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Mar. 12th, 2003 01:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckLunarGeography brought over a number of videos and DVDs on Friday. There are a few items that she asked that I not watch until she can watch them too, but I took time on Monday to watch The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It's been a long time since I read the book last, so I'd forgotten, as I always do, just how nasty Edmund is there. He's one of the characters I like best in Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawntreader, so it's easy for me to forget how he started. I shouldn't because that's the very thing that makes him more interesting in later books, that gives him a complexity that his siblings rather lack.
Of course, I also find it easy to forget how young the characters are. Watching the actors brings that home again. Now I need to see the next couple of adaptations. I've been meaning to do that for quite a while since I'd heard good things about the whole series.
Apart from a certain frustration with The Last Battle, I've never been particularly bothered by the Christian allegory in the Narnia books. The stories are generally well enough written that the allegory seems to be there for the story rather than the story for the allegory. (I have run into books that go the other way, too. They usually make me cringe.) Although, I must confess that The Magician's Nephew didn't make much sense to me the first time I read it. I needed the awareness of what Lewis was doing to understand that story properly. (Which, incidentally, is the big reason I object to telling people to read The Magician's Nephew first.)
Of course, I also find it easy to forget how young the characters are. Watching the actors brings that home again. Now I need to see the next couple of adaptations. I've been meaning to do that for quite a while since I'd heard good things about the whole series.
Apart from a certain frustration with The Last Battle, I've never been particularly bothered by the Christian allegory in the Narnia books. The stories are generally well enough written that the allegory seems to be there for the story rather than the story for the allegory. (I have run into books that go the other way, too. They usually make me cringe.) Although, I must confess that The Magician's Nephew didn't make much sense to me the first time I read it. I needed the awareness of what Lewis was doing to understand that story properly. (Which, incidentally, is the big reason I object to telling people to read The Magician's Nephew first.)
