The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S Lewis

[Golden Talisath]

I didn’t know that. I thought he just writes fantasy books, but did like the whole ‘’son of Adam, daughter of Eve’’ bit. But what does a lion and all the magical creatures have to do with that, if we know that Christianity marks them as pagan symbols?

[Cheryl]

Originally Posted by Brenda

There is a strong Christian undercurrent in the books, but I mostly don't notice it as such - although I felt like an idiot when I first realized that Aslan taking the place of another, an innocent dying for another's sins and then "death working backward" - was supposed to be like Jesus.

Ditto for me as a child. The allegorical aspects went right over my head and I felt quite dumb when someone pointed it out when I was high-school-ish in age. Especially as I was raised going to church every week, so it's not like Christianity was foreign.

Allegories still usually stump me (as in, I often don't recognize them as such), though years of literature classes in high school and college have helped me be less dense at times!

[Hans]

Originally Posted by Lanen

Folks, were/are you aware that C.S. Lewis was famous for being a Christian apologist? That doesn't mean apologising for Christianity, but rather explaining it in everyday terms to make it more immediate for people, to link it more closely to real life and the everyday struggle. Of course his Narnia books are Christian allegories. Some are more obvious than others, that's all.

I didn't know that Lanen. I only got to know him because he was a member of the Inklings and must admit I never really liked his fantasy...

[Darkrider]

I read them too and did not understand about the lion until many, many years later.

[AnnMarie]

Originally Posted by Golden Talisath

I didn’t know that. I thought he just writes fantasy books, but did like the whole ‘’son of Adam, daughter of Eve’’ bit. But what does a lion and all the magical creatures have to do with that, if we know that Christianity marks them as pagan symbols?

The Lion is also a symbol for Christ, Tal.

Most of the books, you can ignore the whole Christian allagory deal. They are simply good vrs evil. The last book, which I personally detested, you couldn't miss the connections.

[Cheryl]

Oh, I still missed it as a child, AnnMarie!

[Golden Talisath]

Originally Posted by AnnMarie

The Lion is also a symbol for Christ, Tal.

Didn't know that, AnnMarie. You learn something new every day.

[cwett]

Hmm I did know this. I linked it together in the Lion the witch and the wardrobe when Aslan sacrificed himself on the table and then came back to life. These are very good books though, I really enjoyed them when I was younger and still can enjoy them today! I look forward to the next movies even though they don't follow the books word for word they are still enjoyable in their own regards.

[Golden Talisath]

Originally Posted by cwett

Hmm I did know this. I linked it together in the Lion the witch and the wardrobe when Aslan sacrificed himself on the table and then came back to life.

Damn it, I missed that as well!

[mumcat2]

Originally Posted by edith

yep!

have you read his sci fi books Myt- I can't remember what the series is called but the 1st one is "Out of the Silent Planet"?

Perelandra
Also, The Screwtape Letters - an old devil's advice to a young one!

[edith]

I've got that one too

[ghost8772]

yeah, some heavy christianity tossed around. the sacrificing self for others, the coming out of his identity in last battle, and maybe even in Magician's Nephew. the constant description of humans as Sons of Adam, and Daughter's of Eve. and even a more cryptic description, Adam's Flesh and Adam's Bone (male=flesh, female=bone) even the apple got reused.

[jube]

I think I got the message about Christianity when I read the books several times and only when I was much older. I think I first read the books when I started high school but it wasn't until about 4-5 years later that I understood the meanings behind the story. At 12 or 13 years old, most kids wouldn't get it at first anyway unless someone discussed it with them first *shrugs shoulders here*.

[Golden Talisath]

Originally Posted by ghost8772

even the apple got reused.

Where and how?

[Brenda]

In The Magician's Nephew, Aslan sends Digory to go get an Apple of Life (I think that's what it was called) from a garden high in the mountains. The witch hears, too, and shows up there; she eats an apple and tries to convince him to take the apple directly to his mother instead of to Aslan. He goes back to Aslan and the apple grows into a new tree - he takes one of those apples home to heal his mother.

The apple Jadis ate makes her immortal, I think, but also has some unpleasant effects - but it's been a LONG time since I read this. I'd have to look up that chapter to be able to describe it.

[Golden Talisath]

Originally Posted by Brenda

In The Magician's Nephew, Aslan sends Digory to go get an Apple of Life (I think that's what it was called) from a garden high in the mountains. The witch hears, too, and shows up there; she eats an apple and tries to convince him to take the apple directly to his mother instead of to Aslan. He goes back to Aslan and the apple grows into a new tree - he takes one of those apples home to heal his mother.

