Reading Recap for January and February 2008

The following are the books that I've read for the year thus far. I think it's quite a diverse list (for me, anyway). It contains a couple classics, some genre fiction, some nonfiction, a couple arcs and some YA literature. Some of the books have been in my tbr pile, but others were chosen because they were part of reading challenges or for book discussion groups. Just for fun, the breakdown looks like this.

• Total number of pages: 5,194
• Number of fiction: 15
• Number of nonfiction: 2
• YA Literature: 4
• Reading challenge books: 2
• Book club/discussion group books: 3
• Arcs: 3
• For class: 6
• Books reviewed: 13 (links are to the original review)
  

The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks
The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
Perelandra (Space Trilogy, Book 2) by C. S. Lewis
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Last Battle (Chronicles of Narnia) by C. S. Lewis
The Magician's Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia) by C. S. Lewis
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia) by C. S. Lewis
The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari
They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Essential C. S. Lewis edited by Lyle W. Dorsett
Pushing Up Daisies (A Dirty Business Mystery) by Rosemary Harris
The Uncommon Reader: A Novella by Alan Bennett
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
The Tin Roof Blowdown (A Dave Robicheaux Novel) by James Lee Burke
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

This weekend I'll finish up Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood for the the third installment of the Year of Reading Dangerously. I'm enjoying it so far, but I think I still like The Handmaid's Tale better. I have an Anchor Books edition, which is full of typos, which is driving me crazy. I'm also reading Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters, which will probably take a while since I'm just dipping into it here and there. It's interesting to see what he was like as a little boy and what influenced him as a writer. It's kind of weird to be reading personal correspondence. I don't really write many letters, but if I did I'm not sure I would want them published after my death. There is something about it that seems wrong in a way. I don't know, maybe it's just me. I'm not very far into this collection of letters. Right now, Doyle is still a young boy away at school. He had a very annoying habit of writing entire letters without capitalization or punctuation, which makes them a little difficult to read. I've skipped ahead and found that he does indeed begin to use punctuation a little more later on. Thank goodness!

Perelandra by C. S. Lewis

After leaving Narnia, our class has moved on to some of the adult fiction of C. S. Lewis. We read Perelandra (1943), which is actually book 2 in his Space Trilogy series. Out of the Silent Planet (1938) is the first book, and That Hideous Strength (1945) is the last book. Like the fiction Lewis wrote for children, Perelandra is full of symbolism, and certain spiritual themes run throughout the story -- "struggle between good and evil and the consequences of rebellion against God's laws." Ransom is a college professor who has traveled to Mars or Malacandra where he met creatures besides the Martians. There he met the eldila, which are spiritual beings much like what we think of when we think of angels. Now, the Oyarsa of Malacandra (the great eldil ruler) has come to Earth or Tellus to ask Ransom for help. It seems that Evil is planning an attack on Venus or Perelandra. The attack is to come in the form of temptation, not war. Perelandra is still a young planet and is only inhabited by a King and Queen who live in a perfect world where they know no sorrow or pain. It is much like the paradise of Adam and Eve before the Fall. That's what Ransom is charged with doing though he doesn't know it until he gets there. He must stop them from making the same mistake as the first people on Earth. Much of the story of Ransom on Venus is the description of the planet, which is a series of floating islands with a golden sky.

Ransom isn't the only person from Earth who makes the trip to Perelandra. He's followed there by Weston, who's also an academic. However, Weston is the antithesis to Ransom. He's a scientist and has no ethical qualms about using science in the name of progress no matter what the cost. Weston is primarily concerned with interplanetary conquest. He sees the inhabitants of these other worlds as savages. Weston's philosophy about good and evil is that they're one in the same. According to him, what Ransom calls God is what we are striving for and what Ransom calls the Devil is the energy or force that pushes us towards what we desire. (This is what Lewis was saying in the Narnia series when the Calormenes say that Tash and Aslan are the same thing just called by different names.) Weston is eventually taken over by Evil and begins trying to convince the Queen of Perelandra that Maleldil (God) wants her to disobey him. There is one commandment that He has given her and the King and that is that they may not spend the night on the fixed lands. He doesn't give them any reason for this taboo. He simply wants them to obey out of faith and love. Weston's arguments are difficult to rebut because they always contain just enough truth to make sense to the Queen. He takes what is good and perverts it to his own needs and desires. (Again this is directly out of the philosophy of Lewis who believes that evil doesn't exist in and of itself, but rather is a perversion of good.)

Perelandra is full of symbolism, but it's not simply Christian fiction. It's a story of good vs. evil in all its forms. The book is well-written and makes the reader stop and think about things in a new way. I highly recommend this one to everyone who likes a good story.

The Last Battle

Whereas The Magician's Nephew tells the Narnian creation story, The Last Battle tells the story of how Narnia ends. The last king of Narnia, Tirian, is under attack from the Calormenes and calls for help in the name of Aslan. Tirian knows that throughout Narnia's history, the children have come from another world to assist Narnia in times of trouble. This time is no exception. Jill and Eustace appear ready and willing to help the King fight the evil forces at work in Narnia. Instead of a wardrobe or a pool, this time there is a stable that serves as a passage into another world.

