Archives

The Narnia Code by Michael Ward

Jan9

Subtitle: C.S. Lewis and the Secret of the Seven Heavens.
Clive Staples Lewis was an awesomely talented, gifted, subtle, and boisterous genius!

Douglas Gresham on Lewis’s genius:

“He was a complete genius. He also was a very fast reader, but he had honed the talent and perfected the strange memory that resulted in never forgetting anything he had read. Now he could, he could ask you to pick any book off of his shelves, and you would pick a page and read him a line and he would quote the rest of the page; in fact, quote the rest of the book until you told him to stop. He had this enormous capacity to remember everything he’d ever read.”

In The Narnia Code by Michael Ward, Dr. Ward, who is also a minister in the Church of England, demonstrates Lewis’s genius by showing how all seven of the Narnia chronicles are linked together by a single unifying motif or plan. Ward’s thesis is that each of the seven Chronicles of Narnia takes as its central underlying imagery and atmosphere one of the seven “planets” of the medieval, classical astrological world. These “planets” are not the eight or nine that we moderns know and memorize but rather the medievals believed that the seven heavenly bodies, each with its own influences and associated imagery, were the Sun, Mercury, Venus, the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Each of these planets is featured in a particular Narnia book in a sort of “code” of symbols and images that Lewis never spelled out for anyone but about which he left clues both in the Chronicles of Narnia themselves and in his other writings.

I found Dr. Ward’s reasoning compelling and fascinating. The Narnia Code is a popular abridgement of a longer, more scholarly dissertation on these ideas, a book called Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis. Despite the somewhat misleading title, The Narnia Code is no DaVinci Code knock-off, associating C.S. Lewis and his Narnia books with some hokey new age interpretation and bad theology. Instead, I found in The Narnia Code a new appreciation for C.S. Lewis’s genius and for his heartfelt desire to communicate the truth of the gospel in a way that would enter deep into the imaginations and souls of both children and adults. No, C.S. Lewis didn’t believe in astrology, the telling of fortunes and of the future by means of the stars. However, Lewis did believe that the ancient mythologies and symbols and worldviews contained God’s truth and had ways of speaking to us that would break through and shake up our modern paradigms.

Psalm 19
The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.

In Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis said of Psalm 19, it is “the greatest psalm in the psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world.” In the Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis apparently left traces of his love for God’s handiwork in the stars and planets and of his delight in the medieval cosmology and the mythology associated with the heavenly bodies. My next reading of The Chronicles of Narnia will be richer because of the ideas and explanations that I read about in The Narnia Code. If you are a Narnia lover, I highly recommend either Planet Narnia or The Narnia Code as an introduction to the use of cosmological symbology in the Narnia books.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: The Movie

Jan4

We just went to see The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, finally. It was a good movie. We saw it in 3-D, the first movie I’ve seen that way, and the action really does jump out at you and make you feel more involved. There was lots of good action, thrills and chills, and the dragon was well done and believable. There was a character named Eustace who was supposed to be annoying and somewhat comical at the same time, and the actor who played him was great. The actress who played Lucy also did a good job of playing a confused young teenage girl, and Edmund and Caspian were O.K. as rivals/friends, if somewhat wooden at times. My theory is that the Edmund and Caspian characters couldn’t figure out whether they were supposed to be best buddies or contenders for the same throne, so they got mixed up sometimes. The plot moved along at a good pace, and there were a few lines that elicited a chuckle from me and from my girls.

Unfortunately, almost the entire movie, including the characters’ names, the title, and parts of the plot, was plagiarized from a book by an Oxford don named C.S. Lewis. The book was published about fifty years ago, and the screenplay writers obviously borrowed freely from Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. In fact, the best parts of the movie came straight from Lewis’s book, and the worst parts–evil green mist, magical vibrating swords, a totally out of place stowaway–were invented by whomever it was that wrote this brand new story ripped from the pages of C.S. Lewis’s classic novel.

Z-baby and I are in the process of reading The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis now, and although I hope it and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader are made into movies someday, I do hope that the people who made the movie we saw tonight don’t get hold of The Silver Chair. The silver chair would become a magic golden throne in a cave of green serpents with Eustace and Jill fighting duels with one another instead of arguing about the signs. Then, Aslan would appear and tell them to just believe in themselves and all would be magically resolved. Prince Rilian might get a bit part, and Puddleglum would be a complete clown.

