Finally, the movie adaption of the Narnia-chronicles will hit our movie theaters. I've been waiting quite a few years for this one! C. S. Lewis' children's book are well-known and loved by a great deal of people all over the world. But still, I am a bit apprehensive to this movie. It's a Disney-movie and that makes me skeptic. How have they adapted these books? Is it more religious than magic?
When I read the books the first time, I enjoyed them tremendously. I wanted to be Lucy, so I sat inside my wardrobe after cleaning it out, reading the books (in English I might add!) and hoping the wall of the back of the wardrobe would open up and reveal to me a magic, new world. A couple of years ago I read them again and while I still enjoyed the magic of them, I could see the religious aspect as well. Not just an undercurrent of all-purpose, feel-good religiosity, but a rigorous substratum of no-nonsense, orthodox Christianity: If you read between the lines and sometimes right there in them these stories are all about death and resurrection, salvation and damnation. And how are Disney to play this out? There may be a good reason Lewis is among the last of the classic children's authors to be adapted for the movies: ....that in taking on Narnia, Disney has backed itself into a corner. If the studio plays down the Christian aspect of the story, it risks criticism from the religious right. If it is too upfront about the religious references, on the other hand, that could be toxic at the box office. Disney........is hedging its bets and has, for example, already issued two separate soundtrack albums, one featuring Christian music and musicians and another with pop and rock tunes.
Aslan, the supernatural lion: .. is fierce but beautiful, stern but loving; his breath is perfumed like incense; and the mere sight of him is enough to set most creatures tingling. He is, in fact, nothing less than the Son of God, who dies and then comes back to life and through the seven volumes repeatedly tests but ultimately saves the children and leads them to eternal safety.
And of course, the sinister White Witch, the evil queen who has Narnia under a wintry spell. Everything is set right to make the mother of all screen battles: not just your basic struggle of good and evil but a $200 million smackdown between the religious right and godless Hollywood, between C. S. Lewis and Tolkien.
Tolkien created an imaginary world, intricate and detailed and as self-sufficient as the real world. He created not just a story, but an entire world with maps and geography, mythology and several languages, Lewis was more of a magpie: He took whatever came to hand and dumped it all in. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a pastiche not only of Christian theology but also of Wagner and of classical Greek and Latin mythology, of Arthurian romance, Grimm's fairy tales and Scandinavian folklore, of Kenneth Grahame and Beatrix Potter (remember the talking beavers who hid the children in their lodge?). Near the end of the book, even Santa Claus (as Father Christmas) makes a cameo appearance.
Despite all this. the books have had an influence on other writers. J. K. Rowling has said that she was influenced by them and you can also see the influence in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials-trilogy: ...... is both a homage of sorts (it begins with a girl in a wardrobe) and also a kind of anti-Narnia, a negation of everything Lewis stood for. God in these books turns out to be a senile imposter and Christianity merely a very powerful and convincing mistake. Pullman has said of the Narnia cycle that it is one of the most ugly and poisonous things he's ever read and has called Lewis a bigot.
The books do have their faults, they're not nearly as well written as the Potter books or His Dark Materials: ......by the standards of political correctness, they commit a host of sins. They're preachy, they're sometimes gratuitously violent and they patronize girls. The villains, moreover "the Calormenes, who dwell in the south" are oily cartoon Muslims who wear turbans and pointy-toed slippers and talk funny.
I find that if you are not forewarned, then it is perfectly possible to read most of the Narnia-books without a clue to it's religious undertone. Book one, in the now canonical order, The Magician's Nephew and the last book, The Last Battle:....are respectively, a Creation story and a version of Armageddon.
The books are so much better when read without the subtext. So, if you haven't read the Narnia books yet, and want to read them before the movie comes, then DON'T read the article I've extracted from.
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