75th Anniversary of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - How Does It Read Today?

00:05 - Speaker 1 Hello and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and I'm joined today by my frequent podcast partner and friend, Jacob Rennaker, and we're going to continue our conversation about CS Lewis by thinking about the Lion and the Witch and the Wardrobe as it celebrates its 75th anniversary already 75 years old. So, Jacob, how did you enter Narnia? Do you remember? So, Jacob, how did you enter Narnia? 00:44 - Speaker 2 Do you remember? I do, because it was during grad school. I was not a child. 00:49 - Speaker 3 Oh, a late adopter. 00:51 - Speaker 2 I was yes, yes, so I'm unique in some ways and it was much later in life, so it wasn't a book that was read to me as a child, it wasn't an important part of the upbringing of either of my parents, and so it was actually my wife who introduced me to it, and we read it out loud to each other on some car rides, long trips in the car. So, yeah, so it was as a graduate, as an upper level graduate student at that, for when I came across it myself. So was your introduction to Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Narnia different for mine? 01:41 - Speaker 1 Very different. So I even have the edition which I'm holding up on the YouTube version here. It is a familiar Pauline Bain's illustration on the front, published by Penguin Books for 40 pence. So this is like a seventies edition of it. 02:02 I remember very vividly because I was about five or six and I lived in a suburban garden in the edge of London and there was a fence running down the side of our garden with a teenage girl next door called Geraldine, who quite often babysat me and my brother and sister, who quite often babysat me and my brother and sister, and I've got a memory of a hot day standing talking to her through the fence. The fence had like a trellis, like squared trellis, so I could see her. I even remember the bush. There's a japonica bush right by me which has these wonderful salmon pink blossoms on. There's a japonica bush right by me which has these wonderful salmon pink blossoms on. And she was telling me which I now recognize as the great elevator pitch. She told me I've been reading this marvelous story about children who enter a magical world through a wardrobe and it's got a lion in it and a witch and it's a world where it's always winter and never Christmas. And I absolutely had to go and read that book and it was a great draw to bring me through to actually the stage of reading chapter books, to be able to read it. 03:18 It is when you get there. It's a book which is delightfully simple and short for a child reader, but for an adult it's delightfully deep and keeps giving it more and more to you every time you read it. You know if you come back to read it to your own children, or I've got it on a audible version. So occasionally I find myself listening to it and I think, oh, wow, you know that bit there. And so occasionally I find myself listening to it and I think, oh wow, you know that bit there that's so profound and that characterization is so clever. So yeah, it's a hot garden. 03:52 Being told about this, you know this wonderful world I could enter. I like the idea that she's standing this other side of a fence, so there's already a sort of doorway between us. So there's already a sort of doorway between us. Do you think it's best to read it yourself first, or do you think it's a good idea to have the book read to you? I was listening to the podcast chaps Pints with Jack and they were talking about this, and the young men there they are a bit younger than me They've all got really painfully young children, sort of infants, and they're already reading the book to their child and I just thinking, oh no, I know you love this, but why don't you wait? Right? Because for me it was the book which was my wonderful self-discovery. I loved reading it and it's very different to me the experience of quietly, on your own, your little reading nook entering the world than to have it intervened by an adult. 05:01 So for me, I'd prefer to wait for a child. Encourage them to read it yeah, did you do that? Um, we did various things. Um, my children were little when the film came out, okay, so, um, there was a mix and they're also different ages, so would have been a mixture of things happening in the house. 05:23 - Speaker 2 They did they see the movie first? Did either of them? 05:25 - Speaker 1 see Some of them would, because of course it depends what age they all were. Some had it read to them, some of them may have read it themselves, so there wasn't I don't remember a specific policy on this, but looking back at it now, I suppose my own experience was magical. So I wanted that. Yeah right, what are you going to do? 05:44 - Speaker 2 you got a little kid I do, yeah so, yeah so I and so this was trying to find a like the age appropriate way to do this with, with my child. So it's yeah, so I like the, the benefit to discovering it myself, not, uh, as as an adult. Um was, it was, I think, fortunate in some ways. Um is. This was uh, a in, in some ways, a real renaissance for me in fantasy literature and children's fantasy literature. Um, it had come right after um, I believe it had come right after I had read for the first time I had discovered jm barry's peter pan, um which I'd never read the book version of it. 06:24 I'd seen, like a. I'd seen, you know, stage shows. I'd seen like a wonderful still like stage adaptation of that, and really wanted to, to read the original and fell in love with the original and then that kind of. So I was, I was already kind of primed for looking at and appreciating children's literature, but it was also so there was that aspect. 