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Fantasy » alt.fan.tolkien » Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie
Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184398] Sa, 10 Dezember 2005 05:57
Huan the hound  
Spoiler
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..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
Not sure if the spoiler space was needed, but I put it in just in case.

Initial reaction: I liked it, it seemed more faithful to The Lion, the
Witch and the Wardrobe by Lewis than PJ's FOTR, which I liked best of his
three attempts. The dialog never stuck in my memory like lines from LOTR
have, so I can't tell how much was made up. I suspect quite a bit, but
nothing really cheesy. These are all really initial reactions, since I've
just finished watching it.

The theater was packed but I believe there was only one screen showing
it. Everyone I was with had read it long ago, so they were tempted to
ask each other questions about the plot. At the end, the credits start
but don't go anywhere because very soon they stop and there is one more
scene, followed by the rest of the credits.

Cringe moments: Not too many, really! The river crossing was stupid.
Making it a close-call chase out of the beavers' house and all the way to
Aslan was unnecessary. I didn't like Maugrim's voice, it just didn't
sound like the voice that would come from a wolf. If Cair Paravel really
looks like a huge city, how are they going to reconcile it with the
children only finding the ruin of their castle if they film Prince
Caspian?

Beginning the movie with the air raids was good. Professor Kirke was
kind of lame. The children were good. Mr. Tumnus was good. The White
Witch was very good - beautiful and horrible at the same time, very weird
looking. Mr. Beaver's accent was inconsistent, Mrs. Beaver was ok.
Father Christmas's face seemed too ancient. Aslan was tolerable. The
battle scenes were typical and will date the movie.

I admit to liking the BBC movies and *really* liking the Focus on the
Family radio theater versions of the Narnia books, however LWW isn't my
favorite and most-read of the series, so if they make more of these films
I can make better comparisons.

--
Huan, the hound of Valinor
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184399 ] Sa, 10 Dezember 2005 16:20
Jette Goldie  
"Huan the hound" <huanthehound [at] netscape.net> wrote in message
news:Netmf.3574$Xx3.3202 [at] fe03.lga...
> Spoiler
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> Not sure if the spoiler space was needed, but I put it in just in case.
>
> Initial reaction: I liked it, it seemed more faithful to The Lion, the
> Witch and the Wardrobe by Lewis than PJ's FOTR, which I liked best of his
> three attempts. The dialog never stuck in my memory like lines from LOTR
> have, so I can't tell how much was made up. I suspect quite a bit, but
> nothing really cheesy. These are all really initial reactions, since I've
> just finished watching it.

Indeed it was a remarkably faithful adaptation.

>
> The theater was packed but I believe there was only one screen showing
> it. Everyone I was with had read it long ago, so they were tempted to
> ask each other questions about the plot. At the end, the credits start
> but don't go anywhere because very soon they stop and there is one more
> scene, followed by the rest of the credits.
>
> Cringe moments: Not too many, really! The river crossing was stupid.

Yeah, just a bit of "action" thrown in to meet Hollywood requirements.

> Making it a close-call chase out of the beavers' house and all the way to
> Aslan was unnecessary. I didn't like Maugrim's voice, it just didn't
> sound like the voice that would come from a wolf.

Oh I liked Maugrim's voice - very *oily*, like you'd expect of a Secret
Policeman.


>If Cair Paravel really
> looks like a huge city, how are they going to reconcile it with the
> children only finding the ruin of their castle if they film Prince
> Caspian?
>

That won't be a problem - it will be a big ruin.

> Beginning the movie with the air raids was good. Professor Kirke was
> kind of lame. The children were good. Mr. Tumnus was good. The White
> Witch was very good - beautiful and horrible at the same time, very weird
> looking. Mr. Beaver's accent was inconsistent, Mrs. Beaver was ok.
> Father Christmas's face seemed too ancient. Aslan was tolerable. The
> battle scenes were typical and will date the movie.
>

Professor Kirke improved in the later scenes.

I actually thought that Father Christmas looked a bit *young* - but then I
know the actor <g>


But I was SO glad he didn't turn out to be Santa!


--
Jette Goldie
jette [at] blueyonder.co.uk
("reply to" is spamblocked)
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184400 ] Sa, 10 Dezember 2005 18:31
Huan the hound  
On 2005-12-10, Jette Goldie <bosslady [at] scotlandmail.com> wrote in
<LmCmf.12660$xb2.5947 [at] fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk>:

>
> "Huan the hound" <huanthehound [at] netscape.net> wrote in message
> news:Netmf.3574$Xx3.3202 [at] fe03.lga...
>> Spoiler
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> Not sure if the spoiler space was needed, but I put it in just in case.
>>
[snip]
>>If Cair Paravel really
>> looks like a huge city, how are they going to reconcile it with the
>> children only finding the ruin of their castle if they film Prince
>> Caspian?
>>
>
> That won't be a problem - it will be a big ruin.

I guess it's probably just me... it just looks so *totally* unlike how I
imagined it from Prince Caspian.

[snip]
>
> I actually thought that Father Christmas looked a bit *young* - but then I
> know the actor <g>
>
>
> But I was SO glad he didn't turn out to be Santa!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seemed like they deliberately avoided
calling him anything. I was listening for it but I thought I heard
"merry Christmas" and that's all.

--
Huan, the hound of Valinor
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184401 ] Sa, 10 Dezember 2005 20:04
Jette Goldie  
"Huan the hound" <huanthehound [at] netscape.net> wrote in message
news:aiEmf.6302$Eu3.680 [at] fe07.lga...
> On 2005-12-10, Jette Goldie <bosslady [at] scotlandmail.com> wrote in
> <LmCmf.12660$xb2.5947 [at] fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk>:
>
>>
>> "Huan the hound" <huanthehound [at] netscape.net> wrote in message
>> news:Netmf.3574$Xx3.3202 [at] fe03.lga...
>>> Spoiler
>>> .
>>> .
>>> .
>>> .
>>> .
>>> .
>>> .
>>> .
>>> .
>>> .
>>> .
>>> .
>>> .
>>> .
>>> .
>>> Not sure if the spoiler space was needed, but I put it in just in case.
>>>
> [snip]
>>>If Cair Paravel really
>>> looks like a huge city, how are they going to reconcile it with the
>>> children only finding the ruin of their castle if they film Prince
>>> Caspian?
>>>
>>
>> That won't be a problem - it will be a big ruin.
>
> I guess it's probably just me... it just looks so *totally* unlike how I
> imagined it from Prince Caspian.
>
> [snip]
>>
>> I actually thought that Father Christmas looked a bit *young* - but then
>> I
>> know the actor <g>
>>
>>
>> But I was SO glad he didn't turn out to be Santa!
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seemed like they deliberately avoided
> calling him anything. I was listening for it but I thought I heard
> "merry Christmas" and that's all.

