Wonderwall 01

A Narnian Goes To Oz

"Our Christmas dinner went off very well, and since then Jack [C. S. Lewis] took us to the Wizard of Oz (being revived again) and went book shopping with Davy, so there's been some fun for the boys."

--Joy Davidman, from Out of My Bone: The Letters of Joy Davidman, p. 271.

I'm always rather curious about what my favorite authors have read or seen of my other favorite things, and here we have C. S. Lewis taking his soon-to-be wife and stepsons to see MGM's The Wizard of Oz over the Christmas holidays in 1955 (after all the Narnia Chronicles have been written, if not yet published). No record of his opinion of the film, though.

Daily Pictures #22

The Little Gods

"Some Christian readers may be troubled by the wild paganism to be found in the last few chapters of Prince Caspian—the river gods and forest goddesses, Silenus and Bacchus and his maenads. As Susan says, “I shouldn’t have felt safe with Bacchus and his wild girls if we’d met them without Aslan.” She’s quite right: Bacchus and his train would be a dangerous lot indeed if they were left to their own devices. Those who don’t believe it can visit Panama City some Spring Break and see for themselves. But Aslan is here, and all that wildness and freedom is an expression of the enlivening, joy-giving, creative energies of Aslan himself. What Lewis says of the God of the Bible is true of Aslan:

'It is He who sends the rain into the furrows till the valleys stand so thick with corn that they laugh and sing. The trees of the wood rejoice before Him and His voice causes the wild deer to bring forth their young. He is the God of wheat and wine and oil. In that respect He is constantly doing all the things that Nature-Gods do: His is Bacchus, Venus, Ceres all rolled into one.'

This is not polytheism that is breaking out in Narnia. The little nature gods of Narnia do not set themselves up as rivals to Aslan. They are his servants, just as Trufflehunter and the Pevensies, and now Trumpkin are his servants."

--Myth Became Fact: Prince Caspian, Jonathan Rogers

10 Books A Day: #65

The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe...C. S. Lewis...Collier Books

Prince Caspian...C. S. Lewis...Collier Books

The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader...C. S. Lewis...Collier Books

The Silver Chair...C. S. Lewis...Collier Books

The Horse And His Boy...C. S. Lewis...Collier Books

The Magician's Nephew...C. S. Lewis...Collier Books

The Last Battle...C. S. Lewis...Collier Books

A Book Of Narnians...C. S. Lewis, Pauline Baynes...Harper Trophy

The Land Of Narnia...Brian Sibley...Harper & Row

Companion To Narnia...Paul F. Ford...Collier Books

Tales Before Narnia...ed. Douglas A. Anderson...Ballantine Books/Del Rey


The Secret Country Of C. S. Lewis...Anne Arnott...Eerdmans

The Magical Worlds Of Narnia...David Colbert...Berkley

Past Watchful Dragons...Walter Hooper...Wipf & Stock

The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures In Narnia...Laura Miller...Little, Brown


Now begins a healthy run of books by and about C. S. Lewis and his works. These are all related to the Narnia Chronicles. A Book of Narnians is made up of quotations from the books accompanied by new paintings by Pauline Baynes, fleshing out and adding to her original illustrations from the series. Companion to Narnia is a handy dandy little encyclopedia of all names and terms in and associated with the Chronicles. Tales Before Narnia is a collection of stories that influenced Lewis. The Magical Worlds Of Narnia is a rather slapdash "look behind" the Narnia stories; it's one of a series (along with ones about Harry Potter and Middle-Earth) that seem to have been produced to ride on the coat-tails of the movies' popularity. Walter Hooper's and Laura Miller's books seem to rather nicely balance each other out. What Hooper's reverence and theological insight might miss, Miller's literary and "skeptical" enthusiasm can supply. Laura Miller loves Narnia; what baffles her is how Narnia can have anything to do with a religion that she finds repugnant, how Lewis could sneak "past watchful dragons" in her own mind. She comes up with good arguments why anyone (not just Christians) can read and profitably enjoy the Chronicles, and it seems unlikely, once having taken this stance, that she will change it. But like Susan at the end of The Last Battle we can still hope for her future; after all, anyone who is a Friend of Narnia has something going for them.

Book Count: 828.

Glenstorm and Peepiceek

Another addition to my Narnia cast of legendary creatures. Glenstorm the Centaur with broadsword and mace, and Peepiceek, the Mouse second-in-command. I got them at Hastings on Saturday for $12.99. They are in the 3 and 3/4 " format. While I was trolling about in various on-line stores I saw that there was supposed to be a Satyr in the 6" format coming out sometime. Musts to get in the smaller format: Reepicheep, Trufflehunter, and Trumpkin.

Asterius

From the upcoming Prince Caspian comes Asterius, a minotaur, a member of the Old Narnians who fight against the tyranny of King Miraz. I got this at Toys'R'Us for $9.99. It has twenty points of articulation, the most unusual of them being a jointed jaw.

Asterius is part of the larger format Narnia toys; the only ones so far are Peter, Edmund, Caspian, Miraz, Asterius, and Aslan. The smaller format has far more characters and I'm afraid I may have to start buying them as well. There is a castle made for this smaller format, very nicely modelled, for $70.

I love this figure, not only because it is a mythological creature, but because Asterius, as a good character, plays against what expectations we might have had about minotaurs from the first movie, when they all seemed to be working for the witch. I'm glad that there is no racial stereotyping in Narnia.

