Bacchanal

I haven't seen Prince Caspian yet, but since it was the "No. 1 Movie" this weekend, let's revisit what that wonderful little book was about:

Prince Caspian is about beer.

Here is C.S. Lewis elsewhere (in Mere Christianity) in defense of one of his favorite things:

It is a mistake to think that Christians ought all to be teetotalers; [Islam], not Christianity, is the teetotal religion.

Of course it may be the duty of a particular Christian, or of any Christian, at a particular time, to abstain from strong drink, either because he is the sort of man who cannot drink at all without drinking too much, or because he is with people who are inclined to drunkenness and must not encourage them by drinking himself. But the whole point is that he is abstaining, for a good reason, from something which he does not condemn and which he likes to see other people enjoying. One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting every one else to give it up. That is not the Christian way. An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons -- marriage, or meat, or beer, or the cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who use them, he has taken the wrong turning.

Lewis enjoyed meat and the cinema, and he later came to appreciate marriage, but the motivating passion for the passage above has to do with that other thing. Lewis loved his beer and defended it fiercely.

The same point, often expressed with a grumpy impatience, can be found repeatedly throughout Lewis' popular devotional writing. Lewis saw that many Christians -- particularly American Christians -- were trying to take away his beer and he wasn't going to stand for that. In Mere Christianity he refers to such Christians as "a certain type of bad man." In Prince Caspian, Lewis gives these anti-beer Christians another name: "Telmarines."

When the Telmarines came to Narnia, they banished all the wild things -- the talking beasts, the dwarves and centaurs, the dryads and naiads and magical creatures of every sort. Old Narnians have been driven underground, literally. The Pevensies arrive to right that wrong, with the help of Aslan himself.

And lest readers miss the point, Aslan's return and restoration is accompanied at every turn by fat old Bacchus, calling out "Refreshments! Time for refreshments!" It is Bacchus who, at Aslan's bidding, tears down the bridge that symbolizes and enables the rule of the Telmarine King Miraz. And it is old, pagan Bacchus whose wine restores to health the old nurse who had surreptitiously taught a young Caspian about the wild ways of Old Narnia.

I grew up, as Caspian did, among the Telmarines. Lewis' story was, to me, like those tales the old nurse told the young prince -- a secret, forbidden glimpse of something older, wilder and more joyous.

I read all of the Narnia books again and again, with the unwavering approval of my Telmarine teachers at school and Sunday school. By the third or fourth time I read Prince Caspian I began to realize that this approval was due to those teachers not having read this book. It was about them, and I doubt they would have approved if they had understood that.

Comments

[Edward Liu]

re: Journeys traveling west. It doesn't just happen in European culture, either -- the real title of the Monkey King saga in Chinese is "A Journey to the West." India, to be specific, but it's probably the most famous Chinese legend, like, ever. I wonder if riding off into the sunset has something to do with this trend (and, for that matter, whether THAT iconic cinematic image is related at all).

re: Lewis. While I can get behind the spirit of what he's saying, I wonder if his statement can't be twisted into justifying behavior that's fundamentally anti-Christian. All belief systems have to establish ground rules and taboos to say, "We think this is bad," but it seems like there's a rather hazy line between what Lewis describes as something "he does not condemn" and "saying the things are bad in themselves." The only real distinction I can make is that the first is founded on "this thing here makes me happy," but I don't think that's sufficient to build a theological argument around.

If, say, someone gets a real kick out of lying to people and spreads ugly rumors for fun (breaking the "bearing false witness" commandment, if nothing else), couldn't he use Lewis' text as a defense for his actions? Or is the choice of the word "condemn" more important than I think?

[Tonio]

couldn't he use Lewis' text as a defense for his actions?

The text seems to imply that the drinking wasn't worthy of condemnation since the drinkers weren't hurting others. That would be a commendable approach. I would like to know what Lewis considered good and special reasons for abstaining, if those things weren't bad in themselves. His reasons may be valid - I simply don't know what they were.