If you haven’t seen The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, just re-name this movie in your head: call it Edmund and the Sea Serpent or something of the sort and enjoy it for what it is. Then, read or re-read all of the Narnia Chronicles and enjoy them for the wonderful, meaningful stories that they are.

Many Happy Returns . . . January 3rd

Jan3

JRR Tolkien, b.1892.

Semicolon: Lost in Middle Earth.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Tolkien! and Happy Birthday, Professor Tolkien!

Thoughts on The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien.

J.R.R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: A Literary Friendship and Rivalry by Ethan Gilsdorf. “I had vowed to take Dead Man’s Walk. To sneak into Gothic-trimmed courtyards. To wander beside the shadow of J. R. R. Tolkien, the father of modern fantasy, and listen for remnants of his voice.”

The Lord of the Rings and its prequel, The Hobbit, are probably tied with Les Miserables for my favorite books of all time. I owe a great debt to the hard work and imagination of Professor Tolkien, and today, his birthday, is as good a time as any to express my gratitude for the Lord’s gifting in him.

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, England, c. 1930

Dec10

The Borrowers Avenged by Mary Norton:

“Oh,” cried Arriety. “I know all about Christmas. My mother’s always talking about it. And the feasts they always had. When she was a girl, there were a lot more borrowers in the house, and that was the time–Christmas time–when she first began to notice my father. The feasts! There were things called raisins and crystal fruit and plum puddings and turkey and something called game pie . . . And the wine they left in glasses! My father used to get it out with a fountain-pen filler. He’d be up a fold in the tablecloth almost before the last human bean had left the room. And my mother began to see what a wonderful borrower he might turn out to be. He bought her a little ring out of something called a cracker, and she wore it as a crown . . . ” She fell silent a moment, remembering that ring. Where was it now? she wondered. She had worn it often herself.

Today’s Gifts:
A song: Joy to the World by Isaac Watts.

A booklist: 100 Magnificent Children’s Books of 2010 at Fuse #8

Birthdays: Actor/director Kenneth Branaugh, b.1960, Emily Dickinson, b.1830, Geroge MacDonald, b.1824, Rumer Godden, b.1907, Mary Norton, b.1903.

A poem: Twas just this time, last year, I died by Emily Dickinson.

Lost in Middle Earth

Nov18

A friend of mine, S., wrote these words in her Facebook status a few days ago:

Ever since i started reading The Lord of the Rings I don’t want to work. I don’t want to cook. I don’t want to fold laundry. I don’t want to run. I don’t want to hang out. I don’t want to do my bible study. Don’t want to talk, don’t want phone calls, don’t get the mail(well I never did that actually) What’s the deal Tolkien?! I like your world better sometimes;-)

I’m jealous. I wish I could get lost in Middle Earth for the first time again. In fact, I wrote a poem, back in the day when I thought I could write poetry, about the fascination of Tolkien’s Middle Earth:

She doesn’t hear the blur of noise
That marks our busy world—
Rhythm of footsteps in the hall,
Insistent radio two doors down,
Rushing of the cars outside,
Clatter of pans in the kitchen sink.
Her ears are tuned to other sounds:
To elvish songs and goblin shrieks,
Hobbit voices, horns and swords,
She’s lost in Middle Earth.

What book(s) do you wish you could read again for the first time?

Happy Birthday: Celebrating Joan Aiken

Sep4

Joan Aiken was born on September 4, 1924 in Sussex, England. She grew up in a country village with a mother who “decided that I’d learn more if she taught me herself than if I went away to school” and an American father, Conrad Aiken, who was a Pulitzer-prize winning poet and author himself. Joan’s parents divorced when she was a child, and her mother married another author, Martin Armstrong. Ms. Aiken wrote books for children and adults, and she received the Guardian Award for Children’s Fiction in 1969 and the Mystery Writers’ of America Poe Award in in 1972.

Joan Aiken’s website, created by her daughter Lizza Aiken, is full of treasures, including this bibliography of the over 100 books that Ms. Aiken wrote. I knew of course about The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, her most famous book. And I knew that there were sequels to Willoughby Chase (eleven of them, actually), although I’ve never read them. I also checked out the collection of stories about the Armitage family called The Serial Garden that was published last year, but I never managed to become interested in the stories although I dipped into the book two or three times.