06:43 And then I was in my, uh, my graduate degree, I was studying mythology and so, as I'm reading it, uh, as a mythologist, uh I may, I was, you know, picking up all everything that lewis is doing, um, mythologically there, um, and so that was really not delightful, uh, in many ways that I, you know, something I wouldn't have picked up on as a child. So my first reading of that was seeing him playing, uh, with the very things that I was uh, studying, and so that was that was delightful in a different sort of way, uh, for me, um, so for my child, so, so, so I appreciated it, I, I'm, I'm grateful for it. I encountered it myself, but selfish, and this is right with parenting, like, how much of yourself are you imposing on the child? How much are you letting? 07:35 them do for themselves that is the question I just would not. Yeah, it's this age and there's no one right way, right? So if you have multiple children, then you can like try it, you can experiment. 07:47 - Speaker 1 Like Uncle Andrew. 07:49 - Speaker 2 Right, I was gonna say, yeah, just like Uncle Andrew, you can experiment on children, not even your own, sometimes. But so I think that, so I introduced him to. There's a fantastic board book that I wish I would have brought with me. Joey Chu is the illustrator. It's a beautiful illustrated board book of Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Very simple, wonderful images, and so I started reading that to him. I think he was probably two before he was three. 08:24 Oh, you see you're with the pints of jack guys, yeah well, but but I'm not reading like the whole thing so but what we have done. So here's where it's different, when with that, so it's not. So I'm not. I know with those guys and I've listened to that interview, uh, that discussion there, um as well uh, that they were kind of like reading they're figuring it like, you know, at five or so that you could actually read the full version to the children. 08:46 - Speaker 1 None of them have older children, so I was listening to this thinking you need to have the discussion with somebody who's gone through the whole parenting. 08:54 - Speaker 2 Right, right. So for reading the actual, like the full unabridged Narnia. Like I definitely want to wait to do that. So we've seen that, the full richness of the world. So right now he has these images and these pictures about this like general world, and he so he was so taken by that that we started doing these, what we call them like imagination adventures, essentially role-playing, like a light role-playing, where I set up a situation and say like, okay, so you are in this, you know so this world, you see this fountain and the water drains out and there's stairs down it. What do you want to do? And then you're opening up and so finding different ways for him. 09:34 We've done like three different ways. So each way he finds a new way into Narnia, and then I'll give him a situation and he says what he wants to do and just kind of like, follow that around and so imaginatively for him, just the, the concept of narnia, um and the talking creatures and the threat of a white witch, um is is something that he is captured by and likes engaging with and thinking about um. So that's all what I've done. So I, instead of trying to drop him in the deep end, of reading him the actual book. Right now I'm kind of talking about ideas and part of it is selfish, because I want to talk with him about it and I want him first time as a child and just like having that whole imaginative world open up, uh, inside of you. I, I want him to have that kind of experience. 10:34 Yeah, somehow somewhere, so yeah, I don't know I can say which way is better. 10:37 - Speaker 1 I guess there isn't there are many doorways into narnia, so you know, but I would say there's a just as a parenting tip is don't rush your fences with your kids, um, because they may not be ready to understand why it's good if you do right soon. If it becomes something they always have around them, then it's. It's. That is what literature is about, whereas there is a moment when you're ready. Anyway, let's, let's talk. So we'll agree that there are different approaches, and I'm being a bit there's different approaches. 11:10 - Speaker 2 I think the book stands, I think it's. It's good enough, like the image, at least at least like so coming from, like the board book version all the way to the published version. It's rich enough, like the images and just ideas, broad ideas that can be distilled into the picture book form are good and great for anybody. So the story itself, the heart of the story, is attractive and generative, imaginatively, for children all the way up through hardened adults who are sleep-deprived and working on a graduate degree. So all of that. And I'm sure even older adults who are in a nursing, working on a graduate degree, so like all of that. And I'm sure even older adults who are in a nursing home and reading it for the first time, that they would have a different experience with that. And I think that the heart of that would even be engaging and entertaining for even somebody in the later stages of life as well. 11:57 