The apple Jadis ate makes her immortal, I think, but also has some unpleasant effects - but it's been a LONG time since I read this. I'd have to look up that chapter to be able to describe it.

You don’t have to look it up, Brenda, I’ve found it. Aslan says that she will have eternal beauty, but also eternal misery.

[r2005]

Originally Posted by jube

I think I got the message about Christianity when I read the books several times and only when I was much older. I think I first read the books when I started high school but it wasn't until about 4-5 years later that I understood the meanings behind the story. At 12 or 13 years old, most kids wouldn't get it at first anyway unless someone discussed it with them first *shrugs shoulders here*.

These books will always have a special place in my heart because my father read them all aloud to me on the nights when he wasn't working when I was either 7 or 8. It was fun because along the way, he'd teach me new words, and it was our special thing. I don't think he did it as much with my younger sisters as he did with me. I'm only 23 and those days feel like such a long time ago.

I don't remember when I got the connections to it, but I seem to recall figuring it out on my own. I might have figured it out on my own by the time I was around 12 or 13. At that point in time, I had already gotten into the Pern novels, and I'd really gotten into the Deryni novels.

[Lanen]

Rather like everyone else, I read these books when I was much younger and just enjoyed them for what they were. Having the bizarre mind that I do, I noted the allegory pretty early on, but decided that allegory could go hang and I'd just enjoy the books for what they were! I still do.

Lewis' Science Fiction Trilogy consists of:
Out of the Silent Planet
Perelandra
That Hideous Strength

The latter is a lot to wade through, and I have always found it frustrating as a female, as at the time Lewis had a (nearly insanely) traditional view of women and our place in the world. He seemed to think that we were either mothers or monsters, and anything else was wasted.
Bless him, he was a long-time bachelor and child of his time, though his wife Joy Gresham - they were married very late in life, and she tragically died not very long after - apparently shifted a few of his thoughts about that!

If you are in the mood for searing truth, though, or have lost a loved one and need to hear the thoughts of another Christian without sugar coating, I can recommend 'A Grief Observed'. This is NOT a children's book, in case you were wondering. I read it many years ago when my mother died suddenly, and strangely enough, it helped a bit. He doesn't pull any punches. His grief was bone-deep and devastating, and he wrote from that place. It's true, though. More true than most of us can stand.

[P'ter]

I'm on about my fifth copy of A Grief Observed. I keep lending it to somebody who needs it and never getting it back.

[Nina]

Yes, I am a Lewis fan too.

I like the Aslan books (it really appeals to the Child within) and got the Christian bit the first time I read about Aslan dying and rising again. Having read all of them, I turned to Lewis' other works, and I have read Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength and The Screwtape Letters. I have never read A Grief Observed (though I have worked as a voluntary grief counsellor for years), so I am now inspired to go find it and have a read

[P'ter]

There's also "Four Loves" and "Screwtape Proposes a Toast"

[Topaz the Golden]

Originally Posted by freespirit91

BBC has made three movies actually... Prince Caspin/silver chair, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and the lion witch and the wardrobe....

I have them on tape somewhere in the house.

Still rather read the books. I think I'll read them again(now where it I put them?)

[Lanen]

P'ter - yes, I have that problem too. I may be doing the same soon. Have just heard that a gal I know well enough to care about (though she's not a close friend) has been diagnosed with malignant brain tumours. Inoperable, last I heard. May give a copy of A Grief Observed to her husband when the time comes. They are Catholics, so he probably knows the book already, but still.

Yes, The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast are terrific. Object lessons in faith, really. I have carried bits of SL in my mind for years and found it immensely useful in understanding my own faith and that of others. We are so predictable, we humans...

[Brenda]

Ursula Vernon just posted a really interesting discussion here based on a chapter-by-chapter analysis at this blog (which has a ton of other really interesting stuff that I can tell I will be reading for weeks.)

And she also posted her version of what happened to Susan, here. Without giving too much away, the premise is that maybe not everyone would be able to DEAL with growing up, and suddenly going from 31 to being 11 years old again, and leaving friends and loved ones behind... and I also took from it that Susan's obsession with makeup and boys, etc. were here trying to get back to who she felt she was supposed to be and had been taken away from.

VERY good writing on all three posts.