Oh, they didn't say his name, but his =clothing= was that of "Father
Christmas", not "Santa Claus". I think I might have objected if he'd looked
like a Coca Cola advert.


--
Jette Goldie
jette [at] blueyonder.co.uk
("reply to" is spamblocked)
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184407 ] So, 11 Dezember 2005 09:24
Christopher Kreuzer  
Jette Goldie <bosslady [at] scotlandmail.com> wrote:
> "Huan the hound" <huanthehound [at] netscape.net> wrote in message
> news:Netmf.3574$Xx3.3202 [at] fe03.lga...
>> Spoiler
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> .

<snip>

>> Beginning the movie with the air raids was good. Professor Kirke was
>> kind of lame.

<snip>

> Professor Kirke improved in the later scenes.

Is this Professor Kirke the same as the professor in the book? I've just
been reading the book, and the professor doesn't seem to be named. Seems
to be Digory, but I thought he married Polly and I was surprised to see
the professor in 'The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe' described as
having no wife. I then looked in 'The Magician's Nephew' and in 'The
Last Battle' and it seems that Digory and Polly were just life-long
friends. There's a bit in 'The Last Battle' where Jill (and then
Eustace) say "The Professor and Aunt Polly [...] She isn't really our
aunt, you know. She's Miss Plummer, but we call her Aunt Polly." My
mistake. For some reason I thought they got married.

Still couldn't find the name Kirke anywhere, though it sounds familiar.

<snip>

Christopher

--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184408 ] So, 11 Dezember 2005 12:40
Norman Silverstone  
>
> Still couldn't find the name Kirke anywhere, though it sounds familiar.

Are you getting mixed up with Star Trek and the Space Ship Enterprise?
(Sorry, only joking)

Norman
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184414 ] So, 11 Dezember 2005 21:55
onq  
Huan the hound wrote:
>
> Spoiler
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> Not sure if the spoiler space was needed, but I put it in just in case.
>
> Initial reaction: I liked it, it seemed more faithful to The Lion, the
> Witch and the Wardrobe by Lewis than PJ's FOTR, which I liked best of his
> three attempts. The dialog never stuck in my memory like lines from LOTR
> have, so I can't tell how much was made up. I suspect quite a bit, but
> nothing really cheesy. These are all really initial reactions, since I've
> just finished watching it.
>
> The theater was packed but I believe there was only one screen showing
> it. Everyone I was with had read it long ago, so they were tempted to
> ask each other questions about the plot. At the end, the credits start
> but don't go anywhere because very soon they stop and there is one more
> scene, followed by the rest of the credits.
>
> Cringe moments: Not too many, really! The river crossing was stupid.
> Making it a close-call chase out of the beavers' house and all the way to
> Aslan was unnecessary. I didn't like Maugrim's voice, it just didn't
> sound like the voice that would come from a wolf. If Cair Paravel really
> looks like a huge city, how are they going to reconcile it with the
> children only finding the ruin of their castle if they film Prince
> Caspian?

<snip>

In Prince Caspian a thousand years had passed since the time of TLTWTATW.
One of the Pevensie children having understood the situation IIRC remarks
that it would be like someone from King Arthur's time coming back to
Modern Britain.

I got the impression that the Castle was very overgrown, and had fallen
into such wrack and ruin that these former kings and queens couldn't
recognise their own place any more.

I wonder will people understand the import of the final book, or will it
be given a vile happy ending without the bad bits? I predict mass
killings of monkeys...

M.
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184423 ] Mo, 12 Dezember 2005 17:56
sbjensen  
Quoth "Christopher Kreuzer" <spamgard [at] blueyonder.co.uk> in article
<hnRmf.6493$iz3.5695 [at] text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>:
> Jette Goldie <bosslady [at] scotlandmail.com> wrote:
> > Professor Kirke improved in the later scenes.

> Is this Professor Kirke the same as the professor in the book? I've
> just been reading the book, and the professor doesn't seem to be
> named. Seems to be Digory, but I thought he married Polly and I was
> surprised to see the professor in 'The Lion the Witch and the
> Wardrobe' described as having no wife.

Yes, the Professor in /The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe/ is the
same as Digory in /The Magician's Nephew/. I don't know that you
should look for true consistency, though: Lewis wasn't nearly so much
of a stickler for that as Tolkien was. (Lewis's inconsistencies stand
out to me more clearly each time I read the series. I could go on
about them at length, but there wouldn't be much point. :) )

For the record, I am very firmly in the "read the Narnia books in
publication order" camp, as opposed to the current "story internal
order" renumbering that's been adopted in the past few years. I think
that the letter by Lewis that's been used to motivate the change has
been totally blown out of proportion (it was a light reply to a young
reader, not an instruction to his publisher!). I'm not sure why I've
decided to stick that in here, except that it's been on my mind.

In this particular example, I think that if the Professor in /Lion/
had actually been to Narnia before, it makes his character
substantially less interesting (and actually something of a twit: why
does he make the children feel foolish for not believing in magical
other worlds when his own belief rests solely on having been to one
himself?). :)

> Still couldn't find the name Kirke anywhere, though it sounds familiar.

It's certainly there in /The Magician's Nephew/, which I've just
gotten to in my own rereading; that book also makes reference to
Digory's curiosity leading him to become a Professor ("who appears in
other books", or something like that). I suspect that the name may
have even been there at the beginning of /The Voyage of the Dawn
Treader/, when they mentioned where Peter was spending the summer (but
maybe not).

Steuard Jensen
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184425 ] Mo, 12 Dezember 2005 18:05
sbjensen  
[Possible spoilers for /The Last Battle/ below, for those who care.]

Quoth Michael O'Neill <onq [at] bwahahaha.indigo.ie> in article
<439C9239.E20B1563 [at] bwahahaha.indigo.ie>:
> I wonder will people understand the import of the final book, or
> will it be given a vile happy ending without the bad bits? I predict
> mass killings of monkeys...

Considering the push to sell the series to the Christian market here
in the USA, I expect that each scene in /The Last Battle/ will have a
subtitle referring to the corresponding passage in "Revelations". :)
(Ever since I first read it in sixth or seventh grade, I've felt like
that book was the culmination of the ever-more-preachy trend of the
series just as much as it was the culmination of the plot of the
series.)

But really, what could possibly be a bad bit? Everyone ends up in
Aslan's country! Yay! Even if those stupid athiests, er, I mean
Dwarfs, don't enjoy it. Oh, and well, I guess the folks eaten by a
giant evil vulture god don't end up there, either. (I thought that
Tash's "promotion" from one of several southern idol/deities to Satan
Himself was weakly motivated, by the way.)