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I suppose what I'm thinking about is that the absolute pivotal moment in the book is when Lucy goes to the back of the wardrobe and it keeps going and she steps into another world, which is the experience of reading. So I suppose that's what I am arguing is a really good thing to be preserved. But on the other hand, the actual style of it is a? Um, there is a presence of a narrator who is, who is like a nursery time, bedtime story narrator, who says things like I'm not going to tell you this because you know it'll be. Um, if you've ever felt this way before, you'll know. You know he steps in, that voice steps in. So it does lend itself to a voice, someone reading it aloud. So you could argue it the other way. Anyway, let's talk about now how the book came to be written. 12:58 Cs Lewis says that it began with a picture, and the picture is of a fawn carrying parcels in a snowy wood, which he had as a picture when he was a teenager and it took him a while to get to the point where he was ready to read it, to write it. He also, in his real life, he had the experience of having evacuated children at the kilns. So the children who were there fed into the children who are the evacuees in the story. Plus, the book is dedicated to Lucy Barfield, his goddaughter. So there may be an element of wanting to write something as a gift for a young person that he knows All those things. So you can see why he might have got round to writing it in the 50s with those elements. 13:56 But there's also something else going on, isn't there that's causing him to write this. That's a sort of superficial level of reasons and I think it follows on from his work as an apologist. So he's thinking what you were saying. The supposal suppose there is a land of talking animals. How would Jesus intervene in it? So I think it's fascinating that he has these different sources coming in as a reason for the spark to setting it off. But there is a moment when all of that has to be put to one side and you just become the storyteller. So it all has to blend and I think he has a very deft touch and a very strong understanding of how stories work, all of his stories, particularly this one. 14:56 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I agree, no, I absolutely agree, and I think and there's there's evidence that suggests that perhaps he'd thought of writing a story for children 10 years or so earlier, but never, that nothing came of it ultimately or nothing that he was happy with worth sharing. I think there's this kind of melding of different things the story, the stew of the story, the having spent during the wartime years doing a radio, uh addresses, kind of christian apologetic radio addresses for um, uh, for the uk, and uh, he was, you know, really before before that point or up to that point, it was a public figure, uh, a kind of social critic who is recognized for making these, you know, in some ways like devastating arguments. Some people might see them as like in favor of Christianity, against whatever they feel or felt at that time was fighting against Christianity. But he has this persona of like a public ap, persona of right, of like a public apologist, kind of like formal apologist, um, and that's, I think, is a public figure in that sense, and so this allows him so what he can't do in that. So this, this in in a lot of ways, by having those images that he had from earlier in life's, just like images of fawn in the snow with a parcel, uh, and a lamppost or an umbrella, looking at like a lamppost from somewhere. 16:49 Um, if that was, you know something that's different, different images, and then the image of the lion, something that is that he says was something that like pulled the stories together, was like that image. But clearly he's drawing from his work in Christian apology and his love of reading myths as a child himself and as an adult, and his academic work in literature. So he's, he's all these things are simmering and something pulls them together and he kind of in in, as he he's analyzing that, he says that really it was. It was aslan that kind of gave an impetus to this and that kind of draw everything together and all of the stories. Um, with this, at least in retrospect, there was that spark or like the, the catalyst that kind of lit everything that was already there on fire. He said was Aslan. 17:43 In one instance, he said that. So I think, yeah, different versions. 17:46 - Speaker 1 He also says Different versions right Don't believe authors when they tell you why they wrote something because they don't know. He also says that. So I was just like I think it'd be quite good in at this 75th anniversary to think about what he's doing as a children's book. So let's think about what came before. So we mentioned E Nesbitt when we were talking about the Magician's Nephew in the last episode as a source for his ideas. 