It's been years since I allowed myself the pleasure of rereading the Narnia books. And now I have two pleasures in reading these books: enjoying my old childhood joy, and analyzing the writing itself.One thing I remember noticing even as a child is the absolute dearth of femaleness. I don't mean female characters per se: in terms of having someone to care about and directly identify with, there's always a female child as well as a male one. (Everyone loves Lucy.) I mean that Lewis seems not to have understood that where there are sons, there must be mothers.(Belated warning: There will be spoilers. These books are over 60 years old, and there have been movies made of some of them. If you're over the age of 18 and you haven't read the Narnia books yet, clearly you have no plans to. Which I think is a shame, but hey, you're the boss of you.)Getting back to what I was saying about motherless sons: I'm speaking in a strictly biological sense, and boy howdy does Lewis seem to be squeamish about the strictly biological. When young prince Caspian is forced to flee into the wilderness, he befriends and allies himself with the talking beasts and magical creatures who have gone into hiding since the invasion of the Telmarines. (Excellent name, btw. Lewis is as gifted at naming as Dickens was.) In the course of this delightful search for what's left of the magical beings of Narnia, who does Caspian meet? There are dwarves and dwarf-folk -- descendants of dwarves who are part-human. All of these are male. It feels as if dwarves would have to marry humans in order to carry on the race, since we never, ever, ever hear anything about female dwarves. Probably because in Lewis' world, women are beautiful and good, or beautiful and evil, or ugly and evil; but they're never ugly (or even just ordinary-looking) and good. And the fact is, female dwarves wouldn't be gorgeous to human eyes. Lewis seems uncomfortable with this.(To be fair, so was his good friend, Tolkien. Terry Pratchett seems to be the first major writer to tackle the issue of female dwarves, and he does so delightfully in the Discworld novels.)So: lots of dwarves. All male. Who else? Three talking bears, all male. A giant squirrel, male. Glenstorm the centaur and his three sons. Um, male. Probably because centaurs are always portrayed as bare-chested rather than clothed, and Lewis goes along with that. Having a female centaur would mean having a topless woman or introducing the idea of centaur fashion, and Lewis seems uncomfortable with that. So we have a centaur with three male children and a wife who either died or keeps herself decently tucked away, which seems distinctly un-centaurlike. But okay. (The centaurs even offer refreshments to Caspian and his friends: oatcakes, and wine, and cheese. Boy-centaurs who cook are more okay to Lewis than female centaurs who do anything. Not that I'm bitter.) Who else? Twelve talking, fighting mice. All male. Several other talking animals, all male. (Unless Hogglestock the Hedgehog is female, which I sort of doubt, but I guess it's possible.) Fauns -- male. And a giant. Male.As I said, I remember wondering even as a child where the mothers and daughters and wives were. You kind of can't carry a species on without them. But Lewis is determined to manage somehow.You'd never know from reading this review so far that I love these books. I do. They're humorous and moving and just plain terrific stories. So many lines of dialogue have stuck with me over the years. I love it when Trumpkin the dwarf finds the Pevensie children and is awkwardly explaining that, well, he and his band of rebels had been hoping for some serious military help against the evil King Miraz when they decided to call back the four ancient rulers of Narnia: "I suppose you are the four children out of the old stories," said Trumpkin. "And I'm very glad to meet you of course. And it's very interesting, no doubt. But -- no offence?" -- and he hesitated again."Do get on and say whatever you're going to say," said Edmund."Well then (no offence)," said Trumpkin. "But, you know, the King and Trufflehunter and Master Cornelius were expecting -- well, if you see what I mean, help. To put it in another way, I think they'd be imagining you as great warriors. As it is -- we're awfully fond of children and all that, but just at the moment, in the middle of a war -- but I'm sure you understand."The contest that follows, in which the children courteously invite the dwarf to compete with them in fencing and archery (and absolutely trounce him) is as delightful to read now as it was when I was a kid. It's such a joy to have a book in which children are active, competent, skillful characters. I think that's why these books continue to