[I] Narnia
X Kyle M Thompson
as good as they mostly are, it is the last third of the seventh
book - /The Last Battle/ - that really bugs me. Okay, so they
were written by C S Lewis, well know religious book personage,
but right up to the point in TLB that Lucy says, "In our world
too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than
our whole world" He had got away with being quite subtle in his
aim to make children give religion a chance.
My copies are over 20 years old, and well worn with re-reading,
but I did not get how blatantly heavenly the last bit of the last
book got, perhaps when I was 8 and I first read them I just
did not get it, but I only really noticed how... *pushy*... the
book got when re-reading them three years ago.
IMO it would have ended the series better without being so godly,
and it has rather left a bad taste in the mouth.
Never the less they worked, a while ago I began a study of
camparative Abrahamic religions - just for fun - as the whole
area is really quite interesting[1].
kt.
ps: I'm back.
[1] Although this will be taking a back seat as I study for my
nursing whatnot, much more important. Also the old books aren;t
going anywhere!
--
tigger:~ kylet$ uptime
21:06 up 1 day, 3:29, 3 users, load averages: 1.27 1.42 1.60
CCA
> ps: I'm back.
Good to have you back :-)
You remember where everything is, don't you?
*points Kyle towards tea, coffee, chocolate, bread products etc*
Hope the nursing studies are going well :-)
CCA
Helen Taylor
> as good as they mostly are, it is the last third of the seventh
> book - /The Last Battle/ - that really bugs me. Okay, so they
> were written by C S Lewis, well know religious book personage,
> but right up to the point in TLB that Lucy says, "In our world
> too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than
> our whole world" He had got away with being quite subtle in his
> aim to make children give religion a chance.
>
> My copies are over 20 years old, and well worn with re-reading,
> but I did not get how blatantly heavenly the last bit of the last
> book got, perhaps when I was 8 and I first read them I just
> did not get it, but I only really noticed how... *pushy*... the
> book got when re-reading them three years ago.
>
When I read it, a few years ago, I noticed how similar it was to
Revelantions in the Bible. (Or rather when I read Revelations I noticed
how similar it was to the last battle). I don't think I picked up on
most of the religious bits until I was an adult. Not one of my favourite
Narnia books and probably the one I've read the least.
Helen
Graycat
<kyle.t...@gmail.com> jotted down:
>I have just re read the Narnia books for the umpteenth time, and
>as good as they mostly are, it is the last third of the seventh
>book - /The Last Battle/ - that really bugs me. Okay, so they
>were written by C S Lewis, well know religious book personage,
>but right up to the point in TLB that Lucy says, "In our world
>too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than
>our whole world" He had got away with being quite subtle in his
>aim to make children give religion a chance.
I don't consider the last book part of the real series - I
never liked it and don't re-read it if I read the other
books. Unlike pretty much everyone, it seems, I do however
consider the first one part of the real series.
--
Elin
The Tale of Westala and Villtin
http://tale.cunobaros.com/
The Oswalds DW casting award - Vote Now!
http://www.student.lu.se/~his02ero/Oswald/index.html
Jade
Graycat wrote:
> X Kyle M Thompson jotted down:
>
> >I have just re read the Narnia books for the umpteenth time,
>
> I don't consider the last book part of the real series - I
> never liked it and don't re-read it if I read the other
> books. Unlike pretty much everyone, it seems, I do however
> consider the first one part of the real series.
>
I read the last one when I go through the whole series,
but it's not one I'd go for if I was only reading one, IYSWIM.
what I wanted to say was that I saw the shorts for the
LW&W movie a few days ago and was *very* impressed - it
looks amazing!
it could easily have been a bit lame (in a cutesy "adaptation
of a kids' book" way) but it looks like they're going for
epic nobility and grandeur and heroism - yay!
jade
Boyd Bottorff
> but I did not get how blatantly heavenly the last bit of the last
> book got, perhaps when I was 8 and I first read them I just
> did not get it, but I only really noticed how... *pushy*... the
> book got when re-reading them three years ago.
I read the books first when I was ten or so. Parts I loved, parts drove
me up a wall.
After I got older, and had studied the concept of allegory, I reread the
books. It was fascinating to realize that the parts I hated as a kid
were all the direct allegory parts. Now, I'm a Christian, but man, I
wish the guy had been more secular in his stories, at least these ones.
I equate it with some of the bumper stickers, t-shirts, and billboards I
see on a regular basis. No, I take it back; those are worse. They're
way too damn pushy. People don't see a True Believer; they see an
arrogant swat.
Yeah, Narnia had its pushy parts that it shouldn't. I mean, it's
fiction; direct allegory doesn't fit the mood. On the other hand, in
_Screwtape Letters_, it fits the mood quite nicely. Well, it's not
exactly allegory, but the heavier Christian presense (so to speak) makes
the mood just right.