18:15 Certainly, the time travel, the nature of time travel, is very much an E Nesbitt concept that he's borrowed, plus the portal fantasy that's definitely in there and got older roots as well. But what I think is very different is the way he characterizes his children by and large children in that sort of Edwardian high point of literature. They seem younger, they stay pretty much the same in their adventures and things happen to them. So, like Puck of Pook's Hill, stories happen to the children five children in it. The children don't seem to really mature in any way. They feel still part of the nursery. Even in Peter Pan, you know, there's problematic particularly Wendy characterization of her but making her his little mother issue. But when you look at Lewis's children they really do step up and become, each of them quite well-defined and of course the book goes into their adult life as well. Briefly, so, I think the children have much more agency and more is asked of them and more is expected of them. 19:38 Though, having said that, I did just read a book called Wet Magic by E Nesbitt, which is one of her less known books, where the children are involved in a war, actually fighting a war, which is a little bit closer to this. I don't know if Ernest knew that. So the children remind me more of the kind of Noel Stretfield type characters like ballet shoes I don't know. That obviously is the most famous of her books, where the children have much more rounded, fuller characters and you can actually imagine them outside the tail. So they're not just ciphers for a tail. They grow and develop, particularly Edmund, for example. So I think he's bringing the story on. But let's look at how it now feels, 75 years later. What do you make of the children now, looking at them with a modern mindset? What would a modern child make of them? Are they still relatable or do they feel like historic figures? 20:45 - Speaker 2 yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, um, they're definitely distinctive. That's one of the things I appreciate about lewis is giving very distinctive personalities, I think, to to the different children. You can distinguish them by what they're noticing, what they're talking, what they're talking about, what they're focusing on, how they respond to different things, and so they're easy to follow as distinctive personality types, which is great. But I think, in just revisiting it, thinking about just not just like, like, so peter has pushed out the older, older brother. 21:22 Yes, there are still older brothers that are very protective, uh, and kind of authoritative or that, like that, essentially are the authority figures for a group of children. 21:32 So I was, I, I'm, I'm the oldest of four children and so, like, I recognize peter and how he's acting in ways that I have acted, also seeing, um, you know, and how edward, uh, or sorry, edmund, uh is, uh, is, is responding to the other, uh, you know his sibling, so there's always, that's true, that you have an older sibling. When he says, when lewis says that, uh, edmund was talking to Lucy like he was much older, acting as if he was much older than her, even though he was only a year older than her. This is fun, narrator aside, that dynamic is still alive and well, with an older sibling kind of wanting to seem superior because they're older and to just get a rise out of the child. An older sibling kind of wanting to seem superior because they're older, uh, for and and to just get a rise out of the child when it says you know that that Edmund did this, he did something. And then the narrator says and this is the most terrible thing that happens in this book- and it's that he in retrospect. 22:35 I would think that you know the murdering and innocent creature, um murdering an innocent creature might be up there with some of the worst things that happen in the book, but for him, for the narrator he's saying you know, one of the worst things is that he lied and like he betrays his sister. 22:48 He betrays his sister Like that's what the worst thing is, and for a child betrayal like absolutely right that seeing somebody that you love and care about. So I think that the I think that there's emotional truth there in how the children are depicted and how they interact with each other. That holds up regardless of the time period. 23:15 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and I think the thing that now seems of its period and it would be something I would discuss with the child if they're reading it, ista Gerwig is making a film of this eventually. I think, you know, lucy and Susan are sort of non-combatants really, though Susan is given a bow and arrow and Lucy a dagger. I think you'd have to make Susan into a bit more of a legless. 23:36 You know, lean into the fact we know that she's a good and it's celebrated in Prince Caspian that she's a very good archer, um, so I think you would actually build up the role that actually having a bow and arrow is perfectly you know, perfectly good, good option, uh, and Susan and Lucy is the medical core. All of that's fine, but the way it's written is, you know, uh, aslan's telling them that you know, girls don't fight, kind of thing. Basically, I think that feels of its time and is absolutely understandable why CS Lewis is writing that. But as a mother of daughters and sons, I had that conversation that you know, I had that conversation. That it's of its time. So it's worth it as it is. But you'd probably change it if you were dramatizing it now, as happened a bit in the 2005 film. To be honest, the children, the girls, were quite active in that. 24:54 What do you think about the Michael Ward thesis, about the book? So basically, in Planet Narnia, michael Ward believes Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is Jove's book. Happiness, return of spring, the lion, the warmth, the celebration, the laughter Do you think that holds water when you look at this particular book? 25:18 - Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, I know so. Yeah. So Ward's argument right. He's arguing that this isn't right, that this isn't explicit. 