Steuard Jensen
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184432 ] Mo, 12 Dezember 2005 20:08
Pete Gray  
In article <YYhnf.8$25.1023 [at] news.uchicago.edu>,
sbjensen [at] midway.uchicago.edu says...
> Quoth "Christopher Kreuzer" <spamgard [at] blueyonder.co.uk> in article
> <hnRmf.6493$iz3.5695 [at] text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>:

> > Still couldn't find the name Kirke anywhere, though it sounds familiar.
>
> It's certainly there in /The Magician's Nephew/, which I've just
> gotten to in my own rereading; that book also makes reference to

Indeed it is. Chapter 7, 'What happened at the front door':

"'...I'll take Mrs Kirke's lunch up myself.' Mrs Kirke was of course
Digory's mother."

> Digory's curiosity leading him to become a Professor ("who appears in
> other books", or something like that). I suspect that the name may
> have even been there at the beginning of /The Voyage of the Dawn
> Treader/, when they mentioned where Peter was spending the summer (but
> maybe not).

You're right.
"Peter...was to spend the holidays being coached by old Professor Kirke
in whose house these four children had had wonderful adventures long ago
in the war years."

--
Pete Gray

The Curator's Egg
<http://www.redbadge.co.uk/egg/>
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184439 ] Mo, 12 Dezember 2005 20:55
Derek Broughton  
Steuard Jensen wrote:

> For the record, I am very firmly in the "read the Narnia books in
> publication order" camp, as opposed to the current "story internal
> order" renumbering that's been adopted in the past few years. I think
> that the letter by Lewis that's been used to motivate the change has
> been totally blown out of proportion (it was a light reply to a young
> reader, not an instruction to his publisher!). I'm not sure why I've
> decided to stick that in here, except that it's been on my mind.

I'm firmly in the "read in the story internal order camp" - except that _I_
read "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" first. So, though I go back
and always start with "The Magician's Nephew", I can't really say that it
would have worked best for me the first time :-)
--
derek
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184450 ] Di, 13 Dezember 2005 00:39
Christopher Kreuzer  
Steuard Jensen <sbjensen [at] midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
> Quoth "Christopher Kreuzer" <spamgard [at] blueyonder.co.uk> in article
> <hnRmf.6493$iz3.5695 [at] text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>:
>> Jette Goldie <bosslady [at] scotlandmail.com> wrote:
>>> Professor Kirke improved in the later scenes.
>
>> Is this Professor Kirke the same as the professor in the book? I've
>> just been reading the book, and the professor doesn't seem to be
>> named. Seems to be Digory, but I thought he married Polly and I was
>> surprised to see the professor in 'The Lion the Witch and the
>> Wardrobe' described as having no wife.
>
> Yes, the Professor in /The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe/ is the
> same as Digory in /The Magician's Nephew/.

I've found I was very confused, as I thought that Digory and Polly were
the first King and Queen of Narnia. I checked and discovered I was
wrong. Anyway, that is why I thought they were married.

> I don't know that you
> should look for true consistency, though: Lewis wasn't nearly so much
> of a stickler for that as Tolkien was. (Lewis's inconsistencies stand
> out to me more clearly each time I read the series. I could go on
> about them at length, but there wouldn't be much point. :) )

I'm re-reading the Narnia stories at the moment, for the first time in
many years. Probably close to fifteen years in fact. I recently re-read
'The Hobbit' and loved it. A children's book that adults can read. The
Narnia books are, to be frank, rubbish in comparison. Children's books
for children. But at least they are short. And as you note, not
consistent.

> For the record, I am very firmly in the "read the Narnia books in
> publication order" camp, as opposed to the current "story internal
> order" renumbering that's been adopted in the past few years. I think
> that the letter by Lewis that's been used to motivate the change has
> been totally blown out of proportion (it was a light reply to a young
> reader, not an instruction to his publisher!). I'm not sure why I've
> decided to stick that in here, except that it's been on my mind.

I read LWW first, and I _think_ I read the Magician's Nephew last. I
would definitely read LWW first, but read Magician's Nephew before Last
Battle. In this re-reading, I'm doing the publication order that you
suggest. From looking at the publication dates in my books, I think that
is The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, Dawn Treader,
Silver Chair, Horse and his Boy, Magician's Nephew, Last Battle. Is that
right?

> In this particular example, I think that if the Professor in /Lion/
> had actually been to Narnia before, it makes his character
> substantially less interesting (and actually something of a twit: why
> does he make the children feel foolish for not believing in magical
> other worlds when his own belief rests solely on having been to one
> himself?). :)

I thought it was more a lesson in Plato...

Christopher

--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184451 ] Di, 13 Dezember 2005 00:51
Huan the hound  
On 2005-12-12, Steuard Jensen <sbjensen [at] midway.uchicago.edu> wrote in
<T5inf.9$25.1098 [at] news.uchicago.edu>:

[snip]
> Dwarfs, don't enjoy it. Oh, and well, I guess the folks eaten by a
> giant evil vulture god don't end up there, either. (I thought that
> Tash's "promotion" from one of several southern idol/deities to Satan
> Himself was weakly motivated, by the way.)

Tash is Satan, just because he eats his followers? I never jumped to
that conclusion. Interesting, you may be right.

--
Huan, the hound of Valinor
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184452 ] Di, 13 Dezember 2005 00:53
Huan the hound  
On 2005-12-12, Christopher Kreuzer <spamgard [at] blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in
<TSnnf.7637$iz3.5739 [at] text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>:

[snip]
> I'm re-reading the Narnia stories at the moment, for the first time in
> many years. Probably close to fifteen years in fact. I recently re-read
> 'The Hobbit' and loved it. A children's book that adults can read. The
> Narnia books are, to be frank, rubbish in comparison. Children's books
> for children. But at least they are short. And as you note, not
> consistent.

Then again, to other adults, they are very enjoyable even after many
re-readings.

--
Huan, the hound of Valinor
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184453 ] Di, 13 Dezember 2005 01:20
sbjensen  
Quoth "Christopher Kreuzer" <spamgard [at] blueyonder.co.uk> in article
<TSnnf.7637$iz3.5739 [at] text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>:
> I recently re-read 'The Hobbit' and loved it. A children's book that
> adults can read. The Narnia books are, to be frank, rubbish in
> comparison. Children's books for children.

I generally agree. For me, the "talk down to the kiddies" bits in the
Narnia books are considerably more frequent and irritating than the
similar bits in /The Hobbit/. (I just recently got past yet another
"Of course, if Shasta had read as many books about traveling in the
desert as you have, he would have known this was a bad idea" aside.)
I won't argue if others continue to have more positive experiences
with them, though.

> Steuard Jensen <sbjensen [at] midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
> > For the record, I am very firmly in the "read the Narnia books in
> > publication order" camp, as opposed to the current "story internal
> > order" renumbering that's been adopted in the past few years.

> In this re-reading, I'm doing the publication order that you
> suggest. From looking at the publication dates in my books, I think
> that is The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, Dawn
> Treader, Silver Chair, Horse and his Boy, Magician's Nephew, Last
> Battle. Is that right?

