Here we are with this week’s mailbag!  It’s been pretty exciting to see the response that we’ve gotten so far, and I’ve had a great time writing them.  Hopefully the e-mails keep coming in each week so that I can continue.

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Andrew Skilleter is the artist behind the covers of the BBC radio editions of The Chronicles of Narnia.  He asked me to mention that he’s made available, by popular demand, a limited run of 250 of each title as special prints of his artwork.  If you missed it, we posted a story about the exhibition that is still going on, along with some of the art work, here: BBC Narnia Cover Art Exhibition UK.  The art is available to purchase at the artist’s website, here: Andrew Skelleter’s Narnia BBC Paintings.
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There’s an artist that has become quite well known for his redesigns of book covers.  Most notibly, the Harry Potter series.  Unfortunately it doesn’t appear that they’ll ever see publication, but that doesn’t mean we cannot hope that some of his designs will one day see print.  I had been watching his blog to see if he was ever going to do his take on The Chronicles of Narnia books.  Well, last weekend he posted them.  I’ve included a glimpse of one of the covers, as it is my favorite book in the series: The Last Battle.  You can see his art work on his blog (Narnia Redesign) or at his flickr account.

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Amazon.com has today announced the release of their new edition of Kindle. With that announcement comes new additions to the library of books available for Kindle, including many works written by C.S. Lewis.

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We’ve just received the sad news that the original illustrator of The Chronicles of Narnia has just passed away:

Wayne Hammond reports the death of Baynes at her home in Surrey. Pauline Baynes was the original illustrator of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series, as well as of Tolkien’s Farmer Giles of Ham (1948), The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book (1962), and Smith of Wootton Major (1967).

Read more .. Wikipedia Entry

Narnia expert Brian Sibley has written a blog entry about Pauline Baynes that you can read here:

Brian Sibley’s Blog on Pauline Baynes: Queen of Narnia and Middle-Earth

And note that obituaries will be appearing in The Times, The Telegraph, The Independent and The Guardian later in the week.

Kind regards,

Brian Sibley

Update 2:

Rem, from the Philippine Order of Narnians, sent us an update with links to the articles posted athe both the Independent and the Guardian:

I thought you’d like to know that, as Mr Sibley said they would, Pauline Baynes’ obituaries have already shown up at the Independent and the Guardian.

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The fantasy novel series from C. S. Lewis has sold over 100 million copies. And after the success of the first movie, audiences are ready for the sequel, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

We’re celebrating the release of the movie with a quiz and exclusive interviews with the cast. You could win the ultimate Narnia prize package, which includes a signed book from the cast, posters, action figures and more!

Put your Narnia skills to the test with our 50-question quiz, written by NarniaFans.com — the ultimate resource for everything Narnia.

Once you’ve mastered the quiz, enter for your chance to win an ultimate prize package from THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN and check out their exclusive interviews of the cast!

Parade.com Narnia Quiz

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At HarperCollins Childrens, they’ve added a new video feature and behind the scenes on the making of the Pop-up book. Here’s what you’ll find there:

Robert Sabuda invited us to visit his New York City studio for a behind-the-scenes look at his creative process. He talked with the book’s editor, Katherine Tegen, about his inspiration for the magic that springs off the pages of The Chronicles of Narnia Pop-up.

HarperCollins Childrens

Take a look at what really goes into designing the complex mechanics of a pop-up book. Robert Sabuda’s production sketches show the intricate details and special effects found in each spread of these hand-assembled books.

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The countdown to Walt Disney Pictures’ and Walden Media’s film ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian’ begins today with the release of THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA MOVIE TIE-IN EDITION. For the first time, readers can experience Narnia in a collectible edition featuring an 8-page, fold-out insert based on C. S. Lewis’s own timeline conceived for Narnia. The stunning cover artwork from ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian’ movie introduces a dashing new hero-actor Ben Barnes (’Stardust’) as Prince Caspian.

