Coicoy

This has always been one of my personal favorite books in the series. It is the one that seems to engage the most with the fantasy genre, and Lewis's use of seafaring narrative tropes helps to lend a sense of adventure and mystery throughout the plot. As for story, I say that this is more of an episodic book, with mini-stories being told in every chapter or two. Structurally, it is basically every two chapters that hold a new story within the overarching Quest story. It reminds me of The Odyssey and Gulliver's Travels , and Edmund even mentions "Ulysses when he wanted to go near the Sirens." In the book, Caspian shares that he is searching out seven Lords who were his father's friends and had been lost at sea when his treacherous Uncle Miraz was the usurping 'King' of Narnia (in the story told in the previous book) and Aslan's Country in the far east across the sea. That overall plot device holds together well, just as well as Odysseus/Ulysses wan...

Before I get into my review, let me just mention that the order I'm reading these in is the order that seems to make sense to me to re-read them. But I also think that for first-time readers, whether they start with The Magician's Nephew or not, it works soooo much better to read Prince Caspian as a direct follow-up to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe . The story begins about a year after the Pevensie children's first trip into Narnia, and it begins at a train station. I've always liked the notion of being whisked away into another realm and having one's surroundings dramatically change. There's a bit of humor involved in the way Lewis writes the transition, too, and I like the bits about Edmund having left some items behind but still having a sandwich in his pocket when the children suddenly find themselves exploring what turns out to be a deserted island. What a mysterious island it is! And yet familiar! The reveal works wonderfully, and the storyte...

And so we come to the classic. If there's any one book that most people have read from the series, it's this one: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe . [By the way, there seems to be no Oxford comma in this title, which does make sense to me in this case.] As a title, it's a classic too, and it is the most distinguishable title as a Narnia book in the series. After all, when I see or hear the word closet  (or walk-in-closet ), I think of clothes, but when I hear the word wardrobe , I think of hide-and-seek and coats and trees and snow and Mr. Tumnus and Turkish Delight ! To a certain extent, I'm almost overly familiar with this book when I re-read it, but I'd like to share some reflections and general observations about it, especially with where my mind has been in reading it this time. First of all, I think I've come to the conclusion that it's a coin-flip whether or not it is best to read this one or The Magician's Nephew first if you are an...

The first time I can remember hearing of  The Chronicles of Narnia  by C.S. Lewis was sometime in my childhood, and I remember two specific details about my introduction to the series of books. For the first detail, I remember being in the backyard of Cordelia's house. Cordelia was our friend and neighbor-down-the-street, and her mother often used to buy us McDonald's Happy Meals whenever we hung out, if I recall correctly. Although we were young, Cordelia had learned some of the Greek alphabet, and that was the first time I heard the letters  Alpha ,  Beta , and  Gamma  as being associated with anything other than the Alpha Beta grocery store that existed in our neighborhood in those days. What we were doing, besides talking and using our imaginations - as children do - I do not remember. But I believe I remember noticing the cover to  Voyage of the Dawn Treader  and being captivated by the cover - it looked like some sort of dragon ship. I pro...

About four months ago, I wrote my initial post about what I am doing to learn Japanese, and I think it is now time for an update. By the way, if any of you have ever been interested in learning a foreign language , why not use whatever extra time you have now? :) It doesn't have to be too much time; just try a little time to get yourself started. Even if you don't have the opportunity to meet with someone in person for language exchange, why not watch a video online to learn a foreign script? You can learn how to write and speak the basics of Hebrew, Arabic, Tagalog, Korean, Spanish, Italian, and more online! Many of the scripts and could be learned in a week or two (or a month for some; learning the written language of Japanese takes a bit longer), and you should be able to learn basic greetings such as hello, goodbye, thank you, and so on within just a few minutes, and then build from there! Okay, well, the first thing I want to note about my language learning is that the...

The year is almost over, but I am likely not going to watch any new films before the new year arrives. I have already seen some discussion about what might be nominated for awards and whatnot, and what already has been. This is not about that. This is me reflecting on what brought me out to the theater, and what I thought of the experiences. The Big Action Adventure Films Avengers: Endgame Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Captain Marvel Spider-Man: Far from Home Endgame  and  Skywalker  were satisfying conclusions to universes & characters I have been following somewhat closely.  Captain Marvel  was fun and  Far from Home  was mixed for me but still entertaining. But the Marvel/Avengers and Star Wars franchise conclusions brought the fanboy out of me. Endgame was one of the best theater experiences for me this year. It may just take the cake. Films About Real Heroes A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood Harriet These two...

 If you have not seen The Rise of Skywalker, this is your fair warning to wait until you have before you read the rest of this post.  A friend and sort of spiritual mentor to me brought me along to see Episode IX with him and a group of friends late Thursday night, so I was lucky to see it before the internet started spoiling the experience (Well, the internet desperately had tried to start spoiling it, but that's another story). At the end of the film, I found myself wondering about of some of the details that were told in the story onscreen and off-screen for this trilogy, and I came back to the thought that I am glad the original trilogy holds a certain special place in my mind that no other side stories could soften. But I want to address a few elements of the story. First, there is Rey.  In the first film, she was a scavenger. She was alone, wandering the deserts of ... (not Tattooine) Jakku. She meets BB-8 and Finn (an ex-stormtrooper), and together they ...