Thursday, May 29, 2008

The Lion in Particular; also, the Witch and the Wardrobe

One of my more dis-respectable sins as a pastor is that I've never read C.S. Lewis's Narnia books. I've seen the play twice, and I've seen the movie, of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but that's it. Oh, and I just saw Prince Caspian, which I understand is quite unlike the book.

So I'm finally doing it. I'm halfway through Lion Witch now. Ahhh, it feels good. I so rarely read fiction at all, though I used to long ago (and I used to write it as well) -- heck, I could be a character in Narnia! "You see that poor boy over there? He never reads fiction, only nonfiction. He's ever reading, and never imagining." And so forth.

Here are two great little passages from Lion Witch. The first is about Aslan the Lion, who represents Christ. This passage has been used in so many sermons that churchgoers are likely to recognize it -- we'll reward these readers with a different passage in a moment.

"Ooh!" said Susan, "I'd thought he was a man. Is he--quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."

"That you will, dearie, and make no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver; "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or just silly."


"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.


"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."


And the second passage, concerning Edmund and the Turkish Delight:

He had eaten his share of the dinner, but he hadn't really enjoyed it because he was thinking all the time about Turking Delight--there's nothing that spoils the taste of good ordinary food half so much as the memory of bad magic food.

Okay, back to reading. Just don't ask me to confess my even more grievous sin concerning The Return of the King.

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NOTE: The author of this post, however, did read all three books of the Hitchhikers' Trilogy.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like your new banner up top, it looks good.

I read the books as a kid and don't really remember anything from them. I tried to read them again a couple years ago, but I quit halfway through Horse Boy. I think the problem was the we have this horrendous edition with all seven books in one enormous book, and its just to heavy to hold comfortably.

We saw Prince-Caz the other night, and enjoyed it, except that the bad guy was El Guapo from the three amigos. That was distracting.

Ken said...

Jeff, I want to get all 7 books but definitely not in one volume. That detracts. I agree.

Anonymous said...

Now there's a frood who really knows where his towel is!

Joel said...

glad to hear it, ken. my seven-book edition is tattered and torn from my brother and i reading them so many times since we were young lads. it's not too early to start Cullen on them!

i, too, like the new banner up top. it almost puts you in the 21st century *wink*

Hilarie said...

These are some of my favorite books. I first read them in third and fourth grade though, but I can't wait to see Prince Caspian in theaters.

Anonymous said...

If you read the Hitcherhiker's series...did you ever figure out how to get the couch out of the stairwell? ;-)