was making it up.
When I reread it, I could see where the very overt allegory was, but it still didn't really bother me. I've grown so used to thinking of Narnia as a separate place and Aslan as a separate figure that I can't quite get my head back in it. The only thing that did really bother me was C.S. Lewis' obvious dislike of a "new-fangled" lifestyle of vegetarianism and etc. (aka, Eustace's parents and his horrid school).
I was going to reread the entire series, but I left The Silver Chair behind me in a restaurant (tragedy!) and forgot to take the rest to Taipei for new year, so I didn't. I think I'm going to check them out, just to see if I still like the ones I used to. My favorites were Prince Caspian, The Silver Chair (despite the creepiness factor), The Horse and His Boy and The Magician's Nephew. I liked The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but it probably lost its novelty value for me faster. And I don't know why, but I never liked Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I think picaresque adventure tales that hop from place to place never do it for me. Also, just the thought of sailing to the End of the World frightened me, as did the magician's book that Lucy opens and can never quite remember again. And like most people, I hated The Last Battle.
But oh, it was so good rereading these! It was like meeting up with a very old friend you'd lost touch with, with the firm belief that you'd probably grown in different directions, only to find that all the delightful things that you loved about her before were still the same, and that the things that annoyed you were blunted by time passing.
I think a lot of people complained about Peter Jackson taking out the comforting hobbity bits of LotR; I didn't mind personally, but that's because my own memories of the book focus more on Eowyn and grand battles and sacrifices. The Narnia movie, on the other hand, rubbed me the wrong way because there was too much big battle and not enough... Britishness, for lack of a better word.
When I reread the first three books of Narnia (I still think of them as the first three because I read them in that order; I'm not a very ardent defender or detractor of the current reordering), the tone is what I remember most. I remember the narrator specifying why Peter and Lucy leave the door of the wardrobe open a crack while Edmund doesn't or tea with Mr. Tumnus, I remember the smaller lion bouncing around excitedly with a mustache still drawn on his muzzle. To me, Middle-Earth was grand and heroic, but Narnia was friendly.
I'm not sure why there was this difference for me; it could have been because I read Narnia earlier than LotR (when I was 7ish as opposed to 11ish), it could be because the Pevensies and Eustace and Jill were from my world and had to think about things like school.
Anyhow, rereading, I found all these lovely little details that I had forgotten -- Mrs. Beaver wants to save her sewing machine even as the Secret Police are after them, the Bulgy Bear licks his paws at the wrong time, etc.
I know there was a lot of discussion on LJ a while back on the religious overtones of Narnia, but the oddest thing is that it never bothered me because I simply never picked up on it. My fourth grade English teacher actually read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to us and told us that Aslan symbolized Christ, but since she also refused to call me by my Chinese name and told my mom she'd name me Judy after herself if I didn't have an English name, I mostly figured she was making it up.
When I reread it, I could see where the very overt allegory was, but it still didn't really bother me. I've grown so used to thinking of Narnia as a separate place and Aslan as a separate figure that I can't quite get my head back in it. The only thing that did really bother me was C.S. Lewis' obvious dislike of a "new-fangled" lifestyle of vegetarianism and etc. (aka, Eustace's parents and his horrid school).
I was going to reread the entire series, but I left The Silver Chair behind me in a restaurant (tragedy!) and forgot to take the rest to Taipei for new year, so I didn't. I think I'm going to check them out, just to see if I still like the ones I used to. My favorites were Prince Caspian, The Silver Chair (despite the creepiness factor), The Horse and His Boy and The Magician's Nephew. I liked The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but it probably lost its novelty value for me faster. And I don't know why, but I never liked Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I think picaresque adventure tales that hop from place to place never do it for me. Also, just the thought of sailing to the End of the World frightened me, as did the magician's book that Lucy opens and can never quite remember again. And like most people, I hated The Last Battle.
But oh, it was so good rereading these! It was like meeting up with a very old friend you'd lost touch with, with the firm belief that you'd probably grown in different directions, only to find that all the delightful things that you loved about her before were still the same, and that the things that annoyed you were blunted by time passing.
(no subject)
Tue, Feb. 14th, 2006 02:17 am (UTC)my own memories of the book focus more on Eowyn and grand battles and sacrifices
Haah, my first reading of LOTR, which I still pretty much stick to, is I skipped over all the grand battles and archaic talk in the 3rd vol to follow right along with Frodo and Sam up Mt. Doom. That's the heart of the book, for me. After I finished that, I went back and reread all the bits I'd skipped.
there was too much big battle and not enough... Britishness, for lack of a better word
I was v put off the movie (partly because of my LOTR experience) because I'd heard the big battle, which gets about half a page or something in Peter's recollected speech, was a huge set piece. I am just personally tired of that kind of spectacle.
(I still think of them as the first three because I read them in that order; I'm not a very ardent defender or detractor of the current reordering)
I think the reordering is bad (and just about on a par with F. Scott Fitzgerald's reordering Tender is the Night). Authors should be forcibly prevented from meddling with their own work after a while.
To me, Middle-Earth was grand and heroic, but Narnia was friendly
I think that's actually quite deliberate on both authors' parts -- and something Tolkien didn't like in Lewis's work, I think. Lewis has all kinds of familiar details and the narrative voice is v friendly and explaining everything to you -- the only thing Tolkien really wrote like that was the Hobbit. Tolkien looked on artistic work a lot of the time as a sort of semi-deistic proposal -- creating worlds and tales, and so on -- and didn't like a lot of the "borrowed" stuff in the Narnia books, like that great detail of Mrs. Beaver having a sewing machine, and so on. (I think Tolkien can get stuffed as a prig on that point, personally.) They're v _accessible_ books. Lewis leads you thru to the numinous literally with a doorway, something as homely and familiar as a closet, and his otherworld has all sorts of familiar touches like Turkish Delight (altho that gets exoticized for a lot of US kids); Tolkien's world is immersive, and sucks you in, altho it does start off with the coziness of the hobbits, or at least Bag End.
My own favorites were Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, Voyage, and The Silver Chair. (I can still happily reread Wardrobe to this day.) I wasn't quite as hot on The Horse and His Boy or The Magician's Nephew for some reason, altho I liked them well enough. The Last Battle -- esp its opening -- really made me grind my teeth as a kid, and there are all sorts of philosophical qualms I have with it now which make it hard for me to like it. Some of the images at the end are v interesting, tho.
But oh, it was so good rereading these! It was like meeting up with a very old friend you'd lost touch with, with the firm belief that you'd probably grown in different directions, only to find that all the delightful things that you loved about her before were still the same, and that the things that annoyed you were blunted by time passing.
That's a really great way of putting it -- I like that a lot.
(no subject)
Tue, Feb. 14th, 2006 11:31 pm (UTC)And it's funny, because for the third book of LotR, I went straight for all the big battles and the crowning and whatnot and got flat out bored with Sam and Frodo. Go fig.
(no subject)
Wed, Feb. 15th, 2006 12:00 am (UTC)Haah, I think part of why I didn't like the non-Sam-and-Frodo bits of ROTK the book so much is I really identified with Eowyn, and couldn't stand Aragorn's treatment of her. He always seemed like such a terrible stuffed shirt in the book.
(no subject)
Wed, Feb. 15th, 2006 06:41 pm (UTC)It's so funny how we both identified with Eowyn and had totally different reactions! I think mine was to say "Bah!" to Aragorn and completely adore Faramir for the sole reason that he got why Eowyn was so cool.
(no subject)
Wed, Feb. 15th, 2006 09:44 pm (UTC)