[Hob]

alfgifu: Thanks! I thought it was something like that, but didn't know the details.

bellatrys: Yeah, that's how the Dufflepuds/Magician story seemed to me too; it's only about backward races in the sense of the one we all belong to. And anyone who's not sure what Lewis thought of the whole White Man's Burden idea should take a look at Weston in Out of the Silent Planet.

[JayDeeJaye]

Once she did, I felt so betrayed that I never read the books again, nor anything else by Lewis. Partly, it was that I had cared about Narnia so much more than Lewis did-- it would have stung to find out that I had invested so much in something he'd meant only as a pretty slipcover for his message, even had the message turned out to be something I agreed with.

That really is a tragedy, because I don't think that's what Lewis intended. He did care deeply about Narnia -- he and his brother made up its predecessors during a lonely and difficult childhood. He didn't intend to play with people's feelings and coerce them into his beliefs -- he didn't even intend the story to be an allegory. But once he started writing, he couldn't keep the Christian elements from pushing themselves in.

According to Of Other Worlds his real hope in the end was to disarm Christianity, to strip off all the rules and rituals and waxy build-up that distort the real message -- that is, the things that actually did try to coerce people into believing (or as I think of it, fearing to not believe). I see it as his way of saying, "God's not like that. He's like this."

It's still a great world and a great story.

[Hob]

Edward Liu: About China -- they had an ocean to the east, but it wasn't as empty and impassable as the Atlantic seemed to the Europeans, was it? I mean, there's Japan due east, and the Philippines and lots of other stuff southeast, plus there's a big stretch of land continuing up toward the Bering Strait. Obviously there would still be unexplored frontiers, but maybe not with the same mythic dimension.

[Dymphna]

I missed the Christian elements too, mostly because I was young and a lukewarm Unitarian at the time.

When I was first drawn to Christianity, Aslan was my (admittedly simplistic) inner idea of God.

[Tonio]

Out of the Silent Planet

Somewhat off-topic - how strong of an influence was Lewis on Kings X? It didn't occur to me until now that the song "King" may be a Jesus allegory.

[Amaryllis]

But-- I always liked the Last Battle most of all, because Susan was shut out from Narnia, or the new Narnia or whatever it really was, for being preoccupied with lipstick and nylons

Oh, dear.

And it's not even Thursday yet.

So let's just get it over with.

"C.S. Lewis was a misogynist, condeming Susan to damnation because she started to develop into an adult woman!"

"But she wasn't necessarily condemned to hell! She was still alive on earth; maybe she repented and got to heaven from there! "

"I still don't see why she had to repent for growing up! What did Lewis have against adult women anyway?!"

"She wasn't exiled from Narnia for growing up! It was because she denied the reality of Narnia and what she learned there, like Peter turning his back on Jesus. And she's still alive, with time to come to her senses. Aslan is merciful!"

"Some mercy, killing all her family-- parents, siblings, cousin, mentors-- leaving her with no one but Eustace's horrible parents. What kind of love is that?"

"Heathen! Read the text!"

"Sexist! Read the text!"

"Hmph."

"Hmph."

There, we're done.

[Izzy]

Hee!

Y'know, a story about somewhat-repentant-Susan living with (and rebelling against) Eustace's horrible parents could be interesting stuff.

[Lee Ratner]

Can someone educate a Jew on how certain Christian denominations became so strongly anti-alcohol. A clear reading of the Bible, including the Christian part, makes it clear that God permits and even encourages the consumption of alcohol. Jesus turned water into wine, not wine into water. The Song of Songs and Provers are also very pro-wine to.

[smgt]

Ellen, I think it's unfair to say that Narnia is a slip cover for Lewis' message. The stories of Narnia grew out of his imagination and games he'd played with his brother as children. According to his own explaination, the seed that Narnia grew from was the imagine of a faun in the snow.
I recently heard a fundi say that the Narnia books were in no way different from silly, bad fantasy except for their "Christian message," and I was horrified. The Narnia books were a work of love. They are part of logn traditions of stories coming from all over the world. When they seem to take part in forms, then it's because those forms were a part of Lewis' own person, not because he's trying to force anything down anyone's throat.
I hate it when people agree with fundis, either by saying the Narnia books are nothing but a tool for prosthletizing or that the Bible condemns homosexuality. By letting in any way letting them define the terms, we play their game, and that game is designed for them to win.