However, I didn’t know that Ms. Aiken was a Jane-ite before Jane Austen was cool. According to the bibliography, Joan Aiken wrote the following sequels to Austen novels:
Lady Catherine’s Necklace, a sequel to Pride and Prejudice.
The Youngest Miss Ward, a sequel to Mansfield Park.
Eliza’s Daughter, a sequel to Sense and Sensibility.
Jane Fairfax, a sequel to Emma.
Emma Watson, a completion of Austen’s unfinished novel fragment, The Watsons.

I must try one of these Austen fan fiction titles by Joan Aiken, if only to see if Ms. Aiken can pull off a feat that many have tried but few have succeeded in accomplishing. I’ve thumbed through a few of the Jane Austen wannabes out there, and even read a couple. But I’ve not been impressed. However, anyone who can write a book like The Wolves of Willoughby Chase surely has a shot at imitating Austen passably well.

Getting back to the website, you can also watch a movie about Joan Aiken and her books from the Puffin Club. I think this film was made back in the time of old 16mm films because it has that scratchy, old timey look and sound, and Ms. Aiken doesn’t look that old to me. And there are games and ecards and screensavers to download and printable bookmarks. Lots of fun fan stuff.

And here’s an interview with Ms. Aiken (before her death in 2001) at Indiebound in which she says a few of her favorite authors are “George Macdonald, E.E. Nesbit, Francis Hodgson Burnett, John Masefield, T.H. White, J.RR. Tolkien, Laurence Houseman, Walter de la Mare, Rudyard Kipling, Kastner, Peter Dickinson, Philippa Pearce, Susan Cooper, Barbara Willard, E. Weatherall (she wrote The Wide Wide World). I could go on and on.” I could agree with every author on that list. I’m especially pleased to see another fan of Barbara Willard, about whom I’ll write a post someday.

Here at Locus Magazine is another interview in which Ms. Aiken disses C.S. Lewis and Narnia. (“My children loved them, but I always thought they were repulsive books, the ‘Narnia’ books. I can’t stand that awful lion!”) Oh, well, no one is perfect.

For today, Happy Birthday to Joan Aiken!

Ice by Sarah Beth Durst

Jun27

This novelization of the old folk tale “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” is riveting, exciting, and broadly heroic. I’ve been reading Ms. Durst’s blog for a while, and I’ve enjoyed her comedic fractured fairy tales (see here and here, for example). But Ice is not a comedy, even though Cassie, the heroine, and her Bear husband do share some lighthearted banter in between harrowing and tragic scenes of suffering and devastation.

The story is similar to the more familiar “Beauty and the Beast” or the even older “Cupid and Psyche”,” but it takes place in the far north and involves a Polar Bear King rather than a transmogrified beast or a Greek god. Ms. Durst has transplanted the story from Scandinavia to Alaska, but when you get close enough to the North Pole, it’s all North anyway. And very cold and icy. Cassie’s father is an Arctic researcher and scientist, and her mother is dead. Or perhaps, as Cassie’s Gram tells the story, Cassie’s mother is the daughter of the North Wind and a prisoner in the troll’s castle, east of the sun and west of the moon.

The style and substance remind me of the books of Madeleine L’Engle, especially A Wrinkle in Time and Troubling the Sea. There’s the same mingling of science and scientific research with story and fantasy and magic and also same sense of “more things in heaven and earth, Horatio.” The religious underpinnings lean a bit toward reincarnation; the Polar Bear King is actually a munaqsri, a sort of Death Angel who claims the souls of dying polar bears and gives the souls to newborn polar bears, thus ensuring the continuation of the species. However, there’s a bit of Christian-ish imagery, too, in the ending (an ending I won’t spoil for you, but I thought it was wonderful).

Also echoing L’Engle in the Great Conversation, Durst has created a heroine in Cassie who is strong and determined, if sometimes impetuous. Cassie has a lot to overcome, a journey to an impossible destination, friends who want to stop her for her own good and for that of the child she is carrying, and her own ambivalence about the pregnancy and her relationship to Bear, who is her husband and her mother’s rescuer and father to her child. The story as Ms. Durst tells it is about trust and about persistence in the face of insurmountable odds and about self-sacrifice and what that means when the choices are all painful and imperfect.