The full-color timeline, recreated from C. S. Lewis’s original and paired with Pauline Baynes’ classic full color illustrations for the first time, provides the key to the passage of time in Narnia and Earth by laying the two worlds side by side. Never before has C. S. Lewis’s timeline been included in a complete edition of all seven books of Narnia. Readers can now enjoy the beloved stories and use the timeline as a guide to orient themselves within the epic work.

This Spring the timeline will be expanded into NARNIA CHRONOLOGY: From the Archives of the Last King (April 1, 2008; $19.99), an interactive version of The Chronicles of Narnia. NARNIA CHRONOLOGY will include pop-ups, gatefolds, pull tabs and many other exciting features to tell the stories in a sweeping linear format as C. S. Lewis imagined it.

On May 16, 2008, audiences will be enthralled by the film, ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.’ With THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA MOVIE TIE-IN EDITION and NARNIA CHRONOLOGY, readers will have the chance to experience Aslan’s world first, in their own imagination.

Clive Staples Lewis, known as Jack to his friends, was born in 1898. Lewis and his good friend J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, were part of the Inklings, an informal writers’ club that met at a local pub to discuss story ideas. Lewis’s fascination with fairy tales, myths, and ancient legends, coupled with inspiration drawn from his childhood, led him to write The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, one of the best-loved books of all time. Six further books followed to become the immensely popular The Chronicles of Narnia. The final title in the series, The Last Battle, was awarded the Carnegie Medal, one of the highest marks of excellence in children’s literature.

HarperCollins Children’s Books is one of the leading publishers of children’s books. Respected worldwide for its tradition of publishing quality, award-winning books for young readers, HarperCollins is home to many timeless treasures-Charlotte’s Web, The Chronicles of Narnia, Goodnight Moon, Where the Sidewalk Ends and Where the Wild Things Are; and popular new classics-A Series of Unfortunate Events, Warriors and Fancy Nancy. HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers, one of the leading English language publishers in the world and a subsidiary of News Corporation . Headquartered in New York, HarperCollins has publishing groups in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australasia. You can visit HarperCollins Children’s Books at www.harpercollinschildrens.com and HarperCollins Publishers at www.harpercollins.com.

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA MOVIE TIE-IN EDITION
Written by C. S. Lewis
Illustrated by Pauline Baynes
HarperEntertainment
Paperback / Ages: 10 and up / January 8, 2008 / ISBN: 978-0-06-123105-6 /
$21.99 / 6 x 9 /
767 pages with b & w illustrations and a full-color 8-page foldout

NARNIA CHRONOLOGY
From the Archives of the Last King
Based on the books by C. S. Lewis
Including full color illustrations by Pauline Baynes
HarperCollins Children’s Books
Paperback/ Ages: 8 and up / April 1, 2008 / ISBN: 978-0-06-124005-8 /
$19.99 / 10 1/4 x 11 3/4 /
32 full-color pages

www.harpercollinschildrens.com

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Welcome to Tumnus’s Book Shelf where we review any and all books related to Narnia and CS Lewis! For this weeks review, we will be looking at CS Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair !

Book Title:The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair
Author: CS Lewis
Illustrator: Pauline Baynes
Publisher: HarperCollins

ISBN-10: 0060764937
ISBN-13: 978-0060764937

Summary of the book:

Some Possible Spoilers. (Please Highlight to read)

The holidays are over and Eustace is back in school. A young girl named Jill Pole is hiding behind the gym because she is being tormented by bullies. Eustace finds her and she worries he’ll rat her out. He says he won’t do that. She is surprised, as he used to be one of the bullies.

This leads to her commenting on how he changed since the holidays. Eustace said the reason was because of Narnia. He tells her more about Narnia, except for one thing: he isn’t sure how to get there. They hear the bullies coming and run, they tumble down the hill and find themselves flying in the air.

They land on a cliff. When Jill starts to loose her footing, Eustace tries to grab her. She accidentally pulls him and sends him tumbling off the side. It is then that she meets Aslan. He tells her that she and Eustace must find Prince Rilian son of King Caspian, who has been missing for years. He gives her very specific instructions or signs, that she must remember. He also informs her that Eustace is safe and sound. Then he sends her into Narnia where she and Eustace meet up at Cair Paravel.