[Yvonne]

Ha ha, well the irony is that the Narnia books were part of what turned me on to Paganism (along with LoTR). I was a Christian child reading them (aged about 10) and completely ignored the Christian allegory because it was so OBVIOUS that it seemed irrelevant. I was more interested in all the Pagan stuff! And Aslan seemed so much more exciting than the Christian god, that even if he was meant to be him, it was like, well, if Lewis can write a better fictional deity than the one in the Bible, why was I bothering with Yahweh? And the creation story in The Silmarillion was so much better than Genesis - same thing happened with that.

The book that finally and completely made me realise that I am a Pagan was "Puck of Pook's Hill" by Rudyard Kipling (though gods help us if they ever make that into a film, they'll probably screw it up completely).

Tonio: When I first started listening to King's X, they were prominently displayed in a Christian "bookstore" my brother took me to, so it's probably safe to say that "King" has something to do with Jesus. I've never had any doubts that "Out of the Silent Planet" was a direct reference to C.S. Lewis.

Christian stores don't seem to like them so much since the singer came out of the closet, though.

[Hawker Hurricane]

Well, I can't comment on Narnia, but I do know something about the anti-alchohol movement.

It has to do with a hatred of the Pope.
No, really.

What Protestant Reformers in the U.S. saw in the inner cities of the 1800's were immigrant men who would take the money they made over what it took to feed and shelter thier families to the bar and drink. And they made the connection between alchohol, slums, and Catholicism: "If we can get them to stop drinking, they'll convert to proper Christianity and be well off enough to move out of the slum!" Somehow, they thought the problem wasn't racism, or the miserable work conditions, or the miserly pay, or anti-Catholic bias, or that they had just moved to a new country. No, the problem was that they were A. Drinking and B. Catholic. So they started a movement to stop them from drinking...

[Fraser]

I had some Christian education, but it was years before I realized (despite multiple rereading) that there were Christian themes in Narnia.
Part of that is that Narnia isn't allegory, it's a fantasy with allegorical elements. My exposure to Christianity was mostly as a set of cool stories (See Jesus outwit the Pharisees! See him walk on water! Watch the walls of Jericoh fall!) so it fit perfectly with these other fantasy elements that Lewis worked in (which bugged Tolkien a lot--he didn't think putting Aslan and Bacchus in the same story was quite cricket).
But I think Prince Caspian reflects Lewis's loathing of the schools he went to as a kid just as much as any thoughts about beer. The Telmarines are the kind of tedious people who can't imagine any approach beyond rote learning.

[smgt]

Well Lee, many Christian groups are made up of people who feel bad about themselves. In an attempt to feel like they're better than others, they often find silly things to get excited about. It might be the day of the sabbath, the name of the church, the titles of officials. It doesn't really matter. They just need something to prove that they are the *real* followers of God, as opposed to those heathen Episcopalians(or whoever). Alcohol give these folks an easy thing to look down on, 'cause just about everyone drinks a little.

[Lauren]

A neighbor gave my grandparents a bottle of homemade blueberry wine for Christmas. When I visited her, grandmother indignantly asked me, "What kind of Christian gives alcohol as a present?" I had trouble keeping a straight face for the rest of the visit.

Made of win.

[Dorothy]

one of the weird things about Mormonism that I dislike is that they do communion with bread and water instead of with wine. Grape juice is already bad enough

And the Polygamy Porter is right out.

[Vermic]

I read The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe (or saw the animated TV movie; I don't remember which first) when I was about nine. I remember enjoying the fantastical elements, but -- even then -- being turned off by the ending (meaning the resurrection of Aslan). I was too young to know the phrase deus ex machina, but I knew I was bugged by the last-minute device of the "Deeper Magic", which Aslan is mentioning just now and which is triggered by this very specific set of events that just occurred to make everything absolutely awesome again, The End.