25:33 So he's essentially saying that he's discovered this, but that Lewis is doing it intentionally, but intentionally secret, secretively yeah um, and that he never admitted this, and so that's hard to make a definitive argument to when your argument is that this is something that this person can't talk about, otherwise they would ruin the effect of this secret uh intent that they have for it. So that's just, it's kind of tricky, a tricky argument to build. That being said, it's the arguments like when, when Ward kind of what he says was the impetus for him even looking into this was reading a poem that Lewis wrote on the planets, and when it's talking about Jupiter, there's this line where it's describing the medieval like you said, Julia, the kind of medieval conception of, and the medieval imagination, how it understood the planet of Jupiter, which was not just like a heavenly body but had earthly correspondences. Right, so, as above, so below, below, that the heavens had some sort of influence on, on our world, and so an age or a time period being under the influence of one of these different planets means like so, for mars, uh, was Aries, the war planet, and so this was, if there was, like war, conflict happening, that that could be because of this planet, due to that planet's influence on the world, one way of seeing it. And so there's this poem, so Lewis has this wonderful poem where he's exploring this, this medieval view of the planets, and and goes individually by planet, talking about what they represent. 27:22 And the line that Ward says that kind of triggered him was this line that says of winter's end and sins forgiven, as being part of, like you said, the Jupiter bringing spring but also the sins forgiven. So that line, winter's end and sins forgiven, for Ward that was clearly like ohia right, the always winter, never christmas. And uh, edmund's sin, uh, and being forgiven, uh of that. And so then he starts teasing that out and going into that and then noticing correspondences between every single one of the books. So his argument is that each book is intentionally evoking this kind of imaginative spirit, this medieval, imaginative way of looking at the planets and what those ideas represent. And Lewis himself does say that he still finds those medieval ideas uh, generative and useful, um, for himself, um, even just like personally, um, and so. 28:20 So that's, I think there's an argument to be said that he took those things seriously, uh, and that he had that in the stew, definitely in that pot. We're talking about that, the pot of story, the soup of story, that that is a significant part. That's there for Lewis, that is, he drawing on it intentionally to represent Jupiter, jupiter, ward makes, I think, a decent like argument that there are lots of things that show up in the book that do agree with that. Um, but not again, not a slavish kind of one-to-one. 28:51 Here's everything that jupiter represents and you can see every single one of those here, because there's some things that that don't completely line up with that, with, uh, with with that list, um, and then ward would say, and then someone and it seems like he in Planet Narnia in that version of his argument that that's almost part of the point is that there are things that don't belong in there, because it's supposed to just evoke the spirit and the feeling of that. So yeah, so I think it's definitely an influence. It's one of the things that Lewis had knocking around in his capacious mind and imagination, whether or not it was an organizing principle for the book. It's tough, it's difficult to say. I don't know what's your take on that. On Lion line of which, in the wardrobe specifically. 29:45 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I think the issue is, as you say, you will never prove it one way or the other. So what is the use of that argument to our reading pleasure? And I think what it does do is it provides a way of tying the seven books together. A way of tying the seven books together and also suggests because in a way, lewis starts with the big biggest, he starts with the one which has the resurrection in. So you give that. So the idea of identifying it with jupiter joe, the biggest of the planets is, is pleasing, and it also explains the sharp tonal, or helps explain the sharp tonal twists that you get in the different books. So for me it's a lens which brings out more reading pleasure. Having come back to, you know, I've read these many times and so you think, oh, this is a new lens I can use to look at these books. It absolutely doesn't matter to a child coming to these books for the first time. I think it's a distraction to try and say, you know, to junior oh, by the way, you know, lewis is being really clever here. Um, I think it's a really pleasant thesis which I'm happy to have running alongside reading it. But who knows, he could have unintentionally done it, I don't know. 31:10 There's plenty. You know Michael's argument is persuasive but not conclusive, right, you know? Yeah, so I mentioned at the beginning this is a book that deepens as we get older, as you go further up and further in in it, but during its lifetime it's had a number of treatments and adaptations. So the three that I'm thinking of is there was a BBC tea time drama that was in, I think, possibly the early eighties. Um, then there was the 2005 film um, which most people, I think, will have seen by now. And then, of course, there's been a wonderful stage adaptation, which I don't know if you've seen that. Um, I haven't seen it? 32:02 - Speaker 2 Have you seen it? 32:03 - Speaker 1 I've seen a lot, so it's become like a local repertoire. You can do it in a local theater context. They did an excellent version in our church where they built a similar lion, and the way the lion is done is if you've seen War Horse. 