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Thread: Purgatory: The Problem of Susan, and of Narnia, and of CS Lewis
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
I love it! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Wanderer:
And of course the lamppost is in Durham - at the end of Prebend's Bridge.
The first time I ever went to Durham was a few days before Christmas. There was a lot of snow on the ground. I arrived after dark and the peninsula seemed almost deserted. I walked down the Bailey and missed St John's College and carried on to the gate in the city wall.
I walked out of the gate towards the bridge and found myself in a wood with snow-covered trees and the river frozen. I had no idea that such places existed. I turned round to look at the wall and saw the lamppost. A working gas lamp, with an iron bar across just below the top with icicles hanging off it. At that moment an owl hooted...
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Oriel:
And both have suffering to come: although Ransome may not have intended it, we now read the books in the knowledge that the Second World War is looming, and with a father (and possibly by then a brother as well) in the Navy, Susan Walker will know at least worry, if not loss. However, this suffering brings opportunity: women were pressed into all sorts of service in the War, and Susan could well find herself doing things that would have been inconceivable a few years earlier.
Ransome was a foreign correspondent for the Guardian, had witnessed the Russian Revolution, was a personal friend of Trotsky and (we now know) had briefly spied for the British in Russia and been an agent for the KGB outside Russia. So he was probably as aware of the possibilities of war as anyone could have been.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
There are many other places that have, or would have had, old gas lamps of the sort Lewis describes, not least Malvern College where he was (briefly) a pupil. However, the Durham setting is the only one I have seen where you have the illusion that the lamppost is actually in a wood, removed from civilisation. I believe Lewis visited Durham on a lecture tour shortly before writing TLTWATW, so the theory is possible.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Though the scenery of Narnia itself is more or less that of Northern Ireland.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Indeed. Just as the Shire is Warwickshire.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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maleveque
Shipmate
# 132
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Posted
In relation to Ransome v. Lewis, Ransome had the advantage of basing his characters on real live children, the Altounyans. There really were children named Roger, Titty (Mavis), Susan, and well, not John, but a girl named Taqui. Oh, and Bridget too. They were good friends and Ransome spent lots of time playing with and observing the children. When you read the stories - and I've read ALL of them, including the unfinished one - this basis in reality and understanding of childhood really is evident in a way that it is not in Lewis.
I love C.S. Lewis and I love Narnia, but I have to admit that Arthur Ransome had a much better understanding of the child's imagination.
Now that Father Christmas hypothesis of mine.... should I write it up as a paper, or as a story?
Anne L.
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Life isn't all fricasseed frogs and eel pie.
Posts: 1496 | From: Washington, DC or thereabouts | Registered: May 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Comparing Susan Walker to Susan in the Narnia stories may not be a totally fair comparison, because Ransome also had a very powerful heroine in the character of Nancy/Ruth Blackett, who was better at sailing than John Walker (and many other things). I read Swallows and Amazons aged 7* and I wanted to be Nancy.
* It sticks because I was the same age as Roger was at the beginning of the book.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
Since the Arthur Ransome tangent started, I've been thinking over the books again, and I'm thnking that one of the great things about them (from my perspective) was that there were so many female protaginists, rather than just tokens, and that they all had different personalities. And even Susan who was pretty much the "little mother" type, wasn't a wet blanket or soppy.
And Mrs. Walker was cool too.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
* It sticks because I was the same age as Roger was at the beginning of the book.
Me too as I recall, but the disconcerting thing as I read through them was that he grew up a lot faster than me.
Ken, the Wanderer... *sigh* "Grey towers of Durham, yet well I love thy mixed and massive piles...". Lantern waste has to be that strange empty spot in the middle of town, just as John's college has to be the basis for Bracton in THS. Though what I mostly remember about Prebends bridge was it being a good place for kissing ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
[ETA though, Wanderer, I think my corner of France comes pretty close to the Shire too]
[ 14. January 2008, 19:00: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Ken, wow re your lamp post anecdote!