be read and enjoyed. Plenty has changed technologically in the years since they were written, but kids still love having the chance to be heroes. And the Pevensies are ordinary kids who get to do amazing things. Now: another thing I noticed this time around that I also puzzled over as a child was how odd some of Aslan's behavior is. Unless you specifically know that his rules and actions are a metaphor for Christianity, his choices are baffling. Why when he came to lead the children to the right path to reach Caspian did he put Lucy to the test that way? He tormented all of them with his elusiveness, and for what? Plot-wise, it makes no sense. If you know that it's "really" about having Christian faith, it clicks. Especially if you understand that some believers (certainly Lewis was one of them) are firmly convinced that people who say they don't believe in the Christian God secretly do, in their deepest heart of hearts. Here's Susan, talking to Lucy about Aslan:"I really believed it was him -- he, I mean -- yesterday. When he warned us not to go down to the fir-wood. And I really believed it was him tonight, when you woke us up. I mean, deep down inside. Or I could have, if I'd let myself. But I just wanted to get out of the woods and -- and -- oh, I don't know."I don't know either. I'm too straightforward to be able to make much sense of that sort of thing. Again, these stories are strong enough to stand up to their own weaknesses. I loved them then and I love them now. But it's fun to take a keener look at them now that I'm a so-called grownup.
What do You think about Prince Caspian (2005)?
November 19, 2008. I've read these books a zillion and one times and surely I shall read them a zillion more. Because every single time, I realize new truths and find more honor in their pages. Today, I've read a passage that I find disturbing and quite out of character for CS Lewis: p.72 "Shall we go farther up for you, up to the crags? There's an Ogre or two and a Hag that we could introduce you to, up there." "Certainly not," said Caspian. "I should think not, indeed," said Trufflehunter. "We want none of that sort on our side."Seems a bit racist, if you ask me. It really makes me wonder exactly what CS Lewis is getting at here. It's totally the opposite of what happens in The Last Battle when Aslan sorts the good guys from the bad guys by whether they're good oir evil in their hearts. So anyway, it seems weird and I don't like it. The Hag does ends up being a bad guy in the end, but still... I dunno. I'll keep reading and blame the racism on the 1950s for now. Oh yeah, as a side note, whenever I read British literature, I talk to myself in a British accent and rhythm for a while afterward. It's so dorky!!!Later...I've read a bit more now. The race issue didn't come up again. The battle scenes are not the same as you might see these days. There's something more frank and quick about them. Lewis doesn't explain every little move and maneuver, so in fact, if you're reading too fast, you might even miss a fight going on. Here's an example of a battle overview without much in the way of specifics:P. 187But the new bout went well. Peter now seemed to be able to make some use of his shield, and he certainly made good use of his feet. He was almost playing Tig with Miraz now, keeping out of range shifting his ground, making the enemy work.I think if this book had been written today by a different author, it might be about 500 pages of battle scenes. I'm glad its not. Instead, the book is more about people standing on the side of good. Here's a passage that I just love which describes Edmund who may be a boy, but is also a king:P.174An hour later two great lords in the army of Miraz, the Lord Glozelle and the Lord Sopespian, strolling along their lines and picking their teeth after breakfast, looked up and saw coming down to them from the wood the Centaur and Giant Wembleweather, whom they had seen before in battle, and between them a figure they could not recognise. Nor indeed would the other boys at Edmund's school have recognised him if they could have seen him at that moment. For Aslan had breathed on him at their meeting and a kind of greatness hung about him. Ahhhhh... See? For Narnia and the North!Also, you Tolkien fans will recognize the onslaught of trees which comes in at the end of the battle--Two Towers--and the river emerging (with the help of Bacchus and his grapevines) to take out the bridge and thwart the enemy in its path--Fellowship. Who came up with it first, I wonder... :)Later still...As I finish reading this lovely little novel, allow me to drop off to sleep with feet towards the fire and good friends on either side... Thank you, Mr. Lewis. I have had a time.
