Talk:The Magician's Nephew
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is part of WikiProject Novels, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to narrative novels, novellas, novelettes and short stories on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit one of the articles mentioned below, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and contribute to the General Project Discussion to talk over new ideas and suggestions. | ||
| B | This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale. | ||
| High | This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale. | ||
|
Article Grading: |
|||
|
Tasks you can do:
|
|||
Contents |
[edit] Aslan, the Creator-Christ
From the article, as it stands:
- Aslan acts in the role of the Creator. There is no reference to the distant "Emperor over Sea" who had been paralleled with God previously in the series. Presumably this was a deliberate simplification by Lewis to keep the complexity at an appropriate level.
Or possibly Lewis was being thoroughly orthodox about all this?
- In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. John 1:1-3
- [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. Col. 1:15-16
What I mean to say is Aslan acts in the role of Creator because orthodox Christians believe that God the Father created the universe by his Son. The "Emperor over the Sea" may well be parallelled with God the Father; but Aslan, parallelled with God the Son ought (by virtue of the analogy with Christian theology) to be the one by whom Narnia is created. Lewis did it because it's good theology, not because it's simpler this way.
Of course, all this is too abstruse for me to be able to work into a WikiArticle, but if someone else reads this and is able to, please have a crack. The worst that can happen is I come back and completely re-write it. : D Wooster 20:27, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
- I do agree. If I find a way to restate it right off, I'll try to write this into it. If not, then, I'll leave it for someone else to do. -- D. F. Schmidt (talk) 18:17, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
- My thanks to the IP-addressed editor who worked this into the article. I beefed up the Trinitarian aspects of the edit slightly (it never hurts) just to make it quite clear what Lewis up to. I also moved an ambiguous bracket to the correct position and removed the claim that Narnia was under British rule. I half-understand the motivation for that claim, but even in the books, the Crown doesn't recognise Narnia as one of its dominions. Rule by Brits is not the same as British rule. What else? Oh yeah, is it encyclopaedic to observe that similarities with Tolkien's creation myth will be because they both used the same source material for ideas? I'll bung it in; please remove if you think it's inappropriate. Wooster 16:21, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Aslan the Funny
I added a comment on "The First Joke," saying that it shows Christ's sense of humor. If someone minds, they can restate it, but it is important to me that it should at least be there in some form. As well, I don't have the book before me, so if I've misquoted, please correct me. -- D. F. Schmidt (talk) 18:34, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Social class
The present article states: "The reader is also left in no doubt about the precise social class of each of the English characters, with the implication that this matters to God; the cabby is of common origin and his wife is a washerwoman." This seems a decidedly eccentric reading. Social class was a hugely important reality of the era the story is set in, and was a pretty big fact of life in 1950s England when the book was published. But surely the calling of Frank the cabby to be king would indicate that it doesn't matter to God. Also, inheriting wealth as a form of happy ending was hardly invented by Lewis. Compare E. Nesbit, who was an influence on him. She used this sort of thing in her children's books despite the fact that she was a socialist!
A point that touches on class is that Lewis clearly favours the country over the town. You could make a case that the fact that Frank is really a countryman (and reverts to his real, good, country roots, leaving behind his nasty city coating) is something to do with class attitudes to the urban working class. Actually though I think it is probably mainly just Lewis's own prejudice about the country - in his writing the country is usually good and city bad. (His heaven is mountainous rather than a City.)
Suggestions?
- I agree with you whole-heartedly; the article clearly needs to be changed a bit. Also, this section implies that Lewis was guilty of a certain Anglocentrism, which I highly doubt. He was actually Irish and said some fairly chauvinistic things about the English. Joey1898 23:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Commentary
I restored the "Commentary" section as it needs to be reworked to an NPOV rather than just excised in toto. There is some useful material in there. Ellsworth 23:29, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The Rings
This is very poor quality. I would edit it myself, but I haven't read the book in years, so I think someone more qualified should handle it.
[edit] Time setting
"The story begins in 1900 ..."; I've seen that date elswhere, but is there any text-evidence? This seems awfully late, since by Lion (1940?) Digory Kirke is a "very old man" (or seems so to the four children). All I can find to date the story is that "this happened when your grandfather was a child" and the reference to Sherlock Holmes and E. Nesbit's Bastable children, which I guess puts it in the 1880s or '90s. —wwoods 07:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Trivia
The trivia section says:
- Of the seven Narnia books, The Magician's Nephew is one of the only two that does not feature the Pevensie children (the other is The Silver Chair). The Silver Chair however does mention them.
- The Magician's Nephew is arguably the only book that spends a significant amount of time in our world.
- Only during The Magician's Nephew do adults travel between worlds.
Some thoughts:
- Nephew mentions Lucy, although not by name.
- "Arguably"? Well, I guess so—Lion also spends (an unclear amount of) time in our world.
- At the end of Caspian, a whole lot of adults travel between worlds.
Is any of this worth keeping? —wwoods 05:17, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Jadis
The article says that she changes colour and shape. She undergoes a colour-change but se doesn't change shape. It also says that she becomes less beautiful. It never says that. Just because your skin turns white doesn't make you any less beautiful. Some people might say it makes you more beautiful.
[edit] Diggory's ill mother
I think mention should be made of the fact that Lewis lost his own mother to disease at the same age as Diggory; thus the scene in which Diggory is tempted to steal the apple to save his mother's life had tremendous resonance for Lewis; and is not just an additional episode in a story.
The idea that Jadis' life will be immortal but miserable because she stole the spell is repeated by J.K. Rowling in HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE, concerning Voldamort and unicorn blood. CharlesTheBold 04:48, 2 February 2007 (UTC) CharlesTheBold
esto apesta q
[edit] Citations needed
Much of the article, even the untagged portions, seem to contain a lot of original research. Accurate to be sure, but it'd be nice if someone familiar with the commentaries on Lewis' fiction could supply a few sources. --Tim4christ17 talk 01:46, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