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
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bush baptist
Shipmate
# 12306
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Posted
quote:
so many female protaginists, rather than just tokens, and that they all had different personalities
(Still off on a tangent, but yes, and not just the protagonists, either -- even the minor players had distinct personalities, like the couple the D.'s boarded with in Winter Holiday, and Mrs Blacket, and her aunt. Except Peggy -- Peggy missed out on personality. ![[Frown]](frown.gif) )
Posts: 1784 | From: drought-stricken land | Registered: Jan 2007
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
The difference may have been something in Ransome's wanting to convert you to a life of sailing, and the freedoms you get with that, while Lewis wanted to convert you to a life of belief, and... But Lewis' story was created by a SERIOUSLY academic person, while Ransome was much more a people person. (judging by his trips to Russia, and his Racundra's First Cruise )
And, has been pointed out, the major characters in Ransome are based on direct observation, described by a newspaperman, while Lewis was working entirely in theory.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Lynn MagdalenCollege
Shipmate
# 10651
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Posted
ooooh, Ken, a frisson of wonder at your Durham lamp post tale...
quote:
Originally posted by maleveque:
I love C.S. Lewis and I love Narnia, but I have to admit that Arthur Ransome had a much better understanding of the child's imagination.
Now that Father Christmas hypothesis of mine.... should I write it up as a paper, or as a story?
Either works: you could submit a story to The Mythic Circle or submit a paper to Mythlore but I'd really love to see you work up a paper comparing treatment of children between the two series and present it at the annual Mythopoeic Conference, conveniently located in the northeast for the first time... *nudge, nudge*. I'd love it, anyway.
Or Nicole-- seriously, check out the call for papers (anybody interested in these kinds of discussions should take a look; we get the occasional Brit coming over and presenting and folks come from all over the USA to attend Mythcon - it's a great, small conference: intellectually stimulating and lots of fun - an unbeatable combination).
Obviously I need to read the Ransome books. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Erin & Friend; Been there, done that; Ruth musical
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
But his idea of children was rather theoretical, compared to Ransome's direct reading of the Altounians.
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Lynn MagdalenCollege
Shipmate
# 10651
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Posted
It may have been more theoretical but Mrs. Moore's daughter was in the home during quite a few years so he did, in fact, have the experience of living with a child in the home - which isn't the same as a brood underfoot, still... I think it's also possible he was going for a certain kind of "classic" or "old style" feel to the books. And it may be a result of his hasty writing (these books, in particular, were written very quickly).
I really don't know why his children don't 'read' better (I like them, personally, but I'm not looking for realism). Maybe he just wasn't very good at portraying children?!
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Erin & Friend; Been there, done that; Ruth musical
Posts: 6263 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
The Ransome books certainly converted me to an interest in sailing, just as the Lewis books coloured my attitude to Christianity.
But the Ransomes had much more feeling of possible actuality - the kids were able to be just a bit freer and more reliable than "regular" kids, (being able to camp without supervision and without fighting, for instance) which made the stories more likely.
The Lewis books were something that happened to the kids, rather than something they did to themselves, although the kids certainly responded in desirable or possible ways. That response was what kept up the interest.
The idea that kids could go unsupervised for really quite long times in either set of stories is quite mythical now, BTW!
[ 15. January 2008, 09:13: Message edited by: Horseman Bree ]
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
It may be that he was simply looking back at his own childhood experiences. He clearly is working through some of his childhood traumas in the books. (E.g. his mom's death through Digory and his mom, boarding school bullies, etc.) I think he did a great job with situations kids face--loyalty to friends, learning from your mistakes, taking risks, etc. The bit in "Dawn Treader" where Lucy magically overhears a friend's moment of weakness is pitch-perfect, IMHO.
IIRC, CSL came off pretty well as a person in Sheldon Van Auken's "A Severe Mercy". Long time since I read it, though.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Eirenist
Shipmate
# 13343
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Posted
I admit at the outset that it is sometimes misleading to rely on ideas floated in one of an author's books draw conclusions about his views in general. However, if we look at CSL's 'The Great Divorce' we find that in that story those who have not reached Heaven after their life on Earth are still given the opportunity to visit it and to stay permanently if they wish (and can bear it). So I doubt very much if we are supposed to assume that Susan is irrevocably lost because 'at the silliest time of her life' she turned away from Narnia. I must concede that the portrayals of women in TGD are in general far from flattering, though I think we get a glimpse of an 'Aunt Polly'-ish figure.
