Prince Caspian

Have I previously mentioned that I'm a bit obsessive about the Narnia stories? I'd read all seven books (at least once each) by the time I was ten. I've probably read them all more times than I've read any other books. I probably still could recite large chunks of the books. So (a) I have to go and see these films at the cinema as soon as they're out, and (b) I'm highly critical of them. But the film adaptation of Lion, Witch & Wardrobe was very good and I managed to forgive its failings and occasional departures from the plot. So what about the sequel?

Well, in many ways, Prince Caspian is possibly the least interesting of the Narnia books. Its not very interesting an allegory and all the good bits of plot happen in flashback, not in the 'present'. It is also possibly the least cinematic of the lot, especially as much of the first part of the book is very talky and happens in flashback. Also there aren't any significant battle scenes, and battles is what the film-going audience want in a fantasy film these days.

You see, in the book, our heroes - the Pevensie kids - meet up with Aslan before they meet Caspian and there is an expectation from then on that Aslan will save the day, but we're just not sure when. The story is all about faith, trust and belief. But that doesn't make for a very dramatic movie - well, certainly not one playing to a secular audience. So the main reasons the movie fails as an adaptation are that they decided to remove the faith story and remove Aslan from the plot until the very, very end.

Obviously, this decision affects the rest of the plot. Given that they're not expecting Aslan to save the day (OK, Lucy is, but the rest aren't), what do they do? And how can we get an extra battle scene in the film?

The film can be split up into three main chunks:

1. Setting up the story - Caspian escaping from Miraz, meeting the Old Narnians and the children getting back to Narnia and discovering what's going on.
2. The middle bit from when the children meet up with Caspian until the duel between Miraz and Peter. This is what should be the heart of the story, but is actually the bit where the film strays furthest from the plot and spirit of the book.
   
3. The final battle and Aslan's return.

Basically I think its fair to say that I enjoyed parts 1 and 3 and found most of part 2 unnecessary and annoying. So I'll moan about part 2 for a bit and then be positive about the rest of the film after that.

You see - in the book - once Peter and Edmund have met up with Caspian (the girls never meet Caspian until the very end), Peter does his very best to avoid battle and unnecessary bloodshed and hence suggests the duel, primarily to stop the two armies killing each other while the duel is arranged. Not in the film. In the film Peter is all about trying to engage the enemy in battle and attacking the castle. And once that has failed, we need a contrived reason to come back to a duel. Despite what some of the critics have said (that Susan is the weak character in the books), it is actually Peter who is the most 2D character in the books (and in the first film), so to make the plot revolve around him and his decisions is a bad idea. And the actor playing Peter isn't really up to the task of carrying the film through its middle section and so everything falls a bit flat.

The whole film looks like a homage to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies - compare the opening horse chase to the flight to the ford in Fellowship, compare the final river flood scene at the end to the scene at the ford in Fellowship, compare the battle scenes to ROTK, compare the angry trees to the Ents at Helms Deep, etc. But never is this more apparent than the night-time assault on Minas Tirith, sorry, I mean Miraz's castle. OK, so here the flying gryphons are the good guys, not evil Nazgul, but beyond that everything looks the same. We've seen this before.

But, the whole film does look really good, even if it is homage. It looks like the Narnia in my imagination, fleshed out with bigger towns and more people than the books describe. Despite being about a decade older than he should be, Caspian himself is great and I liked the way the Telmarines and Miraz, in particular, were done. Once again, putting more flesh on the story than there was in the book. Good.

I approve of most of the changes in the early part of the book, missing out all of Caspian's younger years and making the Telmarine situation a bit more political. The changes with the children's story are fine too, and the bits in the ruins of Cair Paravel and all the way up to the river Rush were great. Shame they dropped Edmund's "Where's this bally Rush got to?" line though. 'Bally' is a great non-expletive which should really be reintroduced.

From the River Rush on, though, things start to go wrong. It is at this point that the book deals with the robust faith of Lucy, the failing faith of Susan and the outright disbelief of Trumpkin and the various ways that Aslan deals with them when they all come face to face with him.

By missing out the doubting Susan storyline, the film makers had to change Susan's character for the movie, and I think they did a pretty good job. In the film Susan is a fantastically heroic figure, fighting as well as the boys and falling in love with Caspian as well. Anna Popplewell shines right through the film and I think she has a good future ahead of her.

