book club meeting notes - part i

notes from our monday, february 20th meeting:

the horse and his boy:


"then it was you who wounded aravis?"
"it was I."
"but what for?"
"child," said the Voice, "I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own." (chapter 11)
- this theme of only being told your own "story" is repeated several times by aslan throughout the books (aravis regarding her slave girl; lucy regarding her schoolmate in the dawntreader) and parallels peter's discussion with jesus in john 21:21-22. "When Peter saw him, he asked, "Lord, what about him?" Jesus answered, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me."


- aslan's "touch me. smell me. here are my paws, here is my tail, these are my wishkers. i am a true Beast." is reminiscent of jesus' assurances to doubting thomas


- the theme of pride is found many times in the book: aravis, bree, and even rabadash the ridiculous. it's funny that bree finds it so difficult to get past his vanity that "he looked more like a horse going to a funeral than a long-lost captive returning to home and freedom" even though he had laboured so hard reach narnia. when he had left shasta/cor behind with the lions, he felt completely disgraced and felt as if he had lost everything, but the hermit points out that he's lost nothing but his self-conceit. he hasn't humiliated himself, he's just been humbled and that is a good thing. (one of the book's chapters is titled "how bree became a wiser horse"... NOT "how bree embarassed himself") --> this is similar to namaan's humbling: the end result was good.



After warning king lune and lost in the woods en route to narnia, shasta realised that "someone or somebody was walking beside him. it was pitch dark and he could see nothing... at last he could bear it no longer."

"who are you?" he said, scarcely above a whisper.
"One who has waited long for you to speak," said the Thing. its voice was not loud, but very large and deep.

after convincing shasta he's not a giant or ghost, the Thing says, "tell me your sorrows." and shasta, reassured, "told about the heat and thirst or their desert journey, and how they were almost at their goal when another lion chased them and wounded aravis. and also, how very long it was since he had had anything to eat."

"i do not call you unfortunate," said the Large Voice.
"don't you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?" said shasta.
"there was only one lion," said the Voice... I was the lion." And as shasta gaped from open mouth and said nothing, the Voice continued. "I was the lion who forced you to join with aravis...i was the lion who gave the horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach king lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you."
- i love how, even if we don't see him, aslan is at the center of all things. he's the driving force of our lives all throughout our lives. you can just see the love and longing that aslan has for shasta - he's initiated change, responding to shasta's prayers or needs, and he's just been waiting patiently for shasta to respond back. i read this somewhere online and it perfectly encapsulates the scene: "Too many times we Christians picture Jesus as The Lamb, and though He is, we forget the Lord part of Lord and Saviour. He's also the Lion. Through Shasta's life everything had been influenced by this Lion. This Lion was the force of change in Shasta's life. Many times this force of change was looked upon with fear as a monstrous threat to life itself. C.S. Lewis painted a wonderful picture of our blindness and God's love and patience. While we focus on the immediate discomfort and even pain, God has laid out a purpose and a path."



- i also read somewhere that the main theme of the horse and his boy is "the calling and converting of nonbelievers". wikipedia also said something about moses, but besides the wandering-through-the-desert thing, i'm not sure what they meant.


part ii (prince caspian) and iii (john donne's holy sonnet xiv) of our book club meeting will be posted later this week.


miscellaneous:
- debate: mr. tumnus: friendly faun? or mean molester? there was a deadlock with this issue - three ppl (tiff, iulia, mary) believe he is friendly, three ppl (harmony, debbie, janet) believe he was up to no good. ames? dave? hm? what are your thoughts?