h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thanks for the article - and high time too for h2g2! There is so much paralell in thought between DNA and Lewis (despite one claiming Atheism and the other not).

I found the criticisms of the childrens books interesting. I guess they would have entertained Lewis - fond as he was of Literary critics. (see his essay "Fernseed and Elephants" which appeared in a collection unmder the same title).

I do wonder if the point about children growing up is quite on the point. I always felt that Lewis was rather taking a potshot at pomposity and the idea that "growing up" meant losing child-likeness in our approach both to the infinite and to life and fun in general.

When we face the infinite we are of necessity reduced to less than children. Anyone who doesn't see that clearly hasn't thought much about Zaphod Beeblebrox and the Total Perspective Vortex.

Lewis clearly feels that many "adults" have forgotten how to be playful, (sometimes except in a most debased way) and he illustrates playfulness so well in his Narnia series.

I'm also more inclined to believe that. Not that Lewis tried to tell that sexuality and such was a bad thing. More the idea that most adults loose that sense of awe and wonder that I think is needed to understand Narnia.

I agree. And I'm sure that his books have had a profound effect on me.

"I do wonder if the point about children growing up is quite on the point. I always felt that Lewis was rather taking a potshot at pomposity and the idea that "growing up" meant losing child-likeness in our approach both to the infinite and to life and fun in general."

I agree whole-heartedly - the comment about Susan struck me as being more about her turning her back on the sense of wonder and on imagination, necessities if one is to open a door to Narnia. (Which, come to think of it, is odd, given the fact that Susan spent years living as a Narnian queen - she'd know it was a fact, not fantasy, so how could she lose it? But something about growing up made her remember it not as fact but as a childhood game they all played.)

Also, I don't have the books in front of me (being at work), but I remember Aslan saying to one of the children... I think it may have been Lucy at the end of "Voyage of the Dawn Treader"... that she and Edmund could no longer return to Narnia because it was time for them to seek Him in their own world (hint hint - Christianity reference warning). And.... you know something? I've forgotten the point I was intending to make! Oops.

Sorry to hear you're in work, ButMadNNW! Here in Ireland, not only is it ten past midnight, but I and most other people are on our Christmas break and won't be back to work until next Tuesday.

Good points about Narnia, though.