![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Things that stand out
Jul. 27th, 2010 07:02 pmAn annotation re-read of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe leaves me with only a few outstanding reactions, one of which is, as usual, "whoa, yeah, hello Calvary" and another of which is "Edmund is the only one of them with any brains at all". There's the predictable and pathetic sexism and the fact that, despite a downright multinational assembly of fantastic creatures, the culture of Narnia couldn't be more British if it had the Union Jack stamped on its collective forehead. Those are old acquaintances from this series, and I give them a nod and a margin scribble in passing.
One of the more interesting points, which doesn't show up until the very end, is the whole anti-public-school theme that runs through a lot of the books one way or another.
And then there's the tug-of-war between "this only happens in Narnia" and the casual narratorial remarks about giants and fauns in England. The pattern seems to be that creatures are suggested to still live in real-life England while spirits and deities can only be found embodied in Narnia. Which, in combination with the "once a ruler of Narnia, always a ruler" really does put a spin of spiritual truths on the experience of Narnia itself. Kids can go beat the bushes at home for fantastic creatures, but can only experience embodied revelation by entering this one world. Kind of a double-edged moral to hand out to children.
One of the more interesting points, which doesn't show up until the very end, is the whole anti-public-school theme that runs through a lot of the books one way or another.
And then there's the tug-of-war between "this only happens in Narnia" and the casual narratorial remarks about giants and fauns in England. The pattern seems to be that creatures are suggested to still live in real-life England while spirits and deities can only be found embodied in Narnia. Which, in combination with the "once a ruler of Narnia, always a ruler" really does put a spin of spiritual truths on the experience of Narnia itself. Kids can go beat the bushes at home for fantastic creatures, but can only experience embodied revelation by entering this one world. Kind of a double-edged moral to hand out to children.
