Entry tags:
life sucks
My week sucks already and it's only Tuesday. Bleh.
In lieu of the bitching, I'm going to write about the Chronicles of Narnia. We watched the movie over the weekend, and I thought it was a pretty faithful adaptation, which also sort of exacerbated the books' weak points.
1. C.S. Lewis was no Tolkien. Tolkien crafted a meticulous world with its own language and then set a story in it. Lewis pretty much sat down and said, I have an image of this little girl walking into another world, and that was it. Reading the Chronicles of Narnia is sort of like reading a first draft of something - when you're a kid with a huge imagination, this doesn't matter because the concepts are so intriguing. When you're an adult, the plot holes and anachronisms totally take you out. Like, how did Santa get to be an arms dealer? It's so random. And then he doesn't ever show up again.
2. People always point out the Christian message of the works, as if they were the overriding message, or as if that will be the only thing people will get out of it. I think people forget that most of modern Western literature are rewrites of various Bible stories, so the whole Aslan resurrection thing doesn't bother me. What does bother me, however, is The Last Battle aka Revelations Part II, in which everyone but Susan dies, and Susan doesn't die because she's too interested in "nylons and makeup" and has forgotten Narnia. Most of the time I just pretend this book doesn't exist. The movie's Christianness is quite muted.
3. The one line of the movie that annoyed me? "No, you're trying to be smart!", said as an insult by Peter to Susan. Lewis has this weird aversion to skepticism and reason, which makes itself shown throughout the novels - Edmund's presented as sort of a "bad egg" because he wonders why they should trust the faun over the queen, Peter and Susan are chastised for using logic, etc.
4. Lewis hated "modernism" and that's evident in the way he depicts Eustace, someone who "almost deserved the name". It's so hilarious and so jarring, to read about how these hippies are so evil and mean to these nice, upper-class kids.
5. Some authors, accuse other children's authors of being "mean-spirited". Philip Pullman accuses Lewis, Ursula LeGuin accuses Roald Dahl. I think they're not taking into account that a lot of times the meanness is just revenge fantasy for kids who have no other outlets to channel it into.
6. I liked the movie, but didn't love it. I liked the books, but didn't love them either. I only read the books within the last year or two, so I think I missed reading them as a kid and being sucked in like I was with Andrew Lang's fairy books, Tolkien, Christopher Pike, and Roald Dahl.
In lieu of the bitching, I'm going to write about the Chronicles of Narnia. We watched the movie over the weekend, and I thought it was a pretty faithful adaptation, which also sort of exacerbated the books' weak points.
1. C.S. Lewis was no Tolkien. Tolkien crafted a meticulous world with its own language and then set a story in it. Lewis pretty much sat down and said, I have an image of this little girl walking into another world, and that was it. Reading the Chronicles of Narnia is sort of like reading a first draft of something - when you're a kid with a huge imagination, this doesn't matter because the concepts are so intriguing. When you're an adult, the plot holes and anachronisms totally take you out. Like, how did Santa get to be an arms dealer? It's so random. And then he doesn't ever show up again.
2. People always point out the Christian message of the works, as if they were the overriding message, or as if that will be the only thing people will get out of it. I think people forget that most of modern Western literature are rewrites of various Bible stories, so the whole Aslan resurrection thing doesn't bother me. What does bother me, however, is The Last Battle aka Revelations Part II, in which everyone but Susan dies, and Susan doesn't die because she's too interested in "nylons and makeup" and has forgotten Narnia. Most of the time I just pretend this book doesn't exist. The movie's Christianness is quite muted.
3. The one line of the movie that annoyed me? "No, you're trying to be smart!", said as an insult by Peter to Susan. Lewis has this weird aversion to skepticism and reason, which makes itself shown throughout the novels - Edmund's presented as sort of a "bad egg" because he wonders why they should trust the faun over the queen, Peter and Susan are chastised for using logic, etc.
4. Lewis hated "modernism" and that's evident in the way he depicts Eustace, someone who "almost deserved the name". It's so hilarious and so jarring, to read about how these hippies are so evil and mean to these nice, upper-class kids.
5. Some authors, accuse other children's authors of being "mean-spirited". Philip Pullman accuses Lewis, Ursula LeGuin accuses Roald Dahl. I think they're not taking into account that a lot of times the meanness is just revenge fantasy for kids who have no other outlets to channel it into.
6. I liked the movie, but didn't love it. I liked the books, but didn't love them either. I only read the books within the last year or two, so I think I missed reading them as a kid and being sucked in like I was with Andrew Lang's fairy books, Tolkien, Christopher Pike, and Roald Dahl.