Yup. (Interestingly enough, I think that the order in which they were
_written_ is different than either of these: if I recall correctly,
the biggest change is that /The Horse and His Boy/ was written before
/The Silver Chair/, which doesn't make much of a difference; also, I
believe that /The Magician's Nephew/ was started quite early, maybe
even before /Prince Caspian/, but I don't know how far it had
progressed when it was set aside.)

> > In this particular example, I think that if the Professor in /Lion/
> > had actually been to Narnia before, it makes his character
> > substantially less interesting (and actually something of a twit: why
> > does he make the children feel foolish for not believing in magical
> > other worlds when his own belief rests solely on having been to one
> > himself?). :)

> I thought it was more a lesson in Plato...

I thought that /The Last Battle/ and the whole "copies within copies"
bit was the lesson in Plato. :) I'm not sure what the Professor was
thinking of (personally, I often think of a quantum mechanics
connection, but not very seriously).
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184454 ] Di, 13 Dezember 2005 01:25
sbjensen  
Quoth Huan the hound <huanthehound [at] netscape.net> in article
<22onf.6822$ES.1980 [at] fe05.lga>:
> On 2005-12-12, Steuard Jensen <sbjensen [at] midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
> > Oh, and well, I guess the folks eaten by a giant evil vulture god
> > don't end up there, either. (I thought that Tash's "promotion"
> > from one of several southern idol/deities to Satan Himself was
> > weakly motivated, by the way.)

> Tash is Satan, just because he eats his followers? I never jumped to
> that conclusion. Interesting, you may be right.

I wasn't making the connection because of the follower-eating. I was
mainly just thinking of the way that /The Last Battle/ presents Aslan
and Tash pretty much as opposites. Tash isn't treated as some random
other god out there, he's treated as the epitome of evil. Or so it's
always seemed to me. (Otherwise, why don't the other gods of the
Calormen pantheon show up as well? At least one other is named in
/The Horse and His Boy/.)

Steuard Jensen
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184455 ] Di, 13 Dezember 2005 01:46
sbjensen  
Quoth Derek Broughton <news [at] pointerstop.ca> in article
<161173-4k3.ln1 [at] news.pointerstop.ca>:
> Steuard Jensen wrote:
> > For the record, I am very firmly in the "read the Narnia books in
> > publication order" camp, as opposed to the current "story internal
> > order" renumbering that's been adopted in the past few years.

> I'm firmly in the "read in the story internal order camp"

May I ask why? And do you advocate that order for new readers, or
just for your own rereadings?

I'm not trying to be hostile! I've just had so much trouble
understanding the other point of view. To me, a great deal of the
charm of /The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe/ comes from
discovering Narnia along with the children. The book is clearly
written as a reader's first exposure to Narnia (I think it contains
asides that almost say so directly), and elements like talking animals
or Aslan are gradually revealed along the way. In publication order,
you can watch as Narnia gets increasingly fleshed out from book to
book.

/The Magician's Nephew/, to me, always feels rather a lot more "busy"
and to some degree as if it were only partially a Narnia book. It has
many fundamental elements that don't show up elsewhere in the series:
the Wood Between the Worlds could be the backbone of an entire series
of books itself, for instance, and there are the Atlantis references,
and the history of human magic in our world and of people with fairy
blood, to say nothing of the world of Charn(?) where the White Witch
came from. I would worry that someone reading that book first
wouldn't know which bits were "important", and might be disappointed
that things like the larger Wood Between the Worlds framework didn't
appear again later.

What are the arguments for the "story internal" order? Do you feel
that they hold for Tolkien, too?

Steuard Jensen
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184459 ] Di, 13 Dezember 2005 04:36
Huan the hound  
On 2005-12-13, Steuard Jensen <sbjensen [at] midway.uchicago.edu> wrote in
<xxonf.12$25.1149 [at] news.uchicago.edu>:

> Quoth Huan the hound <huanthehound [at] netscape.net> in article
><22onf.6822$ES.1980 [at] fe05.lga>:
>> On 2005-12-12, Steuard Jensen <sbjensen [at] midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>> > Oh, and well, I guess the folks eaten by a giant evil vulture god
>> > don't end up there, either. (I thought that Tash's "promotion"
>> > from one of several southern idol/deities to Satan Himself was
>> > weakly motivated, by the way.)
>
>> Tash is Satan, just because he eats his followers? I never jumped to
>> that conclusion. Interesting, you may be right.
>
> I wasn't making the connection because of the follower-eating. I was
> mainly just thinking of the way that /The Last Battle/ presents Aslan
> and Tash pretty much as opposites. Tash isn't treated as some random
> other god out there, he's treated as the epitome of evil. Or so it's
> always seemed to me. (Otherwise, why don't the other gods of the
> Calormen pantheon show up as well? At least one other is named in
> /The Horse and His Boy/.)

Well, I honestly can't recall Tash being the epitome of evil, and I always
felt like Satan wasn't fully depicted in the Narnia books. Now I'm pretty
sure I'm missing something, and I'd love to dig into _The Last Battle_ but
I don't have it in my apartment. Do you have it handy, and would you (or
anyone) mind quoting something to refresh my memory?

(I think this is where my enjoyment of the radio dramas is interfering
with my memory, because I've listened to the whole series more than once
since the last time I read any of them.)

--
Huan, the hound of Valinor
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184460 ] Di, 13 Dezember 2005 06:36
danhenry  
On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 23:39:31 GMT, "Christopher Kreuzer"
<spamgard [at] blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

>I've found I was very confused, as I thought that Digory and Polly were
>the first King and Queen of Narnia. I checked and discovered I was
>wrong. Anyway, that is why I thought they were married.

You don't have to be married to share the throne of Narnia. Or else the
Pevensies were a lot naughtier than we've been led to believe!

>I read LWW first, and I _think_ I read the Magician's Nephew last. I
>would definitely read LWW first, but read Magician's Nephew before Last
>Battle. In this re-reading, I'm doing the publication order that you
>suggest. From looking at the publication dates in my books, I think that
>is The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, Dawn Treader,
>Silver Chair, Horse and his Boy, Magician's Nephew, Last Battle. Is that
>right?

Yes. He actually finished writing Last Battle before Magician's Nephew
and finished A Horse and His Boy even before starting Silver Chair.
Otherwise, he finished writing them in the same order as they were
published.

--
R. Dan Henry
danhenry [at] inreach.com
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184464 ] Di, 13 Dezember 2005 07:05
Steve Morrison  
Huan the hound wrote:

> Well, I honestly can't recall Tash being the epitome of evil, and I always
> felt like Satan wasn't fully depicted in the Narnia books. Now I'm pretty
> sure I'm missing something, and I'd love to dig into _The Last Battle_ but
> I don't have it in my apartment. Do you have it handy, and would you (or
> anyone) mind quoting something to refresh my memory?

