Okay, I just lost this entire post, and I’m NOT going to re-type the whole lot of it. I just won’t do it.
Suffice to say I’m having issues learning Java. If you can help, especially with the whole jargon/concept bit, I’d be most appreciative.
Archive for September 11, 2006
Gregor the Overlander
Just read this book over the weekend. LOVED IT! It’s the first in a series of five books called the Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins. She freely admits that the original idea sprang from Alice in Wonderland, but she takes it in an entirely new direction. It’s got a bit of everything: mystery, adventure, fantasy, giant cockroaches… The funny thing is, by the end she had me crying over the death of a cockroach. It takes some kind of skilled author to do that, lemme tell ya.
But, beyond that, I can’t really tell you much more or else I’d spoil the entire plot, and that wouldn’t be very nice of me. But, if you DO want the plot spoiled, you can go to the Wikipedia site for the book: Gregor
Where were you?
Everybody seems to be thinking, and asking, that question today. “Where were you when the towers fell?” And so, because I’ve been thinking about it as well, I’ll share my story.
I was taking a ‘Teaching Elementary Mathematics’ course at my local community college. It was an early class, as well as an extended one, so we had a break halfway through. I went down to the student lounge to buy a diet coke, and the faculty and staff were all crowded around the TV, staring. I glanced over and casually asked, “What movie is that?” They stared at me. “It’s not a movie,” one of them replied. There was a moment of disbelief, and then the second plane flew into the tower. I was in shock. And, even though I don’t live anywhere near New York, I think it has taken me these five years to release that hardened shell of jaded cynicism to really feel and understand what that tragedy means to every (or at least the vast majority) of Americans.
I lost no family. I lost no friends. The death and destruction is not personal as it is for so many. And yet I grieve all the same. I grieve for the loss of that assurance that America is invulnerable. Even though the past has proven, more than once, we are not. I grieve for those men who believe that death, killing, destruction, is the only way to make their message heard. I grieve for the families who have lost so much. For the President, whose grief became anger. For children who will never know their mothers or fathers. For the men and women who jumped out of the 80th story window rather than burn to death. And, I grieve for the loss of a nation that had nothing to fear but fear itself. We have much to fear now. And hatred will never solve this puzzle. To meet hatred with hatred only exacerbates the problem. Meeting hatred with love…nobody that harbors such deep hatred can truly understand that sort of love. They have no energy for it.
Re-ordering Narnia?
I was thinking about the re-numbering of the Chronicles of Narnia into their ‘chronological’ order in the current publications. I think it’s stupid. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is most definitely written as the first book in a series, even if C.S. Lewis himself did not realize that Narnia would even be a series. Reading the books in chronological order only makes sense if you’ve read them through once already, and The Magician’s Nephew takes away much of the magic of The Lion if it’s read first. It doesn’t much matter, after The Lion, which is read next, but I believe that placing The Magician’s Nephew before The Lion is doing readers a grave disservice.
Watching Narnia be created should carry with it at least a bit of history (or, in this case future) so that the reader has that sense of recognition and can make the connections to things he/she already knows. The creation of Narnia is awe-inspiring because the reader knows what happens later. That is why the creation story in the Bible is awe-inspiring as well. We live the future of creation, we know what’s happened since God separated the waters and called forth dry land and called the light ‘day’ and the darkness ‘night.’ And since C.S. Lewis wrote these tales as a Christian allegory, that comparison can be made.
I also think that placing The Magician’s Nephew just before The Last Battle is a very powerful literary statement. Intended or not, that particular juxtaposition lends credence to the fact that within all creations there is the seed of their own destruction. Everything has a beginning and an end. While that connection is probably beyond most kids who read the series, the underlying theme is still present. Just as talking with babies increases their ability to speak, presenting kids with complex ideas increases their ability to think. And really, sometimes I think we don’t give kids enough credit. I know I didn’t understand the juxtaposition of creation and destruction when I first read the series, but looking back on it, I would not have wanted to read the books in any other order. They were written in the order they were published, with the exception of The Silver Chair and The Horse and His Boy. Doesn’t it make sense, then, to read them in the order that the author created them? The emotional impact of the childred in The Magician’s Nephew bringing the White Witch into Narnia upon its creation does not impact the reader as much if they don’t know who the White Witch becomes.
If you want the argument put in a more sensical way, try this link: Aslan While not taking sides on the debate, the author does present some convincing evidence on both sides of the fence. According to him, I guess I’m a publicationist. And I do advocate enjoying these books first as entertainment and second as a loose allegory to the Christian story. My only true, unwavering feeling is that The Lion comes first. After that, it matters not how they are read.