But by removing Aslan and changing Susan, the film makers unfortunately chop my favourite bit of the entire book. You see, while Peter and Edmund go off to help Caspian face up to Miraz, Susan and Lucy go with Aslan and witness the transformation of Narnia from a stern, repressed, rule-based, grey country into a wild and free country of magic and parties. This is the bit of the story that - no doubt - gives many conservative Christian types cause to worry, as we see Aslan - the allegorical Christ figure - cavorting with pagan gods like Bacchus and enjoying a wine-fueled late night slumber party. Still, at least they left the river god in at the end.

The duel between Peter & Miraz is pretty good but not as good as it should have been. The fight does not suggest that Miraz is an experienced old soldier or that Peter is a great warrior in the prime of his youth. Its just two folk hitting each other with swords. The battle that follows this is OK, but its still just two armies running at each other and fighting. But I suppose that is what the film going public want to see.

The film is too long. With a bit of trimming (of the middle section and the final battle) a much better film would emerge. It's not faithful to the plot or the spirit of the book, but is entertaining enough by itself to stand as a movie in its own right. And it'll make bucket-loads of money, so hopefully we'll get to see a movie adaptation of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader in due course. But then again, that book really doesn't have any potential for battle scenes in it, so they'll really have to change things for that. After that, I'm not really expecting them to make the other four films, although I really think they should do the Magician's Nephew sometime, with Tilda Swinton reprising her role as Jadis. But no battles in that either. Or they might just jump on to The Last Battle (cos they like battles) and be done with it. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Everyone has a book inside of them...

According to a Readers' Digest survey a few years ago, over 70% of people believe that 'everyone has a book inside of them'. Some years ago I had a conversation with a few friends (at least one of whom reads this blog; hello San) where we discussed this and I admitted that I had the bones of a story in my head. The story in question was a Narnia-like kids fantasy story and, when questioned about it I made the mistake of replying that 'my fantasy world isn't fully developed' - which resulted in a good few sniggers.

Anyway, the fantasy world has actually developed over the years and I now have a much more fully thought through novel idea. What I don't seem to have found is the time to actually put pen to paper (or, more likely, fingers to keyboard) and actually write the thing. In a moment of extreme procrastination a few years ago, when I was supposed to be writing my PhD thesis, I actually did write the entire prologue and first chapter of that book, but never wrote any more. If I was to revisit it, I would almost certainly rewrite the entire thing from scratch.

Over the past few years, two other story ideas have formed in my head, although neither has been written in any form, and I'm not sure I am actually capable of doing the ideas justice. But since this blog is an airing ground for my private ideas, I thought I'd share the half-baked ideas with you, my somewhat restricted reading public, and see if you want to offer any thoughts or comments on my book ideas...

Story 1
This started out life as being a kids' fantasy, but as the idea has developed it has become much more of a 'young adult' novel, more in line with the tone and subject matter of the later Harry Potter books (which feature death, politics, hatred and snogging) than the Narnia stories. As yet the book has no title. The story follows two characters, the first is an eleven year old boy from Edinburgh who ends up in the fantasy world, the other is a nineteen year old student alchemist from the fantasy world who ends up in our world. The story follows each character, chapter about, as they find out about the world they find themselves in and, as is usual in these sort of stories, find out about themselves along the way. The story is deliberately episodic in nature and does (deliberately) adhere to several of the cliches of fantasy writing. Hopefully I would be able to subvert the cliches in an entertaining manner. The main problem I have with this story is how to keep the story of the alchemist in this world interesting. Most of the action happens in the fantasy world, but I want some to happen here too.

Story 2
This is another fantasy novel. Given that most of the books I read are fantasy, it is no surprise that most of the books I want to write are also fantasy. The idea of this book is a much more complicated one. The entire events of this story occur in a fantasy world, although I don't necessarily think that any magic occurs here. The benefit of setting a story in a fantasy world is that the reader has no presuppositions about what is real there.

In many ways the pattern for this book was inspired by 'The Lions of Al Rassan' by Guy Gavriel Kay - that book is set in a fantasy world, yet there is no magic in the book at all. In that story the main characters are from different religious groups, with different gods, but the reader has no pre-judged idea of whether there is or is not a god - it may be that all the gods are real, it may be that none are, it may be that only one is, but the reader does not know - and it turns out to be irrelevant to the story, but the reader doesn't know that at the outset. When reading a fantasy novel people expect real gods and magic...

Anyway, the concept behind this novel is that it is set in a reasonably small, back-water type town which is part of a larger empire. The town is ruled (or is it?) by a woman considered by some to be royalty, considered by others to be a witch, considered by herself to be something else entirely. Each chapter is told in first-person narrative by a different character in the story. Thus, it is told from within the belief system and presuppositions of that character. All the characters have different viewpoints and perhaps none of them are close to reality. The main point of the story is who is this woman? The final chapter is told from her point of view, so we finally find out (or do we? maybe she is deluded?). This is a tricky story to tell and I'm not sure I have the time or ability to actually do it well. Perhaps when I'm older.

