Summer Challenge 2019 - MN Sharing thread

[kristi]

I'm still playing catch up, but if I wait till I catch up reading I may never get to post Perch's creations of the past few days.


This is his build of Jadis riding atop the cab and driving Strawberry with the whip.


Here he has Aslan standing in front of some mountains. Aslan uses a human Lego's face built into a larger lion housing, which is kinda cool.


Here is his take on the scene at the garden, with Fledge in the foreground, Jadis in the middle, and Digory at left. The phoenix is represented by the centipede.

[kristi]

Here's what Perch built last night as we were finishing the book. It shows Polly (Elmo) and Digory (Ernie) on Fledge with Aslan at right, with a microphone.

I really like the way Perch chose to use so many different building mediums (media?).

[cleander]

Great work, Perch! You should do a "build-through" of all the Chronicles!

Well, I said I may or may not come up with a closing poem, and I decided to give it a whack. Here goes:

The Song of the First King, or, The Ballad of Frank
A Narnian Bard's Song

In darkness, when the world was born,
A Son of Adam saw the light.
From Lantern Waste he saw the morn,
If I recall the tales aright.

A man named Frank, of humble birth,
A driver of a wooden cart,
Was brought here from a place called Earth,
And with him, brought a noble heart.

When Aslan's song had waked the trees,
And roused the mighty river-gods,
He looked for one to rule all these,
To name the beasts and till the sod.

"My son," said he, "I've known you long.
Do you feel that you know me?"
And Frank, now filled with Aslan's song,
Replied, "I feel that it must be."

"Would it please your heart to dwell,
Within this land, for all your life?"
"Sir," said Frank, " I'd like it well,
If only I could bring my wife."

The Lion gave The Lion's Call*,
And quick as thought, the woman came,
With gladdened heart she saw it all,
For she and Frank were much the same.

"My children, you'll be King and Queen,
And yours shall be the royal line.
You'll rule o'er all that can be seen,
As guardians of this land of mine."

And with these words, the Lion told
The dwarfs to light their smithing-fire,
From trees of silver and of gold,
They wrought two crowns of shining wire.

And so the King and Queen were crowned,
And from their house great heroes rose,
Whose songs in hist'ry have gone down,
As everyone in Narnia knows.

They settled by the Eastern Sea,
And built the grand Cair Paravel,
They kept the Narnian kingdom free,
And ruled it wisely, just and well.

But one day in their mighty hall,
Upon their day of Jubilee,
An ancient centaur came to call,
And brought with him a prophecy.

"My Lord, you must erect four thrones,"
Said he, with wisdom in his eyes.
"For it is written, as in stones,
An awful bodement in the skies."

"An evil time will one day fall,
Upon this happy land of ours,
And to this end, you have been called,
To help restrain the evil powers."

"To me it has been clearly shone:
When Adam's flesh and Adam's bone,
Sits on Cair Paravel in throne,
The evil time shall be over and done."

Then Frank the King of Narnia gave,
An order that the thrones be made.
By this his country would be saved,
Long after he to rest was laid.


* Well, that totally wasn't on purpose!

I'm guessing this was a song commonly sung by minstrels in Narnia. There are no mentions of Digory, Polly, Uncle Andrew, etc., because... otherwise it would get super long.
OK, well I guess you could say that the events of the creation became clouded in legend, with different parts being told separately in different versions of the story. You know how minstrels are... you know what? Neither do I.
See ya 'round, Narnians! This is Cleander signing out on this thread! (but not the forum, of course. )

[hobbit_of_narnia]

@Kristi: Awww, Perch's models are adorable.

@Cleander: I love your ballad...you should put it to a tune!





Beginning with chapter 7, I'd been trying to keep my drawings smaller so I'd have them all finished in time, but with the last one I decided to go back to full-page because I wanted to end big.

[Ariel.of.Narnia]

Perch sure is creative in his builds.

Cleander, that poem was so cool!

Great artwork as always, Hobbit.

[Swanwhite]

Such great work everyone!

What lovely moles, Hobbit!

I particularly like the lego Jadis on the cab

And the poem/ballad is spectacular, Cleander! I like how it looks back on the events as a history and ties it into the future of Narnia.

[Luthien]

It is a little bit (one week) late, but I finally got my last three reflections typed. Here they are.

Chapters 9 and 10

It seems that Strawberry and the Cabby would agree with Digory’s assessment of London form the beginning of the book. I’ve never been to London, and I do hope it is not a “beastly hole” these days, but apparently it was not a restful place back in the days when Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything where London was portrayed as restful, but since I like to read action/adventure, that is not very surprising.

I was happy to read the Cabbie’s words about how he was once in a choir. As I said before, it’s been a few years since I last read this, and earlier I was speculating on his tendency to enjoy music and take comfort in it.