Phil Davison
> I have just re read the Narnia books for the umpteenth time,
<Snip>
> but I only
> really noticed how... *pushy*... the book got when re-reading them three
> years ago.
>
One reason I will never bother with them again. I feel they belong to my
childhood when I didn't take too much notice of things like that -- it was
just stupid fairy stories adults believed in. Nowadays that sort of thing
would just make me angry.
<snip>
> ps: I'm back.
>
What, back in the UK or back in afp?
--
Cyclops
Evil Heretic Infiltrator
Kim
> I don't consider the last book part of the real series - I
> never liked it and don't re-read it if I read the other
> books. Unlike pretty much everyone, it seems, I do however
> consider the first one part of the real series.
I've never heard anyone say they don't consider "The Magician's Nephew"
part of the real series... And it's my favourite Narnia book! [1]
Completely unrelated, I've decided to try and see if I can make Google
groups work, tags and all. Big reason for not posting, the
dreadfullness of Google Groups. Did this message tag correctly and
stuff...?
[1] Well, along with "The Silver Chair", but _everyone_ loves that one,
so no fun mentioning it as a favourite.
Daibhid Ceanaideach
news:1128068396.6...@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
> Graycat wrote:
>
>> I don't consider the last book part of the real series - I
>> never liked it and don't re-read it if I read the other
>> books. Unlike pretty much everyone, it seems, I do however
>> consider the first one part of the real series.
>
> I've never heard anyone say they don't consider "The
> Magician's Nephew" part of the real series... And it's my
> favourite Narnia book! [1]
Well, there's two interpretations of "first book", but I can't
see anyone claiming the first one he *wrote* isn't part of the
series 8-)...
> Completely unrelated, I've decided to try and see if I can
> make Google groups work, tags and all. Big reason for not
> posting, the dreadfullness of Google Groups. Did this
> message tag correctly and stuff...?
Yep, you're okay.
--
Dave
Official Absentee of EU Skiffeysoc
"So if ye're an alien, how come ye've got a Southern accent?"
"Lots of planets have a South, Jamie."
-Conversations that never happened, no. 3
Daibhid Ceanaideach
news:1h3o0vr.1ea5ev9i7tz42N%bbot...@nomail.com:
>> My copies are over 20 years old, and well worn with
>> re-reading, but I did not get how blatantly heavenly the
>> last bit of the last book got, perhaps when I was 8 and I
>> first read them I just did not get it, but I only really
>> noticed how... *pushy*... the book got when re-reading
>> them three years ago.
>
> I read the books first when I was ten or so. Parts I
> loved, parts drove me up a wall.
>
> After I got older, and had studied the concept of allegory,
> I reread the books. It was fascinating to realize that the
> parts I hated as a kid were all the direct allegory parts.
> Now, I'm a Christian, but man, I wish the guy had been more
> secular in his stories, at least these ones.
>
> I equate it with some of the bumper stickers, t-shirts, and
> billboards I see on a regular basis. No, I take it back;
> those are worse. They're way too damn pushy. People don't
> see a True Believer; they see an arrogant swat.
This is interesting, because while the bumper stickers annoy
me a bit, I've never had any problem with the idea that Narnia
has its own version of Christianity (except in Last Battle,
and sometimes the end of Dawn Treader). And I'm firmly
agnostic.
Incidentally, CS himself always claimed the books *weren't*
allegorical. Aslan wasn't an allegory for Christ, he was the
Narnian version of Christ. It seems a bit hair-splitting, and
I don't think it's true for LB and end-of-DT, but that's what
he said.
Depending on your interpretation, of course, that might make
it worse. (as in: Omnianism is an allegory for Christianity,
but Lewis is saying *actual* Christianity is everywhere.)
Kim
> Well, there's two interpretations of "first book", but I can't
> see anyone claiming the first one he *wrote* isn't part of the
> series 8-)...
Heh, actually... In many ways, "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe"
doesn't fit in with the rest of the books. The most obvious reason
being the existance of christmas and santa claus. I've always thought
of "The Lion..." as the odd one out in the series.
Graycat
jotted down:
>Graycat wrote:
>
>> I don't consider the last book part of the real series - I
>> never liked it and don't re-read it if I read the other
>> books. Unlike pretty much everyone, it seems, I do however
>> consider the first one part of the real series.
>
>I've never heard anyone say they don't consider "The Magician's Nephew"
>part of the real series... And it's my favourite Narnia book! [1]
Not so much "not part of" as it just tends to get skipped.
gem...@tpg.com.au
<daibhidc...@aol.com> wrote:
[Narnia]
>Incidentally, CS himself always claimed the books *weren't*
>allegorical. Aslan wasn't an allegory for Christ, he was the
>Narnian version of Christ. It seems a bit hair-splitting, and
>I don't think it's true for LB and end-of-DT, but that's what
>he said.
