The Magicians Nephew - Tumblr Posts
Reading the silmarillion and the magicians nephew at the same time is so fucking funny. Like the entirety of magicians nephew is like “so anyway this cool thing happened and I’d tell you about it but anyway check out this lion”. Tolkien is like “shut the fuck up and listen to 7 thousand geographical details and while I’m on this tangent let’s go through the entire lineage of every single person I can think of, what were we talking about”.
When narnia is being built it takes like 20 seconds for all the stars and planets to show up and Tolkien specifies like several thousand years before the moon shows up and it takes like a hundred pages before they start counting DAYS. Lewis is like see Johnald???? You can do worldbuilding in less than a page!
My favorite comparison my fiance has noted is that the cabbies horse, strawberry, gets as much character description, if not MORE, than Digory’s uncle. Shadowfax is the most specialest horse in middle earth. If we know one thing about Tolkien and Lewis it’s that they love a good horsey.
On Prayer.
“Well, I do think someone might have arranged about our meals,” said Digory.
“I’m sure Aslan would have, if you’d asked him,” said Fledge.
“Wouldn’t he know without being asked?” said Polly.
“I’ve no doubt he would,” said the Horse (still with his mouth full). “But I’ve a sort of idea he likes to be asked.”
Prayer is something that I’ve struggled with a lot. I know the theory behind it, and I know that it’s important, but honestly I’ve never been good at it, and sometimes I wonder if there’s any point to it.
Rereading the Narnia series and this bit stood out to me. Of course Aslan would have known they needed food. But he wanted to be asked. It kind of struck home the importance of prayer and why we need to pray. Of course God knows what we need, and He’s waiting for us to ask him for it.
Obviously this is a simplified version, but sometimes simple is good. Often I get so caught up in the little details that I miss the big point. God wants us to ask for things.
I dunno, this bit just stood out to me and kinda drove home everything I’ve been hearing about prayer over the last few years!
All get what they want in the end. They do not always like it.
Aslan, The Magician's Nephew; C. S. Lewis
CS Lewis: This is Digory’s Uncle Andrew
Me, an intellectual:
