Stories Retold

In our previous post we discussed stories that could be attached to the Chronicles of Narnia. The easiest part is to identify stories to be added, in fact, Lewis himself identified several such stories and there are certainly sufficient characters and events that could be fleshed out into full length stories. The more difficult part would be writing the story in a way that would reflect Lewis. While any given individual will have their own style and approach, there are certain key elements that characterize the Chronicles that should also undergird the addition. 

If such is true when conceiving a story of the Chronicles, how much more so should it be when retelling a story. Now, of course, a retelling does not have to be a retelling. It could, for example, be satire or parody like Puffs and Spaceballs. But then everyone knows what the point is. Where harm might be done is when a retelling is advertised as a retelling but its key elements are diluted, changed, or undermined. 

What are the key elements in a piece of literature? Well, that is also going to be subject to debate. One may argue that everything is a key element. In a previous post I (not too seriously) suggested that the color of Lucy's hair could be important in demonstrating her dedication to Aslan. She is described as golden-haired similar to Aslan's golden mane. On the opposite end of the spectrum, one might argue that only the overall plot is key. Hence, as long as the Magician's Nephew, for example, has a Magician with a nephew, some other worlds, and so on that's good enough. After all, look at I Robot where names are the same, but the storyline is not related at all. 

I would argue more along the lines of the first possibility. A proper retelling should convey the ethics, themes, lessons, and morals of the original. Preferably, the setting and storyline should be the same too, and, to really do a good job, as much as possible should be kept. So, how can we assess the retelling of The Magician's Nephew. 

1) Obviously, the most controversial issue so far is the casting of a woman as the voice of Aslan. This is clearly a slap in the face to Christianity and should be abhorred by all. I should also say that any comment that the way Aslan looks is inspired by a flesh and blood human being is, to me as a Jew, blasphemous. I do not think this is quite as much of an attack on Christianity since for Christians God became a man. So maybe someone's looks can be inspired by Jesus' looks. However, we do not have a portrait or photograph of Jesus so there is the very real question as to whose looks should inspire the Jesus-like figure in Narnia. There are, of course, great people who might serve that purpose, none of whom were chosen. 

2) The time period. I'm not too upset about this because God tells His story to all people in every generation. However, it does set up some questions of historical relevance.

We'll continue this next time... 

Stories Untold

Why was the Land of Telmar unpeopled when the pirates from our world were transported there?

How did Fair Olvin turn the Giant Pire into stone?

What happened at the Fight of Zalindreh?

The Chronicles of Narnia leaves stories untold. And not just side stories that one might create, like the fight between Corin and the Lapsed Bear of Stormness, or why is Ram the King of Archenland called Ram the Great, but stories where Lewis tells us that he is not telling us the story. 

This of course leaves open the possibility that someone else can fill in the story. How would one approach telling such a story? You can just make up a story. The fight of Zalindreh (which is the same as the fight of Zulindreh?) does not necessarily have to have anything to do with Narnia and its future. It could just be a good story. But that wouldn't make it part of the Chronicles of Narnia. 

To be a part of the Chronicles we would expect the story to have certain Narnian characteristics. For example, the story detailing the feat of Fair Olvin should reflect, like much of Narnian ethics and honor code, the knights of King Arthus, with Olvin playing the role of Jack the Giant Killer and the two-headed Pire modeled after the two-headed Thunderdell. Of course, we would expect Aslan to come in somewhere, perhaps to give Olvin the means of turning the giant into stone. And the story would have to manifest the themes of a Roman god reflecting an aspect of the true God. This would perhaps be the hardest part of composition. Manifesting the themes of Neptune as the god of the sea seems a bit out of theme for a fight in the desert between Archenland and Calormen. But maybe Uranus the father of the Titans and the primordial god of the sky or Vulcan the god of smiths and rocks. 

Whatever the particular choice one makes the path is clear. To be part of the Chronicles of Narnia, a book has to respect the Chronicles of Narnia. The primordial stories must be kept intact, the story has to fit somewhere in Narnian history and have some impact upon it, and the writing, while no one can be Lewis, must try to accomplish what Lewis tried, bringing to light and teaching as if by osmosis, an aspect of the true God past the eyes of the watchful dragons. 