>
>Depending on your interpretation, of course, that might make
>it worse. (as in: Omnianism is an allegory for Christianity,
>but Lewis is saying *actual* Christianity is everywhere.)
I don't know about everywhere, but in an infinite series of universes, I'd
expect to run across at least a mini-cluster that had genuine Jesuses in
them. Narnia wouldn't even be in that cluster - just reasonably close by
in phase space, somewhere in the "I can't believe it's not Jesus" sector.
The film previews are OK, although the look and feel really come across as
"LoTR for kiddies". Is this the first time Aslan's been done in CGI? I
know he's been animatronic, a muppet, and possibly cel-animated (only a
vague hint of a memory here, I may be wrong).
-SteveD
rachel hayward
remember correctly aren't those who follow other "gods" allowed to enter
Aslan's land because they served with a true heart and motives?
I must admit that I have a big problem with most of the children's
characters as they all seem so goody-two-shoes and wet. I always liked
Edmund the best, and Lucy - what a little creep! I also agree quite strongly
with Phillip Pullman's assesment of the series.
However I would be *most* interested to hear from anyone who could possibly
explain what CS Lewis's book "That Hideous Strength* (the third of the "Out
Of The Silent Planet" trilogy) is all about....
Daibhid Ceanaideach
news:BF62FB3B.5DD1%rac...@steelpan.co.uk:
> However I would be *most* interested to hear from anyone
> who could possibly explain what CS Lewis's book "That
> Hideous Strength* (the third of the "Out Of The Silent
> Planet" trilogy) is all about....
"Science bad!" IIRC...
rachel hayward
>
>> However I would be *most* interested to hear from anyone
>> who could possibly explain what CS Lewis's book "That
>> Hideous Strength* (the third of the "Out Of The Silent
>> Planet" trilogy) is all about....
>
> "Science bad!" IIRC...
but what was all that about Merlin, Albion and the bronze decapitated
head!!!! That reminded me of the old Templar Myths...
X Kyle M Thompson
>On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 21:06:55 +0100, X Kyle M Thompson
><kyle.t...@gmail.com> jotted down:
>
>>I have just re read the Narnia books for the umpteenth time, and
>>as good as they mostly are, it is the last third of the seventh
>>book - /The Last Battle/ - that really bugs me.
>
>I don't consider the last book part of the real series - I
>never liked it and don't re-read it if I read the other
>books. Unlike pretty much everyone, it seems, I do however
>consider the first one part of the real series.
>
I thinki that's probably the best way to look at it. There's none
of the magical journey from England to Narnia, and nothing much
happens. those are both important points.
I always liked the Magician's Nephew, it sets the series up well,
and I am a little dissapointed that the film (I assume they will
get round to them all? [except TLB of course!]) does not start
with Digory and Polly.
kt
--
tigger:~ kylet$ uptime
18:01 up 2 days, 24 mins, 3 users, load averages: 1.43 1.48 1.74
X Kyle M Thompson
Both, I think.
Although looking at the workload the nursing course has piled on
this week alone I do not know how much time I will have. For
instance, I am still at home working on a Friday night - why is
that?
-- tigger:~ kylet$ uptime
20:25 up 2 days, 2:48, 3 users, load averages: 1.56 1.61 1.77
rja.ca...@excite.com
X Kyle M Thompson wrote:
> as good as they mostly are, it is the last third of the seventh
> book - /The Last Battle/ - that really bugs me. Okay, so they
> were written by C S Lewis, well know religious book personage,
> but right up to the point in TLB that Lucy says, "In our world
> too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than
> our whole world" He had got away with being quite subtle in his
> aim to make children give religion a chance.
>
> My copies are over 20 years old, and well worn with re-reading,
> but I did not get how blatantly heavenly the last bit of the last
> book got, perhaps when I was 8 and I first read them I just
> did not get it, but I only really noticed how... *pushy*... the
> book got when re-reading them three years ago.
>
> IMO it would have ended the series better without being so godly,
> and it has rather left a bad taste in the mouth.
>
> Never the less they worked, a while ago I began a study of
> camparative Abrahamic religions - just for fun - as the whole
> area is really quite interesting[1].
I'm not sure that was the intended effect, but as you report of
yourself, younger readers lapped up the adventure while the
Christianity soaked into them and they didn't notice.
I think Lewis is also criticised for offering only the bits of
Christianity that are most exciting to younger readers, i.e. the
terrifying God with magical powers, including healing, the swords and
armour, etc, and not Original Sin except in... is "caricature" too
strong a word?
I don't think all of Narnia's morality is wrong.
