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Prince Caspian is Everywhere

May20

I’m going to post this list and add to it as I read more reviews and related posts. I don’t know whether the movie is a winner or a clunker, but I’m happy to see St. Jack getting so much attention because I think all of his books are Excellent.

I’ll bet you didn’t realize that Prince Caspian is about beer.

In a sort of schizophrenic post, Betsy Bird discusses the book and the movie with a viewer and a reader, both herself.

The Narnia fans at The Common Room are forgiving . . . to a point. Then they just get mad.

Libertas has the exact opposite reaction: “The Christian theme is not only stronger in Caspian than in Wardrobe, but integrated more naturally into the story — slowly building with events until it perfectly climaxes at the end for maximum emotional effect. This is not some new-age Christian allegory where if you fall to your knees in some sun-dappled field and raise your hands to Jesus all your problems will go away. As in life, God is not a deus ex machina. There’s a bigger picture at work — a master plan — and it’s up to us to find our place within that plan, not the other way around. What Would Aslan Do? No. What Would Aslan Want Us To Do.”

Carissa Smith (Christ and Pop Culture) says the movie is about “putting away childish things.”

Barbara Nicolosi at Church of the Masses calls it a compentently executed fantasy movie with a lot of fighting, pleasant visuals, engaging actors, and a mediocre script. But she doesn’t like fantasy in the first place, so . . .

Ken Brown of C. Orthodoxy prepared himself to see the film version of Prince Caspian by . . . not re-reading the book. Perhaps that’s not a bad idea for those who want to enjoy/evaluate the movie on its own terms.

I haven’t seen the movie yet. No offense to the the Headmistress and crew, but I actually think I’m going to like it. A lot.

Into the Wild by Sarah Beth Durst

May13

I read this book back in February when I was on my blog break, and I’m just now getting my thoughts typed up and posted. Better late than never.

Choice: a predictable, planned out life where you get to live happily ever after—after slogging through the difficulties OR freedom to make your own choices, choose your own destiny, with all the risk that freedom entails?

Into the Wild is three parts silly, but the fourth, underlying part is serious philosophical stuff, like the question above. The Wild is fairy tale land run amuck, and Julie, our protagonist/heroine must choose to save her fairy tale character friends from the dictatorship of story that is The Wild or to become a part of the stories in The Wild and thereby gain a father and a happily-ever-after for herself. It’s not an easy choice. Stories have a way of sucking you in, sapping your strength and resolution, and making you into a helpless pawn in the hands of the storyteller.
I’m glad I finally read this tale told by a master storyteller herself, Sarah Beth Durst, and I’m looking forward to reading the sequel, Out of the Wild.

Miss Erin interviews author Sarah Beth Durst.

Becky’s review of Into the Wild.

Sarah’s Journal (the author’s blog)

The Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

Apr10

Rags to riches with a twist. Cinderella becomes a princess not because she happens to have a fairy godmother or happens to meet and charm Prince Charming, but rather because of her own hard work, sterling character, and inveterate honesty. Dashti/Cinderella the mugger maid is one of Jen’s Cool Girls of Children’s Fiction. Dashti is “smart, brave, strong, and independent,” a heroine to admired and emulated.

What can girls, and guys, learn from Dashti?

Perseverance: Dashti is locked in a tower as maid to a rebellious and somewhat helpless princess. They’re supposed to be locked away for a thousand days. Dashti never gives up hope that they will survive or be rescued or escape or something, even when hope is all but gone.

Loyalty: Dashti remains loyal to her mistress/princess even when the princess herself is undeserving of Dashti’s lowal service.

Hope: As noted above.

Loving self-sacrifice: Dashti sacrifices her own desires and dreams to serve and obey the princess.

Shannon Hale has written another great fairy tale interpretation that speaks to the hopes and fears we all have. Even a mugger maid can be a heroine, and even when there is no hope it still makes sense to act in hope.

Other Shannon Hale titles:

Semicolon review of Enna Burning by Shannon Hale.