32:17 - Speaker 2 War Horse. Okay, yeah, yeah. 32:18 - Speaker 1 They use that same puppetry idea, which is very impressive because if you're on stage idea which is very impressive because if you're on stage, you have to have something that suggests rather than is, because trying to do an animatronic lion would just be pathetic. So a puppet with people manipulating it and you should get big size, very impressive. I loved it. I thought it was a really good, and doing it in the church, particularly that transformation from the snowy scene into a spring with a large cast of children, and it was just great, really, really good. Um, and that was an echo of the version which they were doing on London stage. So I think that's a very I've already given you my opinion on that that's a really good adaptation. So have you seen the? Any of the bbc program? Those ones, because these ones I grew up with yeah, I didn't. 33:16 - Speaker 2 I remember. I remember seeing on, uh, my black and white tv when I was very young. Uh, I think it was on PBS, the public broadcasting system Probably yeah. But being too young to understand, like jumping in and not quite understanding what was happening. 33:34 - Speaker 1 For its day. It was very good. Really, it was good, yeah. So let's talk about the 2005 version. I think I've got the year right there. Anyway, you know where? I mean? Uh, that was filmed in new zealand, um, did you like that? 33:52 - Speaker 2 I did, I did, I liked it. Yeah, I really liked it time. So I guess, yeah, so I guess, my, I guess I have to take back what I said, uh, earlier, in that my, uh, you know my exposure to land the witch inrobe, my introduction to that. I guess I did see the film after it came out, so that was the first time, so it was a film first, then to the book itself. But I did, yeah, I enjoyed it. At the time there wasn't anything that was really nagging at me, just as a general adventure story with production value and like entertainment, uh, excitement, um, I kind of was already aware of the general idea of the story, um, but, uh, but the film, yeah, I, I liked it enough that liam neeson was a great voice, yeah, good voice. 34:41 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I was debating with my son today about who would they get to do the new one anyway. Yeah, well, they so here's. 34:49 - Speaker 2 So. There was the rumor that meryl streep had been approached to do the voice and that's a completely different conversation. Who knows if that's the thing? But yeah, but who like a? J like a james earl jones, like what? So talking about lions, right, so the lion king, the disney? Uh, lion king, you can't use him, though. You know you can't use him, unfortunately, like a James Earl Jones. So, talking about lions, so the Lion King, the Disney. 35:05 - Speaker 1 Lion King film. You can't use him though. 35:07 - Speaker 2 You can't use him, unfortunately, but just like that type of voice, this James Earl Jones, this regional, resonant voice, I'd be very interested to see. Yeah, what now for audiences? What's suggesting? Because the type of voice that you have has implications and suggestions for what kind of creature. This is their personality, and I thought Liam Neeson did a good, you know, kind of like a gen. He could be gentle, but also firm and kind of a stately, authoritative kind of timbre to his, to his voice. So it depends on how you, how you see Aslan, and then I guess, in this instance he's, he's both that, right, he's, he can be fierce, right, he's not, he's, he's not a tame lion. Uh, so you have to get something of that in there. 35:56 - Speaker 1 It can't just be like a gentle, I can't be a really hoping they don't do meryl streep, who is a fabulous actress, but he's a lion, and why not give a really good guy the gig, because she can play any number of other parts brilliantly. But it just would be so confusing if they say, oh, it's a lioness or she's pretending to be a lioness. Oh, I didn't. I just don't know. I don't know either yeah or like a composite something. 36:28 - Speaker 2 Yeah, if they get. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know, whatever you, but yeah. But in terms of, like the 2005, the film Liam Neeson, I thought did a great like his, a great voice work he also did speaking about the children's literature. Well, that children, uh, grown-up literature referencing our previous conversation about the magician's nephew, liam Neeson is the voice of um, of the monster in a monster, calls the film adaptation oh yeah um, so he and then did a wonderful job, uh, doing that. 36:54 So there's something about liam neeson's voice, uh, and creatures, other otherworldly creatures that have, uh, a powerful impact on children. Uh, that, I think, is it's worth noting. 37:07 - Speaker 1 Yeah, that's one interpretation of Aslan I'm not going with. I don't think so. I really hope they don't do that. Anyway, we'll find out. Okay, so well done. Lion Witch and the Wardrobe. That's 75. You're still reading? 