Posts: 486 | From: Darkest Metroland | Registered: Jan 2008
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
I don't think the portraits of women in TGD are less flattering than the portraits of men. Almost all the characters are shown in the act of making bad decisions -- choices that will keep them trapped in Hell rather than allowing them to move on to Heaven. The one character whom we see making a positive move forward is male; the one character we see already celebrated as a great saint in heaven is female. I think it's pretty balanced. Maybe there is some gender stereotyping in the sins Lewis assigns to the characters (the women, as I recall: possessive "love," vanity about physical appearance; the men: intellectual and artistic snobbery, sexual perversion) but both male and female human beings are shown as being capable of both great weakness and great strength when it comes to making moral choices.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Eirenist
Shipmate
# 13343
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Posted
Regarding TGD, yes, I agree, Trudy S. I notice that the discussion seems to have moved on since the idea of contributing took hold of me; dare I say we have got a bit away from the issue of Susan?
If one may stray a bit farther, I would say that in Lucy we have a parallel to the character of Titty in the Ransome books - quite a deep and imaginative person as protagonist. She and Edmund are the most fully worked out figures in the Narnia books(I'm afraid I can't believe in any boy, John, I mean, who regularly exclaims 'By Jove!'. Maybe this was current boys' slang at Malvern in the early 20th century, but language at the private school I attended in the 1940s was very different, though hardly such as any publisher would have accepted in a children's book at the time, or even now.)
To my mind the most successful book is 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader', in which Edmund and Lucy are the protagonists. Interestingly (has anyone noticed this?) CSL was using the ancient Irish tale-form of the 'Immram', the voyage into an unknown sea, which Alwyn and Brinley Rees describe in 'Celtic Heritage' as 'a Celtic Book of the Dead'. But perhaps I am digressing a bit too far.
Posts: 486 | From: Darkest Metroland | Registered: Jan 2008
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
The idea that kids could go unsupervised for really quite long times in either set of stories is quite mythical now, BTW!
Except in children's fiction. A significant proportion of childrens' fiction involves children who:
- have no parents (viz Harry Potter)
- have parents who are not part of the story (any number of school stories) have parents who ignore them (Matilda is a superb example) have parents who don't supervise them (any number of gritty realist teen novels)
- have parents who require looking after, thus giving the child the parenting role (again, gritty teen novels)
Not having functional parents is almost de rigeur in teen fiction.
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
That was one of the things that disturbed me about Harry Potter--no adult supervision, most of the time.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
But how could you write an adventure story about children or younger teenagers any other way? If they are constantly under the orders of parents or teachers then its not really their adventure is it? So you might as well give up and go home.
(Of course the main characters in the Harry Potter books aren't really children for much of the series, but the same applies)
Again, Nesbit is the model here. Maybe not the first to write books like that, but the model for what came after.
And anyone who mentions Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer will be taken outside and shot. They are different. Sort of.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
Ken took the words out of my mouth. I've spent the hour since I last posted trying to think of children's and young adult's novels where there are functional parents who play an important part in the story. I can think of a number where there are functional foster parents or adults in authority, but the children still have their adventures without them.
And my apologies for the badly coded previous post - I must have hit the italics button instead of list item.
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
I was thinking about this very thing the other day (and yes, we have strayed a bit from Susan in Narnia, but as the OP I'm officially saying it doesn't bother me if it doesn't bother you, though anyone is welcome to yank the discussion back to Susan at any time) ... the absence of adults in children's stories. My daughter was telling me a story that she was acting out with her dolls while I was on the exercise bike. The story was about two sisters who both wanted to be dancers, etc etc ... and quite unexpectedly in the middle of the story, "Their parents died and they had to go live in an orphanage." The death of the parents had absolutely no impact on the plot of the story as it unfolded (of course she is 7 so I use the term "plot" loosely) -- I think she has just absorbed the cultural idea that those meddlesome parents need to be got out of the way so the story can unfold. Well-supervised children don't really make for interesting stories, do they?
