Dragaera

A question re: Beginning Fantasy for Youth

Mon Nov 25 09:13:09 PST 2002

On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 10:34:00AM -0600, David Dyer-Bennet <dd-b at dd-b.net> wrote:
> "Casey Rousseau" <casey at trinityhartford.org> writes:
> > Rachel wrote:
> > > The only caution about Narnia is I wouldn't recommend it to someone of
> > > Arabic background, at least not _Horse & His Boy_. I have a friend who
> > > was amazed that her boyfriend hadn't read them, and then after
> > > re-reading them decided not to suggest he read it, because he's Iranian
> > > and these days is a little sensitive about that. CS Lewis was way too
> > > obvious about his own prejudices in that book.
> > Yes.  In case anyone is not aware, Narnia is fairly explicitly Christian
> > allegory.  For that matter, so is Ender's Game, but Ender seems to slip
> > under most people's radar.  Card and Lewis are two writers who make no bones
> > about their religious beliefs.  To me it enriches their fiction, but YMMV.
> Fascinating.  Narnia ticked me off, but Ender's Game which I read
> *much* later slipped completely past me.  In fact I really can't see
> any allegory there even now.

Ender's Game seems clean to me too.  The later books are a little 
more arguable, and certain of Card's work is very explicitly 
religious.

As for Narnia, no denying the allegory, but it's a good story 
nonetheless.  It's not a book that tries to convert you, it's 
just told from an explicitly Christian viewpoint.  

-- 
Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org)
Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp
Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt