The Destruction of Wonder
I’m still reading a book a day. I’m a bit behind, but I’ll catch up. I’ve re-read most of the Narnia series and am about halfway through the Oz series.
I also finished The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia. I was enraptured by this critical book at first; Laura Miller felt and understood and expressed all the love I’d had for Narnia, as a child.
…I’m wishing, with every bit of my self, for two things. First, I want a place I’ve read about in a book to really exist, and second, I want to be able to go there. I want this so much I’m pretty sure the misery of not getting it will kill me. For the rest of my life, I will never want anything quite so much again.
She also describes the betrayal I felt when someone suggested they had Christian symbolism and messages. I got over that, but upon reading the Narnia books in my thirties, I was stunned at his attitudes toward females and offended by his racism.
Laura Miller managed to keep her love for Narnia intact. My love for Narnia is still there, but it’s damaged. I see C.S. Lewis mucking in his world, and frankly, he should’ve stayed out of it.
The Oz books fared no better. The writing in the first was unbearable; in the second, annoying. By the fourth or fifth, it improved dramatically, so I can forgive that.
What I can’t forgive is the endless, unrelenting political satire and commentary in the Oz books. It ruined all the fun!
What is hilarious to me is that there has been some debate as to whether or not Baum did this purposely or at all. In fact, some even get quite aggressive in their idea that any politics in the Oz books are in the eye of the beholder.
Um, no. Uh, sorry, but you’re Just. Plain. Wrong.
There is no question at all that these books are riddled with political satire and commentary. Take The Marvelous Land of Oz. First he parodies the fears of those against the suffrage movement by having an army of girls march on Oz. They quickly win, because the men are so afraid of girls. Then they order the men to cook and watch the kids all the time. He redeems himself by making the next ruler of Oz a girl, but even that was just plain weird; he’d grown up as a boy, magically done so he would be safe.
Guess what? Baum was the secretary for the South Dakota suffrage organization.
No politics? Really? I could give example after example. Rarely does even a page go by without some satire or commentary. And Baum was… an interesting man. He was known to give a speech at a Republican rally, and the next day, deliver the same speech at a Democratic one.
As an adult reading these, the political satire might have been interesting if I felt like doing a bit of research on the political landscape of his day, but I didn’t. It was irritating and intrusive.
I suppose the Oz series was written like some children’s movies, where they have inside jokes intended for only the adults to understand. (I hate that, also; inside jokes strike me as rude to those you know won’t understand them.)
For both series, I wanted to recapture the love and wonder I had felt for these worlds when I was young; instead, reading them was the destruction of it.
Part of why I’m reading so much this year is that I want books to be gateway into another world, again. I read too analytically. I want to love reading every bit as much as I did when I was young. I suppose that’s why I’ve chosen so many children’s books to start out my challenge.
I’m still searching for the feeling of wonder.
Any suggestions? Have you read any books lately that have swept you off your feet with a feeling of wonder and magic? Swept you into a whole new world?
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Natasha Fondren is a writer traveling the U.S. in a camper with her four cats and husband. She spends summers camped near her niece, because, well, her niece is her favorite girl on the planet.
Last night, I began a book that swept me into the heroine’s lovely world. I won’t say what it was, because I was reading it late at night and I needed to go to bed, planning to finish it today. So I skipped to the end — and found out the heroine was traumatized as a young woman and she invented a fantasy world to survive. The ending was a horrible shock. I’ve been walking around all day, stunned and disappointed. The writing was so good, too.
Oh man, that is a horrible shock, Edie! I’ve downloaded a sample of it, because I’m curious.
It’s always so disappointing when a book doesn’t live up to its beginning.
I haven’t been “swept into a new world” in awhile, but I recently read Allison Winn Scotch’s first two books and LOVED them. Once I finish reading the writing book I’m reading now (man that sounds confusing) I’m digging into Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles.
Oh neat! I keep meaning to try her, Melanie. I love Anne Rice, but I love everything she wrote BUT the Vampire Chronicles, LOL! It’s silly.
PS: Cry to Heaven ROCKS!
The Dragonlance books were some of the first books I really remember reading and it was around my tweens. I can still go back and read those books and feel the same sense of adventure and comraderie for the characters that I did when I first read them. I don’t think that the authors intended any sort of political satire or social commentary when they wrote the books but I’m sure that if you looked hard enough, you could give whatever meaning you wanted to those books.