Lesley Weston
rja.ca...@excite.com at rja.ca...@excite.com wrote on 01/10/2005 4:53
AM:
>
> X Kyle M Thompson wrote:
>> I have just re read the Narnia books for the umpteenth time
<snip>
>> IMO it would have ended the series better without being so godly,
>> and it has rather left a bad taste in the mouth.
>>
>> Never the less they worked, a while ago I began a study of
>> camparative Abrahamic religions - just for fun - as the whole
>> area is really quite interesting[1].
>
> I'm not sure that was the intended effect, but as you report of
> yourself, younger readers lapped up the adventure while the
> Christianity soaked into them and they didn't notice.
I was one of the younger readers who didn't know that they were about
Christianity, even after reading the whole series, until someone explained
it to me. I don't think the religion did soak into me - if it did, it didn't
take.
>
> I think Lewis is also criticised for offering only the bits of
> Christianity that are most exciting to younger readers, i.e. the
> terrifying God with magical powers, including healing, the swords and
> armour, etc, and not Original Sin except in... is "caricature" too
> strong a word?
>
> I don't think all of Narnia's morality is wrong.
No, of course not. "We should stick by our friends and help them if they
need us; we should not be beguiled by immediate treats into betraying the
things we really consider important; we should be brave even when we are
afraid... ". There are plenty of admirable precepts in the books. The
Christian ethic is pretty much the Judaic and Islamic and Buddhist ethic (I
don't know about Shinto and other religions, though I know a very moral
Zoroastrian and several likeable B'Hai practitioners), so nearly everybody
is going to see it as simply the right way to behave.
--
Lesley Weston.
Brightly_coloured_blob is real, but I don't often check even the few bits
that get through Yahoo's filters. To reach me, use leswes att shaw dott ca,
changing spelling and spacing as required.
Rocky Frisco
Lewis brutally outed himself in the Perelandra Series. He was buried so
deeply in that crap he didn't even realize he had made a total ass of
himself in so doing.
His description of how he fought off being subsumed in the group mind is
an exact and very detailed description of a person refusing
enlightenment because of ego and fear and religiosity.
His loyalty to "Jesus" and his own moral cowardice prevented him from
actually being "born again." Monumental irony that he celebrated this in
a trilogy of books.
-Rock http://www.rocky-frisco.com
--
Rocky Frisco's LIBERTY website: http://www.liberty-in-our-time.com/
The World's Best Daily News Service: http://www.rationalreview.com/
Rock onstage with JJ Cale and E. Clapton: http://tinyurl.com/3modw
Rocky Frisco
See my previous post on this subject.
rachel hayward
>> However I would be *most* interested to hear from anyone who could possibly
>> explain what CS Lewis's book "That Hideous Strength* (the third of the "Out
>> Of The Silent Planet" trilogy) is all about....
>
> See my previous post on this subject.
>
comparative theology but the last book really baffled me - and I read "Friar
Bungay and Friar Bacon" and pretty much understood it....
yours confuddledly..
--
"Once you've heard Rachel play, you won't want to hear anyone else...."
- T. Pratchett
"Suspiciously close to street theatre"
- S "Vetinari" Briggs
Flesh-eating Dragon
> rachel hayward wrote:
>> However I would be *most* interested to hear from anyone
>> who could possibly explain what CS Lewis's book "That
>> Hideous Strength* (the third of the "Out Of The Silent
>> Planet" trilogy) is all about....
>
> "Science bad!" IIRC...
You **definitely** don't remember correctly. There is nothing in THS
that could possibly be interpreted as "anti-science" by sane people,
and C.S.Lewis couldn't possibly write an anti-science book.
What THS describes as bad, is a philosophy that had some currency in
the first half of the last century. A philosophy that I'm damn sure
you wouldn't confuse with science, and which C.S. Lewis most
assuredly never confused with science either. A philosophy that fed
upon science like a parasite feeds upon its host, but was not the same
as science for the same reason that a parasite is not the same as its
host. The philosophy in question is described at
<http://www.zompist.com/predic.htm>, from which I will now quote:
==================================================================
The intellectual fashion at the turn of the century (and well
beyond) was for the artificial, the planned, and the scientific at
the expense of the natural.
* Capitalism was messy and evil and would be replaced by planned
utopia. Or at least there would be scientific management, with
technocratic experts telling brute labor what to do.
* Cities were disgusting organic agglomerations, to be replaced
by massive monoliths in geometric parks.
* Languages were sinks of irregularity, to be replaced by
Esperanto or something even more rigorous and analytical, a
sort of voiced Dewey Decimal System.
[...]
* One even found (in science fiction, here as so often the
manifestation of contemporary wishes and fears) the expectation
that organic life itself was a sort of rot, a corruption to be
superseded by intelligent machines.
