Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    <scribbled by castle Tue 12 Jun 01 17:04>
  

    
damn. sorry! hit reload, and forgot NOT to hit the "repost form data?"
button on account of I'm stoooopid.
  

    
Tara - when that happens, you can scribble one of your responses.  Just
click the number of the response you want to get rid of and click
Scribble in the box that comes up.

Like this.

 %^)
  

    
E-mail from Colette Alexander:

Neil-
Okay, I've been a silent lurker for months now, but I have to say I screamed 
and jumped for joy, doing little funny dances around my laptop when I read 
your posting about the Narnia books. I grew up on them, and though lost 
interest towards the end of the series (I think Susan Cooper's The Dark is 
Rising and Madeleine L'engle's A Wrinkle In Time made a better impression on 
me at that point), I distinctly remember being surprised when someone, years 
later, mentioned the Christian imagery in them to me. I was like "no! 
They're pagan! All the books I read when I was younger were pagan! That's 
why I liked them!" so I tend to agree. I understand the whole aslan/christ 
thing, but, like you said, I think it's about myths and archetypes that have 
been around way longer than the new testament.

So thanks for being the first person I've come across for making me feel a 
little more sure of my childhood memories :)

oh, and about "signing memories"... I was at the NYC Barnes and Nobles 
signing for stardust (as were many students from Sarah Lawrence College), 
and my friends and I gave you a little gift which was our little inside joke 
all the way through the line (to wait that long, you really should have some 
sort of joke to sustain you)... we had bought bagels and stuff upstairs at 
the little cafe, and the total for our bill was $6.66. This was way to much 
of an omen to pass up, so we gave it to you. But you probably don't remember 
that :)

keep up the great posts everyone, they've been my lifeline while obsessing 
over my watson fellowship application (also known as: you should give me 
$23,000 so that I can run around and interview very fun artistic people all 
over the world...I'm serious...it's a good idea)


colette
  

    
I must have utterly missed the point somewhere on why there need to be more
Narnia books.

I know, to make money for the publisher, but still.
  

    
Neil - (warning, rant about to follow, which is not directed at you...
but is triggered by your comments. As I see later posts, I see that we
actually agree on the most important points.) Wow, this is something I
never thought I'd say... but I think I disagree with you on the whole
Narnia thing. Maybe this is because of my background (seven years of
higher education dedicated towards entering the ministry before ducking
out with a year or so to go and turning apostate), but I've always
seen the Narnia books to be riddled with Christic references (same goes
with Out of the Silent Planet/Perelandra/That Hideous Strength). I
seem to recall reading about Tolkein's response to The Lion, the Witch
and the Wardrobe being something along the lines of "It's terrible.
You're entirely too obvious about what you're trying to get across."
(Tolkien was none to fond of allegory).
Again, the period of time in which I was studying Lewis' work was the
time in which I was studying theology and was hyper-alert to Lewis'
comments on Christianity and the church of his day throughout all this
works of fiction. So, the degree to which I see such elements are
crucial to the Narnia books may be exaggerated by that perspective. And
the degree to which the mythic elements of Narnia belong to all myth
and not just Christianity also muddies the waters a bit...
Still... to make it company policy to aggressively prevent the kind of
religious perspective that the original author was trying to get
across (and I think that books like the Final Battle do make it pretty
clear that Lewis saw his own work as being Christocentric) is
incredibly dishonoring to that author's memory. 

I didn't grow up on the Narnia books... I didn't read them until I was
in High School and got cast in a musical version of The Lion, The
Witch and the Wardrobe. I don't align myself with the Christian Church
any longer, so it's not that. It's related to the decision to plunder
Douglas Adams' computer for random literary bits. It's about letting
things have an ending. About letting an author's creation be the
*author's* creation.

Ultimately, it's about a corporation seeing an opportunity to exploit
something that was near and dear to a lot of people, and being willing
to stripmine it to make it more "market friendly".

I'm surprised how much this upsets me... but it does. Deeply.
  

    
Like <miss-mousey>, I also entirely missed the religious symbolism
when I read the Narnia books. I was around 12 as well. So the religion
part is not nearly as bothersome as the fact that they're probably
going to do a very bad job of it.

Really, the most clear and long-lasting memory I have of that series
is wondering for years what Turkish Delight was. Come to think of it, I
still don't know, but I imagine something like baclava, only lighter
and airier.
  

    
Well, as I was read the Narnia boooks I didn't see any kind of
christianity atually, I saw the paganism and the magic and loved it for
that. 

I agree with Martha about the lack of need for these new books.
Totally.

