Platypus of Truth

This Christmas season's " wintry read " has been George MacDonald's Lilith .  Written as part of the grieving process for MacDonald's dead daughter, the whole book is suffused with a cold, quiet, strangeness that pairs well with the waning of the year.  It's no small tribute to the eeriness of the work that H.P. Lovecraft singled it out as one of the landmark achievements in the development of the "weird tale."  Paying the book equal homage from the other side of the pond, C.S. Lewis contributed a brilliant forward to one of the reprints (W.H. Auden has the honor of another).  Though I could compare the mesmeric effects of the work to Lovecraft's Dream Quest of Unknown Kaddath , which owes even more to Lord Dunsany, I'd like to focus in on Lilith's legacy to C.S. Lewis. Lewis quite openly referred to George MacDonald as his master and claimed that there was some direct borrowing form MacDonald in everything he wrote.  This comes as lit...

I mentioned reading a passage from J.R.R. Tolkien's "Leaf by Niggle" several days ago and immediately thinking of "The Legend of Zelda."   Now "Leaf by Niggle" is heavily platonic in its conception of the afterlife; advancing toward the divine through an ever more real series of images.  We see this also in C.S. Lewis' Narnia where at the end of the ages the cast are invited "further up and further in."  Now there's something in this idea of advancing through stages or levels towards a fulfillment or consummation that put me in mind of video games.  The player works his way through a series of worlds, or as Miyamoto calls them "gardens," toward some desired object, the goal of the quest and the end of the game.  In the Legend of Zelda series, this goal is often the mystic Triforce, a tripartite object representing the balance between wisdom, courage, and power.  To master this object, the one who seeks to win it must brin...

* All Images Copyright James R. Harrington 2011

I had my directorial debut this year as a drama teacher.  The play we chose to do was Aurand Harris' adaptation of C.S. Lewis' "The Magician's Nephew."   It was well received by the school community.  While pictures are pending, here is the director's note that I whipped together (last minute) for the program.  (nota bene: I am heavily indebted to Dr. John Mark Reynold's lecture on the Magician's Nephew for the Torrey Honors institute for pointing out that "The Magician's Nephew" revolves around our response to pain.) Welcome to our 2010/2011 Drama performance of C.S. Lewis' "The Magician's Nephew."  "The Magician's Nephew" was originally meant to be the second installment in The Chronicles of Narnia.  During composition, however, Lewis found himself increasingly unable to continue and thus shelved the manuscript for a number of years.  The reason for this may be that the story was becoming too perso...

My wife and I were discussing our favorite books from the Chronicles of Narnia on our way back from lunch.  My wife, true to her sunny personality, is a staunch fan of "The Voyage of the Dawntreader."  I can't argue with that choice but, when push comes to shove, "The Silver Chair" has always been my favorite. I have a bit of a theory.  I think "The Voyage of the Dawntreader" is Lewis' grail legend.  If that's so, then I'd hazard a guess and say that "The Silver Chair" is his "Pilgrim's Progress." -just think about the shape of Puddleglum's hat and the fact that he lives in the Fen Country and you'll see what got me thinking down this line. That brings me to why I like "The Silver Chair" so much.  When I was little, we had a children's version of "Pilgrim's Progress" that my mom used to read to me.  I lived in New England and the Christianity I was raised with had a heavy tin...

The kingdom of Hyrule has one castle, one village, one church, and a myriad of ruins left from an older civilization. Evidence suggests that the primary industries of Hyrule are logging and fishing. No evidence of large-scale agriculture exists and, as such, we must conclude that a large portion of the kingdom's foodstuffs are imported. Hyrule makes Lichtenstein look large. On the other hand, maybe asking where Link gets his rice balls is like asking where the Narnian factory is that supplies Mrs. Beaver with her sowing machine. A friend of mine, staring at the map of Mordor that hung on the wall in our bachelor apartment, once asked how Sauron could feed all his orks. Another friend and I quickly pointed to the sea of Nurn and explained that there was an agricultural region on its banks and that additional foodstuffs could be imported from the tributary states in the south. It wasn't the answer he expected. The point is that Tolkien had an answer for just about everyt...