What Attracts You to Narnia?

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hansgeorg
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Re: What Attracts You to Narnia?

Post by hansgeorg » Tue Jan 19, 2016 12:38 pm

thegoldenchesspiece wrote:YES, The Pilgrim's Progress two to three times and it is an amazing allegory and well written, although i believe it was written by John Bunyan... :? Speaking of whom, also wrote The Holy War, another extremely well written allegory. Definitely a must-read.
Waiting for edit since private message.
thegoldenchesspiece wrote:I said that Narnia was an allegory didn't I? :lol: I meant the series: The Magicians Nephew through to The Last Battle. :)
Well, the thing is, it isn't.

In an allegory, there is a one to one correpondence between features of the story and sth you are really talking about, usually in the real world.
Ariel.of.Narnia wrote:(Discussion on the definition of allegory and such should be moved to a more appropriate thread or to PMs, please, so as not to gum up this thread.)
Sorry.
Ariel.of.Narnia wrote:I've never grown out of juvenile fiction, so that bit was never an issue for me. I actually listened to the Focus on the Family audio dramatizations before I read the book (a friend forced me to take her CDs home and give them a listen in the summer of 2005; I acquired the books about a week and a half before LWW came out in theaters). So I guess I kept listening because I was interested in the adventures.
Juvenile's anyway just a convenient label for librarians. And book stores.
Ariel.of.Narnia wrote:"[In your world,] I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there." ~ Aslan While I may not have met Aslan face to face in his fictional, leonine glory in a fictional world of wonders, I, as a reader of fiction, have come to know him, and thus have also seen Christ at a different angle and through the veil of familiarity. And that, my friends, is the reason I love Narnia.
Well said, I might be shy of speaking of spirituality, but I agree.

One more thing, it may well have helped to prepare me to stay true to my first reading of the Eucharist : Real Presence.

Why should Christians in the Real World have less close contact with Christ than fictional characters in Narnia?
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Re: What Attracts You to Narnia?

Post by thegoldenchesspiece » Tue Jan 19, 2016 8:34 pm

@ariel & @hansgeorg my apologies, on the confusion. I misread Pilgrim's Regress. :(
hansgeorg wrote: Why should Christians in the Real World have less close contact with Christ than fictional characters in Narnia?
I don't think we should. I believe he wants to be as close a friend to each of us as anyone can get, and more. Walking beside Him, and asking with Him about things going on in life. Just as C. S. Lewis portrays in Narnia.
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Re: What Attracts You to Narnia?

Post by Ariel.of.Narnia » Wed Jan 20, 2016 12:11 am

@Chess: Hey, don't worry about the misread! Didn't mean to make you feel bad.

@hansgeorg:
Haha, I shall have to use that reasoning if someone asks why I read juvenile books!
And definitely what Chess said about our relationship with Christ. Narnians have the advantage of talking with Aslan face-to-face, hence why it seems easier for them to be close to him. Unfortunately, we (being humans in general) seem to have a natural tendency to be all "out of sight, out of mind", but that's no excuse to not be close to God. Narnia encourages me to be more... connected, I guess (failing to come up with a better word), especially through HHB and VDT, in which direct interaction with Aslan is limited and yet I see his pawprints all over the place, just as I do not see God in this world, but if I take a good look, I see His hand through it all.
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Re: What Attracts You to Narnia?

Post by hansgeorg » Wed Jan 20, 2016 9:46 am

// Narnians have the advantage of talking with Aslan face-to-face, hence why it seems easier for them to be close to him. //

And Catholics have the advantage of talking to Him face to Host.
thegoldenchesspiece wrote:I don't think we should. I believe he wants to be as close a friend to each of us as anyone can get, and more. Walking beside Him, and asking with Him about things going on in life. Just as C. S. Lewis portrays in Narnia.
Look into John Calvin (Protestant Reformer of Geneva) and St Francis of Sales (last bishop of Geneva), read Introduction to the Devout Life by the latter and Institutions of the Christian Religion, or his Bible commentary by the former, see who of these agrees with you.

CSL loved another RC devotional book, "Imitation", by the Medieval St Thomas from Kempen (also known as Thomas a Kempis), but it is the same tradition as Introduction to the Devout Life, more or less.

"Imitation" = CSL's abbreviation of "On the Imitation of Jesus Christ" / " De Imitatione Jesu Christi".
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Re: What Attracts You to Narnia?

Post by Benisse » Mon Jan 25, 2016 2:08 am

I love the Narnia stories because they can be enjoyed on so many different levels -- as a wonderful fantasy, as illustrations of spiritual reality, as character development studies, as commentary on culture and society. Like Ariel and Chess, The Chronicles inspire me in my relationship to the True Lion of Judah, to grow in trust and prayer and obedience and love. I n Horse and His Boy I love the image of Aslan being there for all the ups and downs of Shasta's life... and it is such a comfort that Jesus is just as present, even though we might not see him now.

@ Hansgeorg,
Please don't take this the wrong way; your comments are interesting but you are getting off topic here. I have started an Inspirational Reading Recommendations thread in the Narnia and Faith section of the forum, <https://www.thelionscall.com/forum/view ... f=30&t=599> and encourage you to post your theological reading suggestions there instead. When threads lose their focus, it limits discussion from developing the given topic in depth.
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Re: What Attracts You to Narnia?