I didn't know, and didn't figure out myself, that Lewis was allegorizing Christianity. But looking back, seeing my reaction to TLTWATW's version, perhaps my later atheism was mapped out at an early age.

[Tehanu]

A nitpick: the voyage of the Dawn Treader is to the EAST -- that's why the ship is called "Dawn" Treader, because it's going toward the sunrise.

I thought the movie did a fair job of translating a children's book into a teenage epic, even though it totally left out how Caspian loved Old Narnia and had been looking for it all his life, turned Trumpkin into Nikabrik -- an embittered grouch, left out the dryads and Bacchus, didn't show Old Narnia awakening at Aslan's roar, and substituted Valley Girl dialogue for Lewis's. On the other hand, the Telmarines -- especially Miraz and Sopespian -- were excellent and Edmund really shone. Let's face it, they're never going to make a movie of any book you really love that lives up to your own ideas of it ... so this one was as good as I could realistically expect, and I enjoyed it anyway.

[ohiolibrarian]

Susan didn't make it back to Narnia with the rest of them because she became an adult woman; she didn't make it back because she became a "grown-up".

A lot of children's literature from the late Victorian era (more or less up to roughly WWII) viewed children as people who are capable of seeing the strange and remarkable because their innocence makes them perceptive and willing to believe. Authors for children and authors of fantasy tended to plume themselves on their own ability to accept the wonderful, as well, and tended to frown on mere "grown-ups".

Grown-ups are adults who are severely practical, realistic, wouldn't dream of believing in magic or mystery even if they are directly exposed to it, and are quite self-centered. Miraz is definitely a grown-up; so was Uncle Andrew in The Magician's Nephew. The grown-up Diggory who makes a brief appearance in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is an example of an adult who is not a grown-up.

On the whole, I think the self-centeredness is the basic problem. Seeing everything in relation to yourself and your goals tends to blind one to wonder. Since there is nothing amazing or wonderful in their world, anyone who reacts as if there were is just being silly.

[cosmicdancer]

The Silmarillion was so much better than Genesis - same thing happened with that.

Ever read the myth Genesis is based on? You'll pick up plenty of connections between all three. The Genesis story you're used to isn't the real one.

[Spherical Time]

Actually, C.S. Lewis is a sexist because he didn't think much of women. I've got a book of short stories by him in which he characterizes "good" women as the ones that stay home (on earth, as it's a sci-fi) and take care of the family.

The ones that were willing to explore the universe were portrayed as androgynous heartless bitches or stupid prostitutes. And yes, in a conversation between two male astronauts he clearly pointed out that he intended the generalization.

The men are so desperate to get away from the women that they steal a shuttle and leave.

That really forced me to take a new look at the Problem of Susan.

Finally, on the topic of Susan, I thought that the world outside Narnia was supposed to be out of time. If Susan had really repented, she probably would have been there at the end, no matter when she died.

[alfgifu]

The Genesis story you're used to isn't the real one.

I say, steady on! (and all that jazz) Can there be such a thing as a 'real' myth?

Perhaps part of the difficulty us post-post-moderns have discussing Narnia simply comes from living in a very different world to that of Lewis; although the language he uses is beautifully simple and elegant, he is writing to an audience of children of his own time - who would have almost certainly all started with a basic knowledge of Christianity as imposed by church and society. Then he was harking back to a far older Christian world - the early medieval one - and picking the elements he liked (i.e. the acceptance of romantic paganism, not the strict hierarchy of the church). Then his books have been used as bludgeons by countless Sunday school groups down the years, often by people who would have been horrified if they'd read them themselves. What began as a speculative adventure series written late in life by an established author and broadcaster has become the main thing he is remembered for and judged by. And a little part of me - the part that once fell asleep in a wardrobe (my parents couldn't find me and nearly called the police) - that part of me is inclined to say that it isn't fair that Lewis should get so much hate for such lovely books.

On the other hand, discussion is the spice of life... play on.