At any rate, when I compare this book to L’Engle, I’m giving it high praise indeed because Madeleine L’Engle is on my list of top ten or twelve favorite authors. Sarah Beth Durst has written a book that I enjoyed and thought about after I finished. I wondered whether I would make the choices that Cassie made. I wondered what I would do to stop my daughter from making the choices Cassie made. I wondered how in the world authors make such wonderful storybook worlds for us to inhabit for a day or an afternoon.

Thanks to Sarah Beth Durst and to the authors of many other books that have brightened and enriched my world.

Here’s a list of a few other fairy tale adaptations that we have enjoyed here at Semicolon house or that we hope to enjoy:
Other retellings of East of the Sun, West of the Moon
East by Edith Pattou. I read this one a couple of years ago, but didn’t review it. I like Ice better.
Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George

From Beauty and the Beast:
The afore-mentioned Beauty by Robin McKinley.
Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley. A different version of Beauty and the Beast.
Beast by Donna Jo Napoli.

The Sleeping Beauty
Spindle’s End by Robin McKinley.
Enchantment by Orson Scott Card. Semicolon review here.
Briar Rose by Jane Yolen.

Cinderella-ish
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine.
Bella at Midnight by Diane Stanley. Brown Bear Daughter’s review.
Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix.
The Amaranth Enchantment by Julie Berry.
Princess of Glass by Jessica Day George.

Other Folk Tales Ride Again
A Curse Dark As Gold by Elizabeth Bunce. (Rumpelstiltskin) Semicolon review here.
The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. Semicolon review here.
Zel by Donna Jo Napoli. (Rapunzel)
Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George. (The Twelve Dancing Princesses)Semicolon review here.

Lots of LOST Thoughts; Probably More to Come

May24

Idol or icon?
LOST, Lord of the Rings, the books referenced in LOST, even the Bible itself can become idol rather than icon if we become enmeshed in the details of the stories or of the Word and never see through to the Author, to God Himself.

It is possible to find True Truth in LOST or in LOTR or in Kierkegaard or Augustine or in Matthew Henry’s commentaries, but if we look to any story or philosophical treatise or commentary as the Source of Ultimate Truth, that work of literature has become an idol rather an icon that points us to the Ultimate Truth of God in Christ Jesus. Stories and poetry, and in our culture movies and television, are powerful icons that can point us to the source—because in the end all Truth is God’s truth (which is NOT the same thing as saying all religions lead to the same Source).

Cuse and Lindelof (LOST producers) wisely refused to answer all the questions raised over the course of six seasons of LOST for at least two reasons. First of all they don’t have all the answers. LOST raised many philosophical questions for which the answers are incomplete in any story. Cuse and Lindelof and the writers of LOST are telling us, “LIFE/LOST is messy. We have faith that it does have meaning, but the whole thing is a group project. No man is an island. We live in community, whether we want to or not, and we work out our salvation in fear and in trembling and in community.”

Secondly, and related, the answers are not neat packages. Each answer leads to more questions. LOST is like life. Things happen that seem meaningless and even perverse, and only later on can we see the meaning and the reason. Other parts of life we never do understand. Perhaps those incomprehensible and seemingly random events (Jack getting pounded in Thailand, Walt’s special abilities) also have meaning, but it’s a meaning that we are unable to discern even from the vantage point of the future. Like Jack and Hurley and the rest of the LOSTies, we just have to muddle through, having faith that there is a light at the center of the universe and a place and time where all be made clear.

In the end the LOST writers, the story itself, came down on the side of faith. Granted, it was faith in anything or everything, Buddha or Jesus, take your pick. But that’s our culture. That’s the part of the story that’s misleading and untrue. Still, some of the themes were truth-filled. It does take a community to work through your issues and help you to become the person you were meant to be. Human beings do have choices, and choices do matter, even when it seems as if everything is predestined and predetermined. Forgiveness is important and healing. In one sense, what happened, happened. You can’t change the past. But in another sense, nothing is irreversible. Resurrection and redemption are possible. (“Christian Shepard? Are you kidding?”)

And faith is vital. Not faith in oneself, as was implied in certain lines of dialog in the season finale, but rather faith in a God who is there and who is weaving meaning into every single event and relationship of our lives. In fact, we have a God who is so much bigger than Jacob or Jack or the Island itself. We have a Savior who by His sacrifice on the cross gave meaning to all the little mirror sacrifices that we sometimes make for each other. Jack and Desmond and Charlie and Jin and even Kate were all little Christ-figures, icons for the true story of sacrifice and servanthood that is found in the Bible. If you’ve never read it and you’re looking for a story to fill the LOST void now that LOST is over, you might try the real thing. God’s story is as mysterious and profound and beautiful and iconic as LOST, and it’s completely True. Time to go further up and further in and enter the Door that is now open into the most exciting story of all.

