Narnia 2001

[R Nitelight]

New Narnia books drop Christian ethos
'Prostitution' of C.S. Lewis: Publisher dreams of Potter-size sales


Heather Sokoloff
National Post, with files from the New York

The author of the Narnia chronicles, C.S. Lewis, wrote from a Christian perspective.



The lion is a Christ figure.


Literary scholars and fans of The Chronicles of Narnia fear that a deal between a publisher and the estate of author C.S. Lewis to create a new series of the children's classic will expunge the earlier books' allusions to Christianity.

"They are taking away the integrity of the book. It just sounds like the publishing company wants to make gross amounts of money," said Mark G. McGowan, co-ordinator of the Christianity and Culture program at the University of Toronto. "There is a temptation now to edit and seriously strip away anything that is deemed politically incorrect in books."

The publisher, HarperCollins, revealed plans to create the new novels and plush toys after J.R. Rowling's Harry Potter series created an appetite in young readers for similar books. In the past two years, U.S. sales of the Narnia books have risen 20%.

"Obviously this is the biggie as far as the estate and our publishing interests are concerned," wrote a San Francisco executive in a leaked HarperCollins memo. "We'll need to be able to give emphatic assurances that no attempt will be made to correlate the stories to Christian imagery/theology."

For more than half a century, the Narnia chronicles have captivated children with tales of Aslan, a lion who ruled the wintry Narnian kingdom of dwarfs, fawns and occasionally errant English schoolchildren who fell into the land through a hidden door in a wardrobe.

Mixing fantasy with Christian allegories and imagery, C. S. Lewis, one of the 20th century's most influential authors and interpreters of Christianity, created a saga that spanned seven novels, beginning with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which have sold more than 65 million copies in more than 30 languages.

"Lewis was a Christian whether people like it or not, and he wrote from a Christian perspective," said Reverend Roger Stronstad, publisher of the Canadian C. S. Lewis Journal.

He called the planned novels based on Narnia characters a "prostitution" of Mr. Lewis's work.

"I'm not saying that some of these new stories may not be good stories, but if they are not written by someone with the same spiritual values and committed mindset, they won't be the same kind of book," said Rev. Stronstad, who teaches a course on Christian literature at Western Pentecostal Bible College in Abbotsford, B.C.

Lloyd Kelly, vice-president of sales at HarperCollins Canada, said the estate and the U.S. publisher are going to repackage the novels so they reach a broader audience, but he does not expect the Christian themes to be touched.

"There might be some that get upset, but the classics will always be available," Mr. Kelly said. "People will read the new things Harper is working on, but eventually they will turn to the original. That's the whole idea. I know that HarperCollins with its tradition of children's books will do this very carefully and very thoughtfully."

The Lewis estate insists there is no calculated plan to reshape the author's image. Simon Adley, managing director of the C. S. Lewis Co., noted the publishers had successfully increased sales of Lewis's Mere Christianity, an adult title that explains and defends Christianity.

"It's fatuous to suggest that we're trying to take the Christian out of C. S. Lewis," Mr. Adley said. "We wouldn't have made the effort that we have with Mere Christianity if we felt that way. It's just crazy. I suppose you could get a little depressed by this. I'm trying to get more people to read."

Nonetheless, devotees of the chronicles say the new marketing strategy is untrue to the author.

"They're turning Narnia into a British version of Mickey Mouse," said John G. West, co-editor of The C.S. Lewis Readers Encyclopedia. "What they've figured out is that Harry Potter is a cash cow. And here's a way they can decompartmentalize the children's novels from the rest of Lewis. That's what is so troubling."

In a 1954 letter, Mr. Lewis wrote that the Narnia chronicles were based on his ideas of what might happen if the Son of God became a lion in an imaginary land.

"It's a very subtle situation," said Rev. Stronstad. "In many parts of the story, there are no overtly Christian themes. But nevertheless, honour, loyalty, courage -- those types of themes -- they are automatically part of Lewis' mind set. Also, a robust sense of right and wrong, and good and evil, in which good in the end always triumphs over evil."