Tonio: I don't know if there have ever been any Christian groups whose interpretation of the Old Testament was solely typological. One of the older theories of Biblical exegesis posited the four-fold nature of scripture - that each chapter and verse could be read a) historically, b) allegorically (sometimes including typology), c) morally (guidance for the present) and d) anagogically (as signs of the eternal nature of things and guidance for the soul in the next life). Of course, trying to get all of this out of every text requires superhuman pedantry. Luckily, there was plenty of that going around in the early medieval period.

In many ways it's the opposite approach to that of modern day Biblical literalists - the early medievals took the attitude that the more interpretations they could find, the better. Everything had some holy meaning. The four-fold method got rather silly, however, and was taken apart pretty thoroughly by Aquinas.

[alfgifu]

The Genesis story you're used to isn't the real one.

I say, steady on! (and all that jazz) Can there be such a thing as a 'real' myth?

Perhaps part of the difficulty us post-post-moderns have discussing Narnia simply comes from living in a very different world to that of Lewis; although the language he uses is beautifully simple and elegant, he is writing to an audience of children of his own time - who would have almost certainly all started with a basic knowledge of Christianity as imposed by church and society. Then he was harking back to a far older Christian world - the early medieval one - and picking the elements he liked (i.e. the acceptance of romantic paganism, not the strict hierarchy of the church). Then his books have been used as bludgeons by countless Sunday school groups down the years, often by people who would have been horrified if they'd read them themselves. What began as a speculative adventure series written late in life by an established author and broadcaster has become the main thing he is remembered for and judged by. And a little part of me - the part that once fell asleep in a wardrobe (my parents couldn't find me and nearly called the police) - that part of me is inclined to say that it isn't fair that Lewis should get so much hate for such lovely books.

On the other hand, discussion is the spice of life... play on.

Tonio: I don't know if there have ever been any Christian groups whose interpretation of the Old Testament was solely typological. One of the older theories of Biblical exegesis posited the four-fold nature of scripture - that each chapter and verse could be read a) historically, b) allegorically (sometimes including typology), c) morally (guidance for the present) and d) anagogically (as signs of the eternal nature of things and guidance for the soul in the next life). Of course, trying to get all of this out of every text requires superhuman pedantry. Luckily, there was plenty of that going around in the early medieval period.

In many ways it's the opposite approach to that of modern day Biblical literalists - the early medievals took the attitude that the more interpretations they could find, the better. Everything had some holy meaning. The four-fold method got rather silly, however, and was taken apart pretty thoroughly by Aquinas.

[alfgifu]

Ack! I meant to type ''real' version of a myth', but my fingers and typepad ran away with me... sorry!

[Theo]

Actually, C.S. Lewis is a sexist because he didn't think much of women. I've got a book of short stories by him in which he characterizes "good" women as the ones that stay home (on earth, as it's a sci-fi) and take care of the family.

The ones that were willing to explore the universe were portrayed as androgynous heartless bitches or stupid prostitutes. And yes, in a conversation between two male astronauts he clearly pointed out that he intended the generalization.

The men are so desperate to get away from the women that they steal a shuttle and leave.

The short story 'Ministering Angels', which it looks like is what you're referring to, is probably the worst thing Lewis ever wrote. It's acutely embarrassing, but I don't think it was published until posthumously (could be wrong, though). IIRC his attitudes to women became somewhat more nuanced in later life, as he actually got to know some.

[Dash]

Izzy: On spoilers: I am compelled to start a "Rosebud is his SLED!" "Soylent Green is PEOPLE!" posting cascade now.

David Copperfield DOES turn out to be the hero of his own life!

______________________________

And re Narnia: Meta-Susan, where are you?

[Raj]

Niner: I also read Prince Caspian for the first time earlier this month, and it read very similar to the Lord of the Rings books - the ents/dryads and the water spirit wiping away the enemies/bridge, and the helpful older magician/teacher. It probably wasn't helped by the fact that Tolkien and Lewis were good friends, and the books were written at roughly the same time.

According to Tolkien's official biography, which I read years ago, Tolkien was somewhat miffed by the Narnia books because he saw those books as Lewis "'having a go' himself."

