The Donkey, the Lion and the Wardrobe

[altariel]

I have no idea whether the bit about Mithraism is true or not (I'm sure someone can tell me), but I loved this piece of Narnian revisionism (from here):

"The moral force of the Christian story is that the lions are all on the other side. If we had, say, a donkey, a seemingly uninspiring animal from an obscure corner of Narnia, raised as an uncouth and low-caste beast of burden, rallying the mice and rats and weasels and vultures and all the other unclean animals, and then being killed by the lions in as humiliating a manner as possible—a donkey who reëmerges, to the shock even of his disciples and devotees, as the king of all creation—now, that would be a Christian allegory. A powerful lion, starting life at the top of the food chain, adored by all his subjects and filled with temporal power, killed by a despised evil witch for his power and then reborn to rule, is a Mithraic, not a Christian, myth."

Another piece of Narnian retelling that I adore is the bit in Perdido Street Station where Benjamin Flex opens up the back of the wardrobe to reveal a printing press. Love, love, love it so much! Almost enough to forgive the author for the death of Flex, but not quite.

Comments

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

Hutton didn't say much about Lewis, as his talk was mainly about Tolkien; what he said was not very different from the article.

As for Tolkien, I seem to remember that it had something to do with his concepts of fate and doom, his tragic world view and the general sadness of his tone, which is often far removed from the joy of the Gospel. I suppose the text will be published in the Proceedings (though I've got no idea when this will be).