* Even democracy, the triumph of 19C (= "19th century")
liberalism, was on the defensive. [...]
=================================================================
*THAT* is the philosophy which THS so vehemently condemns. It is most
definitely not an anti-science book. I wonder how you got the
impression it was. Could it be that some time in the murky past you
read some anti-Lewis propoganda that said it was?
What upset *me* about THS is the line where one of our chief heroes
(the character who speaks Lewis's mind more than any other) explains
that God is extremely male, so male that we are all female in
comparison. Er, wha?????
Adrian.
Daibhid Ceanaideach
news:dhnpl4$ujg$1...@groundhog.korenwolf.net:
> Daibhid Ceanaideach wrote:
>> rachel hayward wrote:
>
>>> However I would be *most* interested to hear from anyone
>>> who could possibly explain what CS Lewis's book "That
>>> Hideous Strength* (the third of the "Out Of The Silent
>>> Planet" trilogy) is all about....
>>
>> "Science bad!" IIRC...
>
> You **definitely** don't remember correctly. There is
> nothing in THS that could possibly be interpreted as
> "anti-science" by sane people, and C.S.Lewis couldn't
> possibly write an anti-science book.
Fair enough. It's been a long time since I read it.
<snip description of world that sounds great in theory, but I
wouldn't want to actually live in>
> *THAT* is the philosophy which THS so vehemently condemns.
> It is most definitely not an anti-science book. I wonder
> how you got the impression it was. Could it be that some
> time in the murky past you read some anti-Lewis propoganda
> that said it was?
It's certainly possible. But (like everyone) I only believe
stuff that fits my own prejudices, so I must have had a
tendency towards this opinion already. Which doesn't make it
right, or even mean I'd still have it if I read the book
again, which I will do ASAP.
rja.ca...@excite.com
X Kyle M Thompson wrote:
Of course LWW is the first published.
MN has the Garden of Eden in it!!
rja.ca...@excite.com
Flesh-eating Dragon wrote:
> Daibhid Ceanaideach wrote:
> > rachel hayward wrote:
>
> >> However I would be *most* interested to hear from anyone
> >> who could possibly explain what CS Lewis's book "That
> >> Hideous Strength* (the third of the "Out Of The Silent
> >> Planet" trilogy) is all about....
> >
> > "Science bad!" IIRC...
>
> You **definitely** don't remember correctly. There is nothing in THS
> that could possibly be interpreted as "anti-science" by sane people,
> and C.S.Lewis couldn't possibly write an anti-science book.
>
> What THS describes as bad, is a philosophy that had some currency in
> the first half of the last century. A philosophy that I'm damn sure
> you wouldn't confuse with science, and which C.S. Lewis most
> assuredly never confused with science either. A philosophy that fed
> upon science like a parasite feeds upon its host, but was not the same
> as science for the same reason that a parasite is not the same as its
> host. The philosophy in question is described at
> <http://www.zompist.com/predic.htm>, from which I will now quote:
I observe that this is an essay written in 2000 by Mark Rosenfelder,
and not the literal prognostications of Lewis, Tolkien, etc.
> ==================================================================
> The intellectual fashion at the turn of the century (and well
> beyond) was for the artificial, the planned, and the scientific at
> the expense of the natural.
> * Capitalism was messy and evil
Well, it /is/. Literally.
> and would be replaced by planned
> utopia. Or at least there would be scientific management, with
> technocratic experts telling brute labor what to do.
> * Cities were disgusting organic agglomerations,
Minus "organic", so they are. See above, Capitalism.
> to be replaced
> by massive monoliths in geometric parks.
> * Languages were sinks of irregularity, to be replaced by
> Esperanto or something even more rigorous and analytical, a
> sort of voiced Dewey Decimal System.
> [...]
Well, it was worth a try... I don't think that many people really
thought that language reform was going to happen. I think George
Bernard Shaw, whose name appears on the page, wanted to sort out some
absurdities of spelling - and he an Irishman. No dice.
I think you might have left in the following:
"Art, for at least the first half of the century, recoiled against the
depiction of nature, preferring abstraction and itself as subjects."
This comes into _That Hideous Strength_. There is an exhibition of
surrealist art, I think some or all actual exhibited pieces, which the
hero perceives to be evil and wrong and disgusting, e.g. the teacup
made of fur. (Or perhaps it's actually alive... come to think, that
/is/ disturbing. Suppose it had eyes?)
"There was nothing good to say about religion."
Essential core of the struggle in _That Hideous Strength_, I thought?
Well, that, plus the "New scientific factory dominates and
revolutionises local economy, recruits local workforce which shows
signs of mind control" which appears in at least one Quatermass story
and about 20 per cent of Doctor Who episodes...
