Busy
I love Harry Potter! What else is there to say? Well, a lot, if you have already read it, but if you haven't, I don't want to spoil it for you. Let me know when you're ready to speculate on everything.
Since I finished The Half-Blood Prince, I have started over on the series, and am re-reading The Sorcerer's Stone at the moment. I also listened to the unabridged audio of Eragon by Christopher Paolini. He was just 15 when he started writing the book, and 17 when it was finished. It is obvious that it was written by a teen, but it is a book for teens, so that is fine. The story is rather derivative and choppy in places, but I found it relatively entertaining. Still, it is not nearly as good as Goose Girl (I know- will I shut about Goose Girl already? I am very disappointed that I failed in my attempt to persuade my 13-year-old, animal-loving, fantasy-reading cousin to read Goose Girl. You, dear reader, are suffering for this disappointment. Sorry.)
An interesting problem with The Chronicles of Narnia has come to my attention. For years, the series was labeled with the order of publication.
1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
2. Prince Caspian(1951)
3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
4. The Silver Chair (1953)
5. The Horse and His Boy (1954)
6. The Magicians Nephew(1955)
7. The Last Battle (1956)
To me, this allowed the reader to experience a gradual unfolding of the mysteries of Narnia. I think The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe is the only place to start. However, in recent years, publishers have re-ordered the series into chronological order within the story. The re-ordering comes from a reply C.S. Lewis wrote to a little boy, agreeing that one could read them in chronological order as the boy wished to.
1. The Magicians 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
I agree with the conclusions of the author of previously linked discussion.
"My own opinion? One of the things that Narnia 'is' is Lewis's own internal never-never land. He sends child-versions of himself into a landscape (not really a 'world' in Tolkein's sense) which is full of every image, every theme, every thing, he ever loved as a child: dressed animals and mythology and knights in armour and sea voyages and 'joy' and the hatred of school and a slight undercurrent of cruelty and hovering at the edges, working his way in, and finally becoming the central, unifying motif, Jesus Christ. To read it as strict allegory loses that. To read it as imaginary history, looses that. I think that what the 'Publicationists' are saying is that you should allow yourself to read the books in that way—that is part of their charm. I think that what the 'Chronologists' are saying is that you should read it as history and allegory—that is part of their charm.
"And they are both right. The 'publicationist' tends to make the books more arbitrary, more contradictory, less 'sub-creationist' than they actually are. The 'chronologist' makes them more unified, more consistent, and more strictly allegorical than they really are.
"Indeed, there is a similar problem with applying the word 'allegory' to Narnia in the first place. Saying 'Aslan is Jesus' misses the point of the books: Aslan works precisely because he is not Jesus—because there are no stained glass windows and teachers and stupid hymns telling us we ought to love him. Saying 'Aslan is not Jesus, it's just a story, just a fantasy, just entertainment' (as one contributer to the C.S Lewis usenet group did) misses the point in just the opposite way. Aslan both is and is not Jesus; the books both do and do not have order."
With the movie coming out, there are many children (and their parents) in the library looking for the Narnia books. I have tried on several different occasions to discuss with parents the question of reading order. They listen to my explanations, but then insist on reading them in the new order; "Mmm, OK.... I want The Magician's Nephew. It is the first book."
In fact, the head librarian here told me that when the publishers first printed the books with the new order, all of the county's children's librarians were up in arms. They initially thought it was a misprint and wanted to return all of the volumes to the publishers. I wish they had done that. I think publishers should just print the books unnumbered and let people decide for themselves.
Since I finished The Half-Blood Prince, I have started over on the series, and am re-reading The Sorcerer's Stone at the moment. I also listened to the unabridged audio of Eragon by Christopher Paolini. He was just 15 when he started writing the book, and 17 when it was finished. It is obvious that it was written by a teen, but it is a book for teens, so that is fine. The story is rather derivative and choppy in places, but I found it relatively entertaining. Still, it is not nearly as good as Goose Girl (I know- will I shut about Goose Girl already? I am very disappointed that I failed in my attempt to persuade my 13-year-old, animal-loving, fantasy-reading cousin to read Goose Girl. You, dear reader, are suffering for this disappointment. Sorry.)
An interesting problem with The Chronicles of Narnia has come to my attention. For years, the series was labeled with the order of publication.
1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
2. Prince Caspian(1951)
3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
4. The Silver Chair (1953)
5. The Horse and His Boy (1954)
6. The Magicians Nephew(1955)
7. The Last Battle (1956)
To me, this allowed the reader to experience a gradual unfolding of the mysteries of Narnia. I think The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe is the only place to start. However, in recent years, publishers have re-ordered the series into chronological order within the story. The re-ordering comes from a reply C.S. Lewis wrote to a little boy, agreeing that one could read them in chronological order as the boy wished to.
1. The Magicians 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
I agree with the conclusions of the author of previously linked discussion.
"My own opinion? One of the things that Narnia 'is' is Lewis's own internal never-never land. He sends child-versions of himself into a landscape (not really a 'world' in Tolkein's sense) which is full of every image, every theme, every thing, he ever loved as a child: dressed animals and mythology and knights in armour and sea voyages and 'joy' and the hatred of school and a slight undercurrent of cruelty and hovering at the edges, working his way in, and finally becoming the central, unifying motif, Jesus Christ. To read it as strict allegory loses that. To read it as imaginary history, looses that. I think that what the 'Publicationists' are saying is that you should allow yourself to read the books in that way—that is part of their charm. I think that what the 'Chronologists' are saying is that you should read it as history and allegory—that is part of their charm.
"And they are both right. The 'publicationist' tends to make the books more arbitrary, more contradictory, less 'sub-creationist' than they actually are. The 'chronologist' makes them more unified, more consistent, and more strictly allegorical than they really are.
"Indeed, there is a similar problem with applying the word 'allegory' to Narnia in the first place. Saying 'Aslan is Jesus' misses the point of the books: Aslan works precisely because he is not Jesus—because there are no stained glass windows and teachers and stupid hymns telling us we ought to love him. Saying 'Aslan is not Jesus, it's just a story, just a fantasy, just entertainment' (as one contributer to the C.S Lewis usenet group did) misses the point in just the opposite way. Aslan both is and is not Jesus; the books both do and do not have order."
With the movie coming out, there are many children (and their parents) in the library looking for the Narnia books. I have tried on several different occasions to discuss with parents the question of reading order. They listen to my explanations, but then insist on reading them in the new order; "Mmm, OK.... I want The Magician's Nephew. It is the first book."
In fact, the head librarian here told me that when the publishers first printed the books with the new order, all of the county's children's librarians were up in arms. They initially thought it was a misprint and wanted to return all of the volumes to the publishers. I wish they had done that. I think publishers should just print the books unnumbered and let people decide for themselves.
posted by claire at 8/09/2005 05:59:00 PM
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