Apparently, having an affair with a married Frenchwoman is the height of sophistication for middle class people. That's a novel by Sebastien Faulks, in which a young man goes to France and has an affair with a married Frenchwoman.
Like, oh, lets take some bestsellers from the last decade, that are not only bestsellers but actually considered clever as well. Who cares, they're just children's books, right? Real grown-ups read proper, grown-up books.
How the special people are really doing all the stuff for them, the muggles, who just watch television, and make crap, stupid comments all the time.Īnyway, that's children's books. And then he gets involved in a war against Voldemort, who is a bit like a terrorist, right? Except that the muggle people outside his special circle of People Who Understand don't understand or appeciate that he is fighting this war on behalf of them. He is so amazed to be taken in by the special world where everyone is special that he takes on board all its beliefs and values. Harry Potter, poor orphaned child, is unwanted and unloved but then he discovers he has special powers and is taken away to a special world where everyone is special and they have history and culture and weird sport and stuff that his vile relatives on the housing estate don't. There's a 100 year winter and Mr Tumnus get arrested by the secret police and people get tied to chairs and stuff.Īnyway, Narnia is all a bit mid-20th Century and for gods-sake-somebody-invent-central-heating, right? The 21st Century equivalent of Narnia is Harry Potter. That's why, when you read his stuff, it's not especially comforting. He served in WW1 and lived through another war, and his wife died of cancer. Poor CS Lewis, he didn't live in the easiest of times. With a bit of Christian symbolism on top, though to be honest I never noticed that until somebody told me, what with us being a bit of heathen household.Īnyway, some of that Narnia stuff is quite dark, right, like the bit where they go underground and there's a whole race of people living there who've never seen sunlight, and there's the Prince tied to the chair and he's under a spell except for one hour a night when he's sane. It's all about the great struggle between good and evil, right? And hanging to your integrity despite all the temptations on the way. Everything goes all sugary and rosy and you just do what they tell you.Īh, Narnia. It's like when Edmund goes to Narnia and the White Witch gives him Turkish Delight. To which I answer, no, we were lulled into a false sense of security. How did we end up here? Why did nobody notice while all that happened? Were we all asleep? And I may not be the only person, right now, who has a few questions. They are also a good place to ask questions. You see, books are a good place to find answers. Yes, I know the middle east is falling apart and there's a eurozone crisis and double-dip recession an' all, so books might not seem like the most important thing in the universe, but (bear with me) I sort of think there's a connection. This week I am on my high horse about books. This formative experience has left me with a compensatory tendency to get on my high horse throughout my life. I really wanted a horse when I was a kid because we lived in the countryside but were too poor to afford a paddock. Not strictly, because I don't have a horse. Dear blog-botherers, I am on my high horse again.
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