Semicolon review of Princess Academy by Shannon Hale.

Semicolon review of The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale.

Heidijane’s review of The Goose Girl.

Becky’s review of Book of a Thousand Days.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born December 10th

Dec10

George MacDonald was born December 10, 1824. He wrote At the Back of the North Wind, The Light Princess, The Princess and the Goblin, and The Princess and Curdie, all fairy tale/fantasies for children. I’ve read all four of these, and I like best The Light Princess, the story of a princess who was cursed at birth with “no gravity,” both in the literal and the figurative sense. I tried to read one of MacDonald’s romances a long time ago, but I don’t remember finishing it. C.S. Lewis was quite fond of MacDonald’s adult fantasies, Phantastes and Lilith. I think I also tried one of these long ago but didn’t understand it (which proves that I’m not C.S. Lewis’ intellectual equal, not that I ever thought I was). MacDonald also had a long and successful marriage which produced six sons and five daughters.

Some people think it is not proper for a clergyman to dance. I mean to assert my freedom from any such law. If our Lord chose to represent, in His parable of the Prodigal Son, the joy in Heaven over a repentant sinner by the figure of ‘music and dancing’, I will hearken to Him rather than to man, be they as good as they may.” For I had long thought that the way to make indifferent things bad, was for good people not to do them.”

I wonder how many Christians there are who so thoroughly believe God made them that they can laugh in God’s name; who understand that God invented laughter and gave it to His children… The Lord of gladness delights in the laughter of a merry heart.”

Certainly work is not always required of a man. There is such a thing as a sacred idleness —the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.”

How do you cultivate “Sacred Idleness”? What does that mean to you? Or is it just blather?

Geroge MacDonald also wrote a book poetic devotionals, one devotional poem for each day of the year. The poem for December reads thus:

What makes thy being a bliss shall then make mine
For I shall love as thou and love in thee;
Then shall I have whatever I desire
My every faintest wish being all divine;
Power thou wilt give me to work mightily,
Even as my Lord, leading thy low men nigher,
With dance and song to cast their best upon thy fire.

If it helps, I believe the poem is addressed to God.

Questions about Phillip Pullman and his books

Nov25

Christian film critic and author Jeffrey Overstreet on Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series.

I think these are some good questions (from Mr. Overstreet’s post) to discuss with your children if they and you read the books or see the movie together:

If we cast off all “Authority” and set up “free will” as the ultimate source of guidance, where will that get us?
Has the world shown us that the human heart is a trustworthy “compass”?
Does free will lead us always to the right choice?
If the heroes accept the “truth” of the aletheometer (the compass itself), aren’t they letting themselves be guided by just another source of truth… another “Authority”?
But wait a minute… the movie told us that “Authority” is bad and we should only follow our own hearts, didn’t it?
If there are “many truths,” then aren’t these heroes being as self-righteous and wicked as the oppressors by demanding that their version of the truth is better than others?
What is so inspiring about the battle between the bears?
Hasn’t this story led us to a place where it’s just “survival of the fittest” all over again?
Should we really hope that the world falls into the hands of the strongest fighter, rather than into the hands of love?

Disclaimer: I’ve not read these books, probably won’t, and won’t be seeing the movie. I’ve got a list of books a mile and a half long to read, and Phillip Pullman’s opus is w-a-y d-o-w-n off the list. However, I thought Mr. Overstreet gave an excellent analysis of the books, the movie, and their impact and background from a Christian worldview perspective.

Madeleine L’Engle: In Her Own Words

Sep16

“Artists of all disciplines must be willing to go into the dark, let go control, be surprised.”

“We die alone. But I wish that most deaths today did not come in nursing homes or in hospitals. Death is an act which should not happen in such brutal settings. Future generations may well regard our hopitals and “rest” homes and institutions for the mentally ill with as much horror as we regard Bedlam.” The Summer of the Great-Grandmother, p. 41.

