Whether we know it or not, life our lives and the stories we know so well are linked. A good friend and I were recently discussing how to help a mutual acquaintance whose life seems to have gone off the rails. We realized that he had taken on a “life narrative” of victimization and betrayal. Everything that happens to him is interpreted from within the context of this story line; innocent acts by his friends are seen as betrayals because that is the default setting for how he understands his life, not because there is any objective reason to think they actually are. The results are self-destructive, as you can well imagine.
The conversation moved on to the importance of establishing a healthy life story to live by. We can only write the story of our own lives up to a point, but a central component of a healthy self-concept is the life narrative we adopt. It has a powerful influence on how we interpret our life events and on how we make decisions that affect the way our lives actually do unfold. This realization leads to the importance of exposure to good literature from a young age, powerful stories that model for us who we are and lay out quest trajectories by which we create a vision for understanding our purpose and calling.
What is your quest?
The Bible is of course the most important. It has the ultimate hero, the ultimate knight in shining armor, Christ. It has the classic villain, Satan, and the classic damsel in distress, the human race. The Hero goes on an epic journey, at great personal sacrifice defeats the Villain, and the Hero and the Damsel then ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after. That metanarrative actually happened, indeed, is happening. Therefore, if it defines your life story, you live in hope and meaning. Adopt any other narrative and you will have nothing but arbitrary choices standing between you and futility, nothing but arbitrary values between you and boredom, nothing but lies and false hopes between you and despair.
Illuminated Manuscript of the Bible. (Yes, it deserves to be treated like this!)
Other good literature can help too, by reinforcing the biblical narrative and fleshing it out in our imaginations. Is life a meaningless, self-centered ramble or a purposeful quest? We need Oddyseus’s journey home to Ithaca,Aeneas’s journey to find a new homeland for his people, Dante’s journey through Hell and Heaven, Frodo’s journey to the Cracks of Doom, Reepicheep’s journey to the Utter East, and Puddleglum’s journey back to Overland, to help keep us fresh and focused. Is this world our home, or are we just a-passing through? If so, to what end? The choices we make and the quality of our experience will depend on how we conceptualize the journey of life. We need the Bible as a foundation and other good literature to reinforce it in order to be travelers who will arrive at our destined end and be healthy and productive along the way.
Slide from Dante’s trip to Hell.
Donald T. Williams, PhD, is R. A. Forrest Scholar at Toccoa Falls College and the author of eight books, including three from Lantern Hollow Press: Stars Through the Clouds (his collected poetry), Inklings of Reality: Essays toward a Christian Philosophy of Letters, and Reflections from Plato’s Cave. To order, go to
Some of my reading in Irish literature is about the voyage tales, such as Immram Brain, Immram Maile Duin, and Echtrae Chonlai.
In these stories, the heroes make voyages over the sea in search of the magical and wonderful Otherworld. A lot of the stories (if not all of them, depending on what scholar you read), are very Christian, with varying amounts of earlier legendary material. It’s a bit depressing when you start looking at the scholarship and they begin systematically shredding the stories’ supposed Celtic origins and Otherworldly imagery, but I’m a bit more of what they call a nativist. I think there is still something of the old legends there.
When I was reading through some of the immrama (voyage tales) and echtrai (Otherworld adventures), the stories of Bran and Mael Duin in particular made me think of Lewis’s Voyage of the Dawn Treader. They are stories of voyages to magical islands that ultimately lead to the ends of the world.
Now, I am fully aware that there are other somewhat similar voyage tales in other cultures. Take, for example, the story of Odysseus. He quite literally defined the odyssey as far as modern readers are concerned. But for Odysseus, the goal was always to go home. Everything he did from the time he left was in order to find his way back. The Irish journeys are not quite as “homeward”, shall we say.
I happen to hope that there is a bit more of an Irish flavor to the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Here’s why:
While in many of the voyage tales in Irish literature, the heroes do return, there are a lot of stories in which returning is not the ideal. When Bran’s ship reaches the Otherworld, they spend what seems like a few weeks, but is really centuries. One of his companions has a longing to see his friends again, but when they go home and his feet touch the soil, he turns to ash as the ages catch up with him. Bran and the others set sail and never return. Perhaps they went back to the Otherworld, or maybe they spent the rest of their days trying to find it again.
Likewise, in Echtrae Chonlai, Conlae is summoned to the Otherworld by a faerie woman. When he goes, he does not come back.
With The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, King Caspian and most of his crew are not sailing to the ends of the world, never to return, but one of their number is. Reepicheep intends to go as far as the seas will take him to find Aslan’s Country. It is his goal, not just a stop along the way.
Aslan’s Country is obviously Lewis’s heavenly realm, but it also shares some traits with the Irish Otherworld in many of these stories:
*No one finds it unless they are meant to
*It is a timeless realm that is both connected to and beyond the mortal circles.
*It is the ultimate destination – everyone wants to find their way there eventually, even if, as for Caspian, he was not able to reach it during that voyage
*Those who do come back home again are forever changed, usually for the better
Apparently, now that I’m studying Irish and Welsh literature, I tend to see it in everything, so I have drawn a lasting connection in my mind between the immrama and the Voyage (Immram) of the Dawn Treader.