After making acquaintance with Glimfeather the owl, they tell him they have been sent by Aslan to help find the Prince. They see an aged man boarding a ship. Eustace discovers to his horror that it is Caspian. Jill also realizes she has messed up with the first sign: Eustace will see an old friend.

Glimfeather takes them to the aged dwarf Trumpkin, who is of no help to them at first as the dwarf is now so old and deaf he can barely hear. After a long time they are finally taken into Cair Paravel where they hear what happened to Caspian’s son.

Ten years earlier Rilian had been out Maying with his mother, who is known only as “The Star’s Daughter.” His mother lies down and while he and the rest of the party are off, a serpent comes and bites her. She screams and Rilian runs to her rescue, but arrives too late as she is already dead. The serpent slithers off and Rilian chases after it and isn’t seen again. Caspian sent many warriors to find him to no avail.

Because of this, Trumpkin would not send them off. In the night Glimfeather takes the two children to the parliament of the owls to discuss what to do. They take them to the North eastern marshes where they meet the pessimistic Marshwiggle, Puddleglum. He agrees to help the children.

They journey north where they meet a beautiful lady dressed in Green who is aided by a Black Knight. They inform the lady of their errand and she tells them to head to the House of Harfang where some giants live. She tells them they are gentle giants and if they want to get in all they have to do is knock on the door and say they are there for the Autumn Feast.

They do as they are told and are taken in. After she is cleaned up and in her room, Jill notices out the window that she missed another clue. Beneath them is a ruinous city that spells out the words “ Under Me.” She informs Eustace and Puddleglum of this when they come to visit her, and they make plans to escape.

After they sneak out they go under the ruins where they encounter a gnome who leads them down into the Underworld. They are led to the palace of the queen, where they are entertained by the Black Knight ( who with out his armor looks like Hamlet.) He informs them that they must leave him for a while so he can be bound to the silver chair as he is under an enchantment .

SPOILERS!

They return to him and discover that he is Prince Rilian. It was when he is tied to the chair that he is in his right mind. He pleads with them in the name of Aslan to set him free. Jill points out that this is the final sign. They untie him. Rilian destroys the chair and thanks them for rescuing him.

The Lady of the Green Kirtle returns, and attempts to enslave them all with a magical song and a fire. Puddleglum breaks the enchantment by stomping his foot in the fire, putting it out, and forcing them to smell burnt Marshwiggle. The lady transforms into a serpent and Rilian, Eustace and Puddleglum draw swords and kill her.

The four of them mount horses and begin to leave the Underworld. They discover that the creatures are celebrating as they are finally free of the power of the Lady of the Green Kirtle. A crack has opened in the ground, leading to the land of Bism. They are invited by one of the creatures to join them. The four of them decline the invite and continue heading up while the caves are flooding.

They make it to the surface and Jill is pulled out of a hole first, the rest follow after. Puddleglum’s foot is tended to and Rilian returns to his father. Centaurs come and take Jill and Eustace back to Narnia where they watch the funeral of Caspian.

Aslan appears to the children and says it is time for them to leave. They first go to his country where they watch as Aslan resurrects Caspian. Not only is he brought back to life, but his youthfulness is restored. Eustace and Caspian are reunited.

While Aslan returns Eustace and Jill to their own world, He and Caspian help them teach the bullies some well deserved lessons.END SPOILERS! From then on Eustace and Jill were good friends, and all was well in Narnia.

Review.

The Silver Chair is a dark book in a very literal way. Much of the story is set within the caverns and depths of Narnia. It is typical in a fantasy story for the heroes to descend into the depths at some point to conquer their own fears and doubts. It is in these depths that strange things occur and we meet even stranger creatures. This descent just doesn’t apply to going into the Underworld, but the hopelessness inNarnia with the abduction of Rilian, and the despair of the King.

