Narnia, Chronicled.

December 22nd, 2022. It was the second to last day ever of Bethlehem, A.D ., on its 30th anniversary. It was a Thursday night. Before walking over the Bethlehem, A. D. for the very last time, we stopped into the library to get warm. I looked at the booksale, and saw this book. It was a small, well-loved paperback. It was only a dollar.  I remember having seen this cover in my childhood, because this was the 1994 HarperCollins edition that was making its round in schools. It had all of the original illustrations in it. (According to the internet, this may be an abridged version of the book?) I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but this is a breath-takingly beautiful cover.  I put my feelers out and asked my friends if they had read the book before. I was aptly, sufficiently and graciously warned about the !Jesus Lion! stuff, but I didn't... I still didn't feel prepared for how goofy that was, honestly. All in all, I liked the book a lot. Much of it did...

  The title of this blog comes from the lyrics of this incredible song by Susanne Sundfør. And if eternal winter, if eternal snow I'll have a Turkish delight I've got the freeze, they offer me holy wine It gets me through the night Everybody's hungry for more and more and more and Even though they know that Maugrim's at the door and Everybody thought they could make it on their own but I have seen them turn into stone Everybody thought they could make it on their own but I saw them turn into stone I am a huge fan of the treat Turkish Delight (the real stuff, not the disgusting mass-produced ones), so the title of this track had caught my eye. I am a huge fan of  Susanne Sundfør, and this song is no exception. "The Silicone Veil" is my favourite album of hers, and I think that this song would have been a better  fit sonically than  the one it was actually on.  For years I had thought about how 'Turkish Delight' reminded me of The Lion, The Witch, and th...

 Next up in my foray into Narnia was this song by Regina Spektor. I am not a fan of hers, by any means. I did not watch the Narnia movies by Disney when they came out, but this song was literally everywhere. I know people are very sentimental about this song, so I don't want to dunk on it too much. I have very vivid memories of being at the movies and hearing this song against my will everywhere in the bloody cinema and seeing the posters for the film.

My first foray into Narnia was seeing The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe , the 1979 animated made-for-television film, in its syndication on the Disney Channel . I have very vivid memories of the scene with the White Witch meeting Edmund for the first time, and Edmund meeting Maugrim (who in this version is referred to as "Fenris Ulf," the name given to him for the US revisions of the novel until 1994). I didn't remember very much else from it. There are two different dubs of this film, the American version (which I saw), and the UK version (which I have yet to sit through). It was broken up into two parts, and was apparently seen by 37 million viewers and won two Emmy Awards (according to Wikipedia). It was directed by Bill Melendez of Peanuts fame. Ironic that it made its way onto the Disney Channel, because Melendez was a well-known and insufferable Disney-hater. The animation is.... not great. What may have been charming for Peanuts looks...just plain bad when it ...

  I had never read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe growing up. I had seen the 1979 cartoon film in syndication on the Disney Channel, and understood some of the pop culture references, but that was the extent of my Narnia knowledge. I knew that C.S. Lewis was a renown Christian author, and was friends with Tolkien.  Last year, a few days before Christmas, I saw a copy of   The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe   at a library booksale, the 1994 HarperTrophy edition with Jadis (The White Witch) and Maugrim looking menacing on the cover . I think the book was only a dollar, and the cover (yes, I know) was enough for me to be interested. I took it home, asked friends if they had read it before, and then read it in about a day. ( Yes, I had been warned about !Jesus Lion!) I watched the Disney adaptation on Christmas Eve of last year, and have been interested in it ever since.  Since it's Christmastime (which I have nicknamed Narnia Season), m...