If that is so for stories untold, how much more so for stories retold... but that is for another post. 

Shrouding Hope...

Apologies for not posting during the holidays, it's been busy even with a lot of the days falling out on weekends. I have a few hopefully interesting posts that will come out soon. In the meantime, if anyone wants to continue thinking about the Days of Awe, I recently wrote this article:

Unetanneh Tokef: Shrouding Hope in a Vision of Judgement

Appealing to the Temple of Tash

You Have Appealed to Tash, and in the Temple of Tash you shall be healed...

 

The archvillain in "The Horse and His Boy," is Prince Rabadash, the eldest son of the Tisroc of Calormen. As detailed in the story Rabadash attacks Archenland in a dishonorable attempt to capture his lust, Queen Susan. The attempt fails and Rabadash is captured. Despite the (in my mind, misguided) attempts of King Lune at kindness, Rabadash is directly punished by Aslan and transformed into a donkey. Aslan also provides an antidote. Rabadash must appear at the Temple of Tash in Tashbaan at the great Autumn Feast at which time he would then resume his human form in front of all of Tashbaan. Furthermore, should he ever travel more than 10 miles away from the Temple, he would return to his donkey form permanently. 

A priori, this antidote (at least the first part) is the opposite of what we might think. Should the healing come from the Temple of Tash, one might conclude that Tash has the power to heal and that Tash can overpower the curse of Aslan. And, truth be told, many in crowd probably saw that. Despite Aslan's show of power, we do not see any sign of mass abandonment of Tash in favor of conversion to the religion of Aslan. I think the reason is clear. The Calormenes (including Rabadash himself) acknowledged that Aslan has power, but he is the, "enemy of the gods." Sometimes Aslan can win the battle, as he did with Rabadash perhaps due to Rabadash's not living up to Tash's expectation, but he will not win the war. 

The Narnians presumably assumed that Tash was a fake god, some figment of the Calormenes. To them, Aslan's pronouncement was to demonstrate that he is the true God and as punishment for following a false god, Rabadash is now tethered to the false god forever. Furthermore, everyone will see the folly of Rabadash's way in a public demonstration of Aslan's power. Perhaps the Narnian's were expecting Calormenes to see this truth. But it was not to be, because the Calormenes had a different notion of spiritual truths, enabling them to interpret events in the first way, not the second. 

In actuality, Tash is real, but he is evil - he enables and perhaps even powers evil. From a Christian perspective he rebelled against God and has convinced part of humanity to join in his rebellion. Aslan's punishment demonstrates that while Tash can have his localized victories, he is no match for the true God. 

Conventional Jewish thought perceives differently. Tash, or Satan, is also a servant of God. His job is to entice humans to sin, to be the evil inclination - a necessary role should humans have free will. Aslan's punishment is meant to emphasize this point. Even the evil inclination can be mobilized for good. The Talmud tells us that without the evil inclination people would not marry and have children and, in fact, Rabadash started his on his "mad enterprise" out of "love" for a woman. Ahoshta realizes that the Narnians may actually appreciate this. The Narnians understand that the evil inclination can be used for good! The problem wasn't Rabadash's desire to marry Susan, but that he did not deserve to marry Susan. That his view of marriage was barbaric, and that he would not teach his children "gentilesse and courtesy." Rabadash is thus tied to the Temple of Tash so he can learn how to use his passion in the service of the true God.

The Day of Judgement begins tomorrow evening. The words of our Sages, and even our liturgy, speak of confusing or quieting the heavenly prosecutor in his attempts to prove our guilt. But how can we hope to do so? Perhaps the answer is along the above lines: by using the character traits that the prosecutor, the evil inclination, actually wants us to use, unbridled passion, zealotry, even envy, for good. Passion to know God and follow His ways, zealotry for His word, and envy as motivation to improve oneself. 

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, sweet, New Year!

Shasta and Calormen Society

I'm not quite sure what to make of this, but it dawned on me that while there are parallels between Shasta's origin story to that of Moses, there are also some complete opposites. Of course, both Shasta and Moses are raised, not only in foreign households, but in a country to are the sworn enemy of God's people. However, while Moses is from a presumably common family and is raised by royalty, Shasta is of royalty raised by a commoner. Nevertheless, both become leaders of their people. 

