Of Bald Men and Bears

Call me a "filling-lover", but I always liked "The Horse and His Boy" the best. It just seemed like such a great story of connection, hope, relationship, and was the most exciting. It was like, the only one where the ending wasn't some big, Aslan-miracle Kung-Pow thing. Rather, Aslan's main role is in leading a lost person home again, and helping him find purpose along the path.

-Ivan - www.geocities.com/prayn4food

Fillers?! If you don't read all of the adventures of Narnia, you won't have a full understanding of it by the end. Take it as your proverbial pizza:
Your "big three" are the crust, sauce, and cheese, which are essential to the being of pizza. But everything else such as hamburger, pepperoni, and even pineapple for some weird people, are not essential, but serve to make a greater, more flavorful pizza which by the end, you often cannot imagine without.

I think I'd cry if I didn't know how Reepicheep made it to the World's End, or of the stories of Archenland and the Underworld.

I'm a 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader' fan.

I knew I was going to get in trouble for my "fillers" comment. :) I would, however, like to reestablish the context for what I said: I certainly think that the other books are good (indeed, I haven't come across a C.S. Lewis book that I haven't liked), but I think that certain ones are more equal than others.

I am partial to the first book and the last two books because the Chronicles of Narnia were designed specifically to be allegorical, and if something is going to be allegorical, I like clear allegory. Most of all, I especially like how The Magician's Nephew gave me a better understanding of what was going on in the Bible's account of creation (I never really understood the problem with the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden until I read the book by Lewis).

But still, far be it from me to criticize the works of C.S. Lewis, who I think will be seen as one of the most influential Christian thinkers/writers of all-time. No one else had a better grasp of the nature of sanctification--he, second to none, explained in astonishing clarity the nature of our natures, both first Adamic and second Adamic. Thus, I retract my "filler" comment.

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Off topic questions and comments:
1) Has anyone else always said, "Far be it for me..." instead of "Far be it from me..."? I had been saying the wrong thing for as long as I can remember, but Ms. Austen posthumously straightened me out the other day.

2) I spent about 30 minutes trying to determine whether the sentence in my third paragraph should be "...whom I think will be seen..." or "...who I think will be seen...". (If anyone thinks that my final decision, "who," is incorrect, please let me know.) I really wish that UNL would offer a real grammar course.

I know The Chronicles of Narnia are allegorical, but if I remember clearly, C.S. Lewis didn't write them with specific evangelistic intent, rather, it "just happened" as I think he said. Being a Christian, Christian ideals and thoughts naturally seeped into the writing rather than it being intentional.

Bethany--
You are correct! I simply forgot to use that test. (Instead, I called "will be seen" a linking verb, causing the sentence to require the nominative "who" rather than the objective "whom.")

The only thing that makes me a bit leery about a pronoun-substitute test, though, is that our ears often tell us the wrong thing, especially when it comes to linking verbs like this. For example, our ears tell us that we should say, "That would be me," or "That's me," when the linking verb "to be" requires the nominative form of the pronoun--thus, even though "That would be I" sounds somewhat bizarre, it is actually the correct form (we do, though, make a point of saying, "This is s/he" when we answer the phone, which is correct).

This is my problem with grammar--I only know about enough to get myself into trouble (similar to Hawkeye's statement on MASH: "I know only enough Korean to get my face slapped.") UNL's sole course about grammar is interested in the cultural aspect of grammar--it describes how grammar as an abstract concept works, but it does not prescribe how one should use grammar. At times like these, I really miss my 11th grade English teacher--Mrs. Kort. She would beat grammar into us like nobody's business. Whither art thou, Mrs. Kort?

In any case, the passive voice is certainly the bane of my grammarian existence. I guess I've spent too much time with books on parliamentary procedure that use passive voice as a matter of style (i.e., "It is moved and seconded that..." is better than "Mr. Jones moved that...and Mrs. Anderson seconded the motion" both for reasons of simplicity and impartiality--when names are thrown around, members begin to debate people, not ideas). I would appreciate being held accountable for this. (Yes, I purposefully used the passive voice on that last sentence.)

Lindsey--
I'm not sure that I would agree with the idea that the Christianity of C.S. Lewis simply seeped into such clear-cut allegory as several of the books in Chronicles of Narnia, because what he ended up with was much more than ideals and thoughts. Besides, I don't think that allegory is usually evangelistic in its intent. Rather, I think that allegory is often instructional by putting familiar stories in unfamiliar settings to reinforce the messages held in those stories.

That said, I think that the stories I previously so callously called "fillers" probably constitute the sort of stories to which you are referring. It may be that I, having read allegory in some of the books, expected what C.S. Lewis had not intended to be in the other books.

(Wow. That comment ended up being far longer than I intended it to be.)