—Amanda
Note: Just finished reading this one with my 5 yr old, and we loved it! I'm enjoying it much better this time around. Maybe because I didn't understand all the implications the first time, or maybe because I'm seeing it through the eyes of my child. Either way, I love C.S. Lewis more each time I read him! And I've decided not to tell my son about the analogy to Christianity. I want him to figure it out for himself. But just the other day he compared God to Aslan and Spiderman all in the same sentence! This is the review I wrote for the overall series:The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis is one of the books in his series, the Chronicles of Narnia in which Christianity is portrayed through various fantasy creatures. God, for instance is portrayed as a talking Lion. What a wonderful series! What child hasn’t climbed into a closet and explored the back cracks in hope of finding an entrance to a new and exciting world after reading this book? I used to sit in a closet with the door closed and a flashlight reading my favorite books after reading this series, in hopes that someday a door would open and take me to another realm. Of course, the white witch is my favorite character. I’m always attracted to the bad ones. The Lion, Aslan, is a wonderful character as well, but I have to admit, knowing that he was an analogy for God, changed my view of the story a bit and left me a bit disappointed. He was a bit cheesy. Or maybe typical is a better word. Which is why I almost wish I wouldn’t have known the true meaning of the books until after I read them. In any case, the stories were great, the first one being the best. (You always lose a little of the naiveté of the children as they get older) But the movies did them justice as well. Reading them again as an adult, found me a little bored, but still enchanted overall with the series. The next movie is due out soon and I can only hope they will continue to make the movies which were incredible. I highly recommend this series and consider it a classic as well. ClassicsDefined.com
—midnightfaerie
Original post at One More PageWhen the movie Prince Caspian came out, I watched it without having read the book, so I had zero expectations. All I thought after I watched the movie was it was a little bit long, and I squeed when Aslan showed up. I didn't really like it as much as the first movie on the first watch but it got better when I watched it for the second and third time. Eventually, Prince Caspian became one of those movies that I like watching over and over again, despite my friends' complaints of it not being faithful to the book, etc, etc.But how many times have we learned that movies are never equal to the books, and that Hollywood will always, always change something in the book for reasons we do not know and still get angry about?Anyway, so I finally read Prince Caspian just before the year ended. From the initial impressions of my friends who read the book before watching the movie, I was prepared to see glaring differences compared to the movie. I wasn't sure what I'd like more, of course, but I've learned to read with an open mind.I was surprised to find out that there really wasn't much difference. Well, okay, it is different in terms of how the story flowed, and how the sequences were made and how dark it feels and the romance (yes, it never existed in the book). But I can see why the movie people diverged from the book. Prince Caspian is not really an exciting book. While there was a battle, many struggles for both Caspian and the Pevensies, and even some black magic, the way it was written just doesn't shine as much as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. A Lewis fan and friend told me that Caspian is the book he tends to skim over, and while I didn't really skim through it, it did prove to be very fast reading as I got through 3/4 of it while I was getting my hair done in the salon. Then I stopped so it took me a while to actually finish it.But I'm not saying that Prince Caspian is a bad book. It just wasn't exciting as its predecessor.* There were no extravagant rescues, there were no betrayals or resurrections. My favorite part, as always, was when Aslan showed up. It wasn't quite like how it was done in the movies, but I liked how Lewis wrote it so that the other Pevensies didn't see Aslan immediately because of the fear that was in their hearts. That's the same in our faith walk, don't you think? We can only see God when we let our fears go. And once we see Him, things will never be the same.There's this one passage in the book that I really loved, because it sounded so poetic and beautiful:But all night, Aslan and the Moon gazed upon each other with joyful and unblinking eyes. (p. 213) Prince Caspian is a good book. Perhaps I'd learn to appreciate it more when I re-read it, but it certainly made me appreciate the movie more. I think it's time for another re-watch. :)*NOTE: I must say that I am reading the Narnia books in order of publication, so when I say predecessor, I meant The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and not The Horse and His Boy.
—Tina