"There was even less good to say about non-European cultures. If they
could not Europeanize, it was better that they simply disappear."
Although I don't think THS is pro non-European cultures. It isn't even
pro European cultures. That's where the Surrealism came from. Wicked
foreigners, infecting Blake's Jerusalem.
There is a bit with Merlin, isn't there? But I think I have it mixed
up with Peter Dickinson's "The Changes" (Britain mysteriously turns
against machinery).
"History was a long rise upward; before agriculture, men were simply
brutes, dominated by violence, hunger, and fear."
I think Pterry imported the remark "nasty, brutish, and short" into
_The Light Fantastic_, although that was Hobbes's from the 17th century
and arguing for maintenance of the state rather than imagining what
existed before it.
The ancient Greeks thought there was an Edenic "golden age" when
everything really was better, e.g. instead of agriculture you just
picked fruit at will (presumably this is before seasons were invented),
and everyone was peaceful because there were no scarce resources to
fight over (I wonder if the legend of Pandora's box also applies?) The
Judaeo-Christian view, as I understand it, is that all human
communities increase in sin until God smites them, starting with The
Flood and continuing with plagues, earthquakes, volcanism and pillars
of salt, 40 year forced march, more earthquakes, failure of homeland
defence, enslavement and ethnic cleansing. Over and over again the
people of Israel turn to sin and God smites them. Apparently all this
is /caused/ by picking fruit.
> * One even found (in science fiction, here as so often the
> manifestation of contemporary wishes and fears) the expectation
> that organic life itself was a sort of rot, a corruption to be
> superseded by intelligent machines.
I've read a lot of old-ish science fiction. It was seldom literary,
and the complete replacement of life with intelligent machinery, seen
as a good thing, is rather an unusual idea. Neil R. Jones had a series
of stories about Professor Jameson who was reincarnated by having his
brain installed in a robot body by aliens who had done the same thing,
and I think that those characters may even have met an all-machine
civilisation - they went around visiting planets, you see. And of
course there's Spiritualism, where you leave gross matter behind and
become an ethereal being, but not a robot. And Isaac Asimov complained
about too much SF before he entered the field where the robot runs
amuck and kills its creator and maybe a few spectators as well. But
most popular SF imagined humans going forwards into the future, albeit
possibly becoming immaterial in the very long term, or at the very
least invisible.
There's also the micro-genre where all the humans are dead, or nearly
all, and the machines are still running. E.g. "There Will Come Soft
Rains" (1951).
> * Even democracy, the triumph of 19C (= "19th century")
> liberalism, was on the defensive. [...]
It was always in and out of favour. In the 20th century it looked like
either Communism (or whatever the "Communist" project turned into), or
Fascism, would be more effective. Democracy is a liberty whose price
is still eternal vigilance.
> =================================================================
>
> *THAT* is the philosophy which THS so vehemently condemns. It is most
> definitely not an anti-science book. I wonder how you got the
> impression it was. Could it be that some time in the murky past you
> read some anti-Lewis propoganda that said it was?
I'm pretty sure that the scientists and technologists are villains,
just as in _The Lord of the Rings_.
> What upset *me* about THS is the line where one of our chief heroes
> (the character who speaks Lewis's mind more than any other) explains
> that God is extremely male, so male that we are all female in
> comparison. Er, wha?????
I'd say "Funny he never married" but he did of course, quite a bit
later.
Flesh-eating Dragon
> "Flesh-eating Dragon wrote:
>> *THAT* is the philosophy which THS so vehemently condemns.
>> It is most definitely not an anti-science book. I wonder
>> how you got the impression it was. Could it be that some
>> time in the murky past you read some anti-Lewis propoganda
>> that said it was?
>
> It's certainly possible. But (like everyone) I only believe
> stuff that fits my own prejudices, so I must have had a
> tendency towards this opinion already. Which doesn't make it
> right, or even mean I'd still have it if I read the book
> again, which I will do ASAP.
A lot of the villains _claim_ to be speaking for science IIRC, but
that's meant to be part of their villainy and the reader is expected
to see through it.
What I _haven't_ done is to read Lewis's "Abolition of Man", which is
mentioned in the Preface to THS in the following terms:
"This is a 'tall story' about devilry, though it has behind it a
serious 'point' which I have tried to make in my 'Abolition of
Man'."
So someone who has read that should be able to cast further light on
what Lewis intended to say in THS.
Adrian.
Rhiannon Sands
"Lesley Weston" <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:BF647892.3C40D%brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk...
> in article 1128167637.0...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com,
> rja.ca...@excite.com at rja.ca...@excite.com wrote on 01/10/2005
4:53
> AM:
>
> >
> > X Kyle M Thompson wrote:
> >> I have just re read the Narnia books for the umpteenth time
>
> <snip>
>
> >> IMO it would have ended the series better without being so godly,
> >> and it has rather left a bad taste in the mouth.