[Raj]

The 9th Commandment could be interpreted as anti-alcohol (or at least anti-intoxication) if the words "bear" and "witness" are transposed.

[SV]

the Telmarines generally look Turkish or Moroccan with hints of Basque, because making them look like Crusading Roman Catholics would be... awkward

Huh? The Telmarines should have been been portrayed as "Roman Catholic Crusaders"? Maybe I'm being over-sensitive on behalf of my tribe, but if there's one thing that Roman Catholics are not known for, it's the suppression of the fanciful. (Or oppressive abstinence.) At the top of this thread we were even accused of being pseudo-pagans for apparently endowing the saints with demi-godhood. It can't be both.

My impression of the Telmarines was always more like they were the medieval version of dreary Communists - insisting not just on control but on erasing history that they didn't like.

Also - so long as I'm indulging my ultra-sensitivity, both as a Catholic and a history purist: It's inaccurate to refer to Crusaders as "Roman Catholics." Sets my teeth on edge every time I hear it.

Not only does it imply that the sins (as measured by modern sensibilities) of the Crusaders are the heritage of modern Catholics exclusively (which, trust me, other people may not mean but Catholics hear it that way and it pisses us off). But it's also historically incorrect. There was no "Roman Catholic" church at the time - it was the Christian Church. Period. The Reformation was 500 years in the future. Even the Great Schism with the East was only 40 years old in 1095, and no one had a crystal ball telling them that the official divide was going to be permanent.

[cosmicdancer]

Can there be such a thing as a 'real' myth?

Okay, it was bad wording. :) I should have said "the *version* you are used to is not the *original version*.

[Jenny Islander]

ohiolibrarian:

/Susan didn't make it back to Narnia with the rest of them because she became an adult woman; she didn't make it back because she became a "grown-up".

A lot of children's literature from the late Victorian era (more or less up to roughly WWII) viewed children as people who are capable of seeing the strange and remarkable because their innocence makes them perceptive and willing to believe. Authors for children and authors of fantasy tended to plume themselves on their own ability to accept the wonderful, as well, and tended to frown on mere "grown-ups".

Grown-ups are adults who are severely practical, realistic, wouldn't dream of believing in magic or mystery even if they are directly exposed to it, and are quite self-centered. Miraz is definitely a grown-up; so was Uncle Andrew in The Magician's Nephew. The grown-up Diggory who makes a brief appearance in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is an example of an adult who is not a grown-up.

On the whole, I think the self-centeredness is the basic problem. Seeing everything in relation to yourself and your goals tends to blind one to wonder. Since there is nothing amazing or wonderful in their world, anyone who reacts as if there were is just being silly./

Yes! I grew up just assuming that there were grown-ups and then there were adults and I wanted to be one of the latter. I don't recall anybody actually explaining this to me--but I did read a lot of Lewis. The Narnia books were the first ones I ever read to myself.

[Tonio]

immigrant men who would take the money they made over what it took to feed and shelter thier families to the bar and drink

Thanks for the information. I didn't realize that many of those men were Catholic.

[Tonio]

When I first started listening to King's X, they were prominently displayed in a Christian "bookstore" my brother took me to, so it's probably safe to say that "King" has something to do with Jesus.

I knew that the band's lyrics had a spiritual element, but I never connected it with Christianity specifically. I had assumed that the Lewis book that inspired the title of the band's first album was meat-and-potatoes SF. One of my relatives played in a band that included Kings X in its cover repertoire. Although none of the members were Christian, they used to play evening gigs in a Christian coffeehouse. As I think about it now, perhaps the Kings X material was influential in getting those gigs and the band never realized it.

[Nenya]

It does bother me somewhat that Lewis made Susan turn into a "grown up"--partly because I'm the older sister in my family, so it made me feel like he was slagging off on me growing up. Just because she gets interested in lipstick and nylons at age 14 doesn't mean she's never going to move past that stage and become an interesting, well-rounded adult who would still be at home in Narnia! People try on a whole lot of identities while they're growing up--I know I did, while I was trying to figure out what of the trappings of adulthood were really important. Sure, it's possible that one of the Pevensey kids would lose interest in Narnia, which is a sad thing--but to me the only reason it had to be Susan was because the author didn't care about her as much as the boys or Lucy. Which is his right, but ouch.