There is a cliche in certain types of fantasy novels relating to maps. See, for example, the stories of David Eddings. Here the maps are important and he seems intent on taking the story through all the different countries and places on the maps that he has devised. My subversion of the map idea here is that each chapter starts with a map; not a map of how the world is, but rather a map of how the world is perceived by the narrator of that particular chapter. For example, the opening chapter is narrated by a young teenage boy, his map shows the town (provisionally named 'Stone') centrally on the map, with very little detail more than a day's journey away from the town. The chapter narrated by the merchant has a much more detailed map of the whole empire, and so on. In fact the whole novel idea more or less sprung from this concept.

Story 3
This is the story which I am actually most likely to work on. It is not a fantasy in the sense of the other two, but is not set in the real world either. It is more of an alternative history. The story is narrated in first person by an old man, writing to a younger audience. I think he is writing in about the year 2050, when he is over 100 years old and is on some form of life-support machine. He is recounting the days of his youth to anybody who has time to listen. The novel begins with a shocking opening line - which was basically the first thing I thought of and the basis for the whole story that unfolds thereafter. The opening line is:

"Although I was only five at the time, I can still clearly remember where I was and what I was doing on the day that God died."

From that opening, the narrator recounts the story of how 'research theologians' in California had conclusively proved the existence of God some years earlier and talks through all the subsequent discoveries they made about the nature of God over the next few years, before inadvertently killing him in 1950. The narrator also recounts the response of the religious and non religious people, first to the revelation that there definitely was a God, then to the revelation that he was dead. The story also recounts the events of world history between 1950 and 2050 in the light of the absence of God. Due to the scatter-brained character of the narrator, all this does not necessarily come in chronological order.

The book is more or less an exploration of some of the ideas that I have been expressing on my other blog (Confessions of a Doubting Thomas), although there is a story of self-discovery which unfolds in between the 'historical' narrative. There will also be some twists. By doing this as first-person narrative I can, once again, impose a prejudiced and not-entirely-accurate world view onto the narrator.

The book is provisionally entitled 'God of the gaps' as the narrator comments early on about the 'God of the gaps' type reasoning which was once used by atheists before God was proved, and how it only became apparent that 'some of the smallest gaps are the most important' after God died.

Maybe one day I'll be able to write one or more of these proplerly. But for now I'd appreciate any comments you may have on my ideas.

The Chronicles of Narnia... Radio Series

I am a big fan of C.S. Lewis's Narnia stories. I had some of them read to me at an early age, had read all of them myself by the age of 10, and have re-read them since then more times than any other series of books.

I also have all seven of them in 'talking book' form - the classic 1980s versions read by Michael Hordern (with appropriate music on the harp and flute composed and played by Marisa Robles).

I also have the 1990s BBC radio adaptations of all seven books. Which I like and am annoyed by in equal measure. (Whoever cast Sylvester McCoy as Reepicheep should be shot!)

So I have been diligently following the complete run of the new radio adaptations, made by 'Focus on the Family' and endorsed & introduced by Douglas Gresham, as broadcast on BBC 7 across the Christmas holidays. I have recorded all of the episodes and have listened to all of them but one (which I will listen to on the train later).

I like the new dramatisations in all regards except one. In general the adaptations are very faithful to the stories and contain more of each of the stories than the previous abbreviated talking books and the 1990s radio series. The later stories (Dawn Treader, Silver Chair, Last Battle) are significantly longer and more detailed than either of the earlier audio versions that I have, this is very good. Also, in general, the acting is fine and the casting is appropriate (Lucy is an understandable trade-off between age and acting ability - she is young and so she seems like she is reading her lines rather than acting at times, but I can't really complain on this one).

But I can complain about David Suchet's performance as Aslan. It is the thing that lets most of the stories down. He clearly thinks that, for dramatic effect, Aslan should speak as deeply and s--l--o--w--l--y as possible. Deep is not a problem, but even at times when the action demands that Aslan should be swift he does this unbearably slow voice. And he gets the emphasis all wrong. Or rather he emphasises almost every word so that the performance actually becomes pretty flat. This is not generally a problem in The Magician's Nephew, The Horse and His Boy, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader or The Silver Chair, as Aslan doesn't say much in these stories, but parts of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian and The Last Battle are pretty unbearable.

Liam Neeson in the movie version got it right. David Suchet got it all wrong. Sigh.

But except that, the new radio versions are great.

And the movie of Prince Caspian is in the works too...