> >>
> >> Never the less they worked, a while ago I began a study of
> >> camparative Abrahamic religions - just for fun - as the whole
> >> area is really quite interesting[1].
> >
> > I'm not sure that was the intended effect, but as you report of
> > yourself, younger readers lapped up the adventure while the
> > Christianity soaked into them and they didn't notice.
>
> I was one of the younger readers who didn't know that they were about
> Christianity, even after reading the whole series, until someone explained
> it to me. I don't think the religion did soak into me - if it did, it
didn't
> take.
Me too, in fact I didn't get the whole Christianity bit until a couple of
years ago when it was patiently explained to me at great length in words
even Detritus could understand.
That isn't to say that religion didn't soak in, just with the Dryads,
Possieden (or was it neptune?[1]) Bachus, Fauns and Dragons, it wasn't the
religion that CS Lewis may have intended...
[1]must reread Prince Caspian, I know one of the Sea/Water Gods turned up.
--
Rhiannon S
If you're going to do something stupid, at least do it with style!
Graycat
<rja.ca...@excite.com> jotted down:
LWW?
La Witch et le Wardrobe?
rja.ca...@excite.com
Graycat wrote:
> On 2 Oct 2005 05:45:32 -0700, "rja.ca...@excite.com"
> <rja.ca...@excite.com> jotted down:
>
>
> LWW?
>
> La Witch et le Wardrobe?
Hmm... it /doesn't/ look right, now that you mention, but it's a widely
used abbreviation. And quicker than TLTW&TW.
The bit in the trailer where the wardrobe lights up from inside is
naff, isn't it? There weren't supposed to be special effects leaking
into "our world".
Philippa Cowderoy
> On 2 Oct 2005 05:45:32 -0700, "rja.ca...@excite.com"
> <rja.ca...@excite.com> jotted down:
>
>> Of course LWW is the first published.
>
> LWW?
>
> La Witch et le Wardrobe?
>
tLtWatW if you'd prefer? Only it looks a little silly...
'In Ankh-Morpork even the shit have a street to itself...
Truly this is a land of opportunity.' - Detritus, Men at Arms
Graycat
<fli...@flippac.org> jotted down:
>On Sun, 2 Oct 2005, Graycat wrote:
>
>> On 2 Oct 2005 05:45:32 -0700, "rja.ca...@excite.com"
>> <rja.ca...@excite.com> jotted down:
>>
>>> Of course LWW is the first published.
>>
>> LWW?
>>
>> La Witch et le Wardrobe?
>>
>
>tLtWatW if you'd prefer? Only it looks a little silly...
Yeah...In Swedish the name is just "The Witch and the Lion"
which I somehow misremebered as The Witch and the Wardrobe,
and then I couldn't figure out where that L came from. I was
just expecting a two main words title rather than three.
Arthur Hagen
> On Mon, 3 Oct 2005 00:18:29 +0100, Philippa Cowderoy
> <fli...@flippac.org> jotted down:
>
>>
>
> Yeah...In Swedish the name is just "The Witch and the Lion"
I'd have thought (IANAS) it would be something like "Häxan och Lejonet"
in Swedish...
Regards,
--
*Art
Graycat
Daibhid Ceanaideach
> Daibhid Ceanaideach wrote:
>> "Flesh-eating Dragon wrote:
>
>>> *THAT* is the philosophy which THS so vehemently
>>> condemns. It is most definitely not an anti-science book.
>>> I wonder how you got the impression it was. Could it be
>>> that some time in the murky past you read some anti-Lewis
>>> propoganda that said it was?
>>
>> It's certainly possible. But (like everyone) I only
>> believe stuff that fits my own prejudices, so I must have
>> had a tendency towards this opinion already. Which doesn't
>> make it right, or even mean I'd still have it if I read
>> the book again, which I will do ASAP.
>
> A lot of the villains _claim_ to be speaking for science
> IIRC, but that's meant to be part of their villainy and the
> reader is expected to see through it.
But is the "normal" scientific viewpoint given a look-in, or (as
I, probably wrongly, recall it) are we told that there's the
callous ruthlessness of NICE and Ransom's brand of Christian
mysticism, and them's your choices?
Richard Bos
> On 2 Oct 2005 05:45:32 -0700, "rja.ca...@excite.com"
> <rja.ca...@excite.com> jotted down:
>
> >Of course LWW is the first published.
>
> LWW?
>
> La Witch et le Wardrobe?
Is that like La Blue Girl with a primitive Christian subtext?
Richard
Flesh-eating Dragon
> I don't think all of Narnia's morality is wrong.