Thus, I am all *gleee!* at kickass bow-stringing smart brave Susan in this movie.

I've also been reading His Dark Materials, which struck me as having a really cool take on the issue of growing up: as you become an adult, he says, you lose some of your ability to try on different identities and change interests every five minutes (shapeshifting daemons). However, you gain the incredibly valuable ability of knowing yourself. You also become sensitive to things that children aren't--particularly spiritual things. In a story that was about authoritarianism vs. freedom, innocence vs. experience, I really liked that. I don't mind the distinction between "grown up" and "adult", but the kind of stories that idealize childhood into some morally-superior state bother me. After all, we can't stay kids all our lives even if we wanted to--and, when you think about it, there are lots of reasons not to want to.

[Ryan]

Yeah, I didn't see much beer or Christianity in that movie, just a lot of Epic Battle Action.

[Trixie Belden]

the Telmarines generally look Turkish or Moroccan with hints of Basque, because making them look like Crusading Roman Catholics would be... awkward

If memory serves, at the end of the book, didn't Aslan explain that the backstory on the Telmarines was that they were pirates from our (that is, the Pevinse children's) world who had been hiding out from the law on an island somewhere and managed to slip into Narnia through a cave-like portal similar to Lucy's wardrobe?

I've discovered that when it comes to books I'm very fond of, I rarely really enjoy the movie version. I'm simply too anal about any changes to a beloved book, no matter how well-intentioned. My favorite Narnia book is one I rarely see mentioned here: The Silver Chair (I know I've seen several commentators say Reepicheep is their favorite character, but c'mon, what about Puddleglum? He's marvelous!). It looks like the Narnia movie series is doing pretty well at the box office, they might actually get around to making a movie of TSC; I'm not sure if I'll be able to bear to go see it.

[Randall]

Neil Gaiman wrote a short story called, "The Problem of Susan" (wherein "problem" is used in the same sense as in, "the Problem of Pain"), which was explicitly about the issues raised by Susan's vanishment from the end of the story. It's an . . . odd story. I believe it is in his latest collection.

My own thoughts on Susan are an essay in and of themselves, and I will spare you them.

[eriol11]

@SV

You forgot the Orthodox. The Crusades were worse for them than for the Muslims. The Crusaders were definitely Roman Catholic. The Emperor asked the Pope to send over a few mercenaries, but the Pope turned it into a Crusade instead, so that Europe could lose a few knights, and European royalty and the Church could gain some Asian territory.

[eriol11]

correction

You didn't forget the Orthodox, and I read to hastily. However, one excommunicated branch wrecking havoc on another excommunicated branch is rarely going to heal schisms.

[Trixie Belden]

It does bother me somewhat that Lewis made Susan turn into a "grown up"--partly because I'm the older sister in my family, so it made me feel like he was slagging off on me growing up. Just because she gets interested in lipstick and nylons at age 14 doesn't mean she's never going to move past that stage and become an interesting, well-rounded adult who would still be at home in Narnia! People try on a whole lot of identities while they're growing up--I know I did, while I was trying to figure out what of the trappings of adulthood were really important. Sure, it's possible that one of the Pevensey kids would lose interest in Narnia, which is a sad thing--but to me the only reason it had to be Susan was because the author didn't care about her as much as the boys or Lucy. Which is his right, but ouch.

Yes, I think "ouch" would describe my reaction too. I remember what bothered me was the Lewis seemed to suggest that it was Susan's beauty, and her consequent interest in lipstick and nylons (read: being sexy) that made her such a fallen character. She denied Narnia, yes, but Lewis seems to say that it was because Susan liked lipstick and nylons (and invitations, too, right?) that she now had become someone who couldn't remember Narnia. Now, when I first read the stories I was actually a somewhat tomboyish little girl, with no particular interest in lipstick or nylons, but still I remember thinking that this was harsh and unfair. Even then, I knew there were many things worse than being a person who enjoys lipstick and nylons.

