Category Archives: Narnia

another Narnia poem

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… since I’m the biggest nerd you know.

SUSAN OF NARNIA

You cannot convince me that you have wholly erased
the lamp-post, the summer constellations, the Lion Himself.
You were there, saw the knife, heard the table crack like a giant’s plate.
When your great desire stood before you like a golden beacon,
how could you turn from joy to other invitations?
I refuse to believe that you have plucked from your deepest heart
righted wrong, vanished sorrows, the very death of winter.
You will awaken one day, I am sure, when pain claps your heart,
when British railways tear up your world of nylons and lipstick.
Grief will bring you back to solid ground, to your first love.
After all, once a queen, always a queen.

Currently reading …

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Currently reading …
The Narnian by Alan Jacobs … a biography of C.S. Lewis, based primarily around his imagination, not his life events. I only just started it yesterday, but I’m enjoying it so far!
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger … pretty brilliant.  I keep wondering– if I would have written this book– if I’d have planned everything out beforehand or just written myself into and out of messes.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis … I honestly have only been “away” from Narnia for like 3-4 weeks, and I was craving it again.
The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith … John Green gave this book his thumbs up, so I decided to just buy it instead of waiting for the library to have an available copy, yet it hasn’t completely sucked me in yet.

On my radar …
Mister Death’s Blue-Eyed Girls by Mary Downing Hahn (I didn’t know she was still writing!)
Broken by Laura Hillenbrand (apparently this one is life-changing)
World War Z (started it awhile ago and then got distracted by some other stuff)
plus I have been missing my favorite Hogwarts trio, so I might need to dive back into Deathly Hallows.

Just finished …
Ender’s Game by Scott Orson Card … fascinating!  Really loved this, even though I was skeptical at first that I would.  Now I need to decide just how big of a sci-fi nerd I want to become: there is a host of other Ender-related books, and I don’t know if I should just let Ender’s Game stand alone for me or if I should dive in.  Thoughts?
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak … as always, it was brilliant.  Cannot get over this book.
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger, which inspired me to read Time Traveler’s Wife

What’s on your reading plate right now?  Any suggestions?

Farewell to the Shadow-Lands by Brothers

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If you love Narnia even half as much as I do, you will love this song by Zach Zurn and Julian Flores (the duo known as Brothers), available for a free download here.

Inspired by C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle

all is bright, greenest of greens and bluest of blues
the sweetest of fruits and freshest of springs
Our heart’s desire stands before us. the time has come
stars come home, night falls and the door is shut
“and marvel of marvels, he calls a dog like me Beloved”
we run for miles and miles, further up and further in
saints are home, we are home
Look now here He comes!
“the dream is ended: this is the morning”
“Farewell to the shadow-lands” we cry
Further up and further in, we are alive!

from Brothers, released 24 April 2012

Edmund Pevensie

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Edmund Pevensie of The Chronicles of Narnia is one of my favorite characters in literature.  Jack Lewis sometimes writes small phrases about Edmund that have made me think far beyond the Narnia cannon.

***SPOILER ALERT***  If you have been living under a rock and have not read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, then please stop reading this blog, get yourself to Barnes & Noble, and purchase and read the book already!!!

I am fascinated by Edmund’s transformation.

I love when (in Horse and His Boy), Edmund argues against killing Rabadash, saying, “Even a traitor may mend.  I have known one who did.”  In Dawn Treader, Edmund admits to Eustace, “You were only an ass, but I was a traitor.”  It has been so interesting to me that he became known as King Edmund the Just.  For years, I believed that his experiences ought to have led him to be called King Edmund the Merciful.  After all, justice had once demanded his own death, although Aslan took his place.  But then I realized that Aslan’s substitutionary death was also just– that is, it satisfied the debt and kept Narnia from perishing in fire and water.

I always wonder what it was like when Edmund first returned to England after growing up and becoming a king in Narnia.  In fact, I wrote a poem about it.

EDMUND

The wardrobe door was its own sort of holy baptism—
to push past fur coats with a spiteful heart of stone
then to reemerge moments—or years—later
with one of bold flesh that brimmed with nobility.
I like to think of you returned to boarding school,
a ten-year-old king and warrior, able and just,
your thoughts far from arithmetics as you plumb
the treasures in your core and find there grace—
grace overflowing, for you know as well as anyone
that even a traitor may mend.

I think this song by Kutless is actually about Edmund, and it asks some of my same questions.

What do you think: am I waaaaay too into Narnia?  What are your thoughts on Edmund Pevensie?

the pleasure of re-reading

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I have friends who never re-read books, sometimes due to a lack of time and sometimes because the mystery/thrill has gone out of the story for them after the initial reading.  While I agree that there is nothing quite like that pioneer perusal, re-reading to me is like returning to a precious memory, rejoining a conversation.

Books I re-read most often:
The Chronicles of Narnia (I re-read these almost continually, sometimes up to a dozen times a year!)
The Book Thief
Deathly Hallows
The Last Unicorn
Peace Like a River
poetry by Billy Collins

Sometimes I re-visit old favorites that I’ve not picked up in years, and this is delightful too.  I just finished re-reading Anne of Green Gables, a book I haven’t read in over ten years but which used to be my absolute favorite.  What a joy to listen to Anne’s imaginations, to run over to Orchard Slope to see Diana, to crack that slate over Gilbert’s head, to delight in puffed sleeves, and to watch Marilla soften over the years!  I think I’ll start in on Anne of Avonlea next.

