The Book, the Magazine and the Movie

If Yelena becomes a Born-Again Christian, it's all my fault for taking her to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for her first cinematic foray with Reel Moms. Then again, I read the Narnia books dozens of times as a kid and it didn't brainwash me into accepting Jesus as my savior. The whole allegory thing was lost on me, quite possibly because I didn't know from resurrection. I hated The Last Battle, though, and it was the only book I didn't re-read over and over. I was very disturbed that Susan did not get to walk the ascending path just because she was into lipsticks and nylons. Sure the path to paradiso may not be paved with nylons and lipstick but, to my tender young mind, interest therein was not justification for an eternity of hellfire and damnation.

Did you read that New Yorker article about C.S. Lewis a few weeks back? It's difficult to take religious guidance from a paragon of public school sadomasochism. Then again, who knows what Rashi was up to on that vineyard of his?

I had forgotten that J.R.R. Tolkein was the catalyst behind Lewis' whole-hearted embrace of Christianity, although Tolkein was a devout Catholic and Lewis was hard-line C of E. (Henry VIII being the 13th apostle.) A few years ago, I gave my brother Pullman's brilliant His Dark Materials to read. Aaron said he preferred Tolkein to the Pullman, citing that the Pullman dealt too much with religion for his taste. Funny, that, considering Tolkein's Catholicism and Pullman's self-professed atheism.

Anyway, it's amazing how far talking animals have come. Aslan looked like a real lion but sounded suspiciously like Liam Neeson. Now that I no longer have an office job, I am thinking of adopting Tilda Swinton's witchy 'do.