For instance, the death of Christ is enacted in The Last Battle when Aslan offers to be killed by the evil White Witch so Edmund, one of the British children, may live. Aslan later comes back to life, symbolizing Christ's resurrection.

The HarperCollins memo emerged during the development of a television documentary about Mr. Lewis. The producer, Carol Dean Hatcher, had negotiated contracts to create an illustrated companion book and teaching video for Zondervan Publishing House, the Christian publishing arm of HarperCollins. Zondervan was also poised to donate about US$150,000 for the production.

The complicated negotiations over the documentary unraveled, Ms. Hatcher said, amid mounting pressures from the publisher and the estate to eliminate references in the script to Christian imagery in the Narnia series.

"I was appalled," said Ms. Hatcher, who is still trying to produce the documentary, C.S. Lewis: An Examined Life. "I think there are ways to approach C.S. Lewis and Narnia that have nothing to do with religious background. However, it is astounding to minimize that part of this; it's like doing a video biography of Hank Aaron and refusing to acknowledge he was a baseball player."

 

[Guest]

I Don't Feel Well

Honestly. The Chronicles of Narnia are so much a part of me that I am somewhat sickened by the notion of "repackaging" the series and attempting to possibly continue the stories without staying true to the Christian roots of the stories. Not simply because those roots are Christian, but because they are the heart of the work. Those Christian roots are why the series exists.

This series needs no repackaging. It is still a vibrant work, and "new" to thousands upon thousands of children every year. The world doesn't need another well-marketed chidren's entertainment franchise, either.

I have previously defended an author's right to parody classic works. And as much as I love C.S. Lewis's works, I have also enjoyed some rather spiteful parodies of his Narnia series. This , though, this is something different. This appears as if new works are going to be marketed as part of the C.S. Lewis "canon."

I'm sure I misread something in the article, and that I have stumbled somewhere in typing my response. This just absolutely pushes my buttons.

 

[Cockatoo]

What exactly is it they're going for?

From what this thing said, I see them doing two things- issuing a new series of books by ghost writers that use the Narnia characters and don't specifically play up the christian part, and then there's this "repackaging."

The new books will be nowhere near as good as the originals, but they will probably be competent, and they'll draw attention and readership to the original seven. No harm done. "Scarlett," the sequel that was authorized for "Gone With The Wind," sold a small flock of books and gave us a breif Margaret Mitchell revival, but didn't affect the integrity of the original at all. The same thing will probably happen here.

By "repackaging," I doubt very much that they mean re-editing and expunging existing material in the original Narnia series as it is today. That would be a CRIME, and I can't imagine anyone's estate agreeing to THAT. No way. It probably means that they'll remainder the little yellow boxed-set and re-issue the books with larger print, more cartoony covers, and a marketing campaign that will synch up with whatever new stuff they're going to release.

That means more readership for Mr. Lewis. I don't think that's a bad thing. As for how much of the quasi-christianity goes into the mix or excluded from it, well, you'd EXPECT somebody to get all ticked off about that, but I don't think that's a real issue. Religion has a way of setting off people's personal powder kegs, just like threats against authorial integrity and free speech.

In fact, the Narnia series not technically about christianity, it's about good and evil, and about the practice of all sorts of worthy values practiced by, but which are not the exclusive property of, christianity. In virtually every way, the original Narnia series is MORE like Harry Potter than the New Testament, and it had almost as many christians pissed off at it because it wasn't specifically about Jesus.

Did you watch Mr. Roger's neighborhood? Someone once asked Fred Rogers, an ordained Baptist minister, why he didn't talk about God on the show, and use it as a platform to preach the Good News. He said he DID talk about God, all the time, but he used the word "Love" instead, so more children would understand it. He wanted to demonstrate and use christian values, and do it in a way that would not alienate anyone.

It seems clear to me that Lewis did exactly the same thing. I'll even go out on a limb and say that Rowling does it with Harry Potter, too. And there's every reason to think that the new books will be about values like courage, justice, love, and the strength of good over evil, whether or not someone in a boardroom says "turn down the God stuff."

 

[Whispersecret]

Well said, Cockatoo. When I originally read the Narnia series, umpteen years ago, I had NO IDEA the stories were in anyway connected with Christianity. Someone had to tell me that much later, and then I saw the connection.