Although it's not really a problem in Narnia, because of the fact that travelling to Narnia takes no time at all. They were a bit unsupervised in the professor's house, perhaps, but Mrs. Macready was coming down the hall behind them when they went into the wardrobe and hadn't yet gotten there when they came out years later. And the entire voyage in Dawn Treader could have taken place in the amount of time it took for Harold and Alberta to sent Eustace up to play nicely with his cousins while they prepared a tasty vegan snack for everyone.
Re the comment above about Edmund and Lucy being the most fully-developed characters in the stories -- I always thought that about Jill and Eustace, and the Silver Chair is my favourite Narnia novel probably for that reason (well, and Puddleglum). I think Jill is Lewis's best female character, and I have never thought (reading as a child and as an adult) that his children, boys or girls, were particularly unrealistic. Indeed, now that I have an almost 8-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son, Edmund and Lucy's relationship in the first book seems far too realistic to me sometimes.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
I have to suggest that several of the adults in the Ransome books are necessary to the plot - Mrs. Walker, Mrs. Blackett and Captain Flint in particular. They manage to let the kids go without losing their essentially adult roles.
This may come from the experience of some families in the aftermath of the Great War (viz: the mesage in a bottle at the top of Kanchenjunga)
And who could forget the necessity of the Great Aunt, particulrrly in "The Picts & the Martyrs"?
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
And actually they aren't that much "on their own", either. In most of the books it's been arranged with one of the local farmers to supply them with milk and bread on a regular basis, and, if not to "keep an eye" on them, at least to know that they're all right, and they are always supposed to check in at home regularly, too. In the first book, Mrs Walker comes over in the row boat to do a surprise inspection of the island to make sure they've set everything up properly and safely.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
It is indeed the first rule of children's/YA writing to "kill the parents" - insofar as there are rules. Since the children/teenagers need to be the protagonists, and something that is difficult for a child maybe relatively straight forward for an adult, it'd drive coach and horses through the plot of say _A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime_, if young whatsisface asks for a lift.
Lewis has his children seperated from their responsible carers: by death, by magic, by holiday, by boarding school. In _The Horse and His Boy_, the boy is adopted and then runs away, meeting a girl who is also running away in the company of two horses who are also running away.
It works, of course, though I would throw into the mix Ray Bradbury's _Something Wicked This Way Comes_, where the father has a pivotal role to play in sorting out his son's fairly epic problem.
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Forward the New Republic
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Asdara
Shipmate
# 4533
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Posted
quote:
That was one of the things that disturbed me about Harry Potter--no adult supervision, most of the time.
Some people's childhood experiances really are like that. I personally used to tell my friends "my parents are visiting" during the weekends of my young life - because that's the only time my mom and her boyfriends were every really 'around the house' for an entire day. (her days off) And we had virtually NO supervision, my sister and I, as children from the age of 5 (for me, 3 for her) on except me for her and occasionally a neighbor checking on us for me. /shrug
Also, in writing, it is important to remove the more capable adults if you're going to have a child or child-like protagonist. If Dumbledore was around, why would Harry be left facing Voldemort unaided? Reality is, there's no way to make a reader believe he would be without Dumbledore being 'removed from availablity' in a significant - impossible to avoid - way.
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Not all those who wander are lost. -- J.R.R. Tolkien
Posts: 239 | From: Illinios | Registered: May 2003
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
Still thinking, this time about some of my favourite young adult writing. Tamora Pierce is almost the only fantasy writer I can think of where adults (not parents in the main) play a significant part in the plot. She is outstanding for having adults who take their responsibility very seriously - the one character who does have parents in evidence discusses sex and politics with her mother, and Pierce's worlds show places where children have adults to emulate and admire. And as a result the reader is encouraged to emulate and admire as well. But then, her characters grow up and mature in the books.
While one might admire Dumbledore, he's a bit hard to emulate.
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
Posts: 3702 | From: Aotearoa, New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemrw:
In the first book, Mrs Walker comes over in the row boat to do a surprise inspection of the island to make sure they've set everything up properly and safely.
I think S&A is deliberately written to give the impression that the children are entirely on their own when in fact they almost never are. The adults have no intention of letting any duffers drown. So as long as you accept that 12-year-olds can be trusted to hand a boat with young children in it (which I know some parents wouldn't have then, and more now than then) there really isn't anything very shocking going on.
