[narnia] some links and some fic recs

[bantha_fodder]

This is a post mostly about Narnia (but a little about Children of Dune)

Super Trailer. Streaming video - awful quality, but OMG so exciting. The music over the second half is The Jihad from the Children of Dune SciFi miniseries.

For the Love of Narnia, an article in defence of Narnia after what Philip Pullman said.

An article on why The Horse and His Boy should never be filmed, and some interesting discussion on the article here.

Boys and Lipstick, Susan gen after The Last Battle IT IS AWESOME READ IT NOW. By sloanesomething, whom I love for a billion reasons. Mr. Tumnus was always her favorite, because he loved Lucy best, and it befit the Gentle Queen to give up what she held dearest.

Finding Purpose, Peter gen by liminalliz.

Comments

[tmelange.livejournal.com]

>In articles, interviews, and speeches, Pullman has described The Chronicles not just as >"propaganda in the cause of the religion [Lewis] believed in," but also as guilty of advancing views >such as, "Death is better than life; boys are better than girls; light-colored people are better than >dark-colored people; and so on." And those are just Pullman's G-rated charges. He also has >blasted The Chronicles in public forums as "one of the most ugly and poisonous things I've ever >read," "propaganda in the service of a life-hating ideology," "blatantly racist," "monumentally >disparaging of girls and women," and marked by a "sadomasochistic relish for violence."

OMG, I loved these books! I didn't get any of this! Give me a friggin' break! Don't smash my rose-colored glasses! I've been looking forward to reading these books again to revisit my childhood and he's ruined my innocence! Goodness gracious.

I do think that sometimes people miss the fact that once an artist releases a work into the world, he no longer has control over how the work is interpreted. Lewis may have had all this in mind (or not) but it matters little in the scheme of things in my opinion. People will take from it whatever is relevent to their lives, and I would be surprised if any child could take all of that from the books or movies.

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read the Space Trilogy, The Problem of Pain or The Abolition of Man? I think we can take it as a given that Lewis was an odd bloke, at least. The Space Trilogy is one of the most cosmically fucked up series of novels ever committed to paper, right down to the final novel and its theory that sociology is the greatest threat to the existence of the human race.

Lewis' take on Christianity was particularly twisted around explicit approval of human suffering, which is weird to begin with and does shine through a bit in the Narnia novels.

His whole "parties, lipstick and boys" Susan-slap is hard to take in Last Battle as well.

Anyway, I absolutely adored the Chronicles as a kid, but even then you could tell they had some weird subtexts going on (this was well before I knew the word subtext - that's how obvious they are). I learnt the word "allegory" after asking my dad about the weird shit in those books.

Pullman ought to pull his head in, though. His ranting is verging on censorship, and I don't think that's needed for the Narnia books. Just a bit of perspective.

I also think they should film The Horse and his Boy, because fuck it, it's a good story. It shouldn't offend Islamic people if a modicum of sensitivity is available ... after all, the Calormenes are such a ludicrous parody of Islam they end up barely resembling it at all, and Tash has zero to do with Allah. They filmed Iron Eagle in the 80s, a movie aimed at kids which must be at least twice as anti-Arab, and has awful acting, awful politics and is utterly, utterly awful in every way (god that movie is disgusting!).

[tmelange.livejournal.com]

I can honestly say that I've never thought of the Chronicles in any other context than as a great series of stories that I used to love as a child. I don't remember what age I was when I last read these books (though I suspect I might have been between 8 y.o and 12 y.o) and I was way too young to notice any sort of subtext. I've never felt the need to think deeply about the series or the man behind the series. I had intended to re-read the books in preparation for the movie and feel very distressed that there are people/critics out there that feel the need to deconstruct something that can simply be very enjoyable on its face.

I also think they should film "The Horse and His Boy". People make things too complicated. :-)

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

OK, fair enough. I remember being decidedly weirded out by the Stone Table, and later on by the religious content in The Last Battle.

To be honest I think the critics of Narnia as children's literature have a point. Lewis hoped the religious content would prepare kids for Christian lives. His take on Christianity was weird.

But balance his excellent prose style (try reading HP paragraphs back to back with Narnia paragraphs - an empirical demonstration of J.K. Rowling's shoddy talent *grin*) against that and I'm not sure I care.

And yeah, definitely film The Horse and his Boy.

[tmelange.livejournal.com]

This is so funny. After seeing HPGoF, I picked up the book to see if it could shed some light on parts of the movie that I didn't understand. JKR's writing is awfully...boring (polite version). She has no style. Zip, zero, zilch. I couldn't even read the book. I jumped to the end, to Cedric's death scene to see if she could redeem herself and...nothing. You'd barely know that the golden boy died. I remember reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and crying for *days* when Aslan was killed. I simply don't understand why everyone lauds the HP books (while respecting everyone's right to love whatever they love).

I'm going to re-read the Chronicles in light of our discussion. I'll bemoan my lost innocence but, somehow, I think I'll still love the books despite the Christian propaganda... ;-)