Good values aren't exclusive to Christianity. (I certainly hope not, because then the whole world is screwed.) Many many many children's books extole the virtues of goodness, honesty, courage, committment, loyalty, etc., and yet aren't labelled as Christian. This is because these are core values we all believe in and that we all want our children to learn.

I have mixed feelings about extending the Narnia world. I'm curious to see if they'll succeed in coming close to what Lewis achieved.

On the other hand, I wonder how wise it is sometimes to go beyond what has been done so perfectly. Take Harry Potter for instance. They're making movies now. The first one will be released sometime this year, I'd expect. While they may do a very good job, I wonder if they really ought to.

As a teacher, I lament the fact that I can no longer read Roald Dahl's Matilda to a class and have the story be fresh. They'll all have seen the movie already, which pretty much ruins the book experience. I see the same thing with Harry Potter. When kids see the movie first and then read the book, they picture scenes from the movie, instead of creating them in their own heads--which is most of the fun of reading! I think it's sort of a shame that millions of children will be cheated out of the magic and how it unfolds in the Harry Potter books because of Hollywood.

 

[CreamyLady]

Aslan was sacrificed in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, not The Last Battle.

I love those books. Yes, they are written from a Christian perspective, but the values are not just Christian. Loyalty, cooperation, consideration, doing the right thing when it would be far easier to not do so are solid values for everyone.

Personally, they don't really need a new series; the original stands tall as the classic it is. I bought a set for WitchsKat when she was young; doubtless I'll buy some for grandchildren someday.

I'll also recommend to anyone The Screwtape Letters. As a treatise on how to fall into error, and the correction thereof, it cannot be beat. It's entertaining, too, and I've always felt a little sorry for Screwtape, having such an insufferably dense nephew as Wormwood.

 

[Cockatoo]

Hurrah for Harry

I love those books. Yes, they are written from a Christian perspective, but the values are not just Christian. Loyalty, cooperation, consideration, doing the right thing when it would be far easier to not do so are solid values for everyone.

Spoiler! If you haven't read the latest Harry Potter, you DON'T want to know

(hint- stop reading NOW!)

that Albus Dumbledore closed the story by telling the students at Hogwarts that Cedric Diggory was murdered by Voldemort, and that there would soon come a time when each of them would be given a choice between what is right and what is easy, and when that time comes, they should remember Cedric Diggory.

Way to Go, Rowling. The book burners have nothing on you.

 

[THEBRAT]

Oops double post

 

[THEBRAT]

The Narnia books are perfect just the way they are.They don't need to be refurbished, repackaged,or added onto I still read them and I'm 45 and I always get something new out of rereading them.

 

[Never]

This is from 'Slate' - it's an article by by Lauren Winner
http://slate.msn.com/culturebox/entries/01-06-18_110460.asp


In his essay "On Three Ways of Writing for Children," C. S. Lewis enumerated "two good ways and one that is generally a bad way" of creating children's literature. To illustrate the latter, he recounted reading a manuscript of a story about a magic machine that a fairy had given to a child. "I had to tell the author," wrote Lewis, "that I didn't much care for that sort of thing. She replied 'No more do I, it bores me to distraction. But it is what the modern child wants.' " Better, Lewis argues, to start with the question "What moral do I need?" and better still "not to ask the questions themselves."

Fifty years later, Lewis is surely looking down from heaven in horror. The New York Times recently reported that his beloved "Chronicles of Narnia" series will soon be supplemented by new, secularized installments; HarperCollins plans to bring us, as the title of Doreen Carvajal's article put it, "Narnia Without a Christian Lion." All the Narnia books, new and old, will be marketed aggressively, and according to a memo obtained by the Times, "no attempt will be made to correlate the stories to Christian imagery/theology."