How about the passage in which Aslan, speaking to Emeth, says of Tash:

"Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to
me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such
different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and
none which is not vile can be done to him."

(I hope I have the quotation right, since I don't have a copy of TLB
handy either; I pulled this from a Google search for Tash+Emeth).
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184468 ] Di, 13 Dezember 2005 09:29
danhenry  
On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 00:25:01 GMT, sbjensen [at] midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard
Jensen) wrote:

>I wasn't making the connection because of the follower-eating. I was
>mainly just thinking of the way that /The Last Battle/ presents Aslan
>and Tash pretty much as opposites. Tash isn't treated as some random
>other god out there, he's treated as the epitome of evil. Or so it's
>always seemed to me. (Otherwise, why don't the other gods of the
>Calormen pantheon show up as well? At least one other is named in
>/The Horse and His Boy/.)

Well, they'd be deceptions of Satan, too, wouldn't they? So they're all
Tash. It's just in Tash-form that Satan chooses to manifest.

--
R. Dan Henry
danhenry [at] inreach.com
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184479 ] Di, 13 Dezember 2005 13:48
Jette Goldie  
"Christopher Kreuzer" <spamgard [at] blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:TSnnf.7637$iz3.5739 [at] text.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
> Steuard Jensen <sbjensen [at] midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:

>> In this particular example, I think that if the Professor in /Lion/
>> had actually been to Narnia before, it makes his character
>> substantially less interesting (and actually something of a twit: why
>> does he make the children feel foolish for not believing in magical
>> other worlds when his own belief rests solely on having been to one
>> himself?). :)
>
> I thought it was more a lesson in Plato...


The Professor *had* been to other worlds, but as he had no experience
with entering them via the wardrobe in the spare room, he had no proof
that *Lucy* had in fact been to another world, and anyway if he'd just
come out and said to Peter and Susan "oh, she's right, btw" they'd have
thought he too was off his rocker. (old = senile) He had to leave it to
them to discover this by themselves - lead them to the use of logic and
"faith".


--
Jette Goldie
jette [at] blueyonder.co.uk
("reply to" is spamblocked)
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184480 ] Di, 13 Dezember 2005 14:47
Stan Brown  
Tue, 13 Dec 2005 00:29:00 -0800 from R. Dan Henry
<danhenry [at] inreach.com>:
> On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 00:25:01 GMT, sbjensen [at] midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard
> Jensen) wrote:
>
> >I wasn't making the connection because of the follower-eating. I was
> >mainly just thinking of the way that /The Last Battle/ presents Aslan
> >and Tash pretty much as opposites. Tash isn't treated as some random
> >other god out there, he's treated as the epitome of evil. Or so it's
> >always seemed to me. (Otherwise, why don't the other gods of the
> >Calormen pantheon show up as well? At least one other is named in
> >/The Horse and His Boy/.)
>
> Well, they'd be deceptions of Satan, too, wouldn't they? So they're all
> Tash. It's just in Tash-form that Satan chooses to manifest.

Tash and Aslan can't be opposites. That would be Manicheanism, a
heresy that Lewis would have shrunk from in horror.

If Narnia weren't such a blatant Christian allegory, my objevction
would fall to the ground. But since the allegory is so clear, it must
be that if Tash has any objective reality (as opposed to being in the
Calormemes' heads, like what the Dwarves saw), then he was a creation
of Aslan and not an equal but opposite figure.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html
FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184486 ] Di, 13 Dezember 2005 15:53
Derek Broughton  
Steuard Jensen wrote:

> Quoth Derek Broughton <news [at] pointerstop.ca> in article
> <161173-4k3.ln1 [at] news.pointerstop.ca>:
>> Steuard Jensen wrote:
>> > For the record, I am very firmly in the "read the Narnia books in
>> > publication order" camp, as opposed to the current "story internal
>> > order" renumbering that's been adopted in the past few years.
>
>> I'm firmly in the "read in the story internal order camp"
>
> May I ask why?

Of course you may! I think it's really because I'm obsessive compulsive :-)
Reading a tale in anything but chronological order grates on me. I hate
books with flashbacks - particularly those ones that start with a
current-time prolog, then chapter 1 starts twenty years ago. Probably all
due to a lack of imagination on my part...

> And do you advocate that order for new readers, or
> just for your own rereadings?

I still think _The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe_ has got to be the first
book you read. After that, I'd recommend the story-internal order.
>
> What are the arguments for the "story internal" order?

As above - not much of an argument compared to yours :-)

> Do you feel that they hold for Tolkien, too?

I don't think they really can. I tend to reread _The Hobbit_ before
rereading LOTR, but none of the other Middle Earth works are anywhere near
as readable (at least imo) as those two (in their entirety, anyway - some
of the individual stories are great). I don't reread _The Hobbit_ as often
as LOTR, either.
--
derek
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184506 ] Mi, 14 Dezember 2005 01:58
Kevin K  
On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 23:53:07 UTC, Huan the hound
<huanthehound [at] netscape.net> wrote:

> On 2005-12-12, Christopher Kreuzer <spamgard [at] blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in
> <TSnnf.7637$iz3.5739 [at] text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>:
>
> [snip]
> > I'm re-reading the Narnia stories at the moment, for the first time in
> > many years. Probably close to fifteen years in fact. I recently re-read
> > 'The Hobbit' and loved it. A children's book that adults can read. The
> > Narnia books are, to be frank, rubbish in comparison. Children's books
> > for children. But at least they are short. And as you note, not
> > consistent.
>
> Then again, to other adults, they are very enjoyable even after many
> re-readings.
>


I think they suffered a little bit this last time, the first time in 4
or 5 years, since I've read most of the HoME in that time frame.
Being exposed to the depth of Tolkien's universe made the Narnia books
suffer a little in comparison.
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184507 ] Mi, 14 Dezember 2005 02:00
Kevin K  
On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 06:05:41 UTC, "Steve Morrison" <Geirroeth [at] aol.com>
wrote:

> Huan the hound wrote:
>
> > Well, I honestly can't recall Tash being the epitome of evil, and I always
> > felt like Satan wasn't fully depicted in the Narnia books. Now I'm pretty
> > sure I'm missing something, and I'd love to dig into _The Last Battle_ but
> > I don't have it in my apartment. Do you have it handy, and would you (or
> > anyone) mind quoting something to refresh my memory?
>
> How about the passage in which Aslan, speaking to Emeth, says of Tash:
>
> "Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to
> me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such
> different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and
> none which is not vile can be done to him."
>
> (I hope I have the quotation right, since I don't have a copy of TLB
> handy either; I pulled this from a Google search for Tash+Emeth).
>

On the other hand Jadis acted out the Satan role in Magician's Nephew
and LWW.
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184515 ] Mi, 14 Dezember 2005 09:54
Christopher Kreuzer  
Huan the hound <huanthehound [at] netscape.net> wrote:
> On 2005-12-12, Christopher Kreuzer <spamgard [at] blueyonder.co.uk> wrote
> in <TSnnf.7637$iz3.5739 [at] text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>:
>
> [snip]
>> I'm re-reading the Narnia stories at the moment, for the first time
>> in many years. Probably close to fifteen years in fact. I recently
>> re-read 'The Hobbit' and loved it. A children's book that adults can
>> read. The Narnia books are, to be frank, rubbish in comparison.
>> Children's books for children. But at least they are short. And as
>> you note, not consistent.
>
> Then again, to other adults, they are very enjoyable even after many
> re-readings.

