Freep this poll: support Gov. Bush and Narnia (yes, both)

The Palm Beach Post ^ | 10.04.2005 | S.V. Date

[DoctorRansom]

Freep this poll -- the "Rev." BarryLynn of the paradoxically named "Americans United for Separation of Church and State" and his other poor comrades afflicted with Separation Anxiety, are now trying to have government establish their own anti-god religion by forcing Florida public schoolchildren not to discover the magic of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by literary master C.S. Lewis.

[nmh]

Funny that comes up ... my daughter will be viewing that in 1st grade since her class was the best behaved this month. It's just a reward and incentive for good behavior.

[nmh]

Funny that comes up ... my daughter will be viewing that in 1st grade since her class was the best behaved this month. It's just a reward and incentive for good behavior.

One more thing ... most kids, particularly in public school will have NO CLUE on the symbolism. To them it will be another "fun" movie. This guys paranoid.

[cloud8]

It m-might be offensive to Moooslims.

[The_Reader_David]

Could be, but the Muslims will really get upset of there's ever a faithful film version of the last of Lewis's children's novels: in The Last Battle, the Narian Antichrist is a fake supported by an alliance of secularists and the Calormenes (thinly disguised Muslims).

[cloud8]

> ...in The Last Battle, the Narian Antichrist is a fake supported by an alliance of secularists and the Calormenes (thinly disguised Muslims).

Now what about Tolkien? Are ethnic groups allegorized there? Aside from Hobbits, which are countryside Brits, and the Ents, who are obviously Finns :)

But to get back ot, when I read Narnia in elementary school, it was obviously a battle between Good and Evil, and a Mohammedan was someone in the Middle East.

[DLfromthedesert]

I read all the Narnia books to my son when he was young. I can't wait to see the movie. Barry Lynn should wipe that scowl off his face and get some of that magic.

[dangus]

DoctorRansom? How did you find your stay on Perelandra :^).

Interestingly, I noticed Barry Lynn is described as a "Unitarian minister." I had thought he was associated with a nominally Christian church at one time, like PCUSA. His prominent pushing of his minister status was sort of like saying, "Look, I'm a CHRISTIAN PASTOR and I can't tolerate these religious-right fanatics." I'm curious: Is my memory bad, did he hate religion so much he left it even though it was a political crutch, or did he get kicked out of his church?

[dangus]

Ah, yes... seems he was once a minister of the United Church of Christ

[DoctorRansom]

I think BarriLynn is his own denomination now -- head of the only organization where Godless paranoia and moral schizophrenia (any religion we disagree with only allowed here, not here!) is encouraged. Also, they seem to have very weak hearts (along with minds, of course) if the very thought of Narnia books in schools will cause them to weep.

(Insider's inside joke: Perelandra was wonderful, although walking around in that ... er, state of being, is a bit strange. ... :-D)

[Redcloak]

Been there.
FReeped that.

Do you think public school students should be encouraged to read this book?

Yes		63.48%	831
No		36.52%	478

[DoctorRansom]

(((NARNIA AWAKE)))



You are being pinged because of your interest in Walden Media’s December 9th release of “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” Freep-mail if you want on/off this list.

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Authorized Narnia ping: DaveLoneRanger is on vacation and remotely authorized this Narnia ping.

[af_vet_rr]

Now what about Tolkien? Are ethnic groups allegorized there?

Depends on how you want to look at it...Tolkien himself didn't want people reading into any of the races/groups in his novels...when Peter Jackson depicted the Easterlings and Haradrim...many people think Jackson deliberately made the Easterlings out to have an Asian influence, and the Haradrim to look North African or Middle Eastern (they were described as brown in Tolkien's books).

The flames were further stoked when one of the movie books said their clothing was inspired by Saracen warriors (Islamics who battled Christians during the Crusades). There were some lines added to the movie as well that weren't in the books that some have interpreted different ways.

If you scroll to the bottom of this page you can see what Jackson has to say on the matter.

There was a fairly good article in one of the LOTR threads here where somebody discussed this, and how Tolkien's work is more timeless (and Lewis' as well) than anything.

They mentioned how you could view the Orcs and the Humans/Hobbits in modern day, even in this country or the UK - i.e. the humans and hobbits were driven by love - love for their fellow humans and hobbits, love of all that is good, and how the Orcs were driven by hatred and fear - and you see this as well - perhaps you know somebody that is scared of other groups, or driven by a hatred of other groups or pepole - i.e. anybody not exactly like them.

This fear or hatred of anybody who isn't exactly like you, or that doesn't follow the same religion you do, or speaks a different language, it's been with us for thousands and thousands of years, and that's what Tolkien was trying to address (IMHO).

[The_Reader_David]

Not ethnic groups, religions.

The Calomenes are depicted as Turks or Persians in their architecture, dress, customs, weaponry. They worship a single false god, Tash.

You forget that as a subject of the British Empire, Lewis had a bit more experience of Mohammedans than we Yanks typically did.

Lewis's books are deliberately allegorical: LWTW is the Gospel; Prince Caspian, the persecution of the Church and the adoption of the Gospel by the Empire; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a treatise on the sacraments with some moral commentary thrown in; The Silver Chair is a critique of secularism; The Horse and His Boy a treatment of repentence; The Magician's Nephew, the creation and the Fall; and The Last Battle, the eschaton.

Tolkien's books are non-allegorical: he explicitly denied all allegorical interpretations ever presented.

[DoctorRansom]

Actually, even Lewis was not all that fond of intentional direct allegory, although he certainly used analogous elements much more often than Tolkien.

Two weeks ago I attended a writing and literature conference on C.S. Lewis at Wheaton College and finished a lengthy full report on it -- there one can read more about what the conference speakers and Lewis experts said about not limiting the "meanings" in Narnia (search for the phrase let the reader understand on the page) and Lewis's often-accidental "stealing" of and references to reality (search for the phrase accidental plagiarism on the page).

I'll insert specific target names later and then post the links.

[tom h]

"Could be, but the Muslims will really get upset of there's ever a faithful film version of the last of Lewis's children's novels: in The Last Battle, the Narian Antichrist is a fake supported by an alliance of secularists and the Calormenes (thinly disguised Muslims)."

And Wiccans will whine when "The Magician's Nephew" is produced, because Jadis is a beautiful witch; and atheists will whine when Eustis is literally reborn in "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader"; etc. Who cares? My kids attend Christian schools and there will be no problem with their teachers or administrators.