On the other hand, by the time we get to We didn't mean to go to sea things are a little hairier.
But on the other other hand AFAIK some of the later novels are fictional within the novel - they are meant to be stories that the older children made up for the younger ones.
So its all a bit metafictional and ironic and stuff.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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PrettyFly
Ship's sunbather
# 13157
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
That was one of the things that disturbed me about Harry Potter--no adult supervision, most of the time.
Nah, Dumbledore always had his eye on Harry.
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Screw today. I'm going for ice cream.
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
Besides, We Didn't Mean to go to Sea is about exactly that. They didn't mean to. They are supposed to be safely anchored, but the adult friend in who's care they are supposed to be doesn't show up (at the end of the book you find he's been in an accident and has been unconcious), they forget to loosen the anchor ropes, the tide rises, they slip their anchor, it's a foggy night, and the next thing they know they're heading across the North Sea in a storm, and the only thing they can safely do is keep going forward.
So that's the only one of the books where they are in real danger alone without adults. (Well, there's Missy Lee, too, but I'm just realizing I don't remember that one well at all, and I can't remember how they get in that situation or who else is there.)
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemrw:
(Well, there's Missy Lee, too, but I'm just realizing I don't remember that one well at all, and I can't remember how they get in that situation or who else is there.)
Isn't Captain Flint around in Missee Lee?
(Although if you're paying attention, you notice that Missee Lee and Peter Duck are both metafiction. I suppose Titty becomes a novelist when she grows up.)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Lynn MagdalenCollege
Shipmate
# 10651
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eirenist:
To my mind the most successful book is 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader', in which Edmund and Lucy are the protagonists. Interestingly (has anyone noticed this?) CSL was using the ancient Irish tale-form of the 'Immram', the voyage into an unknown sea, which Alwyn and Brinley Rees describe in 'Celtic Heritage' as 'a Celtic Book of the Dead'. But perhaps I am digressing a bit too far.
Welcome to the Ship! I confess total ignorance of Immram but I will observe that VotDT is the favorite Narnia book for many (probably mine, although I love them all in different ways; eh, sounds like I'm talking about my grandkids!).
Arabella PB, yeah, I suspect there's not much 'there' there if the children are all safely under the parents' noses (consider Mark Twain's classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and most fairy tales Hansel and Gretel which combines evil and ineffectual parenting and parental abandonment. In fact, it's much harder to think of children's adventure stories or fairytales which take place within the context of parental oversight. There are some interesting enchantment tales (The Six Swans and some forms of Twelve Dancing Princesses come to mind) but by and large parents need to be dead or missing (or completely ineffectual).
The only adventure books I can think of which have functional parents are A Wrinkle In Time, where the father has gone missing but is restored, and The Hardy Boys mysteries, and the Nancy Drew mysteries, again with only one parent.
The deceased mother is a real classic through fairy-tales and modern children's stories... and, of course, a formative reality for both CSL and JRRT.
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Erin & Friend; Been there, done that; Ruth musical
Posts: 6263 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
And I completely forgot the Weasley parents from Harry Potter, who are very functional. However, since most of the action takes place at school...
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
Posts: 3702 | From: Aotearoa, New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2002
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
Which brings me to another interesting tangent I was thinking of the other day -- since we've already had JRR Tolkein and Arthur Ransome among others on this CS Lewis thread (which started with a Neil Gaiman short story). I wonder about the extent to which JK Rowling was influenced by CSL? I think they both have certain similarities in their writing. The HP books, while much more intricately plotted and certainly not dashed off quickly as the Narnia books allegedly were, suffer from that same problem (from a purist's point of view) of lack of consistency in their internal universes; mythologies kind of thrown together rather than carefully worked out, etc. And (in my humble and non-purist opinion) much stronger characters and storyline than in a lot of novels where the author HAS worked very hard and very obviously on world-building.
But the real parallel I was thinking of is not to the Narnia books but to Screwtape. It occurred to me because I reread Screwtape for the first time in many years a few weeks ago, and then the other night my son was almost at the end of the Harry Potter books and I asked if I could read the chapter "The Forest Again" aloud to him because I love it so much.