That comment (maybe a bit too harsh - I was unfairly comparing the
Narnia books to 'The Hobbit' and other Tolkien writings) was really
about the first two books (LWW and Prince Caspian). I'm now on the Dawn
Treader, and enjoying that much more than LWW and Prince Caspian. Either
I'm getting used to the annoying bits, or Lewis is improving as a writer
through the series. I also seem to remember that I enjoyed the Silver
Chair a lot, and also the Magician's Nephew. Not sure about the Last
Battle yet. Used to be one of my favourites, but I re-read that in
isolation a year or two ago and don't remember enjoying it quite as
much.

I'll be seeing the LWW film soon anyway, so I'm looking forward to that.

Christopher

--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184516 ] Mi, 14 Dezember 2005 10:00
Christopher Kreuzer  
Steuard Jensen <sbjensen [at] midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
> Quoth "Christopher Kreuzer" <spamgard [at] blueyonder.co.uk> in article
> <TSnnf.7637$iz3.5739 [at] text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>:
>> I recently re-read 'The Hobbit' and loved it. A children's book that
>> adults can read. The Narnia books are, to be frank, rubbish in
>> comparison. Children's books for children.
>
> I generally agree. For me, the "talk down to the kiddies" bits in the
> Narnia books are considerably more frequent and irritating than the
> similar bits in /The Hobbit/. (I just recently got past yet another
> "Of course, if Shasta had read as many books about traveling in the
> desert as you have, he would have known this was a bad idea" aside.)

They do stick out like a sore thumb, don't they, those bits? :-)

> I won't argue if others continue to have more positive experiences
> with them, though.

No. That's just my reaction as I read them this time round. As I said in
another post, I'm enjoying the later book more.

>> Steuard Jensen <sbjensen [at] midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>>> For the record, I am very firmly in the "read the Narnia books in
>>> publication order" camp, as opposed to the current "story internal
>>> order" renumbering that's been adopted in the past few years.
>
>> In this re-reading, I'm doing the publication order that you
>> suggest. From looking at the publication dates in my books, I think
>> that is The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, Dawn
>> Treader, Silver Chair, Horse and his Boy, Magician's Nephew, Last
>> Battle. Is that right?
>
> Yup. (Interestingly enough, I think that the order in which they were
> _written_ is different than either of these: if I recall correctly,
> the biggest change is that /The Horse and His Boy/ was written before
> /The Silver Chair/, which doesn't make much of a difference; also, I
> believe that /The Magician's Nephew/ was started quite early, maybe
> even before /Prince Caspian/, but I don't know how far it had
> progressed when it was set aside.)
>
>>> In this particular example, I think that if the Professor in /Lion/
>>> had actually been to Narnia before, it makes his character
>>> substantially less interesting (and actually something of a twit:
>>> why does he make the children feel foolish for not believing in
>>> magical other worlds when his own belief rests solely on having
>>> been to one himself?). :)
>
>> I thought it was more a lesson in Plato...
>
> I thought that /The Last Battle/ and the whole "copies within copies"
> bit was the lesson in Plato. :) I'm not sure what the Professor was
> thinking of (personally, I often think of a quantum mechanics
> connection, but not very seriously).

There is a bit in the LWW book where the Professor mutters about logic
and "what do they teach them in these schools" which is, I think,
repeated verbatim in the Last Battle bit. It is the bit in LWW where he
talks to Peter and Susan about what to do with Lucy (who is "imagining
things").

Christopher

--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184525 ] Mi, 14 Dezember 2005 16:19
Stan Brown  
Wed, 14 Dec 2005 01:00:36 GMT from Kevin K <kevink4 [at] gmail.com>:
> On the other hand Jadis acted out the Satan role in Magician's Nephew
> and LWW.

I think she was more the Whore of Babylon. :)

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html
FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184532 ] Mi, 14 Dezember 2005 20:38
onq  
Steuard Jensen wrote:
>
> [Possible spoilers for /The Last Battle/ below, for those who care.]
>
> Quoth Michael O'Neill <onq [at] bwahahaha.indigo.ie> in article
> <439C9239.E20B1563 [at] bwahahaha.indigo.ie>:
> > I wonder will people understand the import of the final book, or
> > will it be given a vile happy ending without the bad bits? I predict
> > mass killings of monkeys...
>
> Considering the push to sell the series to the Christian market here
> in the USA, I expect that each scene in /The Last Battle/ will have a
> subtitle referring to the corresponding passage in "Revelations". :)
> (Ever since I first read it in sixth or seventh grade, I've felt like
> that book was the culmination of the ever-more-preachy trend of the
> series just as much as it was the culmination of the plot of the
> series.)

Again these blue moons creep upon us unawares, Steuard. I agree with you.

I enjoyed this book the least, since it seemed to embrace a tradition
used by Christians, the defilement of the Godhead.

Think of the Crucifixion as the defilement of one man and the destruction
of the beliefs of even his most loyal followers.

Now consider The Last Battle as the defilement of all that was good in
Narnia and its people dying in abject despair.

> But really, what could possibly be a bad bit?

Ehrm..."its people dying in abject despair". Gonna be hard to square that
with kids. Still perhaps it will be like Harry Potter which looks like
the final films will be X-Rated!

> Everyone ends up in
> Aslan's country! Yay! Even if those stupid athiests, er, I mean
> Dwarfs, don't enjoy it.

"Heaven is all around you if only you could see it - hell is a state of
mind."

> Oh, and well, I guess the folks eaten by a
> giant evil vulture god don't end up there, either.

A large intestine filled with excrement and rabid dogs, but his followers
see them as beautiful virgins in a mirror image of the dwarves plight.

> (I thought that Tash's "promotion"
> from one of several southern idol/deities to Satan
> Himself was weakly motivated, by the way.)

"It's a dirty job, but someone's got ot do it - you go Tash, me auld son
- you're looking a bit peaky lately and could do with a bit of feeding up
on nice Narnian meat."

However, beyond the trite moralization which always attends Christian
world views, there is a broader brush at work here.