As for Uncle Andrew, he, like the dumb beasts, could no longer understand the talking animals. Aslan told the animals to treat the dumb beasts gently, yet Uncle Andrew is like the dumb beasts only because he chose not to understand them, not because he never had the ability to understand, almost like the talking animal who has forgotten how to speak. He does not even have the excuse of saying he thought he must be going mad when he chose to listen for a lion roaring instead of Aslan’s song—he was surrounded by others who heard the song and were talking about it. Uncle Andrew simply wanted to reject the truth that was all around him. He wanted it to be not so until he firmly believed he was right. I just find it rather tragic, though he brought it on himself.

Chapters 11 and 12

I love the idea in these two chapters that Aslan sees people for who they really are and gives them the chance to become that. In these chapters, we see it most with King Frank and Queen Helen and Fledge. Not only did Aslan pick Fledge to be one of the talking horses of Narnia even though he came from a world other than Narnia, he gave him the chance to be a winged horse.

“Be winged. Be the father of all flying horses,” roared Aslan in a voice that shook the ground. “Your name is Fledge.”

And when given the chance, Fledge accepts immediately with no hesitation. I sort of wonder if, in his old life, he ever watched the birds and wished he could fly like them.

With King Frank and Queen Helen, it was slightly different. When Aslan asked him, as the Cabbie, if he wanted to stay, the only reason he did not say yes was because he had a commitment to someone else that held him to London.

“If my wife was here neither of us would ever want to go back to London, I reckon. We’re both country folks, really.”
P. 149, The Cabbie, “Digory and His Uncle Are Both in Trouble”

And then Aslan brought her to Narnia where they could both be happy and could know and serve Aslan better. It is simply beautiful how Aslan gave them the chance to become more than they were before. Even Digory, although being sent to find the fruit may not be a reward in itself, was given the chance to help make right the results of his actions.

Two more things. When Digory and Polly and Fledge are trying to fall asleep, it was interesting to read

And they repeated to one another all the signs by which they would know the places they were looking for—the blue lake and the hill with the garden on top of it.
P. 165-166, “Strawberry’s Adventure”

In The Silver Chair, Jill is considered solely responsible for remembering the signs. Even though Jill and Digory were alone in being given instructions for their quests, in The Silver Chair, Eustace and Puddleglum did not try to learn and remember the signs to help Jill, but in The Magician’s Nephew, both Polly and Fledge learn them as well and do their (unrequired) part to keep them fresh in mind. Also, when I was writing out that last quote from the book, it reminded me of this quote from The Two Towers

Treebeard repeated the words thoughtfully. “Hill. Yes, that was it. But it is a hasty word for a thing that has stood here ever since this part of the world was shaped. Never mind. Let us leave it, and go.”
P. 455, “Treebeard,” The Two Towers

In Middle Earth, there is a vast sense of history, down to the very trees and hills. Bit The Magician’s Nephew talks about the beginning of a world before anything is old. It has a unique beauty that way.


Chapters 13, 14, and 15

I’m not sure there’s much I can say on this. The way the book ends is, quite simply, the ending we all want it to have and the ending that we all want life to have. I know my sister, Hermit of the Northern March, has shared before that our father died of cancer when we were little. A long time ago, when I first wrote my introduction page on the old forum, I mentioned that my introduction to The Chronicles of Narnia came when my sister told me one morning, “Mom read a good book last night,” and that the book turned out to be The Magician’s Nephew. What I did not say before was that our mom started reading Narnia to us only a few months after our dad died. I know C.S. Lewis was writing this about his own experience of his mother dying when he was young, but it always seemed personal to me as well. At one point in an earlier chapter, Aslan tells Digory,

My son, my son…I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet. Let us be good to one another.
p.. 154, “Strawberry’s Adventure.”

There was another family at my church who lost their father to a heart attack around the same time, but they moved away eventually. While they were there, though, there was a certain completely unspoken connection I always had with them—not because I spent a lot of time with them, but because they knew what it was like, and they were the only people my age, that I knew, who did. So when the witch tells Digory

…She will be quite well again. All will be well again. Your home will be happy again. You will be like other boys.
P. 176, Jadis, “An Unexpected Meeting”

it is an unbelievably strong temptation. Still, there is much comfort in Aslan’s earlier words and in Digory’s realization.

…at the same time he knew that the Lion knew what would have happened, and that there might be things more terrible even than losing someone you love by death.
P. 191, “The Planting of the Tree”

Even though we are not told specifically in our real lives what this would entail, it is nonetheless true. I would rather live a normal lifetime and die and go to heaven than live forever in a fallen world.

Another (Much more cheerful) thought that stood out was the toffee tree. It was planted in the Western Wilds, and a part of me wonders if in the future that we never get to read about the toffee tree multiplies throughout that entire area.

[Ariel.of.Narnia]

Uncle Andrew is like the dumb beasts only because he chose not to understand them, not because he never had the ability to understand, almost like the talking animal who has forgotten how to speak.

That's a really good comparison! Aslan charges the Talking Beasts not to revert to their former ways (which would be a conscious series of decisions), and we see that with Ginger in LB, whose arc is not a whole lot different from Andrew's.

[Swanwhite]

I enjoyed reading your insights, Luthien!