It struck me that Dumbledore says to Harry (in the next chapter, "King's Cross") something to the effect that Voldemort would never have been able to understand that kind of self-sacrificing love that both Harry and his mother showed, and that if he could understand it, he wouldn't be Voldemort. And this is very close to one of Screwtape's major obsessions -- that true sacrificial, unconditional love for others is the one thing about God that the devil is never able to grasp, and keeps thinking he must find the "real" explanation. This idea -- that the heart of Christian faith and the heart of being a good person is self-sacrifice, and that this is the one thing evil cannot comprehend or grasp -- seems to be a major theme with both JKR and CSL, and I couldn't help wondering if that was purely coincidence (it could well be of course; it's hardly an uncommon theme in Christianity, but the similiarity of those two references really caught my attention).
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Cusanus
Ship's Schoolmaster
# 692
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom:
Still thinking, this time about some of my favourite young adult writing. Tamora Pierce is almost the only fantasy writer I can think of where adults (not parents in the main) play a significant part in the plot. She is outstanding for having adults who take their responsibility very seriously - the one character who does have parents in evidence discusses sex and politics with her mother, and Pierce's worlds show places where children have adults to emulate and admire. And as a result the reader is encouraged to emulate and admire as well. But then, her characters grow up and mature in the books.
I can recommend William Nicholson's Windsingers fantasy trilogy. It's an interesting riff on the 'Chosen Child' theme - but the parents involved are always around, realistic and have problems and missions of their own. (Note to self: time to re-read them.)
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"You are qualified," sa fotherington-tomas, "becos you can frankly never pass an exam and have 0 branes. Obviously you will be a skoolmaster - there is no other choice."
Posts: 3120 | From: The Peninsula | Registered: Jul 2001
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
True, maybe I should reread them, along with Cynthia Voigt's Dicey books, which are all about forming family and what it means to be family (since we're off on a tangent).
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
Posts: 3702 | From: Aotearoa, New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
One thing about Harry that explains his independence from adults is that for his entire life, he has lived with the Dursleys and has had it driven home to him that adults are untrustworthy and cruel. Expecting him to show up at Hogwarts and instantly and magically grow an appreciation and trust of adults is absurd. So of course when he finds ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump, he investigates on his own, or drags other adolescent/young adult friends along, quite often over their objections to the effect that he should tell Dumbledore or another adult at the school.
And although he's dying for a father, seeking one in Dumbledore and Sirius Black, he seems to come up empty on both counts. For some reason he never cottons onto Mr Weasley as a substitute father, although he does take to Mrs Weasley as a substitute mother.
Certainly in LWW, Peter and Susan take their troubles with Edmund and Lucy to the Professor, although his unexpected answers kind of sour them on seeking his help. British children really were separated from their parents in WW2, so that's hardly a phony contrivance. And Lewis billeted many of these children so he was writing from experience, albeit from the other end of the telescope.
My favorite Narnian tale is the Horse and His Boy. I think both of the child characters in that book are well-drawn, and I think it is nearly the most like a classical fairy tale in its structure and plot. Both Shasta and Aravis come off very strong and brave and clever/intelligent (the things Lewis admired in children), and certainly Hwin is no less an admirable horse than Bree.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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PrettyFly
Ship's sunbather
# 13157
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Posted
There's another similarity to Harry Potter and Narnia - specifically LWW - in that the witch and Voldemort both fail in their schemes because they do not take "deeper" magic into account, that magic being love and, as someone mentioned earlier, self sacrifice.
JK said something wonderful on her website under the FAQs (yes, I'm a bit of a Potter geek...) - that when Voldemort took some of Harry/Lily's blood into himself in The Goblet of Fire he unwittingly transferred some of that powerful love and self-sacrifice into himself (it was that which saved Harry from his original curse). And that "If he had repented he could have been healed more deeply than anyone could have supposed".
I thought that was amazing... and I think CSL would have approved
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Screw today. I'm going for ice cream.
Posts: 1797 | From: Where the sun keeps shining and where the weather suits my clothes | Registered: Nov 2007
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege:
And I particularly like the ending, how they marry in order to go on arguing more conveniently...
Yes, it was a great one-liner to come out with when asked rather condescendingly by a friend's parent, who was a marriage guidance counselor, why I and my dear fiancée wanted to get married (the poor guy had obviously never read his CSL!)