"Everything must end, even the best of places."

But this isn't seen as the permanence of change most people seem to avoid
understanding in their lives [and some people's lives stay static for
long periods], but a prequel to a life supposedly wonderful with Aslan.

Writers who write of heaven always seem to fail of their promise and
never pose the question:

"What happens when forever ends?"

M.
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184533 ] Mi, 14 Dezember 2005 20:40
Christopher Kreuzer  
R. Dan Henry <danhenry [at] inreach.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 23:39:31 GMT, "Christopher Kreuzer"
> <spamgard [at] blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> I've found I was very confused, as I thought that Digory and Polly
>> were the first King and Queen of Narnia. I checked and discovered I
>> was wrong. Anyway, that is why I thought they were married.
>
> You don't have to be married to share the throne of Narnia. Or else
> the Pevensies were a lot naughtier than we've been led to believe!

Good point. Though one thing that struck me on re-reading the story was
the bit about how the Pevensies, during their years in Narnia, change
and become adults (Susan at least is described as a woman - it is not
clear how old Lucy is). Then they change back to children. Presumably
with memories of being adults, though I think in one of the stories it
is made clear that their memories of Narnia come back to them the longer
they spend there.

It must have been a bit strange growing up again as children in this
world, after being Kings and Queens in another world. Though I don't
remember thinking this as a child, so presumably children don't think
about the story like that.

Christopher

--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184534 ] Mi, 14 Dezember 2005 20:42
onq  
Stan Brown wrote:
>
> Tue, 13 Dec 2005 00:29:00 -0800 from R. Dan Henry
> <danhenry [at] inreach.com>:
> > On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 00:25:01 GMT, sbjensen [at] midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard
> > Jensen) wrote:
> >
> > >I wasn't making the connection because of the follower-eating. I was
> > >mainly just thinking of the way that /The Last Battle/ presents Aslan
> > >and Tash pretty much as opposites. Tash isn't treated as some random
> > >other god out there, he's treated as the epitome of evil. Or so it's
> > >always seemed to me. (Otherwise, why don't the other gods of the
> > >Calormen pantheon show up as well? At least one other is named in
> > >/The Horse and His Boy/.)
> >
> > Well, they'd be deceptions of Satan, too, wouldn't they? So they're all
> > Tash. It's just in Tash-form that Satan chooses to manifest.
>
> Tash and Aslan can't be opposites. That would be Manicheanism, a
> heresy that Lewis would have shrunk from in horror.

<snip>

See Steve Morrison's quotation from the Book saying just that in

<1134453941.227360.16030 [at] g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>

My reader says Steve posted it on Tuesday at 06:05 while this post of
yours to which I am responding my reader says was posted at 13:47.

FWIW

M.
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184536 ] Mi, 14 Dezember 2005 21:04
Christopher Kreuzer  
Steve Morrison <Geirroeth [at] aol.com> wrote:
> Huan the hound wrote:
>
>> Well, I honestly can't recall Tash being the epitome of evil, and I
>> always felt like Satan wasn't fully depicted in the Narnia books.
>> Now I'm pretty sure I'm missing something, and I'd love to dig into
>> _The Last Battle_ but I don't have it in my apartment. Do you have
>> it handy, and would you (or anyone) mind quoting something to
>> refresh my memory?
>
> How about the passage in which Aslan, speaking to Emeth, says of Tash:
>
> "Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to
> me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such
> different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and
> none which is not vile can be done to him."
>
> (I hope I have the quotation right, since I don't have a copy of TLB
> handy either; I pulled this from a Google search for Tash+Emeth).

The quote is right. To put it in context, Aslan then says this another
way (though I am paraphrasing here) by saying that any good deed,
whether done in the name of Tash or Aslan, is accepted by Aslan, and
that any bad deed, whether done in the name of Tash or Aslan, is
accepted by Tash.

I _think_ that is different from the Manichean heresy that Stan was
talking about, but I don't know for certain. As for Stan's idea that
Tash was a creation of Aslan, I always got the impression that Aslan in
some sense was as much a part of Narnia as any other creature. Aslan,
Tash, the White Witch, are all part of the magic of Narnia. This
discussion really makes me want to re-read the Magician's Nephew now,
but still have two more books to read before that one...

Christopher

--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184539 ] Mi, 14 Dezember 2005 21:30
Christopher Kreuzer  
Derek Broughton <news [at] pointerstop.ca> wrote:

<snip>

> I still think _The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe_ has got to be
> the first book you read. After that, I'd recommend the
> story-internal order.

<spoiler warning for several books in the Narnia Chronicles>

I agree that you have to read LWW before Magician's Nephew. Otherwise
the lamp post bit is spoilt! You also have to read The Last Battle at
the end of the series, I think. I read it before Magician's Nephew, so I
didn't quite understand who this Digory and Polly were!

LWW, Prince Caspian, Dawn Treader, and Silver Chair form a natural
sequence (and the last three of those form a little 'Caspian' trilogy).
And Last Battle has to go at the end, and it follows on naturally from
Silver Chair. Horse and his Boy seems to be able to go anywhere, but has
quite a bit about Calormenes, so I'd be inclined to place it after Dawn
Treader and before Last Battle. Horse and his Boy is set between LWW and
Prince Caspian (actually the final pages of LWW are set after Horse and
his Boy), but doesn't have to be read after LWW. In fact, I'd say it
works well just before Last Battle, as both have lots about Calormenes.
And Magician's Nephew might work well if read straight after LWW.

So, the chronological order is:

1) The Magician's Nephew
2) The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
3) The Horse and His Boy
4) Prince Caspian
5) The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
6) The Silver Chair
7) The Last Battle

The publication order is:

2) The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
4) Prince Caspian (1951)
5) The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
6) The Silver Chair (1953)
3) The Horse and His Boy (1954)
1) The Magician's Nephew (1955)
7) The Last Battle (1956)

[It would be interesting to compare this to the writing dates and
publication dates for Tolkien's LotR. Tolkien finished writing LotR
years before Lewis published, but does anyone know when Lewis started
writing his Narnia stories? Lewis would have heard bits of LotR before
he published his Narnia stories. Was there any influence?]

My suggested reading order:

2) The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
1) The Magician's Nephew
4) Prince Caspian
5) The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
6) The Silver Chair
3) The Horse and His Boy
7) The Last Battle

Christopher

--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184547 ] Do, 15 Dezember 2005 00:36
danhenry  
On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 20:04:08 GMT, "Christopher Kreuzer"
<spamgard [at] blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

>I _think_ that is different from the Manichean heresy that Stan was
>talking about, but I don't know for certain. As for Stan's idea that
>Tash was a creation of Aslan, I always got the impression that Aslan in
>some sense was as much a part of Narnia as any other creature. Aslan,
>Tash, the White Witch, are all part of the magic of Narnia. This
>discussion really makes me want to re-read the Magician's Nephew now,
>but still have two more books to read before that one...

