Book Addict's Blog

I went to a really interesting lecture today! Dr. Michael Ward, author of Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis, came to speak at my school. I'm a fan of The Chronicles of Narnia and Lewis, and so I'd been looking forward to the lecture for a couple of weeks. It did not disappoint!

For many people, The Chronicles of Narnia contains a mish-mash of characters and plots. (Tolkien criticized the books for this very reason.) The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, for example, contains characters ranging from English schoolchildren to classical mythical creatures to Father Christmas. And the seven books don't seem to have any sort of coherence between them. Lewis says that they are all centered, on Christ, but only three of the four books seem to focus heavily on an aspect of Christ (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has Aslan as savior, The Magician's Nephew has Aslan as creator, and The Last Battle has Aslan as judge). The other three books have theological elements, yes, but those elements don't seem to be the point of the book as a whole. Lewis' works usually have a high degree of coherence. Where is the coherence in The Chronicles of Narnia?

I just saw a trailer for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian here. It looks SO good. I can't wait to see the movie!!!

I hope they don't change too much, though. This was one of my favorite books. It's inevitable that there'll be some changes made, of course, and I hear they're adding a bunch of stuff since the action-filled part of the book is so short. But I just hope the basic themes, story lines, and overall feel stay the same.  I was VERY satisfied with the first movie, and I hope this one is as good or better. From the trailer, it does LOOK amazing...did I mention I can't wait to see this movie? (Though why is Caspian so old??? And what's the White Witch doing there (well, frozen in ice, but still...)? They mention bringing her back in the book, but they never actually do. And I hope they don't in the movie, because it would just be changing things TOO much, I think.) But I guess I'll have to wait until May to see if it's as great as I'm hoping for.  I hate waiting.  Blah...