Please note the following in this issue of the C.S. Lewis Society Update (12/05/07):
http://www.lewissociety.org
1. “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian”: New Movie Trailer
2. Other Films: “Beowulf” and “The Golden Compass”
3. Christianity vs. Atheism Debate Video: Dinesh D’Souza vs. Daniel Dennett
4. The next meeting of the C.S. Lewis Society Bay Area Book Club
5. New Book: “Planet Narnia,” by Michael Ward
6. Other Events
1. “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” Movie Trailer:
Of all of C.S. Lewis’s many works, the 7-volume “Chronicles of Narnia” book series is by far and away the most popular with sales of more than 100 million copies worldwide. The first film in the new series being produced by Walden Media and Walt Disney Productions, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” grossed $740 million in box office sales and additional record DVD sales.
Now the second film in the Narnia series, “Prince Caspian,” is set for release on May 16, 2008, and the first trailer has just been released for showing in theaters.
Here is the official “Prince Caspian” movie poster.
And here is the banner for the film.
2. Other Films: “Beowulf” and “The Golden Compass”:
“‘Beowulf’ vs. ‘The Lord of the Rings'”, by Gary Kamiya (Salon.com).
“The Chronicles of Atheism: When ‘The Golden Compass’ hits theaters this month, many will be introduced to the works of Philip Pullman, a writer who detests C.S. Lewis’s fantasy world,” by Peter T. Chattaway (Christianity Today)
3. Christianity vs. Atheism Debate Video: Dinesh D’Souza vs. Daniel Dennett
The video is now available from the recent debate in which leading atheist philosopher Daniel Dennett was challenged by Christian Dinesh D’Souza, author of the new bestselling book, “What’s So Great About Christianity.”
Held November 30th at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., this sold-out event was organized by the atheist Tufts’s Freethought Society, and resulted in a spill-over audience watching the program on closed circuit TV. Clearly expecting Christianity to be routed, the audience instead witnessed Dennett decidedly lose.
http://media.richarddawkins.net/video/2007/DennettDinesh_all.mov
4. The next meeting of the C.S. Lewis Society Bay Area Book Club will be as follows:
Book for Discussion:
THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS, by C.S. Lewis:
Wednesday, December 12th, 7:30 p.m.; Meeting moderator/leader: Frank Green
A best-selling masterpiece of satire and dedicated to his friend J.R.R.Tolkien, this classic book by C.S. Lewis has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the vantage point of the evil Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to “Our Father Below” who holds an administrative post in the governing bureaucracy (“Lowerarchy”) of Hell. At once comic, deadly serious, and highly original, Lewis gives us the correspondence of the worldly-wis old devil to his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary young man known only as “the Patient.” THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS is the most engaging account of temptation — and triumph over it — ever written.
The immense success of the book when it was first published resulted in C.S. Lewis appearing on the cover of Time Magazine. More recently, cartoonist Bill Watterson named the fictional first-grade teacher in his “Calvin and Hobbes” after the devil Wormwood. In the animated video to U2’s “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me”, a copy of THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS is seen falling from Bono’s hand. In the 2006 book The Top Ten, a compilation of “top ten novels” lists by different writers, David Foster Wallace names THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS as the greatest novel in history. A sold-out stage production directed by Jeffrey Fiske was produced in New York City in 2006, and a widely acclaimed revival production by Fiske opened on October 16th.
http://www.fpatheatre.com/
And a film version of the book is now underway, co-produced by Ralph Winter (X-Men, Star Trek, Fantastic Four) and Douglas Gresham (Lewis’s stepson), for release at Christmas 2008.
“Mr. Lewis has contrived to say much that a distracted world greatly requires to hear.”
–Times Literary Supplement
“If wit and wisdom, style and scholarship are requisites to passage through the pearly gates, Mr. Lewis will be among the angels.”