Aslan is Jesus and Narnia is created 1900 AD in our world's calendar, so
Aslan pre-date Narnia significantly, even if you don't invoke any divine
timelessness. Jadis isn't from Narnia and also pre-dates it. Tash isn't
essentially Narnian, either, if he's just a guise of the Devil, but in
his case we don't actually see Tash outside of Narnia, so we can argue
about whether or not he is.

--
R. Dan Henry
danhenry [at] inreach.com
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184548 ] Do, 15 Dezember 2005 01:13
Huan the hound  
On 2005-12-14, Christopher Kreuzer <spamgard [at] blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in
<1bRnf.8394$iz3.5312 [at] text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>:

> Steuard Jensen <sbjensen [at] midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
[snip]
>> I generally agree. For me, the "talk down to the kiddies" bits in the
>> Narnia books are considerably more frequent and irritating than the
>> similar bits in /The Hobbit/. (I just recently got past yet another
>> "Of course, if Shasta had read as many books about traveling in the
>> desert as you have, he would have known this was a bad idea" aside.)
>
> They do stick out like a sore thumb, don't they, those bits? :-)
[snip]

Generally I hate "chatty" writing, so I can sympathize with this.
However I don't mind it at all from Lewis. I have no idea why I can
stand it from him and not from others.

--
Huan
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184550 ] Do, 15 Dezember 2005 01:47
sbjensen  
[Regarding /The Last Battle/:]

Quoth Michael O'Neill <onq [at] bwahahaha.indigo.ie> in article
<43A074AB.5ACA4830 [at] bwahahaha.indigo.ie>:
> Steuard Jensen wrote:
> > (Ever since I first read it in sixth or seventh grade, I've felt
> > like that book was the culmination of the ever-more-preachy trend
> > of the series just as much as it was the culmination of the plot
> > of the series.)

> Again these blue moons creep upon us unawares, Steuard. I agree with you.

Aw, how rare can that be, really? :)

> Now consider The Last Battle as the defilement of all that was good in
> Narnia and its people dying in abject despair.

Yeah, it's pretty horrid. I have trouble imagining it showing up on
film in anything close to a faithful reproduction.

> > But really, what could possibly be a bad bit?

> Ehrm..."its people dying in abject despair". Gonna be hard to square that
> with kids. Still perhaps it will be like Harry Potter which looks like
> the final films will be X-Rated!

Oh no! You're one of those people with "Emma Watson turns 18"
countdown timer on their desktop, aren't you?

> > Everyone ends up in Aslan's country! Yay! Even if those stupid
> > athiests, er, I mean Dwarfs, don't enjoy it.

I've just finished rereading the book, and I take this back. Lots of
people (bad ones, I guess) apparently vanished into Aslan's shadow
instead. I have no idea what was up with that. Maybe it was a
shortcut to Tash's intestines (one that didn't involve chewing). But
as none of those people were in any way important, I guess that's all
okay. Everyone you've ever heard of is saved (and so's their house);
it's only anonymous strangers who don't make the cut.

Steuard Jensen
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184552 ] Do, 15 Dezember 2005 04:32
danhenry  
On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 00:46:03 GMT, sbjensen [at] midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard
Jensen) wrote:

>Quoth Derek Broughton <news [at] pointerstop.ca> in article
><161173-4k3.ln1 [at] news.pointerstop.ca>:
>> Steuard Jensen wrote:
>> > For the record, I am very firmly in the "read the Narnia books in
>> > publication order" camp, as opposed to the current "story internal
>> > order" renumbering that's been adopted in the past few years.
>
>> I'm firmly in the "read in the story internal order camp"
>
>May I ask why? And do you advocate that order for new readers, or
>just for your own rereadings?

Because, it's just fun to put down LWW when you're almost done and read
HHB before going back and finishing LWW. :-)

--
R. Dan Henry
danhenry [at] inreach.com
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184553 ] Do, 15 Dezember 2005 04:32
danhenry  
On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 20:30:32 GMT, "Christopher Kreuzer"
<spamgard [at] blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

>[It would be interesting to compare this to the writing dates and
>publication dates for Tolkien's LotR. Tolkien finished writing LotR
>years before Lewis published, but does anyone know when Lewis started
>writing his Narnia stories? Lewis would have heard bits of LotR before
>he published his Narnia stories. Was there any influence?]

According to the timeline that makes up Appendix A of Paul F. Ford's
_Companion to Narnia_, LWW was begun in 1939, then set aside in early
1940, then resumed in 1948 and finished in 1949.

--
R. Dan Henry
danhenry [at] inreach.com
Re: Thoughts on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie [message #184556 ] Do, 15 Dezember 2005 07:08
Steve Hayes  
On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 20:04:08 GMT, "Christopher Kreuzer"
<spamgard [at] blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

>Steve Morrison <Geirroeth [at] aol.com> wrote:
>> Huan the hound wrote:
>>
>>> Well, I honestly can't recall Tash being the epitome of evil, and I
>>> always felt like Satan wasn't fully depicted in the Narnia books.
>>> Now I'm pretty sure I'm missing something, and I'd love to dig into
>>> _The Last Battle_ but I don't have it in my apartment. Do you have
>>> it handy, and would you (or anyone) mind quoting something to
>>> refresh my memory?
>>
>> How about the passage in which Aslan, speaking to Emeth, says of Tash:
>>
>> "Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to
>> me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such
>> different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and
>> none which is not vile can be done to him."
>>
>> (I hope I have the quotation right, since I don't have a copy of TLB
>> handy either; I pulled this from a Google search for Tash+Emeth).
>
>The quote is right. To put it in context, Aslan then says this another
>way (though I am paraphrasing here) by saying that any good deed,
>whether done in the name of Tash or Aslan, is accepted by Aslan, and
>that any bad deed, whether done in the name of Tash or Aslan, is
>accepted by Tash.
>
>I _think_ that is different from the Manichean heresy that Stan was
>talking about, but I don't know for certain. As for Stan's idea that
>Tash was a creation of Aslan, I always got the impression that Aslan in
>some sense was as much a part of Narnia as any other creature. Aslan,
>Tash, the White Witch, are all part of the magic of Narnia. This
>discussion really makes me want to re-read the Magician's Nephew now,
>but still have two more books to read before that one...

In "The magicians nephew" Aslan *creates* the magic of Narnia, but I'm not
sure that he creates Tash.

It's not Manichaean though. There are different forms of evil in Narnia -- the
white witch, the green snake, Shape and Tash. Some arise within Narnia, som
are imported from outside, but they are not equal and opposite to Aslan (or
the Emperor-beyond-the-sea).




--
Steve Hayes
Web: http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm
http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Methodius
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