King Miraz

Another new Narnia figure. King Miraz from Prince Caspian, and as the card says, Caspian's evil uncle.

The figure came from Toys 'R' Us, and cost $9.99. It is 6" tall, has 20 points of articulation, and comes with four pieces of removable armor, a sword, shield, and helmet. As before, it comes from Playalong Toys under Jakks Pacific.

Jack and His Box

(Picture above: 'Jack' Lewis and "one of his favorite toys.")

Prince Caspian is right around the corner, the second movie in The Chronicles of Narnia. There will be many new action figures produced, of a greater variety than those made for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Besides such human characters as the Pevensie children, Prince Caspian, and Miraz, there will be a centaur, a satyr, a faun, a werewolf, a griffin, a dwarf, and Talking Beasts such as Reepicheep and Trufflehunter. In a sense these releases will bring things full circle, since the imaginative world of C. S. Lewis, creator of Narnia, began with a box of toys.

C. S. Lewis (who at the age of four rebelled against his nickname 'Babbsy' and pointed at himself declaring, "He is Jacksie"; and Jacksie or Jack he was ever after to family and friends) and his older brother Warren ('Warnie') developed their imaginary world in the 'little end room' of Little Lea, their childhood home in Ireland. This room was furnished with books, art materials, and of course toys by their loving parents, and in the sacrosanct privacy there the boys wrote, dreamed, and played. The world they created was 'Boxen'.

Warnie was fascinated with India, steamships, and trains, but Jack's interests tended towards knights in armor and 'dressed animals'. They managed to combine the two, and 'India' (an island now, separated from the continent) and 'Animal-land' became Boxen, peopled by characters based on the lead, tin, china, and stuffed animals they kept in boxes in an old trunk.

The playings they had together developed the milieu, but it was Jack who wrote and drew the stories and pictures. Anthropomorphic animals share Boxen with human characters, but the surviving stories show that Boxen contains little of the whimsy, romance, or adventure of Narnia. Instead most of the tales involves politics and social wrangling, reflections of the ordinary 'grown-up' world that was most familiar to the boys. As the Lewis brothers were three years apart in age they boarded at different schools, but the world of Boxen was something they could dive into together whenever they were home for the holidays.

The brothers grew up; Warnie joined the army and Jack went to Oxford. World War One came and went; Jack became a professor at Magdalen College and Warnie shipped overseas to China, but still whenever they went home to Little Lea they went over the relics of Boxen. Jack even went so far as to collate the manuscripts he had written into an Encyclopedia Boxoniana, giving the history and timeline of what they had created. But when their father died and Little Lea had to be sold, changes needed to be faced and decisions made.

Both men were now in their early thirties. Warnie, though half a world away, expressed more concern about what would happen to Boxen than any other material consideration, should Jack have to sell and empty the house before he could return. He had often said, and now repeated in a letter questioning what would happen to their old playthings, how he hated the thought of other children playing with them, as it would alter the meaning he attached to them. Jack wrote him back:

"The trunk in the attic. I entirely agree with you. Our only model for the dealing with our world is the heavenly [Father's] method of dealing with this, and as he has long since announced his intention of ending the universe with a general conflagration, we will follow suit. If you and I are together for it, I should even propose...that we reduce all the characters to their original lead and bury the solid pig that will result. Rolling stock can of course only be buried as you can't melt it except in a furnace. I should not like to make an exception even in favour of Benjamin. After all these characters (like all others) will only live in 'the literature of the period': I fancy that when we look at the actual toys again (a process from which I anticipate no pleasure at all), we shall find the discrepancy between the symbol (remember the outwards and visible form of Hedges, the Beetle--or Bar--or even Hawki) and the character, rather acute. No, Brother. The toys in the trunk are quite plainly corpses. We will resolve them into their elements, as nature will do to us. As to stage sets: I can't remember whether I did come across some and put them in the chest of paper keeps in the study, or whether I merely decided that if I did come across any I would do so. The solid bits--banks, houses, etc.--I think should be burned: but a few side and back sheets should be preserved..." (By which it seems clear there were some 'sets' and scenery included.)

Some months later, the house sold and Warnie back from abroad, the brothers went to Little Lea for the last disposals. Among their chores, Warnie described the final fate of the Boxen toys in his diary:

"Next we took turn about in digging a hole in the vegetable garden in which to put our toys--also a heavy job--and then carried the old attic trunk down and buried them: what struck us most was the scantiness of the material out of which that remarkable world was constructed: by tacit mutual consent the boxes of characters were buried unopened."

But Boxen never really died. Throughout their lives Jack and Warnie returned again and again to the stories, and in reading them could touch their earliest childhood once more. After Jack wrote the Chronicles of Narnia he would sometimes lend out these stories to child friends if they showed an interest. When Jack himself died Warnie was prepared to burn them all, as being too painful to keep, when Walter Hooper, Lewis's one-time secretary, intervened and salvaged what was left of some bundles of papers set for the fire. He has since published what remains of the Boxen tales as Boxen: The Imaginary World of the Young C. S. Lewis.

Who knows what uses some young dreamer might make of the new Narnia toys, with its knights and mythological creatures? Perhaps he'll develop his own mythos, write his own books, and add to the harmless pleasures of the world.

Little Lea, once set in the middle of fields, is now surrounded by houses. In its garden, for seventy-eight years, has moldered the trunk that holds all that is mortal of Boxen.

Let's go dig it up. After all, it's got to be the ultimate Lewis collectible.