(majoring in literature)
The Narnia books were a massive part of my childhood. I read them and re-read them, listened to radio dramatisations, and anxiously awaited the release of the movies, long after the age where this sort of feverish devotion to a children’s series might have been deemed acceptable.
So naturally the question of whether they should be read in chronological order or publication order is one that I feel I have to weigh in on, and since that’s the theme of this week’s Classic Remarks, well, here I go.
I haven’t written about Dickens very often on this blog; in fact, I feel like I’ve downright neglected him. And because this week’s Classic Remarks prompt was about life-changing classics, I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk about one of my earliest encounters with classics, and finally give poor Charlie a bit of facetime on this blog.
This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is brought to you courtesy of BiffCo, International Genetics Incorporated, and SPECTRE. We also tried to get Virtucon Industries to give us a mention in their next ransom demand, but their fee was a little pricey: ONE MILLION DOLLARS.
1. Rebecca and Mrs Danvers, from Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier – In Du Maurier’s creepy Gothic novel, Rebecca is the faceless deceased wife of the hero, Max de Winter. Although she never appears in the novel (or the film) she’s creepy because she feels so present, despite having died years before.
This week’s Classic Remarks prompt from Pages Unbound is brought to you by Susan Pevensie, problem child of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series. So, as you might expect:
Warning: major spoilers for the Narnia series ahead!
I always found the ending of The Last Battle so unbearably crappy and depressing. The Pevensies were in a terrible train accident and then got transported to the apocalyptic end of the Narnia they had known and loved to live in a suspiciously small-looking walled garden with all the people they’d met in Narnia, ever? (Remember, as a kid I had no idea that the series was an allegory, but even knowing that fact doesn’t make it any less of a crappy and depressing allegory.)
This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is all about Valentine’s Day, but since I’ve always been a bit of a cynic about a commercial holiday which demands that lovers be nice to each other for one day (thus allowing them to be perfectly horrible to each other for the next three hundred and sixty-four days in the year), I’ve decided to make this Top Ten Tuesday list all about my favourite examples of non-romantic love in fiction. The following relationships are not without their struggles and complications, but I think they all show that non-romantic love can be just as messy, affectionate – and ultimately uplifting – as romantic love.
I’m a big fan of a decent book-to-film adaptation, so this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, run by The Broke and the Bookish, seems like the perfect topic. I know it’s technically Wednesday, but I loved this prompt so much that I just couldn’t resist….
1. The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis: The first few Narnia films did a pretty good job of translating the novels to the big screen. I know there’s been talk about The Silver Chair, and supposedly it comes out next year, but so far there doesn’t seem to be much information out there about it. I’d love to see this book on film, though. It’s a great story and actually one of my favourites in the Narnia series.
Every week the folks over at The Broke and the Bookish prompt bloggers to compose a Top Ten list based on a weekly theme. This week’s theme is ‘Top Ten Favourite Classic Books’. Since I don’t think I’ve actually shared a list of my favourite books yet, I thought today would be as good a chance as any to share some of them with my lovely readers. :)
So here they are, just for you…
(majoring in literature) 