I'd like to know what you were thinking when you wrote that sentence,
because it makes no sense in context. Who on earth says that all of
Narnia's morality is wrong (a statement every bit as probable as,
"all of the words in the books lack vowels"), or even that most of it
is wrong?
Adrian.
rja.ca...@excite.com
Well, I was repeating a criticism that the Narnia books misrepresent
Christianity, don't do it properly. I myself have abiding reservations
about martial virtues. And in any case I'm not a Christian. So I was
thinking, "I bet someone decides that I think all of Narnia's morality
is wrong and I become the target of a strawman attack and it all gets a
bit non-afp, I'd better say something so that that doesn't happen."
Which, up to now, it hasn't. HTH.
But I bet there are some strawmen fundamentalists of various sorts who
are dead against them. They're probably against most books anyway,
though.
Flesh-eating Dragon
> Flesh-eating Dragon wrote:
>> What THS describes as bad, is a philosophy that had some currency in
>> the first half of the last century. A philosophy that I'm damn sure
>> you wouldn't confuse with science, and which C.S. Lewis most
>> assuredly never confused with science either. A philosophy that fed
>> upon science like a parasite feeds upon its host, but was not the same
>> as science for the same reason that a parasite is not the same as its
>> host. The philosophy in question is described at
>> <http://www.zompist.com/predic.htm>, from which I will now quote:
>
> I observe that this is an essay written in 2000 by Mark Rosenfelder,
> and not the literal prognostications of Lewis, Tolkien, etc.
I don't believe there was any ambiguity about this from the context in
which I mentioned the link (<fx: looks up "prognostication" in
dictionary>). I never said anything in the above paragraph that could,
AFAICS, give anyone the impression I was linking to a page about
Lewis, etc.
> I think you might have left in the following:
>
> "Art, for at least the first half of the century, recoiled against the
> depiction of nature, preferring abstraction and itself as subjects."
I was following the standard customs and guidelines concerning quoting
from linked pages. That standard practice is *not* to include
everything that is relevant. Rather, it is to include a
_representative sample_ of the relevant material (and, of course, a
link for people who want to read on).
Adrian.
rja.ca...@excite.com
Flesh-eating Dragon wrote:
> rja.ca...@excite.com wrote:
> > Flesh-eating Dragon wrote:
>
> >> What THS describes as bad, is a philosophy that had some currency in
> >> the first half of the last century. A philosophy that I'm damn sure
> >> you wouldn't confuse with science, and which C.S. Lewis most
> >> assuredly never confused with science either. A philosophy that fed
> >> upon science like a parasite feeds upon its host, but was not the same
> >> as science for the same reason that a parasite is not the same as its
> >> host. The philosophy in question is described at
> >> <http://www.zompist.com/predic.htm>, from which I will now quote:
> >
> > I observe that this is an essay written in 2000 by Mark Rosenfelder,
> > and not the literal prognostications of Lewis, Tolkien, etc.
>
> I don't believe there was any ambiguity about this from the context in
> which I mentioned the link (<fx: looks up "prognostication" in
> dictionary>). I never said anything in the above paragraph that could,
> AFAICS, give anyone the impression I was linking to a page about
> Lewis, etc.
Well, the quickness of the hand deceives the eye, etc. Since Lewis
/did/ write a good deal of popularisation of philosophy, I think we
were led to expect possibly something of his, although you didn't say
so, rather than something written well after his death. I believe
that's one sort of non sequitur.
> > I think you might have left in the following:
> >
> > "Art, for at least the first half of the century, recoiled against the
> > depiction of nature, preferring abstraction and itself as subjects."
>
> I was following the standard customs and guidelines concerning quoting
> from linked pages. That standard practice is *not* to include
> everything that is relevant. Rather, it is to include a
> _representative sample_ of the relevant material (and, of course, a
> link for people who want to read on).
Fair use has limits, of course, and while technology exists to perform
optional grafitti on Web sites directly, it hasn't caught on. However,
I'd reduce each point to precis, rather than cut some that bear.
Helen Taylor
the white witch in "the lion, the witch and the wardrobe"?
Cheers
Helen
Andrew Nevill
wrote:
>Sorry to high-jack this thread, but can anyone tell me what happens to
>the white witch in "the lion, the witch and the wardrobe"?
>
Spoiler Space for The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Aslan kills her in the battle. See Chapter 16 "What happened about the
statues"
--
Andrew Nevill B.F. D.W. FdV. Reply address: ane...@binternet.com
AFPWorshipper to Spooky, AFPfiance to Sarah (Nanny Ogg) & S*****
AFPUncle to James Vaughan. You cannot value friends as pennies,
nor can you replace them as easily (Spooky in email, Aug 2001.)
Discworld Convention 2006. 18 - 26 Aug 2006 Hanover International
Hotel, Hinckley, UK www.dwcon.org