Psyched for "Caspian"
I confess Prince Caspian was my least favorite of The Chronicles of Narnia when I first read them in junior high. I couldn't accept the setting of the story. The Narnia of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was gone, Cair Paravel in ruins, and the entire Narnian landscape changed, physically, politically, and spiritually. I also just thought the book took a long time to build any momentum because the protagonist, Prince Caspian, spent the first two-thirds of the story in hiding.
It wasn't really until I read commentaries by Chuck Colson and Gene Veith that I caught on and came to appreciate C.S. Lewis' purpose for depicting Narnia this way. Prince Caspian takes place more than a thousand years after the events of the first book, after Aslan's sacrificial death, after the "Golden Age of Narnia" when the four Pevensie children reigned as kings and queens. In Caspian's Narnia, the old stories are mostly forgotten legends, and the old beliefs are regarded as ignorant or at best quaint. In short, Caspian's world is our world. Caspian believes in Aslan, much to the chagrin and anger of his uncle Miraz, who ridicules and suppresses the ancient faith of Narnia.
What a fascinating illustration of modernism. I obviously did not have the insight to see it when I was 14, but I still didn't get it as an adult. I like constancy and security - I didn't like the shock of finding Narnia in ruins. But time inevitably moves on, and faith in Aslan, like faith in Christ, survives despite the turnover of governments and the decay of majestic old buildings. Like a reactionary mourning the past, I thought Narnia was dead. But Prince Caspian is all about a living faith that survives persecution through the ages, a faith that restores and sustains the world.
The return of the Pevensie children to Narnia makes me think of what it would be like if one of Christ's apostles, or St. Paul, stepped into our world and saw what had happened to Christianity since their time. And to those living in "modern" Narnia, what would it do for their faith to find artifacts of the ancient times and then to meet the heroes out of their own history!
If the heroes of the Christian faith came into our world, how would Christians and non-Christians today respond? What turmoils and revivals would they start? Would Paul speak to Congress the way he spoke to the men of Athens in Acts 17?
I don't expect the movie that opens tomorrow to pose these questions, or to explore to any depth the themes in C.S. Lewis' original story. I expect an exciting, entertaining movie with noble characters and a a good overall message. But understanding now the deeper meaning of the story, I will watch with different eyes than those that couldn't read between the lines years ago.
It wasn't really until I read commentaries by Chuck Colson and Gene Veith that I caught on and came to appreciate C.S. Lewis' purpose for depicting Narnia this way. Prince Caspian takes place more than a thousand years after the events of the first book, after Aslan's sacrificial death, after the "Golden Age of Narnia" when the four Pevensie children reigned as kings and queens. In Caspian's Narnia, the old stories are mostly forgotten legends, and the old beliefs are regarded as ignorant or at best quaint. In short, Caspian's world is our world. Caspian believes in Aslan, much to the chagrin and anger of his uncle Miraz, who ridicules and suppresses the ancient faith of Narnia.
What a fascinating illustration of modernism. I obviously did not have the insight to see it when I was 14, but I still didn't get it as an adult. I like constancy and security - I didn't like the shock of finding Narnia in ruins. But time inevitably moves on, and faith in Aslan, like faith in Christ, survives despite the turnover of governments and the decay of majestic old buildings. Like a reactionary mourning the past, I thought Narnia was dead. But Prince Caspian is all about a living faith that survives persecution through the ages, a faith that restores and sustains the world.
The return of the Pevensie children to Narnia makes me think of what it would be like if one of Christ's apostles, or St. Paul, stepped into our world and saw what had happened to Christianity since their time. And to those living in "modern" Narnia, what would it do for their faith to find artifacts of the ancient times and then to meet the heroes out of their own history!
If the heroes of the Christian faith came into our world, how would Christians and non-Christians today respond? What turmoils and revivals would they start? Would Paul speak to Congress the way he spoke to the men of Athens in Acts 17?
I don't expect the movie that opens tomorrow to pose these questions, or to explore to any depth the themes in C.S. Lewis' original story. I expect an exciting, entertaining movie with noble characters and a a good overall message. But understanding now the deeper meaning of the story, I will watch with different eyes than those that couldn't read between the lines years ago.
posted by StarBittrune | 2:22 PM
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