” . . . it comes to me that if I am not free to accept guilt when I do wrong, then I am not free at all. If all my mistakes are excused, if there’s an alibi, a rationalization, for every blunder, then I am not free at all. I have become subhuman.” The Summer of the Great-Grandmother, p. 50.

“Change is a basic law of life, and when change stops, death comes.” The Summer of the Great-Grandmother, p. 105.

“It would be simpler to restrict myself to the things I can hear and see and touch, to the things I can prove, to the things I can control.” The Summer of the Great-Grandmother, p. 122.

“So according to our human perception of time a century may seem long, but all that has happened since that first moment of creation is no more than the flicker of God’s eye. In the life span of a star, an ordinary star like our sun, our lives are such a fragment of a fragment as to seem practically nonexistent, even if we live four score years and ten, like my mother, or even five score, like my grandfather. So, according to one perception of time, the zealous creationists are right—God created everything in an instant—or, rather, seven days; and according to another perception of time, the pragmatic evolutionists are right, and life has evolved slowly over our chronological millennia.” And It Was Good.

“What I believe is so magnificent, so glorious, that it is beyond finite comprehension. To believe that the universe was created by a purposeful, benign Creator is one thing. To believe that this Creator took on human vesture, accepted death and mortality, was tempted, betrayed, broken, and all for love of us, defies reason. It is so wild that it terrifies some Christians who try to dogmatize their fear by lashing out at other Christians, because tidy Christianity with all answers given is easier than one which reaches out to the wild wonder of God’s love, a love we don’t even have to earn.” Penguins and Golden Calves, p. 31.

“Prayer was never meant to be magic,” Mother said.
“Then why bother with it?” Suzy scowled.
“Because it’s an act of love,” Mother said.
A Ring Of Endless Light, p. 288-289.

“If you want to see the stars you must go out into the country where there are no lights to dim them. But if you really want to see the stars then you must be out in the middle of the ocean. Then you can see them as the sailors and navigators saw them in the days when stars were known as very few people know them now.”
Arm of the Starfish

“What is forever? It cannot be in time, because time can be measured, and forever cannot. Time is inextricably tangled up with place, and can be measured only against place (dark of night in New York; grey of morning in Beja). Time has meaning only in relation to its position in space, the movement of a planet about a sun, of a night through stars.”
The Love Letters

“Oh, child, your language is so utterly simple and limited that it has the effect of extreme complication.” A Wrinkle in Time, p. 169.

“Progo! Help me! How can I feel love for Mr. Jenkins?”

Immediately he opened a large number of eyes very wide. “What a strange idea. Love isn’t feeling. If it were, I wouldn’t be able to love. Cherubim don’t have feelings.”
A Wind in the Door