I also read the Lord of the Rings books when I was younger but I haven’t read them in a really long time. I’m sure that there were many political and social connotations to Tolkein’s work just because of the time period in which it was written.
Although I don’t know if those qualify as response to your questions because I’m not sure they count as children’s books.
Sorry.
While Tolkien’s work was certainly imbued with meaning, it was in no way hardcore allegory like Lewis’ didactic junk. To paraphrase Tolkien, “Applicability lies in the freedom of the reader, allegory in the purposed dictatorship of the author.”
So connecting LotR directly to WWI or WWII, for instance, is, in essence, foolhardy folly.
LOL, Joey! But Lewis didn’t write Narnia as allegory.
He always hated that people called them that, because he loved allegories, and knew that Narnia definitely was not that.
And don’t forget, Tolkien himself said he could not have written the Lord of the Rings without Lewis’s help and encouragement.
Meh. I don’t mean to disparage Lewis altogether. Just his crappy books.
I find the fact that he regarded them as anything other than allegory fascinating/disturbing. Surely he was aware of how paper-thin his story was! It certainly disgusted Tolkien, who was most definitely NOT fond of allegories.
I love the pretty design all these nesting comments make.
He claimed they were just fairy tales. He wrote them all in a rush of two of the most stressful years of his life. I suspect they were an escape for him, which is why they touched the ones who he touched. The world creation is definitely haphazard.
Katie, I definitely want to try out the Dragonlance books. I think you mentioned them once before, but I forgot. I LOVE dragons!
I’ve been too busy writing to read! Is that lame or what? One feeds the other, of course, so thanks for the reminder to pick up a book and start reading again. Thanks, Natasha.
Oh Rick, I hate when that happens! In fact, I “stall” out, LOL, if I don’t read!
I only read the first OZ book, as an adult, and it was so bad I’ve never touched another.
The first Oz book was horrid, just horrid writing. I couldn’t read it. I had to spot-skim it, because it’s really unreadable.
After that, he much improves, and the politics are clever, if you go for that sort of thing.
I recognized Chronicles of Narnia for the preachy crap it was from Chapter 2. (I first read it only several years ago, I should note, after watching the first film.) I see no magic in them, especially when viewed next to Tolkien’s awe-inspiring mythos. I can’t remember what you said the state of your Tolkien reading was, but certainly you must read The Silmarillion and The Children of Húrin (in addition to LotR and The Hobbit, obviously). Totally immersive, intelligent, and——shocker——subtle in their message! *gasp*
As for stuff I’ve read lately, which also relates to one of those few times when the movie is better than the book (as with CoN), I finished V for Vendetta a few days ago. No where near as good as Watchmen. I was thoroughly disappointed. Stick with the book.
Now I’m reading The Waxman Report——in addition to the mass of poetry I’m always consuming——and it’s good stuff. But certainly not wondrous or fantastic/al (as in the “fantasy” sense).
LOL, Joey! I’ve read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings a bunch when I was younger, starting in 4th grade. I don’t think I’ve read them since about 8th grade, so they are definitely due for a re-reading.
And of course, I need to read the other books!
I loved V for Vendetta the movie, which was a bit of a betrayal of the graphic novel, which was fine because I pretty much hated the graphic novel, LOL!
Oops. I indeed meant to say, “Stick with the movie.”
LOL, I wondered if that was what you meant.
I’ve read a string of old noir books like The Postman Always Rings Twice and I can’t say that sort of thing sweeps me off my feet with magic and wonder. However, She by H Rider Haggard certainly tweaked my sense of wonder. I think I would probably not like to actually meet Ayesha (She Who Must Be Obeyed). Well, Okay, I understand I would, necessarily, like meeting her but it wouldn’t be a good idea. Actually Ayesha would make a good female lead for one of those fifties noir loser meets ambitious woman kind of things. What could I call it? She Only Rings Once?
Hah! That’s hilarious, Eric! I need to put those on my list, definitely.
Hunger Games, most recently. Kind of in a reading drought right now. I am reading As You Wish, and it’s cute, but not grab-you kind of book.
Hunger Games rocked! Have you read the sequel? Loved it!
Just reading textbooks, over here. No real wonder or beauty in them.
How’s camping? Are you someplace warmer yet?
Textbooks? Yuck, LOL. Camping is… well, I’ll tell you when we get somewhere warmer.
Just a couple weeks before sunshine!