37:23 - Speaker 2 I remember there's two other adaptations that are like a one-off adaptation, so there's the. There's two other adaptations that are that are like off, they're like a one-off adaptation, so there's there's. So there's the. I mentioned earlier that there's the like board book adaptation terms, like literally, so they have that. There's, at least there's, I want to say at least three different picture book adaptations that have been done. Um of it, um, one was like a multi-volume picture book. Uh, it's like four. It's a series of four that take different kind of chop it up. There. There's one that we have that has the full book, well, not the full story, but still it's less than 30 pages, probably 24 pages, but with a decent amount of text. But there's also there's a Choose your Own Adventure series of books that's set in Narnia taking those, you know, taking Line Witch and. 38:13 Wardrobe and then. So you're kind of making decisions and choosing your path. I can't remember if they call it a Choose your Path, but it wasn't, because Choose your Own Adventure was a copyrighted IP, but yeah. So there's this series of those books that kind of take Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as your starting point and your kind of on an adventure there. But there's also an official role-playing game book that is only in German. 38:41 - Speaker 1 It was sanctioned. 38:42 - Speaker 2 There's this German volume, so I have a copy of it and one of the reasons that I'm learning German in addition to doing that, because my company that I work for is headquartered in Germany but part of learning German, the joy and trying to do this is teasing out this role-playing game, this deeply thought out, that's taking the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the world that Lewis is creating there and extrapolating, creating kind of rules like this, a clearly defined sandbox that then individuals can go in, people can go in and have adventures, picking, you know, functioning with these different types of creatures. What are the different types of items that you have, magical items, how do they function and how can you have like an actual structured game, collaborative, cooperative game, uh, set in the world of narnia. So there there are a few non like direct adaptations, but taking not like narnia and line that was short for specifically and kind of teasing out in a broader imaginative world. So it's part of the legacy, looking back at 75 years, that it it hasn't just been the story, but the story has has inspired um people to play or people that want to engage more in this world. Um, and that's similarly to lord of the rings. We're not going to turn this into a lord of the rings conversation, but, uh, for uh, dungeons and dragons, the development of that is role-playing game. 40:04 Uh, lou, so, uh, tolkien's uh, middle earth and all the work that he did was foundational to this and people wanting to enter into a fantasy world, like, oh, I wish I could live in this world. Like, well, okay, so what? How could you actually do that as a sustainable game environment? Um, that people are coming together and beyond just, you know, actually having a meaningful storyline where people are making decisions that are impactful. 40:31 Lord of the Rings was significant for the development of the genre of role-playing games in general. So there's something about things that Lewis was doing that is sparking people's imaginations and wanting to have them live in that world and do things on their own and just experience it that themselves. So that's one of the. I think one of the lasting legacies of that book is people wanting to live inside of it sign up an excellent book right and people going to the the lengths of developing game playing systems where you could actually do that in some, you know, limited, uh, limited way. But that's that's something that's an additional aspect for me that perhaps I'm working in the games industry itself as kind of I'm a little bit more sensitive to and appreciative of people wanting to engage with the text in a different way. 41:20 - Speaker 1 Thank you, so we'll wind up our conversation there. It's also just as we're talking about 75 years we are. Cs Lewis will come out of copyright in a few years' time, so you can expect a whole slew of material in the early 2030s, because that's when the copyright lapses on him. So there'll probably be a lot of new material from the estate up to then to try and keep it going. So that's also another piece of this puzzle to watch. Do you have any fantasy news or recommendations that you wanted to mention at this point? 42:04 - Speaker 2 um, let's see. I so imaginative worlds, things that just like general fantasy, seeing how quickly fantasy ideas catch on among children. Um, I don't know, this will be interesting here for the in the uk. 42:19 - Speaker 1 Um k-pop demon hunters oh yeah, are you that's big has that has that become from what you've noticed in children, young folks? I actually made myself sit down and watch it the other day because it's so big. 42:34 - Speaker 2 Okay, so it is likewise over there. Okay, yeah, so that's something that interests the phenomenon in terms of, like storytelling, hitting audiences, a fascinating experiment in the popular imagination of what sort of things catch on, uh, and and trying to understand why exactly they do. So that's, yeah I. I would be interested to hear so you made so you said you made yourself sit down and so I'm going to get. If I was a get, if I was a betting, I was a betting person I would bet that your viewing and uh experience wasn't as a betting person. I would bet that your viewing experience wasn't perhaps what you're hoping for, or what you no, no, I'm not the intended audience. 