A Madeleine L’Engle Annotated Bibliography

Sep9

l'engle books
1. 18 Washington Square South: A Comedy in One Act, 1944. Ms. L’Engle actually wrote several plays and was an actress herself before her marriage, but this is one of the few that appears in the bibliography at her website.
2. The Small Rain, 1945. Madeleine L’Engle’s first published novel tells the story of young Katherine Forrester, daughter of two famous musicians, who discovers in herself her own musical talent. This one is a beautifully realized coming-of-age novel set in Europe and New York City in the years before World War II. Semicolon review here.
3. Ilsa, 1946. Has anyone read this? Is it a novel or a play?
4. And Both Were Young, 1949, is another boarding school story starring artist Philippa Hunter who is miserable until she meets Paul and learns from him how to confront the past and overcome her self-doubt. I read this book a few months ago as a part of my Madeleine L’Engle project, but I never got around to writing about it here on the blog, maybe because I didn’t like it as much as I do her other books.
5. Camilla Dickinson, 1951. Republished in 1965 as simply Camilla, probably reworked to some extent. Semicolon review here.
6. A Winter’s Love, 1957. Semicolon review here.
7. Meet the Austins, 1960. The first in the Austin family series of books.
8. A Wrinkle in Time, 1962. Madeleine L’Engle’s most famous book, winner of the Newbery Award in 1963, is deserving of the praise it gets. Meg Murry, her brother Charles Wallace the genius, and her friend Calvin “tesser” through space and time to rescue Meg’s father from IT.
9. The Moon By Night, 1963. The Austin family goes on a cross-country camping trip, and Vicky, age 15, meets some interesting characters, including Zachary, a poor little rich boy who is alternately fascinating and alarming. This one moves into Young Adult territory with romance, but nothing salacious.
10. The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas, 1964. Christmas with the Austins.
11. The Arm of the Starfish, 1965. Polyhymnia (Polly) O’Keefe is the daughter of Meg (Murry) and Calvin O’Keefe from A Wrinkle in TIme. She becomes involved, along with a young student, Adam Eddington, in a complicated episode of scientific espionage.
12. Camilla, 1965. Semicolon review here.  
13. The Love Letters, 1966. The story of a woman who is running away from a difficult marriage. She runs to Portugal, of all places, where she learns about love and responsibility and commitment from a 17th century Portuguese nun who broke her vows for the sake of a handsome French soldier. My favorite Madeleine L’Engle novel. (Adult) Semicolon review here.
14. A Journey With Jonah (a play), 1967.
15. The Young Unicorns, 1968. The Austin family is living in New York City; however, the story focuses on a couple of new friends of the Austins, pianist Emily Gregory and former gang member Dave Davidson. It’s a very sixties YA novel, featuring street gangs, lasers, and mad scientists.
16. Dance in the Desert, 1969.
17. Lines Scribbled on an Envelope and Other Poems, 1969
18. The Other Side of the Sun, 1971. The setting is early twentieth century South Carolina. English bride Stella Renier must come to live with her new husband’s famiy while he goes travelling on business. Sort of Gothic in good way with spiritual/Christian themes. (Young adult or adult)
19. A Circle of Quiet, 1972. Autobiography about Ms. L’Engle’s life in a village, her familly and her early writing life.
20. The Wind in the Door, 1973. The second of the Time Quartet books. Instead of travelling through time and space, Meg must travel inside Charles Wallace to diagnose and cure a problem with Charles Wallace’s mitochondria. Semicolon review here.
21. Everyday Prayers, 1974
22. Prayers for Sunday, 1974
23. The Risk of Birth, 1974
24. The Summer of the Great Grandmother, 1974. Nonfiction counterpart to the fictional A Ring of Endless Light, the two books deal with the task of dying with dignity and role of families in the process of death and dying.
25. Dragons in the Waters, 1976. Murder, smuggling, and blackmail in Venezuela. This YA novel features Polly O’Keefe.
26. The Irrational Season, 1977. A follow-up to Circle of Quiet and Summer of the Great-Grandmother.
27. A Swiftly Tilting Planet, 1978. The third book in the so-called TIme Quartet, this novel is one part science fiction, one part historical fiction, and another part just plain weird —in a wonderful sort of way.
28. The Weather of the Heart, 1978
29. Ladder of Angels, 1979
30. The Anti-Muffins, 1980. A short book about the Austins and nonconformism.
31. A Ring of Endless Light, 1980. Vicky Austin and her family must come to terms with the impending death of Vicky’s garndfather, and Vicky must decide who she is and whom she can trust.
32. Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, 1980. These essays on the intersection of faith and art are quite helpful and thought-provoking for Christian artists in particular. JR at brokenstainedglass has been blogging about the insights he has gleaned from this book for last couple of months (August-September, 2007).
33. A Severed Wasp, 1982. Katherine Forrester from A Small Rain returns as an elderly retired concert pianist who becomes entangled in the life of the characters who ive in and around the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.
34. And It Was Good: Reflections on Beginnings, 1983.
35. A House Like a Lotus, 1984. Polly O’Keefe, nearly seventeen years old in this novel, travels to Cyprus and learns both discernment and acceptance in her relationships.
36. Trailing Clouds of Glory: Spiritual Values in Children’s Literature, 1985 (with Avery Brooke). Another excellent book about the art of writing particularly for Christian writers.
37. Many Waters, 1986. A fictionalization of the Biblical story of Noah and the ark, with time travel, unicorns, and nephilim thrown in. The main characters are Meg Murry’s twin brothers, Sandy and Dennys.
38. A Stone for a Pillow: Journeys with Jacob, 1986
39. A Cry Like a Bell, 1987
40. Two-Part Invention, 1988. The story of Madeleine’s marriage to actor Hugh Franklin.
41. An Acceptable Time, 1989. Polly O’Keefe returns in her fourth story, and the plot and themes hark back to those of Time Quartet: time travel, peoples and cultures of the past, healing, the power of love.
42. Sold Into Egypt: Joseph’s Journey into Human Being, 1989.
43. The Glorious Impossible, 1990.
44. Certain Women, 1992 is an adult novel about the Biblical King David and about a modern-day David, an actor who engages in serial polygamy in about the same way that David of the Bible loved many women and had many wives. Semicolon review here.
45. The Rock That is Higher, 1993
46. Anytime Prayers, 1994
47. Troubling a Star, 1994. Vicky Austin and Adam Eddington are in Antarctica where they resist those who are trying to exploit the continent’s natural resources. YA.
48. Glimpses of Grace, 1996 (with Carole Chase)
49. A Live Coal in the Sea, 1996. This adult novel returns to the character Camilla from the book of the same name and tells the story of her famiy, especially her son Taxi and granddaughter Raffi.
50. Penguins and Golden Calves: Icons and Idols, 1996
51. Wintersong, 1996 (with Luci Shaw). Poetry.
52. Bright Evening Star, 1997
53. Friends for the Journey, 1997 (with Luci Shaw). Reviewed here by Carol of Magistramater.
54. Mothers and Daughters, 1997 (with Maria Rooney). Maria Rooney is Madeleine L’Engle’s daughter.
55. Miracle on 10th Street, 1998
56. A Full House, 1999. A Christmas story about the Austin family and an unexpected Christmas baby.
57. Mothers and Sons, 1999 (with Maria Rooney)
58. Prayerbook for Spiritual Friends, 1999 (with Luci Shaw)
59. The Other Dog, 2001
60. Madeleine L’Engle Herself: Reflections on a Writing Life, 2001 (with Carole Chase)
61. The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L’Engle, 2005.