However, things don't seem to be working out the same way this time as they have in the past. In fact, it looks as if Narnia will be destroyed. The stars are falling out of the sky. The waters are rising up and flooding the earth. Could this really be the end for Narnia? Will Aslan intervene or is it simply time for this world to end?

I don't normally read fantasy, but I really enjoyed these books. As I said earlier, I'm sure part of it is the fact that I had a great deal of background information on Lewis and his beliefs, which helped in understanding it. However, even without that, I think I would have liked these stories. Lewis is a really good writer. He tells a good story, and his characters are well-rounded.

We are on to some of Lewis' adult fiction now -- Perelandra. I've just started it, so I don't really know what to expect from it, yet. But, if the Narnia books are any gauge, I'm sure I'm going to love it.

The Magician's Nephew

The Magician's Nephew is probably my favorite of the three books that I read in this series. The protagonists in this story are also children --Digory and Polly. The children stumble upon Digory's Uncle Andrew in the attic of their row house while exploring. Uncle Andrew is dabbling in magic. (Lewis had a great respect for science, but he didn't believe it was right to try to alter the natural order of things.) Uncle Andrew has been successful in sending a guinea pig to "another world" and wants to see if he can succeed with a human. He tricks Polly into touching a magic ring, which indeed does send her to the Woods between the Worlds. In this place, there are numerous pools that connect to different worlds.Digory takes a ring and goes to find Polly and bring her back. However, once there they decide to explore a little more before returning home. They end up in a world in which they come across Jadis, the White Witch. In this world, everything is dead or dying, including the sun. They find out that there has been a great cataclysmic battle that has destroyed everything in this land known as Charn. The children try to escape from Charn, but Jadis grabs hold of them as they slip on their magic rings to return to the Woods between the Worlds. Eventually, Jadis follows the children back to their world in London where she wreaks havoc on the city. Digory is forced to use the magic rings one more time in an attempt to remove Jadis from their world and return her to Charn. During a struggle, quite by accident, the cabby with his horse and Uncle Andrew are transported along with Digory, Polly, and Jadis back to the Woods between the Worlds. However, instead of returning Jadis to Charn , they end up in the wrong pool and find themselves in a world full of darkness. They hear a voice singing far off and are mesmerized by it. Then strange and wonderful things begin to happen all around them.

"There were no words. There was hardly a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it. The voice was suddenly joined by other voices; more voices than you could possibly count. They were in harmony with it, but far higher up the scale: cold, tingling, silvery voices. The second wonder was that the blackness overhead, all at once, was blazing with stars. They didn't come out gently one by one, as they do on a summer evening. One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand , thousand points of light leaped out -- single stars, constellations, and planets, brighter and bigger than any in our world. Far away, and down near the horizon, the sky began to turn grey. A light wind, very fresh, began to stir. The sky in that one place, grew slowly and steadily paler. You could see the shapes of hills standing up dark against it. All the time the Voice went on singing. The eastern sky changed from white to pink and from pink to gold. The Voice rose and rose, till all the air was shaking with it. And just as it swelled to the mightiest and most glorious sound it had yet produced, the sun arose. And as its beams shot across the land the travellers could see for the first time what sort of place they were in. It was a valley through which a broad, swift river wound its way, flowing eastward towards the sun. Southward there were mountains, northward there were lower hills.

They finally get a glimpse of the Singer himself:
"It was a Lion. Huge, shaggy, and bright it stood facing the risen sun. Its mouth was wide open in song..."

The Lion continues his song and he sings the grass and trees into existence. Then the animals began to come up from the earth.
"Can you imagine a stretch of grassy land bubbling like water in a pot? For that is really the best description of what was happening. In all directions it was swelling into humps. They were of very different sizes, some no bigger than mole-hills, some as big as wheelbarrows, two the size of cottages. And the humps moved and swelled till they burst, and the crumbled earth poured out of them, and from each hump there came out an animal."

Then the Lion touched a pair of each kind of animal and he breathed on them and gave them awareness of themselves and the gift of speech. He told them to love, to think, and to speak. In other words, they were created with a purpose.

Aslan addresses the children and tells Digory to go to a specific mountain and get a silver apple off of a tree. There is a warning on the gate telling all who enter to only take an apple for others or beware. Of course, Digory is tempted to eat one himself, but he gets frightened when he sees a bird watching him from one of the branches of the tree. Then much to his horror, he discovers that Jadis is in the garden, as well. She tries to get him to take an apple for his mother who is ill back in his own world. Jadis tells him that he wouldn't have to tell anyone that he took one to his mother. She overplays her hand by saying that he could just leave Polly in Narnia and return to his mother. This breaks the spell. Digory knows that the witch is evil and couldn't have any one's best interests at heart if she thought he could possibly leave Polly behind. So, he once again withstands the temptation and flees. Aslan uses the silver apple to plant a tree that will protect Narnia for a while (but not forever because Digory brought evil into Narnia when Jadis came in with him). This is how Narnia is been born.

