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Post by KoNeko on Mar 5, 2003 2:17:13 GMT -5
I remember reading these books when I was younger and thinking about how cool they were. Of course, the most common book in the series was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Incidentally that came out here in Melbourne recently as a theatre show with puppets for Aslan and the dwarves and animals and stuff, and the people parts were played by people.
Actually, I never read the Narnia books in order- I read L, W & W first, and then The Horse and His Boy, and then the rest in random order.
Has anyone else read (and enjoyed) these books? Or am I just showing my age?
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Post by En on Mar 5, 2003 13:03:04 GMT -5
Lucy had brown hair in that made-for-tv-movie. No attention to detail. It was dreadful.
I loved the books, though. I must have read them twice a year for fifteen years (in the order they were originally published, btw, not this new order that is supposed to be "right" and starts with the hardest book ). I was so excited when I realized that the books were chock full of early Western mythology and philosophy and stuff. It was like finding a door into religion and philosophy in the back of my closet (which is where I used to go to read ).
In case you all don't know what I'm babbling about in terms of the mythological parallels, here's what I figured:
1. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe tells a bit of a story very like the Christian gospels, and also taps into the family fiction genre made popular by books like the Five Little Peppers, the Boxcar Children, Anne of Green Gables, and so forth. 2. Prince Caspian is basically the youth of Moses. 3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is about half journey to the Promised Land and half Homer's Odyssey, which is probably why I liked it best 4. The Silver Chair is your traditional journey to the underworld, rather like Dante's Inferno and several Greek myths (including that of Persephone), and also taps into "rebirth" and "rescue" stories like the myth of the phoenix, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, etc. 5. The Horse and his Boy is sort of Don Quixote, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Harry Potter, and a lot of other "hero-and-sidekick" stories, mixed up with a bit of Crusade lore from Old Europe. 6. The Magician's Nephew is the Narnian creation myth, parallel to the first few chapters of Genesis or several Native American stories about the first humans (see Joseph Campbell's wonderful Creative Mythology for a smorgasbord of original myths). 7. The Last Battle is the Christian Revelation, and the Narnia book with the most obvious parallels to the Christian Bible. Interestingly enough, if you buy the parallel that Aslan is Jesus and Tash is Satan, servants of Tash make it into heaven. Theological position, or just statement of compassion and acceptance? Hmm.
Anybody who hasn't read the books, ignore all that. That's just one way for geeks to have fun with the books after the fourth or fifth time they read them
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Post by Robin_Sprouts on Mar 5, 2003 13:31:42 GMT -5
I've read this entire set at least once a year since I was about 8 years old. Like Nialle, I've always read them in the original order and I refuse to promote the "new, improved" order. It doesn't make any sense to me to reorder them with The Magician's Nephew first. I understand why they've done it, but I think C.S. Lewis might have know what he was doing when he wrote them and ordered the way he did! As far as the Christian/historic symbolism, Lewis was pretty fundamental but it never surprised me that some of the servants of Tash got into "paradise".
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Post by En on Mar 5, 2003 13:54:05 GMT -5
Waitwait, lemme find it... here:
Personally, I think that reordering them with tMN first is either a fundamentalist Christian plot to force people to think it's a big Bible allegory, or a vain and slightly compulsive act on the part of publishers who think that all children should read books in the order that the events happen. Both of these are, in my humble but really rather well-educated opinion, stupid.
Who remembers things only in biographical summary format? All of us remember colourful parts of our lives in no particular order. We don't insist that children start life reading the Bible and the Tale of Genji and not pick up Animorphs or Goosebumps until they have read all their Greek mythology, medieval romances and Romantic poets.
tLtWatW is by far and gone the easiest of the seven books, while tMN is one of the two most difficult. Shouldn't we have kids read the books in an order that gets them hooked, then takes them into other parts of Narnia that require more mature reading?
Besides which, the seven books are so very different from each other and not particularly sequential in theme. Each one stands alone quite well, depending on the reading maturity of the reader (I would never make an eight-year-old read tMN unless s/he had already finished a Big Book like Huck Finn or some Dickens or something, and enjoyed it).
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Post by Robin_Sprouts on Mar 5, 2003 14:01:16 GMT -5
Ok - so I'm wrong - C.S. Lewis is a dork and didn't know a thing about what order his books should be read in! What I find the most interesting about read this set in its original order is that you already know the kids and the world when you happen upon the creation story (tMN). The creation story makes more sense, to me at least, in a context where you already know who Aslan is and how everything is going to play out down the road. The only thing I find jarring about the original order is the leap from tMN to tLB.
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Post by En on Mar 5, 2003 14:26:00 GMT -5
Yeah, I guess I always felt that the best order would be Lion, Caspian, Voyage, Chair, Last Battle, then tMN and tHaHB whenever you felt like it, because those two were the most heavily... er... archetype-laden? Mythological? Literary? of the seven books. Also, it would make sense to put Last Battle right after Chair because of the character overlapping.
*thinks about it* It's actually a LOT like Lord of the Rings. You can read Fellowship, Towers, and Return and come away with the main body of the experience. You can also read Hobbit and have a self-contained experience. If you're really into Fellowship, Towers, and Return, you might want to read Hobbit to find out more about Bilbo, and Silmarillon to find out more about Elves and stuff, and Lost Tales to get more history... but you don't have to read any of that to enjoy Fellowship, Towers and Return.
The same way with Narnia. You can read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by itself and love it. You can read Lion, Caspian, Voyage, Chair and Battle and love them. You can then go to Magician's Nephew for more about Narnia. You can read Horse and His Boy separately from the whole thing, or for more background. Ultimately, the point is that there is a sequential, epic chronological narrative in Lion, Caspian, Voyage, Chair and Battle, and the other two books are for the geeks who really love those five and want more.
