Someone Tried To Nail Me on Growing Up with Narnia ...

Someone Tried To Nail Me on Growing Up with Narnia ... · More on Susan

I don't mean the guy who made the video, but the kind of guy who recommended it to me ...

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S Lewis - Has it Aged Well?
The Book Guy | 13 Oct. 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTfD_sZdTv4

Dialogue:

Playlist Queen

@playlist_queen

I have read C.S. Lewis's life story and all the Christian messages in the Narnia series make a lot more sense once you understand what state of mind he was in when he wrote the books.

Lewis wrote Narnia soon after converting to Christianity. As a Christian myself, I see Narnia as more of a testimony than something Lewis wrote for the purpose of becoming a successful author. The way I see it, it was a way for him to process this new route his life took, since he was a staunch atheist prior to the writing of Narnia.

Narnia is definitely not going to be for everyone, but you must give credit where it is due: it has had an undeniable influence on fantasy and that is one of the many reasons I respect it and its author.

Ada Cat

@MsAdaCat

Very interesting, thank you! This explains a lot regarding Narnia books 👍

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

"After his conversion to theism in 1929, Lewis converted to Christianity in 1931, following a long discussion during a late-night walk along Addison's Walk with close friends Tolkien and Hugo Dyson."

Noted, he converted to Christianity in 1931.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Publisher Geoffrey Bles
Publication date 16 October 1950

Noted, he published LWW, first of the Narnia series, in 1950.

"Lewis wrote Narnia soon after converting to Christianity."

19 years later is "soon after" — should that also be noted, or is there some catch?

"than something Lewis wrote for the purpose of becoming a successful author."

I think the only things he wrote for the purpose of becoming a successful author were "Dymer" and "Spirits in Bondage" and more indirectly "all my road before me" ... (a diary). At least the former ones have remained flops.

Pullman wrote Dark Materials more as a testimony than "to become a successful author" too ... perhaps tells you sth about success in literature. It comes as a by-product of some kind of preaching.

"Narnia is definitely not going to be for everyone,"

Is any book that?

Own comments:

Did I both mishear this and mis-see what it says in the transscript?

Do you want 1:12 to read Narnia? And HOW do you want to read it? As a child full of wonder, or an adult 1:19 full of grim cynicism and despair?

I think JRRT would consider growing up is NOT losing wonder, and should NOT bring you cynicism and despair.

I think sth else has not aged as well as Narnia — the adult society of some readers. Other symptom, absence of "manic pixie dream girls" from cinema the last 15 years.

2:29 Given that Lewis is the English form of Louis, it's not surprising it has been both a surname and a first name .... (in the case of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a remake of his middle name in inversion with his first name also remade into a last name ditching the actual last name) ....

But given you live on a continent where a city is called St. Louis since the French owned it, you might be pardoned for forgetting that ...

11:26 There was a school that held both Klebold and Cassie ...

I think Experiment School is more teens than just pre-teens.

I've been to a boarding school that was also a mixed school. Experiment house is, as you could analyse, actually a boarding school.

My experience of SSHL, which also held the long since shot down Olof Palme and the present King of Sweden is such that I was unable to read Harry Potter, not because it's about witches and warlocks, but because it's set in a boarding school. I told Prince Harry to give his big brother some slack for the experience on Eton. Basically: "come on, your brother was trying to survive on a boarding school!"

13:48 That one said more about yourself than about CSL.
1) Christianity is "personal beliefs" (a tenet usually not held by Christians, a very tiny, sometimes vocal, Pentecostal or otherwise "experience based" group of denominations excepted);
2) Fiction as aimed to the public should not include too much "personal beliefs" (i e not "too much" Christianity)
3) and especially children should not be exposed to "too much" Christianity.

I had a step father once. He was an Atheist and had spent childhood in Communist Romania. Years after the divorce, my mother being known to be fervently Christian (part of why I was sent to a boarding school too!), he headed over to Romania to visit relatives. He had his car searched for half an hour, or an hour, just to verify he didn't bring any Bibles ... you know the kind of thing the public and especially children shouldn't be exposed to.

