Narnia Rocks :-)

I was bad yesterday. I procrastinated. Instead of getting straight to work, I read three-fourths of Prince Caspian. A box set of C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia was one of my Christmas presents.

Santa got the one with the pretty four-color illustrations.

I'm slowly working through the series. Narnia has always been a favorite. Once, when I was grounded (I forget what for) and was banned from watching TV for two weeks, I talked my mother into letting me watch one show - The Chronicles of Narnia, the BBC version.



Very eighties, but definitely the one I remember. The recent movies were fun, though.

I haven't reread them all since my freshman year of high school, and I didn't know how much I missed them.

I love Lewis's sly asides about kid culture. Apparently, we've been complaining about cafeteria food forever.

[The four children] had to content themselves with raw apples, which, as Edmund said, made one realize that school suppers weren't so bad after all. (Caspian 18)

And I love that he lets the child heroes become grand and elegant.

Even Lucy was by now, so to speak, only one-third of a little girl going to boarding school for the first time, and two-thirds of Queen Lucy of Narnia. (Caspian 132)

The biggest surprise was finding out that the foretelling and stargazing of J. K. Rowling's centaurs had a precendent:

[T]here came in sight the noblest creatures that Caspian had yet seen, the great Centaur Glenstorm and his three sons. His flanks were glossy chesnut and the beard that covered his broad chest was golden-red. He was a prophet and a stargazer and knew what they had come about. ... 'The time is ripe,' said Glenstorm. 'I watch the skies, Badger, for it is mine to watch, as it is yours to remember. Tarva and Alambil have met in the halls of high heaven, and on earth a son of Adam has once more arisen to rule and name the creatures. The hour has struck. Our council at the Dancing Lawn must be a war council.' He spoke in such a voice that neither Caspian nor the others hesitated for a moment: it now seemed to them quite possible that they might win a war and quite certain that they must wage one. (Caspian 78-9)

I love finding echoes like these - evidence that one work influences another, even decades apart. The geeky English major in me is pleased, but more than that, I love that literature lives. Generations of writers always give way to new. C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien pave a path for J. K. Rowlings, Rick Riordans, and Neil Gaimans. The popularity of a fresh series revitalizes interest in the old ones. Would the LOTR movies have been as overwhelmingly popular if Harry Potter hadn't re-awakened the public's interests in fantastical heroics?