Of course, Lewis had been setting Susan up for this kind of treatment for a quite a while in the books. In Prince Caspian , Susan is the last one who is able to "see" Aslan, when he first appears to the children in that book. (Lucy, of course, is the first to see him). In The Horse and His Boy, Susan allows herself to be wooed by a creepy Calormen prince. I suppose the reason for Lewis's treatment of Susan is a reflection of his general problems with women /and /or sex. After all, Lewis rarely refers Susan without also remarking that she is beautiful (by contrast, Lucy is always described as being not exactly pretty, but as someone with a sort of wholesome, spiritual warmth).

[Trixie Belden]

Randall said: My own thoughts on Susan are an essay in and of themselves, and I will spare you them.

Oh Randall, please don't - I've posted my rant, I'd love to hear yours!

[Nick (delurking briefly)]

The thing that really annoys me about Susan is that her dismissal of Narnia just isn't logically feasible. Remember that in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" she and her siblings spent about TWENTY YEARS living in Narnia as kings and queens. They actually LIVED there. And estimating Susan's age at the time of "The Last Battle" to be about 20 years old, that means that she effectively has spent HALF HER LIFE in Narnia. She witnessed Aslan's death and resurrection. How could she EVER believe that it wasn't real? How could she EVER forget? Susan's no longer being a believer is the Narnia equivalent of Buck the GIRAT being at Ground Zero in Israel and walking away still not believing in God despite the blatant divine intervention that just occurred. To borrow a phrase from Fred, it was simply Bad Writing.

[ajay]

JMiller: But the kids are less insufferably and gawkily British.

Oh, well, thank heaven for that. God forbid that we should be forced to watch British characters in an adaptation of a book about British children written by a British author!

You might want to steer clear of Shakespeare, by the way, JMiller. Some of his characters are quite unbearably foreign. (Also, the Bible? Jesus is really pretty Jewish.)

[Tonio]

God forbid that we should be forced to watch British characters in an adaptation of a book about British children written by a British author!

JMiller seemed to be saying that the kids in the first film were caricatures of Britishness, like "Ripping Yarns" characters without satiric intent. JMiller, would this be accurate?

[cjmr]

My favorite Narnia book is one I rarely see mentioned here: The Silver Chair (I know I've seen several commentators say Reepicheep is their favorite character, but c'mon, what about Puddleglum?

I'm kinda worried about what they're going to do to/with The Silver Chair...who can they possibly get to play Puddleglum (who was the character *I* identified most with in SC), who is going to be anywhere near as good in the role as Tom Baker?

[Amaryllis]

I'm looking forward to seeing Tilda Swinton as Jadis (later the White Witch) wreaking havoc on London in The Magician's Nephew, although that was otherwise my least-favorite of the books.

And if you want to think about Lewis's attitude to women, consider the women in that book: Jadis and her sister, queens who destroy an entire world through pride and anger, and Helen, the humble wife who becomes the New Eve.

Come to think of it, that book also answered the perennial question of "who did Adam and Eve's children marry?" The boys married nymphs and the girls married river-gods and wood-gods. Of course. Why didn't I think of that? :)

And remember Cor and Aravis in The Horse and His Boy, who were continually quarreling and making up, "and when they grew up, got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently."

But what I cared about in the Narnia books was not the people but the images -- the lantern burning in the snowy waste, Spring arriving on the heels of Father Christmas, the romantic ruins of Cair Paravel, the Last Sea blending into the dawn, the mountains of Aslan's country.

[Tonio]

Come to think of it, that book also answered the perennial question of "who did Adam and Eve's children marry?"

I always wondered that as well. I can imagine a fundamentalist argument: "They had incestuous relations, compounding the original sin."

[JayDeeJaye]

I never liked the live Narnia series (Wonderworks, was it?). The casting for Lucy was just plain wrong, but Tom Baker made an awesome Puddleglum.