hobbit_of_Narnia wrote:Apparently he was requested to make the changes to the US version because people thought children would think all the things they were afraid of would just disappear if the island of dreams did.
That makes sense. I actually felt a little hollow? disappointed? at it completely disappearing, and liked the vanishing into the distance (which I've only heard for the first time when you posted it) better. Also it's kinda ironic that in the version where it vanishes Lord Rhoop asks not to be taken back but when it's still there his request is different
I also finished reading yesterday (actually Monday night) and started getting my thoughts down while I was sitting in a queue for two hours waiting to speak to someone from university scholarships. But I'd written it on my ipad which I'm unused to typing on and it wasn't written too well and I didn't get a chance to fix it up and finish it yesterday. So here goes:
Day 8
Chapters 15 & 16
The Utter East
These last chapters of VDT remind me a lot of the end of
The Last Battle. To some degree, they are so beautiful and contain so many gems that it is actually hard to talk about them at all. They speak for themselves and analysis might actually ruin them (which as you will see, I proceed to do anyway
).
First a thought on the merpeople:
We've spoken before about Lewis leaving us hints about stories and adventures that he doesn’t elaborate on. Here we get one of his most interesting potential adventures yet – a whole under-sea community of merpeople with castles and forests and royal hunts. I said I imagined most of the world East of the Lone Islands as uninhabited (in reference to Burnt Isle) but I knew I was omitting the merpeople. I forgot just how detailed and intriguing these people were. I almost wonder if Lewis had considered at one point having the crew of the Dawn Treader have an adventure with the merpeople, but then though better of it because of the practical complexities it would have involved.
In a way, one could say, there was an adventure between the Dawn Treader crew and the merpeople and it was potentially more dangerous than all those previous. Only the crew of the Dawn Treader had no idea of the grave peril they were in (all it would have taken was one sailor sighting them and telling the others and the Dawn Treader crew may have been doomed) and the merpeople never quite found out what monstrous object was invading their space (I wonder if they viewed a siting like the Dawn Treader as we view UFOs?). As it was, Drinian was incredibly wise to forbid Lucy and Reep from telling the sailors about what they had seen, and it says much for Drinian's own character that he withstands the temptation himself. Reep notably accepts this order and abstains from his usual talk of taking on any adventure and showing no fear. Perhaps he now recognises Caspian's earlier admonition "there are some things no man can face", but it may also be the nearness of having his own dream fulfilled that sobers the mouse.
This whole episode makes me think a lot of Odysseus and his sailors’ adventure with the Sirens (which is actually quoted later in the book in a different context) except in that case the men would be tempted by the song of the sirens, here they may have been tempted by the mere sight of the merpeople. It is interesting that they don't even tell Caspian what they had seen. I wonder how he would have responded and if he could have resisted the temptation.
Moving on to the remaining story:
Even more than in the previous chapters, we see just how different our world is from Narnia. It is as through Aslan's country merges with the real world or rather leaks out into it so that some of its holy characteristics are seen and felt: the brightness, the clarity of the water, and more importantly the almost magical (though perhaps "divine" is a better word) properties of the water. Then there's the whiteness of the lilies. And the endless wave (which I've always struggled to picture though the movie helped a bit with that) and the mountains of Aslan's country and the beach and Aslan himself. There are so many beautiful images and, as Lewis does best, they are so subtle, you wonder if they were intended or not.
The water makes me think of Jesus's words to the woman at the well: "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:10, 13-14)
The narrow current that pulls them inexorably along to the end of the world makes me think of "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6) but also "Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." (Matt 7:14)
And then there's the lamb scene. I mentioned that the albatross scene is probably my second favourite scene in Narnia. This is almost certainly my favourite. That image of Aslan as the lamb on the beach like Jesus when he came to his disciples after his resurrection (also meeting them on a beach with fish cooking) and then his revelation (as Swan described) as not only Aslan but as having another name in our world is just so beautiful and powerful I just want to brim over with joy when I read it. I was really annoyed that they didn't have the lamb part in the movie (I like Kristi's idea of them using at least the shadow of a lamb that turns out to be Aslan), I am eternally grateful that Douglas Gresham for fighting hard to get the "there I have another name" line in the movie, which they were apparently planning to leave out.
I read an article on it a year or two ago but I don't remember it very well.
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