[Slate]
If this is the case, the new books will differ quite markedly from the originals. "The whole Narnian story is about Christ," Lewis once wrote to a school-age fan. "That is to say, I asked myself, 'Supposing that there really was a world like Narnia and supposing it had (like our world) gone wrong and supposing Christ wanted to go into that world and save it (as He did ours) what might have happened?' " Aslan the Lion, the hero of the "Chronicles," dies, is resurrected, and saves people with his blood. (Lewis figured Christ as a lion because the lion is the king of the beasts, but also because the Bible refers to Christ as the Lion of Judah.) Other characters also recall figures from the Bible or church history. In The Horse and His Boy, for example, Bree the horse suffers from the heresy of Docetism (the heresy, named after the Greek for "to seem," that Jesus only appeared to be human and suffer). Bree muses that when the other Talking Beasts speak of Aslan as a lion, they must be speaking metaphorically?"they only mean he's as strong as a lion. ... If he was a lion he'd have four paws and a tail, and Whiskers!" Aslan then appears to Bree and shows him that he is a "true Beast," not only refuting the Docetist heresy, but also recalling the risen Jesus' appearance to Doubting Thomas in the Gospel of John.

But Narnia's "Christian imagery" goes beyond a sprinkling of biblical allusions; the entire story line mirrors the Christian salvation story. The Magician's Nephew tells the creation story and the way evil seeped into Narnia; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe tells of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ; Prince Caspian tells how right religion was corrupted and then restored; and so on, until the final volume, The Last Battle , where Ape (the Antichrist) tries to take over Narnia, which leads to Aslan's second coming. In addition to all the usual challenges of attempting a sequel to a classic, HarperCollins will have to figure out what it could possibly add to such a complete, iconic tale. Will the publishing house insert amusing anecdotes and preteen adventures amid all the divine revelation?

In fact, this would be strange but not impossible. Despite the series' heavily religious coding, it's far from clear that most children decipher or even notice it. I didn't when I read them in grammar school, and neither did the Jewish and Hindu friends I polled. We just thought we were reading a riveting tale, one in which, as in so much children's literature, good triumphs over evil and a hero brings on a utopian reign of peace. Like all successful religious allegories, Narnia can be read on many levels: The "Song of Songs" can be either an erotic love poem or a description of God's relationship with Israel; the famous medieval unicorn tapestries tell both of the capture and taming of a unicorn and of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Indeed, part of what makes the Narnia series endure is its light touch. (The same goes for other children's classics with Christian casts, such as Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time and J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit .) It's bittersweet to see Lewis' restraint, his lack of preachiness, rewarded with an attempt to make the denizens of Narnia as unchristian as, say, the wizard named Harry Potter.

 

[Cockatoo]

Tolkien?!?!

Funny... I remember being told that "The Hobbit" was satanic. In fact, I remember that copies of The Hobbit" and "The Lord Of The Rings" trilogy were torn up and burned at some christian event or other that I attended when I was a small child. I didn't know what was going on, I was just told that those books were "bad."

I read them later on, of course. I later realized that the people who burned the "bad" books were the same assholes who smashed the "Toto IV" album, as well as "Kilroy was Here" by Styx ("The group is named after a river in HELL!"). They were also the same fools who thought that the Devil was going to GIT me for playing Dungeons & Dragons. Sigh. Kids get around a table and do MATH to figure out complicated probabilities all night, and the parents complain. These days, I wish those vampire-playing Goth kids the best of luck in horrifying those who probably deserve it.

Just goes to show you. The best christians are the ones who recognize and respect the fact that there are no really important differences between being a good christian and being a good, kind, loving person. The worst ones are the psychos who would not only smash a Toto record, but would chastize me for spelling "christian" with a lowercase "C" here in this message. I raise my thumb to my nose and issue a hearty "Pfthfththhhhttt!" to all of you in that latter category.

So, if anyone wants to take me on about the alleged evils of Harry Potter (lay off the poor kid, already!), Styx, Toto, Dungeons and Dragons, Tolkien, Pokemon, or the Wizard of Oz, I'm game. But be forewarned, I'll treat you like the idiot you are, and I'll remind you that it could just as easily be a BIBLE on that stack of burning books you've got, there.

 

[DoorNumberOne]

All said and done, and despite my fantastical twists, those Chronicles are what they say they are, erotic or otherwise.
Like the printed coloring book, sometimes we are forced to draw inside the lines, yes?
Go Lewis! See you in Narnia.
<Stumbling over white panties in a closet> Hey now, wait! What's this?