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Hey everyone. Although I think I deserve some credit for the photo posts, I don’t think they really count all that much. As most of you know, there has been a lot going on recently that isn’t really the best for internet wide broadcasting, so I honestly haven’t had much to say. But enough excuses, on with the post!
So last night I went to a friends for a very nice dinner (thanks!) and watched The Chronicles of Narnia. I hadn’t seen it before. Now, I did not read the series as a kid, only reading the one when I was in high school. (Mostly because it was suggested by a girl I had a crush on. What? Can you think of a better reason to read a book?) As a result I can’t really comment on how close the movie was to the book, but I don’t remember howls of outrage from people when the movie came out, so I am hoping they did a good job. It did feel to me however that they pulled most of the religious overtones out of the story; I can see why they would, but it seems wrong to take out one of the underlying themes of the books in making the transition.
As a contemporary (and friend) of J.R.R. Tolkien, it is interesting to see the way in which the authors handled a difficult time in their country’s history in their work. I see the The Chronicles of Narnia as more a parallel to The Hobbit rather than the Lord of the Rings as the story (although having tragic events in the middle) pretty much turns out positively in the end. I am no literary scholar, but I found it interesting that C.S. Lewis took the route of basing his story on children who were being displaced due to horrendous events while J.R.R. Tolkien wrote stories that although they dealt with struggles paralleling the real world, had no direct connection to them. On a less serious note, I’m not sure it would be a blessing or a curse to live probably 20-30 years in a magical realm only to find yourself transported back to your adolescent bodies all of a sudden; probably a little bit of both.
And for whatever reason, the movie resulted in me having some seriously wacked out dreams last night. Very strange.
August 1st, 2006 at 9:51 pm
I don’t know how much of the Christianity got pulled out, really. Thanks to the movie, my book club read the first two books as our assignment one month, and I wound up in a discussion with several of the others about whether there really was any overt Christian symbolism in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I’m sure Lewis intended it to be there, because he’s said he meant it to be there. Fine. And in some of the other books, it really was sort of hammer-over-the-head obvious. But in LWW… I just didn’t see it. I mean, yes, there’s the Lion’s resurrection. And even that is suspect — how many myths and religions offer a figure who returns from the dead? Dozens. And aside from that one… there’s a few other connections I can make, but I have to make them in an uncomfortable, “talking out of my ass to get the grade I want from the literature prof” way, not because the connections feel right an natural to me. To me, even knowing Lewis’s intent, it reads like just a pretty good YA fantasy story with some heavy moralistic overtones. But they didn’t feel like particularly Christian. To me.
Some of the ladies of the book club felt differently. Maybe it’s all in what you want to see.
Anyway, I’ve rambled on long enough. I just wanted to say that I didn’t think the movie stripped the Christian symbolism out. It just didn’t go out of its way to beat us over the head with it.
August 2nd, 2006 at 12:31 pm
The movie fast-forwarded a great deal, but I don’t think they went to any lengths to remove anything, no. It’s pretty hard to avoid seeing the Christian allegory, if you’re already familiar with Christian theology. (Actually, there was even more that popped out at me after taking a year of medieval theology classes….)
There’s Aslan’s connection to the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, which gets a brief mention in the movie but more in the book. There’s Edmund, who betrays his sisters and brothers for material gain, who is himself redeemed by the one he betrayed. There are the prophecies, and the ancient contract written into the stone of the Table, which cracks when the White Queen sacrifices an innocent on it. (For that matter, there’s the White Queen herself, but you don’t really find out her full story until later.) There’s Aslan bestowing life with breath. There are the overarching themes of fallibility and grace and redemption and the war of good and evil.
But no, Lewis doesn’t pound you over the head with it, which is part of what made him such an excellent writer. (Actually… I think the only book in the Chronicles where they’re *really* in-your-face is in The Last Battle.) The references are generally subtle enough that, if you’re just out to read a good children’s fantasy, it’s a good children’s fantasy.
And I think it’s unfair to try to parallel Tolkien’s and Lewis’s writing. They were good friends and both medievalists, yes, but their aims in writing were very different, and their focuses of work were different.