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Post by Robin_Sprouts on Mar 5, 2003 14:34:38 GMT -5
So I must really be a geek because The Horse and His Boy is one of my favourites of the entire set. I often go around quoting Prince Rabadash - "Tash strikes, like a bolt of lightening from above!"
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Post by KoNeko on Mar 7, 2003 10:50:50 GMT -5
*fishes around in En's satchel for shis DORK stamp and applies to Robin's arms and forehead.*
Robin, you're so funny. The Horse and his boy was one of my faves. I think it's because the very first time I read it in second grade, I was really into horses and stuff then.
*frowns* I've never seen the TV version of L, W & W. In the stage version (with the puppets), all the kids had brown hair. Go figure. Silly casting people.
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Post by coldmercurywitch on Mar 7, 2003 10:51:42 GMT -5
I only saw the TV series that they made for it. I really wanted to read the books, but I'm fussy and like to read the books in order, and everytime I went to borrow them from the school library they were out. *sigh*
But I thought the TV show was really well done. I loved.....the silver chair I think it might have been, that part of the series. Where the boy, not one of the original kids, their cousin I think, goes sailing and gets turned into a dragona and all sorts of other stuff. And I thought it was cool how Aslan would pop up all over the place.
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Post by En on Mar 7, 2003 17:22:40 GMT -5
Ooo ooo! That was Voyage of the Dawn Treader! Yep, that's their cousin Eustace who gets turned into a dragon. Though by far, my favourite character was Reepicheep, the little mouse.
What are we gonna do with you, Ni? I'll see if I can find a good paperback edition of the series for you and we'll send them when you're done with Anne of Green Gables
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Post by coldmercurywitch on Mar 7, 2003 20:03:52 GMT -5
LOL. At this rate I'm gonna end up with everyone's pre-loved books.
I should be going back to work soon, or more I should be getting myself another job soon and when I do I'll prolly go a book buying binge cos there are all these books people have recommended for me to read on here. I don't bother going to our local library cos they never have any of the books I want when I want them. I just dont have much luck with local library's.
Anyway, I remember watching the series and when we first met Eustatce I didn't like him. I thought he was kinda mean and greedy and stuff, but as I watched it more I grew to like him cos he changed and stuff.
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe though I think is probably the best part cos it introduces you to Narnia and Aslan and stuff. It was just cool.
Hey, I can't remember all their names and stuff, but the eldest girl from the LtWatW, does anyone else think she has some Percy like qualities?
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Post by KoNeko on Mar 8, 2003 6:45:50 GMT -5
You mean Susan? I kind of liked her because she was the quiet one. I mean, the others got more of a run than she did- Peter got to be the head king because he was eldest, Lucy went into Narnia first, Edmund got to be the bad one- but everytime she said something it was always helpful and insightful. I think Peter was more like Percy in L,W&W because he was like, the one who always told everyone what to do and had to be responsible for the others (just like when Percy was the head prefect and had to look after the younger kids) and all that.
The only criticism I have about L,W&W was the roles that the kids played. The two main Good vs Evil kids were Peter and Edmund, and although Lucy was the one that introduced us to the world of Narnia, once everyone else was in there and (for example) they were at the Beavers' house, she kind of sat back and played a smaller role. And there, the boys got to go fishing with Mr. Beaver and the girls had to stay home and cook the dinner. Oh, and when Santa Claus is giving out presents, Peter gets the big sword and the girls get non-weapons things. I know Susan gets the bow and arrow thing, but she's not supposed to use it as it was "ugly" when women fight.
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Post by En on Mar 8, 2003 10:39:52 GMT -5
Yeah, it always kind of bugged me that the most empowered women in Narnia were witches. And I think they both kicked the bucket, didn't they? Dangit, I haven't read Narnia yet this year... guess I need to go back through the closet again
I guess I did see Lucy as a strong figure for all that, just because she had the closest relationship with Aslan and he did ask her some toughies. And Jill I remember being pretty independent and reliable... but I'll reread.
Ehh, I always saw Peter as more of an Oliver Wood figure, personally -- he may have been head king, but he had spunk and didn't do paperwork
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Post by En on Mar 16, 2003 0:01:46 GMT -5
...Mucho revelatio. I just reread TLtWtW and PC, and while the gender roles are somewhat typed, I don't think it's prescriptive so much as a function of the fact that C.S. Lewis had two stepsons (no stepdaughters) and lived in the 40's and 50's.
I would also like to point out that I finally get a whole load of jokes I never got before, such as the name of Caspian's aunt (Prunaprismia ). And I'm also quite interested by the Stone Table, which (I hadn't caught on before) is actually rather more like Stonehenge than an actual table table. I think this indicates that what was on Lewis' mind wasn't so much Christianity versus everyone else as reason versus naturalism, which is rather understandable for somebody who has just lived through WWII.
*looks around and notices the minimality of other people in here* Is my deodarant working?
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Post by KoNeko on Mar 16, 2003 6:21:12 GMT -5
*sniffs the air around En's armpits and makes a face*
Nah. Kidding. Hey, actually, I always thought that the Stone table was like, those ancient stone formations in southwestern France! I mean, I thought it had four menhirs as table legs and a big slab of stone across as the table top. In my mind I sort of see it as a gigantic coffee table-shaped table made out of stone, with squiggly carvings around the table legs.
Okay, confession time- I've only read the Narnia chronicles once in my life. In its entirety, I mean. We've only got the L, L & w at home so that's the only one I know backwards.
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