I don't know if you've ever felt that slight wistfulness at the end of a fantasy movie, a sigh of oh, I wish i was a kid slaying imaginary dragons with my plastic sword once again... I felt that after watching Peter Pan, and more recently, after watching The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. The latter movie, I thought was really well made.. Once again New Zealand landscapes (man, don't you just want to just GO THERE one day?) and once again, fabulous computer graphics(some of the graphics were done in Mumbai - if you're interested, i did a piece on that, its at http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/02/11/stories/2006021102930800.htm)
I knew I would use this blog to advertise my articles at some point or the other. Anyways, to resume - the movie really took my back to childhood days, and I went back and read the entire series again...
And of course, it struck me just how Christian it all is. Aslan is very obviously Jesus Christ in another form (he even says to the kids at some point - I am there in your world, but i go by a different name) and the children's relationship with him is also very very Christian, the half awed half joyous surrender to this terrible yet beautiful creature. But the question is, is that necessarily a bad thing? I don't think so. I think it really gives depth to the story, and adds a certain richness to it. I don't think Lewis could have conveyed that same sense of fervour and love for the land if he hadn't brought some philosophy with him, and if that philosophy is Christian religion, so what then? Personally, I'm a sucker for anything that has to do with history, culture, and religion, from Quo Vadis to Xena Warrior Princess - ok, not quite Xena Warrior Princess, but something slightly better than that - The Mummy, maybe...
Hercules is my personal fav. The first time I saw that show, Hercules is travelling through Thebes, or Ithaca or one of those Greek-type places, and he runs into another warrior. "I am Hercules" he booms out. The second warrier says, "You got any ID, pal?"
Another writer who uses Christian archetypes brilliantly is Philip Pullman. I don't know if he's as famous as the rest, but I do believe they're making a movie of his books, and probably will hit the big time if that does well. The man is a genius - he uses Christian mythology beautifully, constructing a war between men, the church, and angels, and sets it against a backdrop of the multiverse and atomic physics a la Michael Crichton, and the whole is wonderfully poetic, very reminiscent of the romantic poets, and also William Blake - the latter almost to the point of plagiarism. His lead character Lyra, is, I suspect, another form of Blake's Lyca, who is in search of her lost parents - rather similar in a metaphorical sense to the main theme in Pullman's novels. I even spotted one or two Homeric similes, a slightly sardonic parody of Westerns, some very Biblical passages, and also a bit of Hinduism maybe, in the gods that the witches pray to?
But more than any of this, the story itself is heartbreakingly beautiful, and I thoroughly enjoyed as much as I did any of the great classics i read through my course in literature.
Another fantasy writer I read til 3 in the morning on a regular basis was Robert Jordan - a lot more adult (in the sense that its for a slightly older age group) and pretty cool cos the women in his novel are as powerful, if not more powerful than the men... Tho as the series progresses, it just kind of descends into one power struggle between the men and the women, and the actual battle between good and evil becomes immaterial and boring. But the first few novels in the series are great - but none of them can be read more than once, so find a library that stocks it all! I wasted a LOT of money on that series.
Anyone knows if this Terry Brooks is any good? I would buy it, but the Robert Jordan buying frenzy has left me a little wary of spending any more money in this genre.... Someone do tell me!
22 comments:
It is wonderful to find someone who actually sees the beauty of Pullman's prose. his style is so lucid and clear that it makes it very hard for the reader to put down his work. If you notice Pullman also does not allow you to be a passive reader becuase there is a constant urge to get to the root of the allusions he has made.what i really love about His Dark Materials trilogy is the way he combines science and religion/philosophy.This particular synthesis has always been of deep interest to me because i believe that they are but two sides of the same coin. At the risk of sounding pretentious,may i be allowed to commend your very entertaining and astute style of writing. It is a pleasure to read work wherein the references do not sound as if filched from someone else's thesis absract. I guess that is what a Lit course trainsyou to do best.
Wow thanx! Thats a great way to start the day, getting such a compliment... I'm also glad to find somebody else who reads pullman... wasn't the last book just heartbreaking? I was moping around for a week after it!
and really interesting about science and religion being the two sides of the same coin... i've always believed (and this, i admit, is probably from reading other people's theses) that science has simply transplanted religion as a school of thought by which we live our lives - it has as many flaws and loopholes, and future generations may look back at us and laugh, the way we do about the days when religion was used to explain the mysteries of the universe!
you hit the nail on the head.Atleast in the there was the element of wonder in religion which, i won't deny, is to be found in science too. Yet even in science it is only those researchers who are passionate about their subject who retain this sense of wonder. We don't look at the world like a child does anymore. But you have to admit atleast science makes people question its premises, religion expects you to follow unquestioningly. Maybe in the beginning, religion was meant to explain the wonder that is life to man but somewhere along the line it has morphed into a way of disciplining people and conditioning their thinking.and yes i really cried after the last book.Amber Spyglass was really really beautiful in the choices that its characters made and the manner of resolution.
Personally, I'm a sucker for anything that has to do with history, culture, and religion, from Quo Vadis to Xena Warrior Princess - ok, not quite Xena Warrior Princess, but something slightly better than that - The Mummy, maybe...
Hmm. Personally I thought Xena: WP was WAY better than "The Mummy." ;)
ladykate,
lol... sorry... you've got a xena pic on yr profile and everything... how on earth did you come across my blog????