I also think it interesting that neither Aravis nor Shasta when in Archenland portray anything positive of Calormen society. Even Shasta should have something having grown up with the proverbs and apophthegems of Calormen which, as we've discussed seem to have some value, but Aravis is clearly a master storyteller, but we no longer hear that of her either. It's almost as if Lewis wanted all of Calormen society erased. 

But I don't think that's really what we want. Any culture that can survive for any significant period must demonstrate positive character traits, even if it is just bravery in war, or loyalty to their (maybe evil) cause. Converts and escapees can bring those character traits to constructive societies who can use them for good. I'm not quite why Lewis doesn't do that here. 

Letters to Malcom: Letter 6 (Part 2)

Lewis continues his critique of Newman saying that he has substituted religion for God. Religion, asserts Lewis, is a means to an end. The end, the destination, is God, religion is the way to get there.  

Lewis' point is well taken but requires some, not quite caveats, but at least some commentary. For example, one might ask, are there other ways to God? Can one reach God via studying the natural world, or history, or just have an epiphany that there is a God? Well, that raises the question what does it mean that God is the end, or the destination? If the destination is to know there is a God, so, sure, people arrive at the conclusion that God exists in many different ways, and I think it's hard to say any of them are illegitimate. After all, Maimonides explicitly suggests the natural world as a means of coming to love and fear God!

So, there has to be something else. Maybe the end is not simply learning to believe that God exists but getting to know God. If we know God, we will immediately believe in Him and love and fear Him. Now, for finite man getting to know the Infinite Being is not a reachable end. Hence, one can get only so far via other means, and only religion, belief in God and following God's ways, can provide a constant, never-ending path to knowing God. Of course, God wants us to succeed. He loves us and helps us along the way. 

One might ask, how does, for example, loving my neighbor help me learn about God? The answer is that knowing God means understanding His ways and one cannot truly understand the ways of another unless he adopts those ways for himself. God loves your neighbor. So, if want to know God, you must love your neighbor as well. 

And this brings us to a different formulation. The destination may not be to know God, or to love Him, or even to fear Him, but to be godly. Even being godly can be learned from outside of "religion." Our Sages teach us that one can learn godly traits even from the animals: modesty from the can, not to steal from the ant, and forbidden sexual relations from the dove. Nonetheless, the complete directions of how to be godly comes from His word. Hence, when we love our neighbors we are acting in a godly fashion. And even when we're performing the most esoteric of rituals we are acting in a godly fashion because the ritual is from God, and only He knows what it's like to be godly.

Letters to Malcolm: Letter 6 (Part 1)

Lewis starts Letter 6, dealing with the accusation of being, "one of Vidler's young men." For the moment, I'm not particularly interested here about Vidler's philosophy outside of what it means for this Letter, so I'll just point you to the interesting article here. However, Lewis does appear to appreciate Vidler's dislike of the word religion. Let me note that in the greater Jewish context, this question animates Leora Batnitzky work, "How Judaism Became a Religion". Lewis and Vidler's approach is very much in contrast to the assertion by Newman that Heaven is like church in that, "one single sovereign subject - religion - is brought before us." 

Lewis first appears to reject Newman's hypothesis by quoting Revelation (21:22) that there is no temple in the new Jerusalem. This is an interesting statement, and one can imagine several approaches to address why this should be so. Lewis presumably would say that the temple is a manifestation of a religious sanctuary amidst an irreligious (not non-religious) environment. This is not necessary in a world enlightened by knowledge of God.  

However, this does raise the question, according to Lewis, are there churches in the new Jerusalem? Are there places where people gather to worship God? 

Judaism completely rejects this Christian bible approach. We (more than once) face Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, to pray for the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple was not and will not be simply a sanctuary or escape, as was Noah's ark, but a place of spiritual nurturing and growth. Even if the whole world is filled with God's glory, the Temple is God's dwelling place and the holiest site on earth. Thus, it is also the place where humanity will gather as one to worship Him and learn His ways. There is a Chosen Place on earth - the place where the Temple will stand.