During class on Monday, we discussed the differences between a "children's book" and an " adult book", we talked about children's books being categorized in genres and if adults could, or should enjoy them. I am also pretty sure we talked about why Lewis decided to write the Narnia series as children books (or at least that's what i was thinking about during discussion). But a thought accured to me. Maybe Lewis wrote these children stories for adults.
When I was in elementary school I read the Narnia series. I loved the books, they were great stories. However; I didn't understand them as well as I did when I read them again in high school, not to mention now. This kind of reminds me of baby sitting my little cousin Jeff. Jeff and I love Sponge Bob, and Disney movies (the old stuff, not the crappy new episodes of sponge bob). We usually laugh and enjoy the same event or joke, but every once in awhile the writers throw in an adult joke or hidden symbolism that Jeff, at the green age of 7 just doesn't understand.
Writers of "children's" shows and movies constantly add in adult humor that goes completely over kids heads and even though it is entertaining to kids, they don't appreciate it to it's full potential. That is why in the beginning of, " The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe." Lewis writes, " But someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again." C.S. Lewis is certainly writing for the young reader, but I think that these fairy tales are meant for adults to read perhaps more than children.
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2 comments:
While I agree that a child can get and enjoy a child's story, I think Narania does something insanely cool in that it's not that a child reads Narnia and thinks, Aslan is God, but instead latter when learning more about God down the road relizes that God was Aslan. That maybe Narnia just gives the child the chance to learn an idea in more abstract and then eventually apply it...
that could be. I'm sure that after I had come to the realization however that I still would miss somethings and that I probably would forget a lot about the story.
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