Post by Lily of Archenland » Mon Jan 25, 2016 3:50 am

Attraction... I think a lot of it is the sense of wonder, honestly. A bright, golden world where Good can win, every time, even if it takes a while - and all the fun species running around, which, for animal lovers - the idea of being able to talk to them is really something. And sea voyages, and flying... Also, it was my first "portal fantasy" - my first story where Normal People could stumble upon someplace marvelous and different, just around the corner from their everyday lives.

The allegory was... a bigger thing for me when I was younger in some ways.. At this point I start overthinking it and get into theological debates on possible interpretations in my brain, which is a downside. ;) But the wonder - that is still there.
But I like overthinking on worldbuilding sometimes - details are fun, as long as they are a sandbox to play in and not where I live all the time. The fact that it's a mixty-mash of all sorts of different places and myths makes it that much more interesting to try to figure out how it logically synchronizes. ;)

Hans, Ariel, thegoldenchesspiece - I know that we "know" God here, but it still remains that for many of us, religion doesn't always feel very experiential, if that makes sense. And I can see why Narnia feels different on that front. However close someone may feel emotionally to God, there are so many dry spells and periods of silence. And Narnia... To have the dry spells - the Witch's reign and the Telmarine invasion, and all of the times which make Him feel uninvolved and far away - end not in an emotional experience or a word from the right person or a passage of Scripture, but in a presence which can be seen and touch and audibly spoken to, whose footprints you can see and whose breath you feel? Give or take some unusually blessed or mystical folks and visions, how many of us can get that in modern times in this world? So yeah, that longing - maybe a legit part of the attraction of Narnia.
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Re: What Attracts You to Narnia?

Post by Ariel.of.Narnia » Mon Jan 25, 2016 6:35 am

@Lil: Oh, I totally get you on the "not always feeling experiential". That was what I was trying to get at earlier, with the Narnians actually, physically seeing Aslan whereas we won't actually, physically see Jesus till later. When I read Narnia, especially LB, I feel like Jewel, that longing for my true home, largely because I don't feel it here and now in my world, no matter how much I know.
Anyway, I won't gum up this thread with more of that. :)

Now that you mention the fantasy world aspect, Lily, in the words you did, I do remember that playing a part in drawing me in. The most fantasy I had up until Narnia were fairytales and, of those, largely the Disney-fied ones. Narnia was a different sort of fantasy somehow; it wasn't just princesses and knights in shining armour and dragons and happily-ever-afters. It was a bigger world with problems such as you'd find in our world (as opposed to people overcoming a personal curse or something). Narnia was able to achieve all that better than fairytales because Narnia is not a short story.
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Re: What Attracts You to Narnia?

Post by hansgeorg » Mon Jan 25, 2016 11:07 am

Benisse wrote:When threads lose their focus, it limits discussion from developing the given topic in depth.
Developing a given topic in depth involves going into the side issues.

Also, how Aslan in Narnia helped me grasp Christ in the Eucharist is hardly a side issue, nor is defending that against deniers of the real Presence.
Lily of Archenland wrote:Give or take some unusually blessed or mystical folks and visions, how many of us can get that in modern times in this world?
Catholics adoring the Blessed Sacrament?
Ariel.of.Narnia wrote:with the Narnians actually, physically seeing Aslan whereas we won't actually, physically see Jesus till later.
A Host consecrated in a valid Mass IS physically seeing Christ here and now. Jesus' True Body, Born of the Virgin, Pierced on the Cross.

Sometimes a miracle makes this visible. Two of the latest occurred because Novus Ordo Catholics were not handling the Blessed Sacrament properly. One in Buenos Aires, one in Salt Lake City. Flesh from God's Human Heart, Bleeding visibly over the outrage.
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Re: What Attracts You to Narnia?

Post by Tenethia » Mon Jan 25, 2016 4:38 pm

Whathas always attracted me to Narnia was Lewis's style. I loved it when the narrator talked as if to the reader ("The worst thing about sleeping out of doors is that you wake up so dreadfully early.") I also loved how his character's problems could be related to. :)
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Re: What Attracts You to Narnia?

Post by Lily of Archenland » Mon Jan 25, 2016 10:57 pm

Hans - I'm glad for you that you see Narnia as intersecting with a key aspect of your faith, and that this contributes to your attraction to the books. And perhaps I should have been more careful in my wording, as I realize that there are religious practices which have different meanings for some Christians than for others. However, it might be courteous to other members of this forum if we could continue that particular discussion in a theological discussion thread, or a thread about spiritual meanings in Narnia; or if there are only a couple of people you were wanting to engage, perhaps private messages? Because doctrinal differences have a way of being emotionally intense issues which can take over a topic quite quickly, and this thread seems to be intended for a wide range of comments on why people enjoy Narnia, rather than for people discussing solely whether or not Narnia represents a particular aspect of the presence of God. ...Also, since this is a forum with a very large Protestant presence of an unknown number of denominations, and the books themselves were written by an Anglican, there are very good chances that there are a wide range of opinions present on the exact meaning and correct practice of commands of Jesus concerning bread, wine, and remembrance.
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