Do you ever re-read books?  If so, which are your favorites to revisit time and again?

falling in love with fictional characters

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Those of us who consider books to be among our best friends often find ourselves in this … situation … where we fall in love with people who don’t exist.

How many of us have wished to be bosom friends with Anne Shirley or to play Himmel Street soccer with Liesel Meminger and Rudy Steiner?  How many finished that epilogue in Deathly Hallows and then cried because our adventures with the Hogwarts trio were over?  And I know that I discover “my perfect boyfriend” from time to time– someone who exists only in the ink on pages– Gilbert Blythe, Jonah Griggs, Augustus Waters.

When I think of all the friends I’ve made through literature, I’m reminded of the power of books.  I hope I can create characters whom people consider friends someday.

Molly Grue, Stargirl Carraway, Leslie Burke and Jess Aarons, the Pevensie siblings, Dickon, Winnie Foster and Jesse Tuck, Swede Land, Cal Trask, Pi Patel, Diana Barry, Prince Caspian, Richard Parker, Max Vandenburg … who are your best literary friends?

YA literature

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Young adult literature is probably my favorite kind of book to read.  It’s fun, accessible, and– if you’re a picky reader like I am– it’s incredibly well written.  Here’s a list of some of my all-time favorite YA lit.

1) Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
2) Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
3) The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
4) Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
5) The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
6) Ordinary People by Judith Guest
7) Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
8) Bridge to Terabithia by Kathleen Patterson
9) Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
10) The Pigman by Paul Zindel

… and so many more (Saving Francesca, Finnikin of the Rock, The Sky is Everywhere, Tuck Everlasting, The Secret Garden …)!  Do you like YA lit?  What are your favorites?  Have you tried writing YA lit before?  What are the critical elements to include in any YA story?

books books books

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I know I blog a lot about how much I love to write, but hand-in-hand with that is my love for reading.  My reading feeds my writing.

What I have read and enjoyed recently:
The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson
Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
The Fault in our Stars by John Green
My entire Billy Collins collection of poetry (I literally re-read through 7-8 Collins books in 3 days)

What I am reading and enjoying now:
The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis (I have probably read this book around 75 times; it’s my favorite, and I re-read favorites the way I eat chocolate.)
Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder
Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta
World War Z by Max Brooks
Desiring God by John Piper
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

I buy books faster than I can read them– and I read fast!  But reading fuels my energy to write, and I find myself returning to my laptop, eager to build my own worlds.

creative theft

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I just read a really interesting Forbes interview with Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like an Artist, which is about”the idea that all creative work is iterative, no idea is original and all creators and their output are a sum of inspirations and heroes from whom they appropriate and the ideas and content they choose to remix and reimagine as their own body of work.”

photo credit: marklarson

For those of you reading who like to create– whether you’re a writer, a musician, a visual artist, etc.– do you think this is true?  Is there truly nothing new under the sun?

In my “swipe file” I’d love to have the following: John Green, Leif Enger, Peter Beagle, Markus Zusak, Melina Marchetta, Billy Collins, C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling.  If I could be one big melting pot of all that brilliance, I’d have a bestseller for sure!!

How about you?

The Last Battle

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On this first night of 2012, I am thinking about my favorite book, The Last Battle, written by C.S. (Jack) Lewis.  If you haven’t read The Chronicles of Narnia yet, then 2012 is your year!  These books have been so important in my life that I find myself reading the entire series about 6-8 times a year.  They are well worth the time invested.

In The Last Battle, there is incredible confusion in Narnia– there is an imposter pretending to be Aslan, the great Lion, who is making terrible commandments.  There is one bit of dialogue I’d like to share with you:

You will go to your death, then,” said Jewel.

“Do you think I care if Aslan doomes me to death?” said the King. “That would  be nothing,  nothing at all. Would it not be better to be dead than to have this  horrible fear that Aslan  has come and is not like the Aslan we have believed in  and longed for? It is as if the  sun  rose one day and were a black sun.”

“I know,” said Jewel. “Or if you drank water and it were dry water. You are in the  right,  Sire. This is the end of all things.”

During my darkest OCD moments, this is how I felt– and actually some of my issues I refered to as “black sun obsessions”– obsessions where the ground was taken from beneath my feet, where I felt as if my entire worldview was being dismantled.  Those nights, my soul felt as if there were no place to land.  I was in free-fall.

But, later in the book, the King and Jewel discover the Truth— that an ape is behind this entire masquerade.

But now, as Tirian looked round on the miserable faces of the Narnians, and thought how they would all believe that Aslan and Tash were one and the same, he could bear it no longer.
“Ape,” he cried, “You lie. You lie damnably. You lie like a Calormene. You lie like an Ape.”

What I am trying to say is this: there are no black suns if you love Jesus Christ– only things that appear to be black suns.  He is bigger than our obsessions, and He is the solid ground beneath our feet.  It may feel as though Christianity could crack down the middle like a split log, but God is our gravity.  I was never in free-fall; I was lying in the great palm of my God.