43:15 - Speaker 1 I found it similar to the experience of taking my daughter and her various birthday parties to watch the Twilight films. If you watch this as an adult, there's an entirely different level that you're aware of. If you watch this as an adult, there's an entirely different level that you're aware of. So I'm looking at the K-pop thing, thinking this is actually a massive satire on the boy bands and girl bands of Korean pop and the awful things they're put through, laughing at different points in the Twilight films, because things which I found ridiculous went over the heads of the intended audience because they're not. Yeah, and I found that the same with Demon Hunters. The music sounded. 44:05 I don't know if it is AI generated, but it felt like the most sort of generic sort of thing you could possibly do and very auto-tuned. So it's a very polished, very effective storytelling, fairly predictable story, interesting to see an idea of how you would characterize evil demons in a different culture. That's not the sort of Western canon. And the behavior of the girls, the way they eat, is a particular thing I've seen in the sort of stuffing the face thing, which is obviously a sort of positive. I found it weird, a sort of positive. I found it just weird. I'm the wrong person, though, because they don't need me is to watch it, because lots of little girls are loving it, um, and taking it all very seriously, I'm sure right, yeah, yeah, yeah. 45:02 - Speaker 2 So it's a funny story. Yeah, so seeing like so going to a park and seeing, uh yeah, girls that are choreographing their own dances. 45:07 Exactly that's what it's about I don't know how many people, how many kids that I've, uh, you know, talked with, have told me who that they're going to be one of these characters for for halloween, and that so it's great, yeah, and so so it's. It's, it is really fascinating, uh, interesting and encouraging right in in some ways, to see that these ideas, these imaginative ideas, can catch on and kids like wanting to do something right, that it's sparking their imaginations and that they're getting excited about a world, an imaginative world, and uh wanting to kind of like participate in that. So I think that that's, um, that that's promising for the future, right, that there are audiences who are responsive to stories that can be inspiring and triumphant in some ways. So it's been fun, yeah, so I thought it was entertaining. For what it was and for its purposes it was entertaining. The animation is incredible. 46:02 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, I mean all of that, I agree. 46:04 - Speaker 2 Animation, storytelling, all that, yeah, so that's just so in terms of like fantasy, that's fantasy news, that's as my child has been. Yeah, it's probably the biggest, biggest one for me, but I know that you, julie, have been working on. You have all sorts of irons in the fire and you have books something in particular. 46:24 - Speaker 1 Yeah, my big book of this of November 2025, is. I've got a book coming out called Wardrobe and Rings, which is a series of readings aimed at the Lent period, but you can read it any time of year. It's 40 days. It's written with Malcolm Gite, who many people will know as the sort of cross between a hobbit and Gandalf, wonderful poet and critic and pipe smoker, and Simon Horobin, who holds CS Lewis's position at Magdalen College, oxford. So our editorial meetings for doing this were held in the new building which is where the Inklings met with the same view, which I loved. I'm very proud of this book and if you are at all interested in doing any sort of readings during Lent, I think it might be up your street. Shall we say Okay? 47:21 - Speaker 2 So if folks wanted to get a hold of that, what are the best ways? 47:24 - Speaker 1 Yeah, you can pre-order it at the moment, depending on when you're listening to this. So if you just put wardrobe and rings into whatever you're you know and put my name in Julia Golding because I'm alphabetically the first person on the list, it should come up. It's on Amazon, but also support your local bookshop. In the UK there's a very good Christian bookseller called Eden, so if you look at Eden, you can get it on that. I'm not sure what the equivalent is in the state, but yeah, please do try that. I think it's a really fun way to approach Easter. 48:00 - Speaker 2 I would love to. I'm very interested. 48:01 - Speaker 1 You know, lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe gets a big treatment in Holy Week. So big treatment in Holy Week, which Malcolm does, so that's really fun. Yeah, thank you so much, Jacob, and it's been great fun spending so much time in Narnia. So thank you very much. 48:19 - Speaker 2 Thank you, Julia. 48:25 - Speaker 3 Thanks for listening to Mythmakers Podcast Brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. Visit OxfordCentreForFantasy.org to join in the fun. Find out about our online courses, in-person stays in Oxford, plus visit our shop for great gifts. Tell a friend and subscribe wherever you find your favourite podcasts worldwide.