Further darkness is brought by the new character of Puddleglum the Marshwiggle. The name suits him well as he is an extraordinarily pessimistic character. He very clearly subscribes to Murphy’s law as he believes the worst can and will always happen. He is part of a trend seen in 20th century literature and film in which a writer will bring a pessimistic character into the fold of the heroes to juxtapose the constant optimism that the heroes may have. He is similar in some respects to the likes of Eeyore in A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh, Ian Malcolm in Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, Marvin the Paranoid Android in Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and even C-3P0 in the Star Wars series.

The character of the pessimist is needed as he is not afraid to confront one thing. The doubts that others may not be willing to voice. While seen as a “wet blanket”,SPOILERS! it’s Puddleglum who helps free all of them from the witch. When she tells them that all there is, is Underworld, even his pessimistic attitude can’t except it and settles for that which he can’t see as even a pretend good world is better then a real bad one in his mind.

We also discover the next king of Narnia, Prince Rilian. His story is almost like that of Persephone in Greek mythology in which he is stolen from the surface world by the ruler of the Underworld. His appearance is described as looking a bit like Hamlet. A fitting comparison as in the play they make reference to the River Lethe, one of the many rivers within Tartarus, in which those who drink of it forget everything, and he has forgotten his life in Narnia.

He is a different type of prince then most. He is the one placed under enchantment and needing to be set free and rescued. With an exception of stories like Beauty and the Beast, and the Frog Prince, that role is typically assigned to the princess. Lewis mixes things up with this story in that regard. He shows sometimes even men need help.

The Lady of the Green Kirtle herself is much like Morgain Le Fay in some versions of the Arthur legends as she wishes to take control of the kingdom that is not her own, while the king is at his weakest, by use of the King’s heir. She also presents to the characters an inverted form of Plato’s allegory of the Cave and his ideas of the higher forms, when she tells them that all they know is an illusion, and the underworld is the real world.END SPOILERS!

We also meet Jill Pole. At the outset she is only Eustace’s classmate and not his friend. She has noticed a changed in him since the holidays and notes it is quite curious. It is because of this that she gains interest in Narnia. She is also very different from the other children in regard to the fact that she is one of the few characters who is not part of the Pevensie family who goes to Narnia. Unlike Lucy and Susan she shows far greater strength and is given a leadership role when Aslan gives her the instructions.

We see growth in the character of Eustace from our first encounter. He is far braver, and kinder than when we first met him. He realizes that he had been a bully and is attempting to make up for it. He continues to parallel CS Lewis’s own faith journey as he pursues Narnia more intellectually, then emotionally like his cousins did. He wants to know more about it and is asking questions and trying to figure out how to get there and trying his best with his limited understanding to explain it to those who may not know of it, such as Jill.

In “The Silver Chair” we confront issues of doubt, faith and trust. We also learn how important it is to remember any instructions that are given to us and not to listen to lies. Children can even get a crash course in the ideas of one of the originators of Western thought. We also deal more with ideas of aging, and even death.

And where would we be in the story with out Lewis as our narrator? He is clearly as mesmerized as his readers by the Underworld and all that lies in it. He knows how to tell a good story for children as well as adults.

While the four Pevensies are all absent from this book, it doesn’t at all detract from one’s enjoyment of the story. Fans of Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy can find many more new friends in this one, and learn just as much as they did before. The Pevensies journey has ended, but ours only continues.

Five out of Five shields

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The idea of a “left wing” and “right wing” in politics and society is a fluid one, subject to a lot of confusion. You can’t understand liberals unless you know what they want to liberate, and you can’t understand conservatives unless you know what they want to conserve. The things people want to conserve or liberate vary widely from nation to nation, and from generation to generation.

It isn’t enough to say that it’s about order vs. freedom, law vs. liberty. There’s no one anywhere who really wants EVERYTHING to be 100 percent restricted OR 100 percent unrestricted. Each of us, and each society, decides WHICH THINGS we believe should be more or less restricted. The Scandinavian countries, for instance, are extremely wide-open with sexual permissiveness, but exert stern control over some other things. A woman from Norway informed me once that Norway has a law dictating WHAT NAMES Norwegian parents can give to their children! I consider that to be a tyrannical intrusion upon the rights of parents; but it had never even occurred to my Norwegian correspondent to resent this law.

