Aug 12
The Horse and His Boy ties for my third favorite of the Chronicles with The Magician’s Nephew. Perhaps Nephew has the edge, because of the awesomeness of Charn, the Wood Between the Worlds, and Aslan’s Garden. But Horse has Tashbaan and the desert. It’s a close call. The flavor is different from the rest of …
Aug 09
Let’s continue to explore Narnia’s four corners by moving from the Utter East to the Wild Lands of the North. The north has always been a wild, untamed place in Lewis’s mythos. In The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, giants live there, which High King Peter battles as part of his royal duties. In …
Aug 06
Of all the places in Narnia, I’m most fascinated by the Utter East, that area of Narnia-the-World that lies over the Eastern Sea. It’s one of the most transcendent of Lewis’s creations – full of so much rich, mystical bizarreness that those passages remain one of my favorite pieces of writing, any writing, to this …
Aug 05
The 1970 version and a more recent one (right) The Silver Chair is my favorite Narnia book. The protagonists travel across and into many worlds — the mountains of Aslan’s country, the swamp of the marsh-wiggles, the bleak moors and the bleaker ruins of the giants; then the cavernous underworld and the subterranean city of …
Aug 04
Let’s finish this series about the White Witch with some odds and ends. First up, this depiction of Snow White’s evil queen by artist Colleen Doran. She’s holding up a bloody heart by a string. Though not Lewis’s character, she could very well be her, and the heart would be Edmund’s or Aslan’s. Next, a …
Aug 02
I admit Prince Caspian has its moments, like the madcap romp with Bacchus and the maenads. But compared to the rest of the Chronicles of Narnia, I don’t like it very much. In fact, I’d rather it didn’t exist at all. There’s no need for it to. The same themes of The Lion, the Witch, …
Jul 30
I’m going to round out these posts with some depictions that, while they don’t depict the White Witch, would make very nice White Witches. The first would-be witch is the Winter Carnival Snow Queen. These depictions are common in the English theater form known as the Pantomime, or panto for short. Pantomimes are usually performed …
Jul 29
In last weeks’ Worldbuilding Wednesday I took a look at the etymology of Prunaprismia and how other women of Telmar might have been named. This week, I’ll look at the men. I think Lewis designed his names with French and Spanish in mind. The pronunciation of them, glottal and oily, recalls spoken Italian as …
Jul 28
In 1984 The Lion, the Witch, and Wardrobe received its first official stage treatment, and it’s been staged regularly ever since. In fact, it’s become a staple of children’s theater. It’s easy to see why. The story is simple, the characters memorable, the action clear-cut. Though it seems it would be difficult to do with …
Jul 27
I love the detail on this piece and how the story of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has been culturally translated. The artist drew on the imagery for the movie, not the book, as the polar bears and armored centaurs attest… as is High King Peter riding on his unicorn.