Michele,.....the Bob Weir comment,......well it was a delayed reaction
to a huge shock/dream come true. I was so stunned I didn't think I
would be able to move.

JaNell,....The name I liked and wanted to use was Rowan. Happy Late
Birthday. And having the book in my hand is now easier cause it's
wrapped.

Neil, just could afford the asking price for the one copy I could
find.
And Gray will be pleased the "Man who wrote the silly daddy book"
likes her name.

I do however have bad news. I had planned on going to the signing on
the 20th,.....however I have surgery on the 21st, and don't think I'll
manage the well-thought out, but completely unworkable plan to sneak
out and make it to the signing.
So not only do I get to have a colonoscopy and laser junk done to
me,...but I miss the signing as well....:sigh-massive pout-sigh:
Well at least this way I'll live to go to another signing?

Jinxie who ate a whole package of Tim-Tams when she figured out all
the dates in her head
  

    
I'm just really, really sad that any publisher would think it was
necessary to remove any "Christian" symbolism from any work.   

It's a pitiful reminder of just how humorless, narrow-minded and
hateful non-Christians think we are.  For some very good reasons, to
our great shame.  But C.S. Lewis was one of the best of us, and to see
his work so dishonored would be a terrible thing.

I hope Glen's info is right, and HarperCollins rejected that proposal.

No, I take that back.

I pray they did.
  

    
Dan--I'm with you.  I'm a lot more upset about this than I thought I'd
be.  Did I ever tell you that I regard you as a great loss to the
Church (and therefore a great credit to where you are now)?

JaNell--Happy Birthday!!:-)

I wish Turkish Delight tasted like Tara imagined....

Mary (reading The Hundred Days by Patrick O'Brian)
  

    
Happy Birthday Ja'Nell!  ;D
  

    
I have no idea what the Christian Symbolism could possibly be in The
Silver Chair, or The Horse and His Boy, or Prince Caspian. It's obvious
in several of the other books.

On the other hand, I was also someone who completely missed the Aslan
as Christ connection, and only realised I was being preached to when it
suddenly occurred to me that Eustace Scrub getting turned into a
dragon was a bad retelling of Paul on the road to Damascus.

The only thing I remember Tolkein said to C.S. Lewis was that he hated
the Father Christmas chapter, and that Father Christmas didn't belong
there.

Having had the Narnia books as my personal touchstone from the ages of
6 to 11, having despised them as allegorical tosh from 11 to around 22
when I got into an argument with Mary Gentle, who convinced me that if
I went back and read the books I'd see the stuff I was responding to
that worked was the storytelling, the roman gods, the celtic tradition,
Puddleglum et al, and then having gone back and read the cycle aloud
now to two sets of kids, about a decade apart... I still don't think
that they were written *as* Christian Allegory, nor do I think that's
what gives them power.

I believe Lewis when he says he had a picture of a Faun in a Wood and
wanted to find out who he was and how he got there.

AMERICAN GODS started because, in my head, two men met on a plane and
one asked the other for a job.

Obviously Christianity is one of the ingredients that make up the
Narnia series. But I don't see it as being where the series gets its
power from. I think it works -- and it does work -- on a much more
primal, pagan level.

I seem to remember we talked a lot about Lewis in the late and not
forgotten topic 74 (or whatever it was). I definitely remember long
exegeses on the subject of Turkish Delight.
  

    
Jinx -- it's yer jinx, girl. We'll miss you.
  

    
Neil - "but the original guidelines of the classic aren't "Let's
hide Christianity in a book" " - See, when I re-read the books I was
also handed copies of other Lewis books ("Mere Christianity" was one of
them) and specifically asked to read them with a religious bent toward
Christianity, at which point it kind of seemed obvious to me that much
of Narnia was written as a Christian set of books targetted at
children... if that makes any sense, and that's a *really* loose
interpretation - obviously, some of it is just fun storytelling too. At
any rate, that's how I viewed it, and everyone's entitled to an
opinion. Mostly, I think everyone here tends to agree on the main point
any way - that it's a bad idea to re-write Narnia...

... and that Turkish Delight needs to be freshly made in order to be
edible. :)

As for the Libretto, I didn't say anything earlier, but that would be
the computer my daddio recently got rid of for eating batteries. 'Twas
great for taking on road trips (as Daddio's road trips were usually
motorcycle trips, not much luggage space), but blew through batteries.
I also hope you aren't a touch-typist. :)

Streak - In the case of the New Beetle, the design philosophy may be
different, but I'm not about to complain about most of the changes.
(mmm, turbonium... and room for big hair!!)

squeaks, who prefers full sized keyboards and a lack of spider-bites.
  