Enchantment by Orson Scott Card

Jun27

Last year, on the the recommendation of some of my blog friends, I read Orson Scott Card’s sci-fi materpiece, Ender’s Game. Although I thought the ending was bit weak, I enjoyed the book very much. Now I’ve read my second book by Card, and it’s quite different from Ender’s Game, but also delightful.

Enchantment is a fantasy fairy tale based on the story of Sleeping Beauty, set in Russia, and reminiscent of Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. A late twentieth century American young man named Ivan goes back in time to the ninth century to the kingdom of Taina after rescuing a sleeping princess from the clutches of a ravening bear. The book is full of paganism and witchcraft mixed with, sometimes clashing with, Orthodox Christianity and Judaism. Ivan is Jewish; the princess is Christian; both lapse into scientism or superstition at times. The atmosphere of ninth century Eastern Europe is recreated in a way that feels right. Christianity has become the official religion of Taina, but for some it’s only a thin veneer over their native paganism. And when the kingdom must confront and fight true, powerful Evil in the shape of Baba Yaga, the witch, it’s necessary to call on both the old gods and the new Christ and on all the help that the twentieth century can send into the past.

If you’re interested in retellings of fairy tales or in medieval historical fiction, Enchantment is one of the best of either I’ve read. It’s an adult or young adult book with some (married) sexual descriptions and innuendos.

Some children’s fairy tale novels that I like:

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. In fact, you can hardly go wrong with any of Levine’s books for children.

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale.

