Follow-up set to spin.
In message 3B5B43AC.3CFFC226.4BF51BCE@netscape.net, jacquispeel@netscape.net writes
"Guy Kendall" Guy@jmkendall.freeserve.co.uk wrote:
Una wrote:
Bit like reading 'The Last Battle'.
If this is the CS LEwis book, I read that the books are being rewritten without the Christian message
We've just had this discussion on alt.fan.pratchett, and apparently this is not *quite* the case. Two things are happening: the originals will be repositioned in the marketplace so that they are not being sold as Christian books, and there are plans to write more Narnia stories, which will not have the Christian allegory. Nicking bits from other afpers' posts:
****** Mad Dragon: An article in the New york times.. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/03/national/03NARN.html?searchpv=day02
... Most striking of all, they have developed a discreet strategy to avoiddirect links to the Christian imagery and theology that suffused theNarnia novels and inspired Lewis.
... The publishing strategy surfaced in a HarperCollins memo. "Obviously this is the biggie as far as the estate and our publishing interests are concerned," wrote an executive from HarperSanFranciso, an imprint of HarperCollins involved in the Lewis publishing program. "We'll need to be able to give emphatic assurances that no attempt will be made to correlate the stories to Christian imagery/theology."
... In May Mr. Gresham posted a message in an electronic forum for Lewis fans.
"What is wrong with trying to get people outside of Christianity to read the Narnian chronicles?" he asked, adding, "The Christian audience is less in need of Narnia than the secular audience, and in today's world the surest way to prevent secularists and their children from reading it is to keep it in the Christian or Religious section of the bookstores or to firmly link Narnia with modern evangelical Christianity."
***** Colm: Hmm. Reading that article, and a few other things which google threw up, would indicate that they are *not* planning to rewrite any of the books, merely to refrain from mentioning the "Christian angle" in any of the associated marketing and, in fact, to downplay it. This is not the same thing. Further stories are planned for the "Narnia world", and these will, of course, fall in with this strategy.
It's all a bit icky, but it's not a rewrite.
***** ppint: - i understand that they are also planning to commission further "narnia" books from various authors, and that it is in these that the strong christian angle of c.s.lewis' originals will be considerably downplayed. (_vide_ threads on rec.arts.sf.fandon & rec.arts.sf.written, inter alia.)