A single essay can’t sort out all the elements of what makes a person or an idea “right wing” or “left wing.” But it may help us toward clarity if I attempt, presupposing what I think to be reasonable modern definitions of the left and right, to identify some places in The Chronicles Of Narnia where C.S. Lewis expressed sometimes liberal ideas, and sometimes conservative ones.

In “The Magician’s Nephew,” Jadis is revealed to have destroyed all life on her home planet by using the tremendous magic spell called the Deplorable Word. Before the book is over, Mr. Lewis has strongly hinted that this evil spell is to be compared to nuclear weapons. An insistence that nuclear weapons are inherently immoral and should never be used at all would be a liberal position on Mr. Lewis’ part. On the other hand, the coldly inhumane approach of Uncle Andrew to his research is very much like today’s left-wing scientists wanting to use unborn human beings as laboratory animals and stem-cell reservoirs (while dishonestly obscuring the fact that they could be using ADULT stem cells WITHOUT killing any babies); therefore Mr. Lewis, a pro-lifer, could be said to be acting as a conservative in his condemnation of Uncle Andrew’s attitude.

The Telmarines in “Prince Caspian” come in for a two-sided rebuke. They are shown to be descended from Earth humans who had committed violence and oppression against persons of another race; accordingly, it is liberalism that gets the credit for condemning this prejudice-related evil. But the society created by the Telmarines in the Narnian world also features a left-wing evil, such that opposing it is the act of a good conservative. I refer to the Telmarine school system, which is dedicated to denying the existence of the supernatural, ESPECIALLY the existence of Aslan. This is very much like the government school system in the United States today, where sex education for kindergarten children is advocated, yet God is not supposed to be mentioned.

The scene where Aslan disrupts Miss Prizzle’s class is PRICELESS.

When the aging Trumpkin in “The Silver Chair” fails to act promptly after Eustace and Jill turn up at Cair Paravel, causing the Talking Owls to intervene to assist the children, Trumpkin could be said to personify unimaginative, foot-dragging, custom-bound authority. Thus Mr. Lewis is wearing his liberal hat when making us understand that Trumpkin, though by no means evil, is in error.

Later, when the Green Witch tries hypnotically to convince the children and Puddleglum that neither Narnia nor Aslan exists, she is reflecting a bad sort of liberalism: the liberal theology, rooted in the so-called Enlightenment, which denies the truth of God’s Word and the involvement of God Himself in our world. Mr. Lewis is being spiritually conservative when he shows her arguments as serving the cause of evil. (And indeed, it is a plain and indisputable fact of real-world history that the ATHEISTIC Communist system has murdered far more people than ANY supernatural religion ever did.)

In “The Horse and His Boy,” we are clearly shown that the overall form of society prevailing in Narnia is morally superior to the culture of Calormen–as when, for instance, the Narnians visiting Calormen are described in a strikingly favorable light: “They were obviously prepared to be friends with whoever was friendly, and didn’t care a fig for whoever wasn’t.” Mr. Lewis was being a true conservative–and frightfully politically incorrect in today’s terms–to say that all cultures are NOT equally good and valid. But don’t despair, my liberal friends. Later in the book, when King Lune talks about the responsibilities of a king as understood by Narnians and Archenlanders, Mr. Lewis is uttering what could be considered a liberal idea through Lune’s mouth: the idea that rulers OWE it to their people to be just. In real-world history, the vast majority of monarchs everywhere have treated their subjects as one big rug to wipe their feet on. Thus, if Lune of Archenland were transported to Earth at any of most periods in history, he would emerge as a liberal hero in the very best sense, wanting to see justice done for the undeprivileged.

These examples should be enough to demonstrate that C.S. Lewis was well-rounded in his approach to social and theological issues, not blindly adhering to the right wing or the left. I try to emulate him in this; and if I ever seem to lean extremely to one side, it’s because I see so many others in society leaning extremely to the other side.

Ut fidem praestem in difficultate!

JOSEPH RICHARD RAVITTS, U.S. NAVY RET.

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