Beauty by Robin McKinley.

Briar Rose by Jane Yolen. Another Sleeping Beauty recreation set in and around the Holocaust. I know it sounds odd, but it works.

The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope. Loosely based on the ballad of Tam Lin.

Sarah Beth Durst’s latest fairy tale commentary: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Ms. Durst also has a fairy tale-based book, hot off the presses, that I’d like to read and make one of my favorites. It’s called Into the Wild, and I’m going to read it as soon as I get my hands on a copy. I’d also like to read some of Donna Jo Napoli’s fairy tale novels for children and young adults. She’s a good author.

If you read this genre, what are your favorite fairy tales retold or adapted to novel form?

Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt

Jun9

This peculiar tale reminded me of Scheherezade in 1001 Nights and of last year’s other Death Personified story, The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. I told the Eldest the bare outline of the plot, and she immediately said, “Chaucer’s already used that plot device.” Indeed, Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale does have three drunken men go into the forest to meet and conquer Death. And then there’s the flavor in the story, if not the humor, of The Princess Bride.

However, Keturah and Lord Death is neither fish nor fowl, neither romance nor comedy, neither fairy tale nor high tragedy. I thought about saying that it was a sort of prosaic hymn to Death itself, but it’s not that exactly. It may be speculative fiction about the inevitability of Death. Or about the power of love to transcend Death. It may be an old folk tale reworked into a modern novel. Or something else altogether.

I’m not completely sure. And in this book, the uncertainty fits. Keturah and Lord Death isn’t an allegory; it’s a regular old story of the kind that C.S. Lewis would have approved as much as he disapproved of allegory. It’s not exactly a “Christian” story, but it doesn’t contradict the Christian view of life and death.

“Tell me what it is like to die,” I answered.

He dismounted from his horse, looking at me strangely the whole while. “You experience something similar every day,” he said softly. “It is as familiar to you as bread and butter.”

“Yes, I said. “It is like every night when I fall asleep.”

“No. It is like every morning when you wake up.”

Ms Leavitt begins her tale with a snippet of Emily Dickinson (Because I could not stop for Death,/He kindly stopped for me;/The carriage held but just ourselves/And Immortality) and ends with this revelation in the Acknowledgments:

“Finally, I express my love to my younger sister, Lorraine, who died many years ago of cystic fibrosis at the age of eleven. Now, as a mother and grandmother, I realize what a long journey dying must be for a child to make alone. I wish I could have walked with her a little way. This book is my way of doing so.”

If you like faity tale and romantic fantasy and uncoventional quest stories, the journey is well worth your time.

Portrait of Jennie by Robert Nathan

May2

Unlike everyone else in the known universe, I hated The Time Traveler’s Wife. I thought it was way too long, way too confusing, and way too crude and sexually and violently graphic. This book, A Portrait of Jennie, is a much gentler, shorter (125 pages) book with a plot comparable to The Time Traveler’s Wife. I liked it very much.

A Portrait of Jennie was published in 1940; it’s out of print but available used from Amazon. In the story, it’s 1938, and the narrator, a starving artist, meets a little girl named Jennie. She’s a girl from the past, and she inspires a painting that captures the interest of an art gallery owner. As the girl re-appears in the narrator’s life, a bit older each time, she continues to inspire paintings and, finally, love.

Author Robert Nathan wrote many novels, a couple of children’s books, and some collections of poetry. According to Wikipedia, he had seven wives. You wouldn’t think he’d know much about romance and long term love and commitment, but A Portrait of Jennie is poignantly romantic.

A Portrait of Jennie was made into a movie in 1948 starring Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotten. Nathan also wrote The Bishop’s Wife, a novel which was also made into a movie.

Quotation Time:

“I suppose most artists go through something of the sort; sooner or later it is no longer enough for them just to live —to paint, and have enough, or nearly enough, to eat. Sooner or later God asks His question: are you for me, or against me? And the artist must have some answer, or feel his heart break for what he cannot say.”