Please let me know what you think. This is an interesting idea, but I may be completely wrong. At the very least, it is a fun possibility to explore.
*By the way: the title is my rough translation of Voyage of the Dawn Treader in Irish. It is probably quite, quite, quite wrong, but it looks pretty darn cool, if I do say so myself.
So, I was thinking about dragons today. Yesterday too, in fact. Actually, dragons are quite often on my mind. I’ve done a few posts on dragons already. This post is really just a bit of fun in which I give a few of my favorite dragon quotes and you can do the same.
The other day, I came across C.S. Lewis’ quote: “I desired dragons with a profound desire.” I can relate to that. Every time I read a book or watch a movie with a dragon, I want to be there. I want to see them for real.
The first was Dragonheart. No one does a dragon’s voice quite like Sean Connery. That was pretty much how I imagined dragons ought to sound. Of course, the premise is that they’re dying out, so I didn’t really appreciate that. Here’s my fond memory from Dragonheart:
Draco: Who’s the girl?
Bowen: A nuisance! Get rid of her!
Draco: Why?
Bowen: They’re trying to placate you with a sacrifice!
Draco: Oh, now whoever gave them that bright idea?
Bowen: Never mind! Just get rid of her!
Draco: How?
Bowen: Eat her!
Draco: Oh, please. YUCK!
Bowen: Aren’t we squeamish; you ate Sir Egglemore, hypocrite!
Draco: I merely chewed in self-defense, but I never swallowed.
I also remember being very excited that a dragon showed up in Narnia. Not as excited as Reepicheep, of course:
King Caspian: “A dragon has just flown over the treetops and lighted on the beach. Yes, I am afraid it is between us and the ship. And arrows are no use against dragons. And they’re not at all afraid of fire.”
Reepicheep: “With your Majesty’s leave—“
King Caspian: “No, Reepicheep, you are not to attempt a single combat with it.”
Being a dragon in Narnia was not a good thing, unfortunately. But it did change Eustace for the better, so I call that a win.
I wish that I could follow those old European maps that read “Here be Dragons”. That’s the place on the map that I’d head straight for. Now, I know you’re just waiting for me to quote that famous old bit:
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
I actually have a bumper sticker that reads:
Noli immiscere te draconum rebus nam fragilis es dentibus et cum garo bene sapis.
Same thing, only with “fish sauce” since the Romans didn’t have ketchup.
What I need is a t-shirt that reads: “Frequently meddles in the affairs of dragons.” I’m meddlesome. What can I say?
And finally, Tolkien had plenty to say about dragons, especially in The Hobbit. Here’s one:
It never does to leave a live Dragon out of the equation.
Believe me, I never would if I could just find a live dragon. It would figure very largely in any future equations. I just have to hunt down that dragon. Perhaps a year in Scotland will do the trick.
So, does anyone else have an awesome dragon quote? Lewis and Tolkien have plenty more. Other authors out there have things to say. What have you found that made you wish you could find one of those discreetly hidden dragons out there?
This is a sketch I did of a dragon from fellow LHP member Stephanie's story "Sidhe Eyes"
Great Movie! I wonder when they’ll make one about the Dawn Treader?
by Brian Melton
Since it’s technically my day to post, I’ll go first: Ah. Where to begin with a review of the new “Voyage of the Dawn Treader”? Perhaps a better question would be, where to end? Hollywood and Douglas Gresham have done reviewers few favors in putting together this new adaption of C. S. Lewis’s work–particularly making a movie that I can’t easily describe as either good or bad. Instead, if asked what I thought of it–that is the whole point of a movie review, after all–I must be a good Tolkien-esque elf and answer “both yes and no.”
On the one hand, I had quite a few frustrations with the bulk of the movie. It was as if the writers had torn all of the pages out of the book, put them into a big bag, shook it up, and started drawing them out one at a time, blindfolded. “Oh look! Here’s a bit about an island full of dufflepuds. We can put that here. What’s next?” (Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle) “Hey! I got two this time. Something about Deathwater and a dragon. We’ll just cram those two together. Next?” You get the obvious idea.
And then there’s the green mist–why a mist that comes from Dark Island is green instead of black, I don’t know–that eats people. Yes, I know that they needed a central “bad guy” for the movie to circle around, so they thought this up and then added the “seven swords of the seven lords” bit because it sounds cool with the rhyming and alliteration and what not. They then hammered the rest of the book into form around their own central premise, rather than molding their additions to the basic form of the book. I’m perfectly willing to grant that when switching mediums changes are inevitable, but the movie quickly descends into nonsense–the fight with the Lone Islander ninjas in Narrowhaven, Eustace killing Gumpas by accident, Coriakin turning the Duffers invisible to “hide” them, Lucy removing Dragon Eustace’s arm band, Eustace as a battledragon, Lord Roop chucking his sword into Eustace, the near complete gutting of Eustace’s salvation by Aslan, the inclusion of evil Narnian creatures in the crew, the idea of Jill Pole willfully stopping by to see Eustace before Aslan got hold of him, etc. etc. etc.