    
Re Narnia: First let it be known that I completely missed the
Christian allegory in the Narnia series as a child. When I reread the
books as an adult, I noticed it more, but chose to ignore it. To me, it
will always be a story of magic and fantasy. It should be known,
however, that releasing a new series of books is not entirely a
"corporate decision." HarperCollins and the CS Lewis Company, which is
run by Lewis relatives, made the decision to look for established
children's writers who'd like to create new story lines within the
world that began with "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe." 

Neil: What kind of turnout do you expect at the NYC signing? (How
early should I be to get a decent seat? <grin>) And, have you ever had
someone famous ask you to sign a book? Someone who left you star
struck? 

Jade Walker
  

    

Neil- I found what I was refering to. It isn't as direct as I misremembered
it to be, but I have always felt it was what was meant. Here's the passage,
from the very end of _The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader"_:

[Aslan has just told Lucy and Edmund that they will never return to Narnia]
"You are too old, children," said Aslan, "and you must begin to come close
to your own world now."
"It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy. "It's _you_. We shan't meet _you_
there. And how can we live, never meeting you?"
"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.
"Are-are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.
"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know
me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought into
Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there."

It isn't specific, but knowing Lewis's leanings, I have never considered
that passage to mean anything other than that Aslan is known as Christ in
our world.

Interesting tidbits: the Witch from Narnia is a daughter of Lilith. How's
that for random.
  

    
Madman -- that was the "embarrassing Aslan turns into a Lamb bit in
Voyage" I was referring to -- although by then he's turned back from a
lamb and into a lion.

Michelle -- the L1 is meant to have a bigger keyboard and I've paid
the extra for the 10 hour battery. I'll let you know how it works out.

Jade -- who left me starstruck and asked for an autograph...? Hmm. I
don't get starstruck very easily, and I don't get starstruck from
famousness. Chip Delany still gets me starstruck. Roger Zelazny did.
Not sure who else would. Elvis Costello, maybe. Steven Sondheim?

I remember the first time I met Lenny Henry being astonished that he
was as thrilled to meet me and Dave McKean as we were to meet him.

But I started my career interviewing famous people. I've known too
many of them. 

Every so often I get one of those "Will you sign a book for
so-and-so?" requests that leaves me going "... you mean it? He -- or
she -- really wants a signed book?" But one is never 100% convinced
that the person in question really *is* a fan...

Sometimes I get famous people in signing lines. Normally I have no
idea who they are -- it happens a lot in LA, when every second person
is an actor, and I figure it out normally when the person running the
signing starts asking them for their autographs and then telling me
what TV show they're on.
  

    
Thanks for all the birthday greetings! I had a pretty fair birthday,
got handed the credit card and sent off to buy books and paint and a
new easel. My birthday hex was light this year, just an ear infection
and no cream at the coffee house... on the easier side of the hex,
which ranges from kamikaze ice cream cones to finding my boyfriend on
top of one of (I thought) my friends on the couch to the whole OJ
thing.

Jinx, I'm so sorry to here that. Strangely, I have an EMG on the 21st,
and I'm curious to see what all will happen, being shot full of
electricity so near the solstice...

Narnia- y'all espousing the pagan/mystic/fairy thing are still
ignoring how much of Christianity is derived from older religions. :) 

Also, losing access to Eden/Narnia/Puff the Magic Dragon/Etc. at
puberty is an extremely Christian thing; your innocence is lost with
the knowledge of sexuality (puberty). A snake (fertility, knowledge)
convinces Eve to break a rule and they're expelled. There's a reason
why nuns are celibate, and unworldly. It's the only way they can retain
access to the mystic parts of Christianity.
Consider that angels (asexual), and children (presexual), are said to
be in "God's Grace". As are nuns (nonsexual). Once these kids become
aware of their own bodies, and focused on more earthly (earthy) things,
they can only see Aslan in their own form... human... Christ.
'Course the lion and the lamb thing, dur. :)

I'll have to go back and re-read the whole series now, just to play
"find the Christian Mythos". 
  

    
Neil -- A good point that no one said the new Narnia books should be
completely secular, simply not explicietly Christian -- an important
distinction.  Also a good point that Aslan is not strictly Christ.
     Good point (making a lot of them lately, aren't you ^^) about
databases allowing you to jump around all out of order and potentially
ruin the plot; even if one didn't jump about, the links themselves
still might give stuff away.  Consider the horse duly buried.
     I was feeling torn between checking out _Stardust_ in order to
give it a '10' and a good review or leaving it for new readers to come
across.  In the end I decided on the latter for the time being, and the
dilemma was taken from me anyway as, when I went back to the library
yesterday, all of the copies had been checked out.



