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Mar. 26th, 2009 01:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
verity83Book 30: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - 189pp
Rereading. It helps cement the story in my mind a little better, so I'm going through the series again.
Book 31: The Narnian - The Life and Imagination of CS Lewis, 314pp
This was a quite well-written biography of Lewis, since it held my attention to the end. Many times biographies have bored me to tears. Not knowing zilch about Lewis or other biographies of him, I'm slow to accept the contents as absolute truth until I would do more research, but the author seemed well-balanced and fair to me, not like he was out to make a Scandal Book.
Quite an interesting man, and although I would still maintain I don't agree with all his ideas about Christianity, I think he also saw deeper into some parts of it than most.
"In Lewis's understanding, it is the work of the Evil One and his slaves... to provide a negative, topsy-turvy moral education, gradually diminishing and in the end extinguishing whatever draws us to the Good and magnifying and intensifying our inordinate desires... we see this... in the way the White Witch deals with Edmund in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. She preys incessantly on his inordinate desires, and not simply his passion for Turkish delight: far more useful to her, and far more important in Edmund's heart, is his resentment of Peter. Edmund would give up candy forever if that would wi him a victory over his hated elder brother. Turkish Delight is just the beginning, the first enticement of the Witch; soon enough that temptation is put aside, once she learns what he really cares about. When he cannot be convinced to bring his brother and sisters back to Narnia by the promise of more treats, the Witch strikes the effective chord when she tells him, "You are to be the Prince and—later on—the King." For the pleasures of candy pale in comparison to the pleasures of Power: this is what the Witch teachers (or rather, discovers in) Edmund—this is the heart of her "moral education." and once Edmund has, in effect, sold his soul for the promise of such Power, only the greatest of sacrifices can win back his life." -p. 179
And these lines, written by Lewis, close the book:
"The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the momory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited."
Rereading. It helps cement the story in my mind a little better, so I'm going through the series again.
Book 31: The Narnian - The Life and Imagination of CS Lewis, 314pp
This was a quite well-written biography of Lewis, since it held my attention to the end. Many times biographies have bored me to tears. Not knowing zilch about Lewis or other biographies of him, I'm slow to accept the contents as absolute truth until I would do more research, but the author seemed well-balanced and fair to me, not like he was out to make a Scandal Book.
Quite an interesting man, and although I would still maintain I don't agree with all his ideas about Christianity, I think he also saw deeper into some parts of it than most.
"In Lewis's understanding, it is the work of the Evil One and his slaves... to provide a negative, topsy-turvy moral education, gradually diminishing and in the end extinguishing whatever draws us to the Good and magnifying and intensifying our inordinate desires... we see this... in the way the White Witch deals with Edmund in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. She preys incessantly on his inordinate desires, and not simply his passion for Turkish delight: far more useful to her, and far more important in Edmund's heart, is his resentment of Peter. Edmund would give up candy forever if that would wi him a victory over his hated elder brother. Turkish Delight is just the beginning, the first enticement of the Witch; soon enough that temptation is put aside, once she learns what he really cares about. When he cannot be convinced to bring his brother and sisters back to Narnia by the promise of more treats, the Witch strikes the effective chord when she tells him, "You are to be the Prince and—later on—the King." For the pleasures of candy pale in comparison to the pleasures of Power: this is what the Witch teachers (or rather, discovers in) Edmund—this is the heart of her "moral education." and once Edmund has, in effect, sold his soul for the promise of such Power, only the greatest of sacrifices can win back his life." -p. 179
And these lines, written by Lewis, close the book:
"The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the momory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited."
