Narnia: The Chronicles of Narnia is a beautiful and meaningful story that is actually quite well-written. I personally have no problem with losing Susan. She represents all those who believe as children and then get caught up with the fashions and requirements of the times and are intent on 'Growing Up". She was kind of headed that direction from the beginning-- and when you find out that she's gone and is referring to Narnia as "those funny games we used to play when we were children", it's a bit of a shock, and you miss her, but you understand that she is the one who would lose Narnia in the end-- and also she reminds you of so many real people and you feel sort of resigned. I do not find Narnia to be at all racist (what is racist about 'the Horse and his Boy? Is it the fact that the Calormenes are dark-skinned? What's wrong with that?).

I do hold the opinion that Lewis was much more concerned with his characters than with the world they live in-- which is fine, it's just the kind of story he was writing. What I mean is that, though I saw the characters very well, I never really saw Narnia-- it always seemed like just a map that the characters were moving about on. I never actually saw the hills and mountains, or the islands, or the fountains or the flowers. But again, the story being told does not need all these things-- it is not that sort of book. The flat, map-like appearance of Narnia creates a surface for the imagination to play on-- besides, Lewis was creating a world that would be described as an 'imaginary world'--not that Narnia is imaginary within the story itself-- he's not creating a real epic world with a history for a saga, like Tolkien. 

Harry Potter: I quite like this story. I can't tell whether I prefer the first or the last books in the series-- they are very different. I like the first three books because there is a far more 'magical' feel about them then books 4-7. I mean, I can't imagine the early Harry, Ron and Hermione running about in blue jeans. The first books have a sort of shivery charm which the later ones do not. Books 4-7 get awfully 'teenage' all of a sudden-- still magical, but suddenly a smidge too 'normal'-- again, blue jeans. But again, 1-3 don't make quite as much sense as the later ones-- some of the events and circumstances aren't very logical. And it's fun to watch the characters grow up-- watching Neville becoming more and more heroic (the book-Neville, who is heroic without losing his nature, not the movie-one-- the movie version somehow ceases to be Neville), watching Ron and Hermione fall in love (no, Hermione and Harry would NEVER have worked) and just seeing Harry getting older. 

I appreciate and enjoy the story. It is deep in places, and clever and engaging. The characters really grab you. But I get what people are saying when they complain about the writing-- it's good, but it's not GREAT. The plot, especially in the later books, is good, but it does wander a little. The foundation behind the story is sound-- but it can be bumpy in spots. Overall, a good, enjoyable story. 

 Percy Jackson: I happen to love mythology, so I like the clever modernization of the original, ancient stories. A fun series-, and containing a consistent wit and humor that covers the whole series pretty smoothly--without worn spots or holes in the road. But it is still just another one of these modern, Young Adult stories-- in perhaps fifty years or so, it will be one of those series that caught a craze but never made it to the Classics-- it will not last. It won't last as long as Harry Potter, even, let alone Middle-Earth. 

Lord of the Rings: I'll have to do this one next week :( Goodnight! :)

Well...thing is, Harry would have to be the Chosen One and take all the glory and be master of death and not let anyone else take the spotlight because, otherwise, the books would be a bit flat.

~Eli <3 

About Narnia being a
"children's book"...

C. S. Lewis said, in his dedication
of The Lion, the Witch, and
the Wardrobe to his granddaughter Lucy: "Someday, you will be old
enough to start reading fairy tales again."  

I'm actually really surprised that
so many people didn't really like Narnia. To each his own, I guess. But I love Narnia.  I love
it because it shows the Creation and the End, and the whole world, in a
completely different way that we tend to think of it. The Bible says the end of
the world will come with the Antichrist, who will pretend to be the real Christ
and lure everyone away from the truth (This is simply what I believe as a Christian; I’m
not trying to offend anybody). But in The
Last Battle, the Antichrist is only a donkey dressed up in a lion skin.
The donkey himself is not trying to defy Aslan (God); it was the Ape
who made him do it. The donkey (Puzzle) is eventually redeemed by Aslan,
something I love - that even the "Antichrist" himself can be
redeemed. 

And about them constantly leaving
Narnia all the time: Aslan says at the end of The
Voyage of the Dawn Treader that the reason they were brought to Narnia
in the first place was to know him better in their own world. They were never
meant to spend their whole life in Narnia. They were meant to get a glimpse of
what it was like and bring a little back in their own world. Take Eustace, for
example. He was a completely annoying and obnoxious person, but after he was
changed into a dragon, he changed for the better and became less selfish and
more considerate.

Aslan says that he had a different
name in their world, and they needed to know him by it. Narnia is like a small
glimpse of Heaven, or a reflection of it, I guess. In The Last Battle, when they're all
in Heaven, they said it was exactly like their own Narnia, just more REAL.
They said that their Narnia from before was just a "reflection" of the
Narnia they were in now, and everything about it just meant MORE. C. S. Lewis
brings attention to that. When I think of Heaven, I think of clouds and cupids
and harps. But I know it's not like that truthfully, it's much more than anyone
could ever imagine. Again, I'm not trying to offend or anyone who's not a
Christian, it's just what I believe that I'm sharing with the group.