So it's time for another Baby Update:

Yesterday, I took Lori to see the doctor.

So we're sitting there in the examination room and Lori is hooked up
to a machine that is measuring the baby's brain activity to make sure
that it has some, and the doctor is off somewhere else.  So I get bored
just sitting there listening to the machine beep and I get up and grab
Lori's chart from outside of the door.

And eventually the doctor comes back and I say, "Look here, on her
first ultrasound; I assume that this number isn't the age of the baby
at the time of the ultrasound?"

And the doctor says, "Yes, it is."

And I ask, "Well, what about this number here?"

And she replies, "That is also the age of the baby at the time."

To which I replied, "The two numbers are a week apart."

And then there was a long pause and much squinting all 'round, after
which point the doctor said, "Why, so they are."

And it turned out that it had been later discovered that the
ultrasound machine had been miscalibrated and had been giving out the
wrong numbers, yet no one had thought that perhaps it might be a good
idea to go back over the charts and correct the due dates.

So the doctor got out her little due date wheel and spun it around for
a bit.  "Well, according to this, the correct baby age, the baby is
actually due June 11th."

To which I said, "Yesterday."

To which she said, "Yes!"

So we canceled the induction that they scheduled for us against our
will and made plans to run away to Mexico if they try it again.

And we're flying high again. ^_^
  

    
Wow - it's a good thing you caught that miscalculation. It's unnerving
that they had you scheduled for an induction based on the wrong date.
We need to give babies a little leeway with their due dates, I believe.
Especially since there can *obviously* be some error in the
calculation!
  

    
JaNell-- Belated birthday felicitations!

DanGuy-- Deferred birthday congratulations.

Re:  Narnia-- I loved the books as a kid, then heard about the
Christian thing and wondered what they were doing on the shelves at my
yeshiva.  In fact, as I wrote in the last post, I felt terribly
betrayed, as if CS had slipped something nasty past me in a
sugar-coated form. Remember that I was about 9, and at that age, I
believe, ones religious identity can be pretty important.

Ironically, I really like Lewis's overtly Christian writings, which I
think are wise and honest and challenging.  But Narnia... mixed
feelings.  Of course I realize that Lewis wasn't writing to convert
people, indeed I doubt very much if he thought too much about the
little Jewish (and Muslim, etc.) kids who were reading the books.  But
I still have very slightly creeped-out emotions about Narnia.  The 
Golden Compass books, which are overtly anti-religious, don't faze me
in the least because Pullman is so open about his stance.  

The fact that I loved the books at an early age testifies to my
satisfaction that Neil is right-- the power of the books comes from its
pre- and non- christian roots.  Lewis's success to me is that he draws
in elements from so many different cultures.  When his intent is to
unite them all under a Christian banner, I politely step out of the
room (I never liked The Last Battle.)
  

    
Jinx (and JaNell)-- good luck!
  

    
by post, in the Narnia thing Iwrote two posts ago, I meant Topic (74).
Oops.
  

    
No, Len, creeped out is when you're training for sales at Wolfe
Camera, and read the fine print of the training manual only to discover
that it's based on Dianetics...

***SOAPBOX WARNING***
So, Lewis had an agenda? I'm not Christian, but that doesn't bother me
in the least, and never did. Most religions pretty much boil down to
"Play Nice" anyhow. At least in theory.

Look at Heilein - now there's some major socio-political manipulation
going on there, and so what? Books are for more than just
entertainment; the best kind make you think, stretch your mind a bit
even if it's just helping you clarify why you disagree with the author.
Or just helping you to understand someone else's mind set, to explore
the possibilities. Isn't that why we read this stuff?

I guess my point is, a few people sound as if they've been betrayed by
Lewis somehow (if it's all a Christian allegory), as if he were
deliberately mis-leading readers. Why? I (and my children) read books
of all sorts, including those where the author's religion is obvious,
even if it's not overt. Religions I don't belong to. A good story is a
good story, and all religions (and cultures) have them...

Is it the possibility that Narnia is a Christian allegory, that there
is considerably more there than just a children's story, that bothers
the (seemingly) disillusioned, or that it wasn't obvious at the first
read?

JaNell (ducking quickly)
  

    
Question for Linda and anyone else who knows:

What is the limit of posts for this topic? I just noticed that it's
hit 1900 and I am afraid it's somewhere around there.

Shawn - 
currently reading Mark Z. Danielewski's __House of Leaves__ (and doing
so upside down right now before I have to seek out a mirror)