Dafyd, I never realised Missee Lee was metafiction. I see from the Wikiepedia article that if I'd been paying attention I would have seen that the boat is the one featured in Peter Duck, but are there any other indications?
[need to try posting once my eyes are properly open]
[ 16. January 2008, 04:57: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
But how could you write an adventure story about children or younger teenagers any other way? If they are constantly under the orders of parents or teachers then its not really their adventure is it? So you might as well give up and go home.
At the very least, you could have an in-house dorm parent. The kids could sneak by him/her, get caught occasionally, and have someone to advise and comfort them when things were rough. At least they'd always know that an adult was readily available.
quote:
Again, Nesbit is the model here. Maybe not the first to write books like that, but the model for what came after.
From what I remember of the Nesbit books, the kids had decent parents...but the kids went adventuring away from home.
quote:
And anyone who mentions Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer will be taken outside and shot. They are different. Sort of.
Funny, Twain said that about anyone who tried to find a moral in "Huckleberry Finn"!
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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JonahMan
Shipmate
# 12126
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom:
Ken took the words out of my mouth. I've spent the hour since I last posted trying to think of children's and young adult's novels where there are functional parents who play an important part in the story. I can think of a number where there are functional foster parents or adults in authority, but the children still have their adventures without them.
In the Whitby Witches trilogy (Robin Jarvis) the main protagonists are children, but adults are also very important - though admittedly not the actual parents, as they (perhaps inevitably) have died at the start of the first book and the children have to go and live with their aunt, who is vital to the story, and involved in most, though not all, of their adventures.
These books felt quite strange to read partly because of this I think - they didn't conform to the classic 'the children have to avert massive evil without adult input' scenario.
Jonah
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Thank God for the aged
And old age itself, and illness and the grave
For when you're old, or ill and particularly in the coffin
It's no trouble to behave
Posts: 914 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Dec 2006
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JonahMan
Shipmate
# 12126
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom:
Ken took the words out of my mouth. I've spent the hour since I last posted trying to think of children's and young adult's novels where there are functional parents who play an important part in the story. I can think of a number where there are functional foster parents or adults in authority, but the children still have their adventures without them.
In the Whitby Witches trilogy (Robin Jarvis) the main protagonists are children, but adults are also very important - though admittedly not the actual parents, as they (perhaps inevitably) have died at the start of the first book and the children have to go and live with their aunt, who is vital to the story, and involved in most, though not all, of their adventures.
These books felt quite strange to read partly because of this I think - they didn't conform to the classic 'the children have to avert massive evil without adult input' scenario.
Jonah
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Thank God for the aged
And old age itself, and illness and the grave
For when you're old, or ill and particularly in the coffin
It's no trouble to behave
Posts: 914 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Dec 2006
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege:
The only adventure books I can think of which have functional parents are A Wrinkle In Time, where the father has gone missing but is restored,
But he's not a functional parent for the main part of the story. He can't function as a parent because he's been captured by [NO SPOILERS] in an alternate universe!
All you need to make the kids adventure story is for the parent to be prevented from parenting by the plot. Maybe they are incompetant, or evil or dead. (Every mother figure in Diana Wynne Jones books is evil, almost every father figure well-meanign but ineffectual)
But they might be fully functional people, just not able to do the job of a parent at the moment. Maybe they are prevented by some obstacle which they or the children overcome. Or maybe the children are just visiting somewhere. Five go to places the Swallows and Amazons went before.
One big subtheme is children's fiction is the search for the lost parent. Which Wrinkle mostly is. And at least the first two books of Dark Materials Loads of others.
Another is the accquisition of a replacement parent. All those stories and films about nannies! And Pullman again. Or The Prince and the Pauper. Back on topic, Narnia is full of good and bad substitute parents. Beavers, dwarves, witches, tutors, Aslan himself. Horse and his Boy is partly about the characters re-homing themselves with new parent figures in Arkenland and Narnia. Maybe it mostly is.
And another is the children helping the parent overcome whatever it is that prevents them being competantly in charge. Edith Nesbits parents are foreever going bankrupt or being arrested and the children are helping them out. Not so very different from the circumstances of her own life.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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