Lewis, C.S. - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; Voyage of the Dawn Treader

[oyceter]

I 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.

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Huh, Dawn Treader was my favorite. I loved the idea of just traveling around and exploring-- if it wasn't for being seasick, that would have been the book I'd have most wanted to be in. Also, I always liked Lucy and Edmund better than Susan and Peter, and Eustace cracked me up. And being small but fierce myself, I loved Reepicheep.

There were also moments in that that struck me as being more purely magical than anything in the other books-- the island where dreams come true (which still gives me the creeps), the moment when Lucy meets the eyes of a young mermaid, the story in the magician's book, and when they taste the water and find it sweet.

My second-favorite was The Silver Chair, even though it's not one of the adventures that I'd really want to have. But the way the characters are uncomfortable the whole time and squabble a lot makes it feel more realistic than the others. Also Jill is tough, Eustace is believably a good guy without having lost his essential pompousness, and Puddleglum is hilarious. And the witch is creepy. I also love the dialogue where the witch tries to convince the kids that Narnia isn't real, and Puddleglum says that he likes his made-up Narnia better than the witch's real world. I like that bit because it clearly has philosophical subtext, but can be interpreted in a lot of different ways.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I must have figured out at some point that the books were Christian, but I was so used to the idea that one person's myth was another person's religion, and to reading stories from Hindu, Greek, and other mythologies/religions that it didn't bother me in the slightest.

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

Dawn Treader was my favorite, too -- I'm a sucker for sea voyages. I loved the magical images you described, too, the magician's book, the island, the Sea People, and more. I liked Lucy and Edmund better too. I wouldn't say Eustace cracked me up, but I actually really liked his account of being "peeled" as a dragon. That was a great story. I would have had a terrible crush on Reepicheep if he hadn't been a mouse.

I loved The Silver Chair, too, mainly because of Jill (Pole!). And you're right, it does feel a lot more uncomfortable and tough and realistic, esp with all the squabbling and disagreement and mistaken Signs and so on. The evolution of Eustace is also v interesting. And, PUDDLEGLUM LOVE. JUST LOVE. I actually liked Rilian more than most people I know, too.

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

I was raised in a sort of whack religious environment (mother raised Hungarian Reformed, converted to Xian Scientist when 16, father raised Pentecost, converted to Episcopalianism, drifted over to Xian Scientist, both parents drifted thru a series of Xian Scientist splinter groups) and went to Xian Scientist Sunday School where we did not actually read the Bible, so a whole lot of the religious allegories went riiight past me (a lot of The Last Battle, frex, was sort of surrealistic apocalyptic fare rather than Revelatory. Ha). I did feel sort of "betrayed" when I grew up and found out how v allegorical it was, like something had sort of been put over on me, but I don't feel that way about other books I love, like the Faerie Queen. And I grew up reading Greek myths and all kinds of fairy tales and folklore from all over the world, so I was at least aware of other mythologies/religions. (Of course I'm sure the battles I waged with my parents as an adolescent over going to church -- _any_ church -- had nothing to do with that feeling. Ha.)

I mean, you know the bit where the Lion turns into the Lamb? I was like "OK....hunh." Of course, I was about....I think....9? I don't quite remember. But I saw it more as something happening within the realms of magic, rather than something religious, if you know what I mean.

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

Oh, fun! I'm really looking forward to your opinions of more of the books.

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.

(pimps in shameless-like fashion)

[rue10.livejournal.com]

http://www.smartpopbooks.com/allbooks/index.html#Narnia

[maga-dogg.livejournal.com]

My favourite part of all LoTR were the battles in the Shire right at the end.

Mrf. In Narnia I was biggest on Prince Caspian and The Horse and his Boy. I figured out that they were Christian propaganda on the first rereading, though. (I went to a missionary school in Botswana. I was force-fed no end of watered-down, saccharine Christian myth). And it bothered me, but not so much that it ruined the books. I doubt that'd be the case now, which is why I don't intend to reread them; there's enough fond memory still in there that I don't like

I mean, I have a nitpicky brain. I reread the children's book Uncle a few months ago, which is about this elephant who owns this sort of enormous Gormenghast-without-the-bleakness palace (and I utterly loved at age eight), and by the end of it I was seething about Uncle's benign-tyrant tendencies and capitalist monopoly and scapegoating of the Other. It was only about 60% serious seething, but still.

[maeve-rigan.livejournal.com]

Very much enjoyed reading about your re-read, which sorta paralleled my own--except that I did mine via recorded books, which made it a very different experience! My first memories of Narnia are that my parents read the books to me (and my siblings), but I then went on to read the whole series multiple times (and I have become pretty devoted to the publication order, rather than the so-called chronological order). The Harper audio CDs are read by actors such as Lynn Redgrave, Jeremy Northam, and Patrick Stewart (among others) and they really bring the books to life. The only one I have yet to hear is The Magician's Nephew. Do I have a favorite? I don't know. I still love all of them.

[oyceter]

I wonder now if Reepicheep is part of my mental landscape of friendly rodents... I read Voyage pretty early on in life, along with Stuart Little and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Hrm.

I loved The Silver Chair! I have no idea why, but I think it had to do with Jill being the protagonist because she was crotchety and not all in all nice like Lucy.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I was rather amused upon rereading to note that the giant set piece of the Narnia movie was given maybe a few sentences in the book. Plus, I wanted to see all the stone creatures come to life and frolic! Alas.

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.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I was scared I'd be all nitpicky about Narnia. Except... I still remember the experience of reading it, if that makes sense, and all the things that I love about it are still there.

There are points in which I did get irritated, particularly when Father Christmas tells Lucy and Susan that women in the battlefield are Not Good. But I vaguely remember being irritated by that when I was a kid too, because I wanted the bow and arrow, not a dinky healing potion.

[oyceter]

Oh how cool! I need to get into books on tape/CD sometime, just so I can have something to listen to while running or something.

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

The bringing-to-life scenes aren't in the movie? WAH!

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.

[oyceter]

I think some are! But they don't have the second lion bouncing around with Aslan, which made me sad.

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.

[(Anonymous)]

Are there any women who do like Aragorn? I think Tolkien muffed his character pretty badly -- there's the Tale of Arwen and Aragorn in the Appendix, but you only get to that when everything's over, and Eowyn is such a marvelous character it's hard without the backstory to understand why he doesn't fall for her.