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Post by Maolsheachlann on Dec 16, 2017 15:45:16 GMT
Do many members here read C.S. Lewis? He's been a big influence on my life. I was a big fan of his Narnia books as a child. I knew they had Christian undertones but that didn't interest me greatly, although I remember being impressed by Puddleglum's answer to the White Witch, who said Narnia and Aslan had been entirely invented:
""Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all of those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones... We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia... and that's a small loss if the world's as dull as you say."
I don't rest my faith in anything, natural or supernatural, on this argument. But, even if all other arguments failed, it seems a reasonable last resort. I would rather be wrong with C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton than right with Fintan O'Toole.
I tried re-reading Narnia as an adult but it didn't appeal to me much. However, I've become a fan of his literary criticism, his Christian apologetics, and (to some extent) his science fiction novels.
Right now I'm reading Alister McGrath's biography of him, so he's on my mind. He's one of those authors whose life is as interesting as his writing.
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Post by kj on Dec 16, 2017 21:37:45 GMT
My biggest gripe with Lewis is "The Last Battle", the final Narnia book. He has Peter, Edmond, and Lucy bumped off in a train crash so he can have them come and rescue Narnia and live in eternal happiness. Yet there is no mention of the grief and pain that those left behind on earth will suffer.
More importantly for me is the treatment of Susan. She isn't on the train and is portrayed in absentia as a good-time girl, a bit of a floozy not worthy of entering Paradise. Yet she is just a girl in her late teens, enjoying life. I always felt this was the nasty, puritanical side of Lewis in operation.
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Post by Séamus on Dec 17, 2017 8:38:49 GMT
I never identified the witch in THE SILVER CHAIR with the White Witch of the first volumes. I think I was about eleven when we had a teacher who got us interested in Lewis which was fortunate. At thirteen I tried the space trilogy I think THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH , but was reading a library copy so, never finished it. I have had it the back of my mind that some day I'd read them, but it's never happened
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Dec 17, 2017 8:47:29 GMT
I have a friend who's a big fan of Lewis, bur who dismisses That Hideous Strength as his Ulysses (and he thinks Ulysses is impenetrable bilge). I read it once, thought it rather overblown but good on the whole.
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Post by Séamus on Dec 17, 2017 9:41:03 GMT
My biggest gripe with Lewis is "The Last Battle", the final Narnia book. He has Peter, Edmond, and Lucy bumped off in a train crash so he can have them come and rescue Narnia and live in eternal happiness. Yet there is no mention of the grief and pain that those left behind on earth will suffer. More importantly for me is the treatment of Susan. She isn't on the train and is portrayed in absentia as a good-time girl, a bit of a floozy not worthy of entering Paradise. Yet she is just a girl in her late teens, enjoying life. I always felt this was the nasty, puritanical side of Lewis in operation. Wasn't that the main gripe that Philip Pullman said inspired him to write the Northern Lights series? If Lewis decided that Narnia was going to be a pseudo-Christian mythology there had to, by necessity, be a Susan character- someone who could 'apostatize' in a sense. Being an extroverted teenager was probably the most innocent way to say this: the readership was going to always include the young. Seeing that the original book started with the idea that Britain could be bombed, dying in a train crash wasn't altogether untenable. It's possible that, since time was consummated in Narnia, that Earth had reached it's judgement end also; I don't recall any child being too traumatized by the novel, even though- it should be said- not every one of the seven books is entirely for the same reading level. I was thinking of symbolism and mythology earlier today. The Government's Royal Commission statement on child abuse in Australia has suggested that celibacy be dropped; the Vatican has given a non-committal response; all this as The Last Jedi opened here. I've not seen it. But the similarity with a apathetic Luke Skywalker unhappy at seeing what (at least one of) his Jedi knights has turned into and wishing an end to the order, is a rather amazing analogy.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Dec 17, 2017 10:26:10 GMT
The only Lewis fiction I enjoyed as an adult was Out of the Silent Planet. In fact, I read that one twice. I much prefer his non-fiction.