[razor4466]

It's been many years since I read the Screwtape Letters but I am pretty sure the premise was that God and the Devil take turns doing each others "job" and are discussing the switch at a coffee shop like place.
The list of Nania books posted really frosts me!! I hate that the publishers arbitrarily decided to alter the order. For me the order will ALWAYS be:
1 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
2 Prince Caspian
3 Voyage of the Dawn Treader
4 Silver Chair
5 A Horse and His Boy
6 The Magicians Nephew
7 The Last Battle
I read somewhere recently that they inyend to make The Magicians Nephew next as a movie in a complete departure from the order.

[Almaron]

Publishers? I thought Lewis himself insisted they be put in that order after he finished them all...let me check.

Hmm, seems to be more complicated than I thought...rather than try to sum it up, I'll just link to the page on Wikipedia that explains the change; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chr...#Reading_order

[Anareth]

Originally Posted by razor4466

It's been many years since I read the Screwtape Letters but I am pretty sure the premise was that God and the Devil take turns doing each others "job" and are discussing the switch at a coffee shop like place.

Uh...no. The Screwtape Letters are letters from a demon named Screwtape to his, iirc, nephew, about corrupting humans (of course a commentary on temptation and sin and human weaknesses.) That might be somewhere in one of the letters, but it's definitely not what the book's about.

[razor4466]

These paragraphs explain what I was trying to say. If Mr. Lewis had intended the books to be read in the "updated" order, He himself would have asked for that accomodation. Not his stepson. IMHO

"Paul Ford cites several scholars who have weighed in against this view,[21] and continues, "most scholars disagree with this decision and find it the least faithful to Lewis's deepest intentions".[2] Scholars and readers who appreciate the original order believe that Lewis was simply being gracious to his youthful correspondent and that he could have changed the books' order in his lifetime had he so desired.[22] They maintain that much of the magic of Narnia comes from the way the world is gradually presented in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – that the mysterious wardrobe, as a narrative device, is a much better introduction to Narnia than The Magician's Nephew, where the word "Narnia" appears in the first paragraph as something already familiar to the reader. Moreover, they say, it is clear from the texts themselves that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was intended to be read first. When Aslan is first mentioned in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, for example, the narrator says that "None of the children knew who Aslan was, any more than you do" — which is nonsensical if one has already read The Magician's Nephew.[23] Other similar textual examples are also cited.[24]

Doris Meyer, author of C.S. Lewis in Context and Bareface: A guide to C.S. Lewis, writes that rearranging the stories chronologically "lessens the impact of the individual stories" and "obscures the literary structures as a whole".[2] Peter Schakel devotes an entire chapter to this topic in his book Imagination and the Arts in C.S. Lewis: Journeying to Narnia and Other Worlds, and in Reading with the Heart: The Way into Narnia he writes:


The only reason to read The Magician's Nephew first [...] is for the chronological order of events, and that, as every story teller knows, is quite unimportant as a reason. Often the early events in a sequence have a greater impact or effect as a flashback, told after later events which provide background and establish perspective. So it is [ ...] with the Chronicles. The artistry, the archetypes, and the pattern of Christian thought all make it preferable to read the books in the order of their publication.[23]"

[razor4466]

As for The Screwtape Letters, I apologize for the mistake. Now I need to remember what THAT book is as well...

[Golden Talisath]

Originally Posted by razor4466

It's been many years since I read the Screwtape Letters but I am pretty sure the premise was that God and the Devil take turns doing each others "job" and are discussing the switch at a coffee shop like place.
The list of Nania books posted really frosts me!! I hate that the publishers arbitrarily decided to alter the order. For me the order will ALWAYS be:
1 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
2 Prince Caspian
3 Voyage of the Dawn Treader
4 Silver Chair
5 A Horse and His Boy
6 The Magicians Nephew
7 The Last Battle
I read somewhere recently that they inyend to make The Magicians Nephew next as a movie in a complete departure from the order.

Why would you put The Magicians Nephew as number 6 if it's about the creation of Narnia, and has Profesor Digory as a child?

[semantre]

Originally Posted by Golden Talisath

Why would you put The Magicians Nephew as number 6 if it's about the creation of Narnia, and has Profesor Digory as a child?

Because unless you are familiar with Narnia already, The Magician's Nephew makes very little sense. It really requires the audience to understand the concepts/character/places being discussed to be enjoyable.

I deliberately re-read these in story-chronological order when my recollections were very fuzzy to see how they present. It was wretched. The plots seemed to have giant holes and the 'earlier' stories were very awkward to work through. But once I re-read the 'later' books and went back to the 'earlier' books for another read-through, they were much more enjoyable reads.