Unfortunately, the end result is a movie that in large part resembles its “inspiration” quite literally in names only: There are characters named Lucy, Edmund, Caspian, Eustace, etc. on a ship called the Dawn Treader visiting islands with familiar titles and they meet up with Aslan at the end but that’s about it. In the words of first-rate Inklings scholar Diana Glyer via Facebook, “Saw VDT. Bottom line? ‘Full of sound and fury, signifying…’ well, you know.” I was contemplating my own status update as the movie drew to a close: “Any resemblance between the movie I just watched and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader is purely coincidental.”
And then the last two scenes happened and my perspective, which had been so negative, was jerked around 180 degrees. After all of the revision, they left probably the key moment of the entire book more-or-less intact. Of all the editing they did, I would have expected this scene to have suffered the worst of it, given that it is easily the most overtly Christian (and therefore most “offensive”) moment in the entire story. As Lucy and Edmund came to grips with the idea that they would not be allowed back into Narnia, Aslan reassures them that He will see them in our world too:
But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.
I was stunned, even more so when I noticed the subtle inclusion of a cross in the closing scene (the wall anchor on which Eustace reverently hung the picture of the Dawn Treader). In that moment, Gresham and Hollywood got it right, very right. It was the first real taste of Lewisian subtlety that had come through in all three, and to me it fulfilled the essence of what Lewis was trying to do with the book far better than any other conceivable path we could have reasonably expected. It came close–and perhaps actually did–justify the rest of the movie.
Eustace and Reepicheep: Two high points...too bad there aren't more.
They got other things right too: Reepicheep and Eustace are spot on, and their relationship was well done. Georgie Hensley is rapidly growing into a beautiful woman and plays Lucy perfectly.* Ben Barnes finally gets over his Inigo Montoya “you-killed-my-father-prepare-to-die” fascination, and as a result Caspian is much more real and believable than before. Points like this make this movie a cut above Prince Caspian, but the lost opportunities are still frustrating. And so, “yes and no.”
*I hope she learns from her experience and continues to mature into a real woman, not a Hollywood idiot with few brains and fewer standards. For her sake I hope she learns early that TAKING YOUR CLOTHES OFF DOESN’T MAKE YOU A “MATURE” ACTRESS READY FOR “ADULT” ROLES. It destroys something that you are meant to share only with your beloved and cheapens you.
A Review of VDT
By Donald T. Williams
Verdict: mixed.
First, the positive. The ship is first rate: a right Narnian vessel. The acting is pretty good. Eustace does nasty so well that you are surprised at how convincing such a young actor makes the improvements to his character after his undragoning. Most importantly, the changes to the story were not as severe or as disruptive to the plot as those to Prince Caspian. Dawn Treader is the most episodic of the books. When reading, this is not a problem, because you can do one episode at a time if you want. For a single film it’s more of an issue–hence the green mist and seven swords motifs to try to gain unity. They could have been explained better, but they were not terribly intrusive. After making a convincing dragon out of Eustace, I can see how they could not resist using him against the sea serpent. Lucy and Edmund have moments of temptation, but they are not caricatures of themselves the way Peter was in Prince Caspian. Not all of the changes to the plot work well or make sense, but at least they do not alter the basic meaning of the work, like having a Peter who had apparently learned nothing from his previous life as High King and who shows up in PrinceCaspian less mature than he was in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe!
Less positive. I basically have two complaints, and they are probably related. The first is the tendency to replace some of the best dialog ever written with rather lame and bland (in comparison) speeches. All lovers of the books will have their own list of lines they wanted to hear but did not. Caspian’s devastating condemnation of slavery, Reep’s rebuke of Caspian for forgetting he is “not a private person,” Ramandu’s response to Eustace about what a star is made of versus what it is, Reep’s setting of his nose to the Utter East: the list goes on and on. How could anyone think that the comparative tripe which replaced this stuff was an improvment in any sense of the word? The answer escapes me.
The second and more serious complaint is a watering down of the spiritual message. It is not lost, but it is lessened. This happens in several ways. One is the addition of several speeches that jar because they are not Lewisian at all but rather have their origin in modern pop self-help psychology. Reepicheep playing a Narnian Dr. Phil to the dragon Eustace with a load of self-esteem-inflating schlock is not just annoying–it interferes with the real message of the book, which is present when Eustace admits that he could not have undragoned himself without Aslan. The iconic moment of the watering down for me, though, is the undragoning scene itself. In the book it is a major climactic moment on which we linger. In the movie it flashes past as just one more in a series of magical and marvelous happenings, not necessarily any more siginificant than any of the others. Finally, Eustace’s description of the experience was consistent with the one in the book, but weaker and nothing near as focused. And so I come full circle to my complaint about the dialog.
To sum up, I enjoyed the film and would not mind seeing it again. It is not the betrayal of Lewis that Prince Caspian was. But it could so easily have been so much better, more inspiring verbally and more powerful spiritually, in ways that would not have made it either less cinematic or more sectarian. Lewis fans would have loved it even more, and those who do not know Lewis would have been even more powerfully attracted–or repelled. We know the books have that effect on some. It would have been a risk worth taking, in my opinion.
While We're Paused... 