Yeah have to agree that Xena makes more sense than the Mummy..that was one really bad movie that went beyond the usual Hollywood standards of distortion. Wilbur Smith was nothing compared to this..atleast he had a passion for the subject if not the country and the continent.
oh dear... i seem to be outnumbered here... i kind of watched the mummy about 50 times, and i could still watch it again i think... of course, rachel weiz might have something to do with it...
Hey,
I replied to your comment. I'm not going to paste it here, in a cheap tactic to get more comments on my blog ;)
I'm afraid I haven't read Pullman, so I can't relate. But I can wholly empathize on the Wheel Of Time thing, since I'm another unfortunate addict who went and bought the first 8 books. I really regret it now. Terry Brooks is alright. His Shannara series was, in fact, the first fantasy set I read back in school. It's nothing path-breaking, just retreads a lot of the usual Tolkien ground without the epic quality of LOTR (It's interesting, the number of Terries writing fantasy - apart from Brooks, there's Terry Goodkind and the brilliant Terry Pratchett. What's the deal?). If you like science-meets-fantasy/religion, you should also try Neuromancer by William Gibson. It is the most brilliant sci-fi book of the last couple of decades (among its several accomplishments, it reportedly coined the terms 'cyberspace' and 'virtual reality', and laid the foundation - along with Grant Morrison's The Invisibles - for the Matrix Trilogy). Of course, the books of Douglas Adams goes without saying (especially the somewhat underrated Dirk Gently series).
Man, I seem to be making a career out of writing loooong comments. Going back to work now...
p.s. Rachel Weisz is hot!
Terry Pratchet rocks!Carpe Jugulum was the first i read of his Discworld novels and i have been hooked ever since. I love the understated cynical humour that runs through it and the absurdity is what got me hooked in the first place. But there is of course no equal to Douglas Adams whose loss to the Sci Fi world of lit will be greatly mourned. He was the best and as Eyefry points out his Dirk Gently series is HIGHLY underrated.Sheesh! this lit course is really getting to me. I can't write normally anymore.
and yeah Rachel Wiesz is very very hot!!!
eyefry,
ah, i haven't yet picked up the dirk gently stuff tho people have recommended it strongly - but boy that hitchhiker series is great... marvin the paranoid android i think is a character that has reached legendary proportions. terry pratchett was enjoyable too, the one or two books i read.. but i have this (possibly unreasonable) mental block against any writer who churns out the stuff at regular intervals - i keep picturing a syndicate of writers in the back office - so i haven't kept pace with all his stuff, but the few i've read were very entertaining.
and thanks for the neuromancer tip, i slightly dont have a book to read right now, and you know how annoying that feeling is... will pick it up on my way home.
gitler,
you seem to be in the first stage that any literature student passes through - the realisation stage, where you find words like 'plethora' and 'eclectic' creeping, to your horror, into your everyday conversation. next comes the resignation stage, where you realise you're destined to be made fun of by you friends, and finally, my stage, where i engage some hapless soul in coversation and use words like disestablishmentarianism cos there's nothing else to show for my five years of education!
Hey Mr. Condescending,
Your latest comment addressed to gitler sounds dreadfully worldly wise. Anyway. I agree with you, as far as the post goes. What do you think of Dan Brown, by the way? And I particularly enjoyed Xena as a kid, although it often bordered on pornography. Hercules was fun too. But there are very few people who can fiddle around with actual mythology and retain both authenticity and creativity.
gitler,
Continue using big words. You wouldn't be you if you didn't.
manasi,
ok alright, with so many people pro-xena, i'll admit i've actually only seen one or two shows - and the first one i saw, there was a music competition, where one guy danced to a supposedly ancient version of 'dancing in the moonlight' and the rest of them played heavy metal on prehistoric guitars, so maybe i was a little prejudiced...
gitler,
i'm so sorry, did i sound horribly condescending? wasn't my intention!
oh i keep forgetting things:
manasi,
dan brown - i enjoyed da vinci code, but i wouldn't read it again i dont think. i picked up another book, which i simply couldn't get thro, it was so boring... i think it was deception point. but then i was at the time studying for my shakespeare paper, so maybe that had something to do with it...
No absolutely not. You are not in the least bit condescending.You just sound like an 80 yr old retired postmaster who has seen it all and done it all. nope not in the least bit condescending...just an acknowledgement of the burdens that one has to shoulder as one gets older and the recognition that one has to guide the younger generation which would include pretentious wannabe writers like me!!
Nope not condesceding at all
LOL;-)
Manasi: that I take as a genuine compliment froma person much more academically accomplished than I am!
Blush;-)
gitler,
lol that was a really good one... manasi, having called me mr condescending, then promptly gave you one condescending compliment herself!
and hey, the minute you call yourself pretentious, you no longer are that, right? plus you write really well, was going thro your blog and you have some really nice fiction. me i'm so used to filing reports about mutual funds and vitrified tiles that i've completely lost my faculty for creative writing, so you're way ahead of me, child!
manasi,
you deserved that!
Thank you ever so much O! great and mighty one. And i "vociferously" object to beeing called a child..that too by you!!!
"me i'm so used to filing reports about mutual funds and vitrified tiles that i've completely lost my faculty for creative writing,"... Now that is the kind of turn of phrase that I really admire. No one ever loses that creative spark. Its always hiding somewhere so give it a chance.
Mutual Funds and Vitrified Tiles..sounds like a nice opening line of a poem a la Ogden Nash!!
gitler,
with 'child', i was going for the irony, but then, everyone tells me that they can't figure out when i'm being ironical and when i'm talking straight :(
as for the rest of your comment... well, i have tanned severely tooling around to assignments on my bike, but believe me, somewhere in here, my cheeks are glowing red!
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