[razor4466]

Originally Posted by Golden Talisath

Why would you put The Magicians Nephew as number 6 if it's about the creation of Narnia, and has Profesor Digory as a child?

I have always read the books in the original written order. As stated above, if you try to read them in chronologic order, they make no sense at least to me. I will always choose to reread them in the order originally written. That is just my choice and opinion.

[Almaron]

Sort of like the Pern books, really; if you read them in chronological order with little knowledge of the series you're bound to get confused at some point.

[Kalta]

I have not seen the most current remake of LWW, nor do I intend to. Well I saw a few moments of it at a friend's house once, and it was so not canon that it killed any desire to see it(same with Wrinkle in Time). I am a diehard purist/snob about film adaptations of books(Once I checked out Gone With The Wind book from library to read it in conjunction with watching the movie...it has to be the least altered adaptation I've ever seen). The ONLY exception to my purism snobbery is Wicked the musical. I saw it first, then read the book, and I have to say the adaptation is perfectly fine with me. The book is quite out there.

But back to Narnia(which btw Wicked reminds me of some, with Talking animals and such), I always liked reading the series. I really felt like I was there. Jadis looking out over the ruins of Charn and saying "It is cold at the end of all ages." in Magician's Nephew always stuck with me. I *felt* the emptiness of that place, including warmth. I liked the BBC adaptation the best(and yes, I chuckle at the special effects too). The BBC has always done the best adaptations of books, IMO. Not just Narnia, but Sherlock Holmes(Jeremy Brett) and Anne of Green Gables as well. And if I could live in any fictional world, it would probably be Narnia.

And I have NEVER understood why if Hollywood thought the book merited being turned into a movie, why they had to change so much.

[vyon]

Because they have to change everything. Turning the "Philosopher's Stone" (a specific object) into the Sorcerer's Stone (any magical artifact) for example. And the worst adaptation of any book that I've ever seen was "A Little Princess" by Francis Hodson Burnett. The whole point of the story was Sara using her imagination to turn a mean and horrible little garret room into a palace - So Hollywood turns this barely habitable rat-hole, complete with rats, into a fantastic tower room with high, ornate windows and draperies everywhere. Then they compound the insult to the original story by creating a ridiculous chase scene with Miss Minchin chasing the children across a plank laid across the street several stories up. If they have to fiddle around with a good story that much why don't they write their own?

[Kalta]

I don't think they have the brain required for writing their own. I'm getting fed up with all the remakes/reboots lately...not just for TV/movies, but even video games.

[vyon]

And when it's not remakes, its prequels - which brings us right back to the Magicians Nephew. Once a prequel is written there's always going to be a debate about whether to start with the original starting place or with the prequel.

[Kalta]

When I got into the series, I read LWW first, then read the others. I think Magician's Nephew was actually the last I read. But once I got my own copies of the whole series, I did tend to read Magician's Nephew first. I think it might be my favorite of the whole series.

[Anareth]

Originally Posted by vyon

Because they have to change everything. Turning the "Philosopher's Stone" (a specific object) into the Sorcerer's Stone (any magical artifact) for example.

That wasn't done for funsies. Both the book and the movie titles were changed for US release on the assumption "Philosopher" wasn't a good word to slap on the cover of what is, after all, a book written primarily for children. It was a marketing decision made long before the book was even optioned as a film.

Books cannot often be directly, verbatim adapted. They are a written medium, film is visual. Some are done well, some are done poorly. Two of my favorites where I like BOTH are oddly enough both Sean Connery films and both books would have been unfilmable as direct word for word adaptations: "The Hunt for Red October" (which unaltered would be four hours long and rather slow) and "The Name of the Rose" (which unaltered would be fifteen hours long and incomprehensible to the average filmgoer. 75% of the book is easier to understand if you go in with a preexisting grasp of Latin and Medieval theology and Church politics. Personally I love an author who goes 27 chapters from an offhand reference to make a rabies joke, but I get that's not normal.) They're good books, they're good movies, they are not literal translations from page to screen.

[vyon]

The main theme of the Harry Potter stories is Voldemort's search for immortality. For which you need the device made by Alchemists to create the Elixir of Life. It is not a stone that some sorcerer picked up off the beach and magicked. It is the Philosopher's Stone - the title of the original film which was not changed from the book at all.

Only in the United States of America was the title of the book and the film changed.

Everybody else saw "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" as intended by the author.