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Post by Séamus on Dec 17, 2017 11:44:22 GMT
The only Lewis fiction I enjoyed as an adult was Out of the Silent Planet. In fact, I read that one twice. I much prefer his non-fiction. I would have imagined that all three were similar, perhaps not. I've noticed that the National Civic Council sells the whole Space series. (I'm not sure what body in Ireland compares to the NCC, not quite like the Iona Institute, although it IS staunchly pro-life. It also deals with all political issues)
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Dec 17, 2017 11:57:15 GMT
The only Lewis fiction I enjoyed as an adult was Out of the Silent Planet. In fact, I read that one twice. I much prefer his non-fiction. I would have imagined that all three were similar, perhaps not. I've noticed that the National Civic Council sells the whole Space series. (I'm not sure what body in Ireland compares to the NCC, not quite like the Iona Institute, although it IS staunchly pro-life. It also deals with all political issues) I found Perelendra incredibly dull and slow. There was only one good moment- the image of Satan ripping little birds to shreds, to show how petty his destructiveness is, quite at a remove from the grandeur of Milton's Lucifer. That Hideous Strength is good, has some excellent moment, but is all over the place.
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Post by Tomas on Dec 18, 2017 20:39:59 GMT
I count his writings as important influence from early on in conversion. Yet I´ve only read some handful titles of the non-fiction and three or four Narnia books. The two books read about the man also stands out as having some personal impact: Joseph Pearce´s book C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church was full of energetic narrative by this hard-working biographer and it explained at length (and depth) what made Lewis so strongly hesitant towards crossing the Tiber. Douglas Gresham´s memoirs Jack´s Life was a touching account by his own nephew who figured in the Shadowlands film. I was glad to read it just for the contents and despite its "simple" style not being written by any professional writer. From the descriptions in that latter book you don´t really get the impression that his own life was as interesting as his writings though! More like he lead a tedious daily life. Nearly all times full of duties, duties and more duties. To anyone who hasn´t discovered the C. S. Lewis doodle series on the web already here is one of the episodes to enjoy (about 10 min long): www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmHXYhpEDfM... and another one (finer illustrated), called Finding God, Finding Shakespeare: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXlBCZ_5OYw
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Post by cato on Dec 20, 2017 9:33:11 GMT
Lewis can come across at times as preachy and a bit of a prig but I wonder is that partially the passage of time and a change in tastes? Overall I think he gets the balance right. I love his Great Divorce which is a fabulous meditation on a particularly Lewisian version of Purgatory and his powerful and unsentimental A grief Observed .
The geography of Narnia is supposed to be modelled on his native Ulster landscape.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Dec 20, 2017 9:37:27 GMT
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Post by cato on Dec 20, 2017 11:29:40 GMT
Is Cleon the Greek word for Fintan?
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Post by Tomas on Dec 20, 2017 14:40:56 GMT
Lewis can come across at times as preachy and a bit of a prig but I wonder is that partially the passage of time and a change in tastes? Overall I think he gets the balance right. I love his Great Divorce which is a fabulous meditation on a particularly Lewisian version of Purgatory and his powerful and unsentimental A grief Observed . The geography of Narnia is supposed to be modelled on his native Ulster landscape. If I remember right (I don´t have time to check it just now) that book on Purgatory was from a period when he was, according to Joseph Pearce, as close as he ever got to actual conversion to Catholicism.
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Post by Tomas on Dec 20, 2017 15:12:49 GMT
Excellent! His "objectiveness", priggish or not, is most definitely long gone in the far-away-very-long-ago time... ... and this line could have the word papers exchanged for so called adult films and then hit the target on that nasty business of our own times: "If we must find out what bad men are Writing, and must therefore buy their papers, and therefore enable their papers to exist, who does not see that this supposed necessity of observing the evil is just what maintains the evil?" Each and all consumer contributing to lucrative things like these, as in buying/choosing any bad stuff of any different kind of mass impact (contributing to low wage slavery or child labour or what not), would supposedly from the decent straight logical Lewis terms be - at least, nota bene! - as guilty as the businessmen themselves.
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Post by Tomas on Dec 20, 2017 15:27:14 GMT
In the chapters in Surprised by Joy where he describes life at the boarding school he does not protest much against anything. If it is only overt views on morals etc that makes someone priggish, he may not have been so then?
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