Narnia Meta

[rthstewart]

There's an interesting article on Buzz Feed I spotted today -- maybe you've already seen it, but I hadn't until this AM.  I find, in particular, this paragraph illuminating:

But this is the Chronicles’ greatest, redeeming strength: that sowed within are the seeds of their own dogma’s destruction. The machinery, the logic, of Narnia itself resists

Comments

[recessivejean]

Love that. Just, very much, love it. Thank you for sharing!

[rthstewart]

Aww, it's so nice of you to come by here. As I said up above, what I liked about the piece was that it captured both the wonders of the Chronicles and yet didn't gloss over the problematic bits. I didn't know about the whole Aslan is Jesus thing when I read them at age 8 and really the more I spend time there, the less I like Aslan as Jesus. I just can't' match the two up very well, anymore. I love writing the benevolent lion deity but sometimes he's a jerk. I admit I might love them less seeing how they've been weaponized and the attacks and such over the years. But I do still cling to that very fond memory -- that combination of imagination and hope and folly, that the Chronicles imbued me with and made me think, that maybe, just maybe, I might get to Narnia too, one day while walking to school. So I wore sensible shoes for months and always kept extra snacks in my lunch box -- because I wasn't going to leave my sandwich in the little bag on the train platform.

[recessivejean]

I am very glad I stopped by. You're right, it pokes at both ends of the stories, and I like that because more often than not the past few years I felt like the thorniest parts of the stories were poking back, and it was getting to be too much.

But I loved them so much when I was little. Just . . . stupidly much, because they offered not only a kind of escape, but a kind of kinship with other children who had to be grown up too soon and I got that. My own favourite was HHB, so our back parlour was all over desert tents made of bedsheets and tarnished silver platters of crackers and grapes, because I wanted to be Aravis so badly, even though I knew I was Susan.

And I do miss the beautiful simplicity of enjoying the stories just as they were, of wanting to escape to a place where not fitting was practically one of the entry criteria, and . . . I guess I like the article especially well because it makes me think that maybe again someday it will be possible to feel that way about them again

[rthstewart]

And I do miss the beautiful simplicity of enjoying the stories just as they were, of wanting to escape to a place where not fitting was practically one of the entry criteria...

Oh gosh, yes, now I remember, that was one reason why I started writing in Narnia, you know? I felt that Lewis' messages about the importance of tolerance and inclusion were SO strong and so very much at odds with what I had seen in ugly pockets of the fandom. I know I pushed it further than you went -- that you wanted to hold on to that perfect ideal of desert tents and silver platters and I wanted to create a vision where all were very slow to a judgment that belonged to Aslan alone. I wanted to hold that mirror up to the fandom and say, see, this is what I think Lewis is saying, isn't it wonderful? This tent is big enough for everyone, we all can belong and play here in fellowship. Gawd I was so stupidly naive. I am such a moron. How have I managed to screw myself so badly, again? Gah.

[recessivejean]

But I love how far you pushed it. I hate the backlash you got but I still treasure the moment I found that first piece of yours and everything inside me just SPARKED. Because it was Narnia, just a different kind. I can't say the same about the other Narnias, you know?

Because the thing is, if even then I'd had to set aside the ideal I was celebrating and choose a version of Narnia (thorny warning lessons, or in the end we all find the wardrobe door) I wouldn't hesitate. Who doesn't want everybody to find the wardrobe door? Nobody I want to go exploring with, for sure

[rthstewart]

Thank you. That's nice and lovely to hear. I'm just don't think this has been worth the body count and personal cost, certainly this is true of the story I just finished. I'm not strong enough, I think.

The piece was lovely though and sparked things I thought had been crushed. It's nice to hear from people, too.

[recessivejean]

I'm just don't think this has been worth the body count and personal cost, certainly this is true of the story I just finished. I'm not strong enough, I think.

Boy do I get that!

So glad you shared the link, though. Thank you.

[rthstewart]

Aww, Liz, thanks so much. It's all your fault I ended up here. I remember that after LWW you started writing Narnia fic and fell into the fandom -- there were some great authors at that point I know you wrote at least one problem of Susan fic. And I don't think I knew until relatively recently that you had been homeschooled