The Sixty-Eight Rooms by Marianne Malone

May15

Doesn’t everyone like miniatures? Miniature furniture? Dollhouses? I had no idea that The Art Institute of Chicago had a collection called The Thorne Miniature Rooms:

The 68 Thorne Miniature Rooms enable one to glimpse elements of European interiors from the late 13th century to the 1930s and American furnishings from the 17th century to the 1930s. Painstakingly constructed on a scale of one inch to one foot, these fascinating models were conceived by Mrs. James Ward Thorne of Chicago and constructed between 1932 and 1940 by master craftsmen according to her specifications.

Now I want to go see the miniature rooms. Have any of you been there?

The SIxty-Eight Rooms is a fantasy story for middle grade children (a la Narnia or N.D. WIlson’s 100 Cupboards) about entering into different times and worlds through the rooms in the Thorne Collection. I thought it was great, and it reminded me of so many favorites:

Like the Narnia books, The Sixty-Eight Rooms is about children who find a way into another world, or at least another time in our world.

Instead of 100 cupboards, there are sixty-eight miniature rooms and the worlds they open into, waiting to be explored.

As in the magical books by Edward Eager and E. Nesbit, the magic in The Sixty-Eight Rooms has certain rules that children must figure out as they go along. The magic in these books is something that must be discovered and its rules obeyed if the children want to continue in their adventure. Any Which Wall by Laurel Snyder is another book in this genre.

As in Masterpiece by Elise Broach and Chasing Vermeer and the other art museum fiction books by Blue Balliet, the central setting for the adventure in The SIxty-Eight Rooms is an art museum. Kids can learn a lot about art and artists from all of these books while enjoying a cracking good story at the same time.

Like Claudia and Jamie in the classic From the MIxed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Jack and Ruthie in The Sixty-Eight Rooms must figure out how to spend the night in the museum without being caught, and they explore some wonderfully luxurious museum rooms, too.

What I’m saying with all of these comparisons is, if you liked any of the above books, authors, or series, you’ll probably enjoy The Sixty-Eight Rooms, too. And it looks as if, judging from the ending of this first book, there will be more books to come about the magic of the Thorne Rooms. The ending, by the way, was satisfactory, but definitely left room for a sequel.

Forest Born by Shannon Hale

Feb18

Forest Born is the fourth in Shannon Hale’s Books of Bayern series, a series that began with The Goose Girl, Ms. Hale’s debut novel and the one that made a name for her, winning all kinds of awards and accolades. The Goose Girl tells the story of crown princess Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee of Kildenree, aka Isi, who has the gift of being able to hear and speak to animals and to birds.

The next book in the series is about Isi’s friend Enna who has the more perilous gift of fire-speaking, hence the title Enna Burning. And the third book called River Secrets is about Razo and Dasha, two more Bayern characters whose lives become intertwined with that of Isis and Enna and the kingdom of Bayern and its neighboring kingdoms.

Forest Born tells the story of Razo’s little sister, Rin, who harbors deep within herself a gift and a secret. It’s a coming-of-age tale with elements of adventure and even a bit of romance. Rin is an intriguing character with depth, and she’s different enough from Isi, Enna, and Dasha that she seems real and provides a new slant on the culture and mythical world of Bayern.

It’s also kind of fascinating that central to the plot of Forest Born is something called “people-speaking,” the ability to hear whether or not others are telling the truth and the ability to influence others with words. Kristin Cashore’s Fire and her previous book Graceling also play with this idea, the possibility that some people have a gift of being able to speak to other people and make them believe what they’re hearing and act upon it. In both Fire and in Forest Born this skill of being able to practically control others’ thoughts and actions through the use of words is a perilous gift, possibly helpful in defeating evil but also possibly soul-destroying to the gifted one. Perhaps each author is trying to say something about the power of words even in our world and the care with which we need to choose our words. There’s also a shared Spiderman-type message: “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Forest Born is a worthy sequel to the other Bayern books and worth your reading, especially if you’re a Goose Girl fan.