About the racism thing: I don’t
believe it’s racist. I do not believe that was C. S. Lewis’s intent, either.
People are different. That’s a fact. Just because the Calormenes have a darker
shade of skin and the slave trade was especially popular in Calormene doesn’t
mean it’s racist. There are several Calormenes in Narnia who aren’t slave
traders (like that young Calormene in The Last Battle who thought Tash
was the one true God. But Aslan tells him that whenever he had done a good deed
in the name of Tash, he had really done it in His name. And whenever he had
done a bad deed in the name of Aslan, he had really done it in Tash’s name).

And about Susan leaving, I agree
with Katia. Susan felt insecure about all this coming and going and because she was smart (like
Rowena Ravenclaw), she decided to protect herself from further harm by shutting
it all out. I believe that one day, Susan will come back to Narnia. I think
maybe deep down, she knows that it’s all real, and yearns to go back to it.

Narnia is just so timeless for me.
When I look in my family’s huge volume of all the Narnian stories held together with masking tape, I can still
see where, when I was learning to read, my mom wrote the dates, or crossed out
words and made them have subject-verb agreement. It’s a story not just about Narnia,
but about our world as well.

So... yeah! That is why I love Narnia!

Lord of the Rings: I saw that someone said that Tolkien got too caught up with his world and forgot he was telling a story. I also saw someone say that the characters don't change and grow enough. But...

The Lord of the Rings is not a typical Young Adult book. The fact that Tolkien is obviously in love with his world is only part of what makes that world so beautiful, deep and real. I have seen Middle-Earth, from the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire to the cruel harshness of Mordor. I have seen the glory of the Mallorn trees of Lothlorien in Autumn, and heard the longing cry of the gulls by the Sundering Sea, and smelt the fresh balm of Athelas, and felt the eerie horror of Shelob's Lair. Because Tolkien saw and heard and smelt and felt all these things.

I know the joy and the sorrow of the Elves of the Hither Shore, and the gnawing, self-pitying, entrapping, despicable, horrible despair of Gollum, and the sudden burst of highest bliss when Gandalf laughs in Ithilien, and the terrible, irresistable desire imparted to all by the Ring, and the great, dark-defying gladness of Faramir upon the walls of Gondor, and the overpowering emptiness of Frodo as the Ring takes all that is in him and eats it away, leaving him powerless and broken.  Because Tolkien understood and felt all of these things. 

Many characters of the Lord of the Rings do not change. Because there is no need or want for them to do so. They are not people in a teenage adventure book, in which all the young characters are undergoing much confusion in every aspect of their life. In which the whole point of the book is for these people to become different. In such a story, the characters do so. They change.

But the people of Middle-Earth endure.

They endure, whole and untainted, through the horror and terror of evil, through the rending of loss, through suffering and weeping and toil of every kind. But they endure. The world laughs. All that is good is not gone.

Frodo does change. He changes so much that he can never be whole again in Middle Earth. That life and innocence and joy that made him the only one able to bear the Ring has been devoured by that Ring.  He saved the world, but not for him. He makes a change that is unlike many others one reads of. His change is not one of self-discovery. His change is one of ultimate sacrifice, the loss of self and all that he loves. All that he sacrificed for in the first place. Can anyone call that 'not changing'?

In 'the Hobbit' the title character, Bilbo Baggins, also changes. Because that was the point of his Adventure. But even then, he is not completely different. He never loses his Baggins-ish outlook. That outlook only comes to be informed and enlargened by his Took side.  Bilbo is not reversed-- he is fulfilled.

I also saw someone say that Gandalf is rather boring. That he is always calm and collected and that everyone trusts him.

For one thing-- anyone who's read the story can tell that Gandalf is anything but boring. Before he becomes Gandalf the White, he is vain and irritable, with a great sense of humor. Later, that sense of humor is made even more manifest, and he is no longer so irritable-- he is very weary. The fact that everyone trusts him and looks to him for advise is because that's why he's there. He is a Maiar who was present at the shaping of Arda, and he was sent as one of the Istari to wage war against Sauron. He is fulfilling his task. (And he seems to be the only one of the Istari to do so-- Sauruman falls, along with Alatar and Polondo, and Radagast, though he does not openly rebel, neglects his task.) Here are a few verses by Frodo, describing Gandalf. 

A deadly sword, a healing hand, 

A back that bent beneath its load;

A trumpet-voice, a burning brand,

A weary pilgrim on the road.

A lord of wisdom throned he sat, 

Swift in anger, quick to laugh; 

An old man in a battered hat

Who leaned upon a thorny staff. 

That describes many aspects of Gandalf's character-- and I don't see 'calm' listed among them.

I'm sorry if I offended anyone with this. But I will defend my favorite story to the bitter end.

Namarie! :)