The Chronicles of Narnia

I have such fond memories of reading the Chronicles of Narnia in grammar school. It's when I think of those books that I can see the Minue School library crystal clearly in my mind. Wow, I can't remember ever writing Minue. It can't have been spelled that way. It just looks so strange. I never thought about it before.

I can see the orange, hard cover bindings around each book and I see Jennifer Burke reading the next installment directly across from me with an expression of concentration and enjoyment on her young pretty face. We were young. We were also reading buddies and we stayed that way until high school but we always kept right on reading and we always shared that bond. I thank Jennifer Burke for my love of reading. She was always one book ahead of me and couldn't wait until I caught up so we could talk about them.

I saw the preview for the movie version of Chronicles and knew within five seconds what the preview was for and shouted out, "The Chronicles of Narnia!" and didn't even feel embarassed because I was just so amazed by the teaser trailer.

I went and reread the series and enjoyed them very much. I don't know if I enjoyed them more, but I do know that I understood all the religion this time and I'm sure I did not then. I planned to see the movie.

Then I read on CNN that C.S. Lewis was very much opposed to his series ever being made into film. A cartoon he was fine with but no movies. I do not know if someone went against his will and sold the rights to Disney or if time was just up and it was a matter of first come, first served. His reasoning for this, supposively, was that he thought Aslan, the Great King Lion, would end up looking like a bafoon in film. For how could an old crabby writer in the '70's really envision what our computers could accomplish in 2005.

(Doesn't Kong look great? Five stars all around.)

I decided I would not see the film out of respect for the author....until I changed my mind a minute later. I think that if C.S. Lewis knew what we could do, he would say it was fine with him. I may be very wrong. But now millions more people will know the story of little Lucy and Edmund and the evil White Witch and I would assume that at least one quarter of them will read the books as a result of having seen a great movie. Or maybe he liked that the books weren't trendy. For now, it is difficult to buy the books without them being the Motion Picture ones without the movie poster on the cover. Just look. The old ones are still there....in the back....or not featured on the display table but back on the shelf in the children's section.

About what I said about 'a great movie'. Ok, it got 3 1/2 stars. It apparently received demerits for 'trying to be Lord of the Rings' or something like that. That's fine with me. I LOVE LTR and watched it again last night as a matter of fact. All three are my favorite background movies. One of them is on almost everyday while I do chores.

So Mike and I saw HP GOF last so I called him and said we'll see King Kong next. He'd like that. It's his turn. And then we'll see Chronicles. My roommates really liked it.

I have a whole week off for the holidays so it will be nice to have a date on the weeknights. I must admit that weeknight dates are terribly lacking in this relationship.