I know what Communism is. I refuse to ditch left wing Carlism over supporting the economic side of Yugoslavia, but I definitely know why I hate Communism. You seem an otherwise nearly decent fellow. Was your mother a secret child of Nicolae Ceacescu? Or are you just enjoying the exemple of how to be a ... behind ... to Christians? Whichever it is, it may tell us some on why you think it's OK an adult should at the most basic, be cynical and despairing (there was a time when disillusioned was the word, but you chose the term despair)?

14:47 "Simply present the information"

That's not how books are written. I mean, basically of any genre. A cookbook is not just telling you diverse outcomes for each alternative you could do at each step, it's actually telling you what to do, to get a standard dish that has really been chosen by you, but which the cook actually knows how to achieve.

In this case it's less straightforward. CSL did admit to being sneaky, and the time for sneaking is past, the cat is already out of the bag, fine.

But any novel preaches something. Peter Pan preaches "connect to your childhood" (sth which you seem to have less problem with than with Christianity, unless you have a video where Barrie is considered as too preachy). Anthony Hope preaches a very basic degree of feminism along with a pretty devious excuse for glorifying adultery. Princess Bride preaches "avengers don't get brides, but helps other peoples do so, and on top of that, if vengeance is achieve, what do you do with the rest of your life?" / "anger can make a drunkard sober up" / "a collective, even of villains, can get a drunkard to sober up" and I'm not sure what degree, but it seems to preach some heavily anti-feudal prejudice about the Middle Ages ...

Rowling preaches "bullying is no good" (a message actually pretty apt for a boarding school) "and it prepares for a life of treason and crime" (at least sometimes, but not always the kinds that are punished, I mean shrinks are often unpunished), Dark Materials preaches "there is no supernatural to teach you what to chose, and if someone pretends to represent such a thing, it's bad people" ...

I think you have not shown equal distaste for preaching in those cases, even if I haven't seen your videos on those. It's what I consider an educated guess.

16:04 It's a simple fact that mankind the last 15 years has become less inclusive, not just to Christians, or Narnia fans, but to:

• rich girl / tramp couples (the real reason, rather than sexism, for "adult advisory" signals on Lady and the Tramp by Disney Channel)
• "Magic Pixie Dream Girls" (I think the term was coined when getting rid of them in art, and I think it mirrors getting rid of them in real life).

Today, Claire Colburn would be protected against falling for Drew Baylor, and Lady for Tramp. If somehow they didn't want protection, one would either try to lock up Tramp and Drew (prison, mental institution, halfway house) or, failing that, Claire and Lady in a mental institution. No, the world has in reality become less inclusive.

17:05 Didn't I say that you were far more tolerant about Pullman being preachy?

You basically just proved it.

17:15 Noting that Neil Gaiman was preaching some kind of return to neo-paganism, you don't seem to mind that other (it was btw Neil who fuelled my only half fulfilled quest to write my own Susan fiction) ...

I don't think wasting one's sexuality on unserious flirts (even if back in the fifties, outside the rich, it didn't mean sleeping around) is "growing up" ... (it may seem so to abused girls, but ...)

17:33 India? Child marriages, suttee, doesn't sound like more Tash worshipping than Islam?

Assyria? Look at the beards of the Tarkhaans.

Hittite ambitions at world domination?

17:44 Why would so many people who sympathise with Islam, including some Muslims, come to identify Calormen with Islam, when they are literally idolaters in Tashbaan?

By the way, I do actually consider Islam definitely less good than Christianity.

19:23 Children in lead roles? Edith Nesbit, Enid Blyton?

CSL read EN in his childhood, and the quaternio of LWW is nearly based off that in Famous Five on Kirrin Island, 8 years earlier.

20:08 Given a huge portion of the Narnian fan fic, there is at least one loose end. Susan in England as sole survivor of the Eight Friends of Narnia.

21:11 I don't see any responsibility except some loose ends or bad solutions in theology, which would make me critique Narnia.

The one Incarnation the Son of God made "in this world" is not one which somehow is not operative should He create another one.

Even so, I need to be thankful on how much it taught me of theology, moral and doctrinal.