Leaving Narnia

As I've mentioned before, I've been reading and discussing The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Magician's Nephew, and The Last Battle in my class on C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. There are four other books in the Chronicles of Narnia series that I would like to go back and read at some point. But, I'm actually quite sad to be leaving Narnia for now. I know without a doubt that I've gotten so much more from these books having discussed them in class than I would have had I read them on my own. That makes me wonder what I may miss when reading outside of a classroom setting. I think that's one of the reasons I like participating in online book discussions through blogging. It gives me the opportunity to get the opinions of other readers. Because we all bring preconceived notions, our own life experiences and likes and dislikes to our reading, we're bound to glean different things from the same book. The same is true of books that I discuss with my face to face book club, as well. I may not always agree with the opinions of other readers, but I think I always get a better understanding of the work through discussion.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is the first book Lewis wrote in this series, but it's not the first in the story chronologically. The Magician's Nephew, which was actually published next to last in the series actually tells the story of the creation of Narnia. There was a movie version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe put out in 2005, which was pretty good. However, there are a number of differences between the book and the film, which is usually the case. The story opens with four siblings, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy arriving at the country home of an eccentric old professor. The children are sent away from London due to the bombing raids of WWII. (Lewis himself actually took in some orphans from London during the war.) During a game of hide-and-seek, Lucy stumbles upon a magnificent wardrobe in an empty room of the sprawling house. Once inside, she discovers that there is another world on the other side of the wardrobe. Within minutes of being in Narnia, she meets Mr. Tumnus, the faun who intends to kidnap her for the White Witch, Jadis. The witch is well aware of the prophecy that declares four humans will one day rule over Narnia and return things to their rightful state. All the inhabitants of Narnia have been given strict instructions by Jadis to immediately bring to her any "sons of Adam" or "daughters of Eve" that may appear in Narnia. Mr. Tumnus can't bring himself to turn Lucy over to Jadis, so he lets her go. She returns to the professor's house through the wardrobe. Of course, her brothers and sisters don't believe her when she tells them of this other world. This is the beginning of the children's adventures in Narnia. Eventually all the children will find their way to Narnia. Aslan is the creator of Narnia. He is described as a good lion, but not a tame lion. This is in reference to Lewis' belief that when faced with God, depending upon what is in some one's heart, they will either find perfect love and peace or fear and hatred. He also believed that evil is simply the perversion of good. In other words, evil doesn't exist on its own. The witch's spell over Narnia begins to break when Aslan returns.

Update on Class

I have been meaning to post something about the class I'm taking on C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien but haven't gotten around to it until now. I am really enjoying this class -- especially the part where I don't have to turn in assignments or take tests. I just read at my leisure, show up and take part in the discussion. It's great!

The first half of the class is devoted to Lewis, and I didn't know a great deal about him before I began. He's a fascinating guy. He is most famous for his Chronicles of Narnia series. However, first and foremost Lewis was a scholar and wrote extensively on a wide variety of subjects -- Christian apology texts, literary criticism, literary history, philosophy, and theology. Much of his academic writing is erudite to say the least. The most difficult piece to this point has been The Abolition of Man, which is "an exploration into the nature of humankind and morality." He thinks about things in a way that I think most people never dream of. I'm not sure I would have understood a great deal of this without the class discussion.

Lewis was raised in a house full of books. He describes a childhood in which he was given access to the seemingly endless supply of books in his house with no restrictions. He was free to read anything he could get his hands on. He spent hours reading and honing his imagination. Following the death of his mother when he was young, Lewis lost all faith in God. His eventual conversion to Christianity happened over a lifetime, which gave him a unique experience in many ways.

Outside of academic and Christian circles, he is most well-known for The Chronicles of Narnia series. There are seven books in the series, which begins with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and ends with The Last Battle. It's interesting to read about how he wrote these books. Many people think that Lewis set out to write a children's series to introduce children to some of his ideas about Christianity. Lewis says that he never intended to write a series with an overtly Christian message. In fact, Lewis explains his philosophy about writing in one of his essays. He believes that you must start with a good story and then if there is any message there, it'll come out of its own accord. He insists that the series began with a single mental image that came to him when he was about sixteen years old. This image was of a faun in a snowy wood carrying packages. Later, other images came to him, including the lion (who would become Aslan in the stories). He didn't do anything with these images until much later when he actually began writing the first book in the Chronicles series. The book was actually written for his goddaughter, Lucy Barfield. After reading some of his academic pieces, there is much of his philosophy that becomes evident in these stories for children. We are currently discussing The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and then we'll begin the Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle.

We won't start talking about Tolkien, who was a close friend of Lewis, until the second part of the semester. I'm not sure I'll enjoy it quite as much, but I'm willing to give it a chance. As I've said before, I haven't read any of the LOTR, which is required reading for the class. So, I need to get started on that pretty soon so I'll be ready for the discussion. But for now, I'm happy in the land of Narnia.