–The New Yorker
The meetings will be held at:
11990 Skyline Boulevard, Oakland, CA 94619 (atop the Oakland hills)
510-482-2906 phone
wine, soft drinks and other refreshments served
Here also are numerous articles and excerpts re THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS:
“THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS” by Wikipedia
“Excerpts from THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS”
“THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS”, by Will Vaus
“Screwtape: What’s Going On?”, by Bruce Edwards
“Wicked Good: THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS on Page and Stage” by John J. Miller
“THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS foreword,” narrated by John Cleese of Monty Python (YouTube)
“THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS Letter 1,” narrated by John Cleese of Monty Python (YouTube)
THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS is available in paperback.
THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS is available free online.
Here also is the schedule of future Lewis Society book club meetings.
Here also is information on C.S. Lewis.
We hope that you and/or others you know will be joining with us! (Please feel free to forward this update to others.)
5. New Book: “Planet Narnia”
The December 2007 issue of “Touchstone” magazine features the cover article, “Narnia’s Secret: C.S. Lewis & and the Seven Heavens,” by Dr. Michael Ward (Chaplain of Peterhouse, University of Cambridge). In the article, he discusses the revolutionary findings in his new book, “Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis” (Oxford University Press).
For more than half a century, scholars have labored to show that C. S. Lewis’s famed “Chronicles of Narnia” series has an underlying symbolic coherence, pointing to such possible unifying themes as the seven sacraments, seven deadly sins, and seven books of Edmund Spenser’s “Faerie Queene.” However, none of these explanations has won general acceptance and the structure of Narnia’s symbolism has remained a mystery.
Now, Michael Ward has finally solved the enigma. In “Planet Narnia” he demonstrates that the medieval (Ptolemic) cosmology or world view, a subject which fascinated Lewis throughout his life, provides the imaginative key to the seven novels. Drawing on the whole range of Lewis’s writings (including “The Discarded Image,” “The Space Trilogy,” and previously unpublished drafts of the “Chronicles”), Ward reveals how the Narnia stories were designed to express the mythological characteristics of the seven medieval planets — Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn — planets which Lewis described as “spiritual symbols of permanent value” and “especially worthwhile in our own generation.” Using these seven symbols, Lewis secretly constructed the “Chronicles” so that the story-line in each book, countless points of ornamental detail, and, most important, the portrayal of the Christ-figure of Aslan, all serve to communicate a coherent, unifying, and governing perspective. For instance, in “The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’,” the sun is the prevailing planetary spirit: magical water turns things to gold, the solar metal; Aslan is seen flying in a sunbeam; and the sun’s rising place is actually identified as the destination of the plot: “the very eastern end of the world.”
“Planet Narnia” is a seminal and ground-breaking book that will provoke a major revaluation not only of the “Chronicles,” but of Lewis’s whole literary and theological outlook. Ward uncovers Lewis as an even more subtle, imaginative and important writer and thinker than previously understood.
6. Other Events:
“Is Religion a Force for Good or Evil? And Can You Be Good Without God?
Dinesh D’Souza vs. Michael Shermer: A Debate”
Sponsored by Athens and Jerusalem
Beckman Auditorium
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, Calif.
December 9, 2007
626-395-4652
http://www.dineshdsouza.com/events/D’SOUSA_DEBATE_FLYER.pdf
“Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Death of Dorothy Sayers”
Sponsored by the Dorothy Sayers Society
St. Anne’s, Soho, England
December 17, 2007
conference@sayers.org.uk
“Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Death of Dorothy Sayers”
Sponsored by the Dorothy Sayers Society
St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey
London, England
January 15, 2008
conference@sayers.org.uk
“Planet Narnia”
Presentation by Michael Ward
Sponsored by the Fellowship of Christian Graduate Students
Bowling Green State University
BGSU Student Union, Room 308 (6:45 pm)
Bowling Green, OH
January 22, 2008
“C.S. Lewis Conference”
Sponsored by Hope Lutheran Church
Atascadero, CA
January 25-27, 2008
http://www.pseudobook.com/cslewis/?page_id=49
“Sixth Frances Ewbank Colloquium on C.S. Lewis & Friends”
Sponsored by Taylor University, Upland, IN
May 29-June 1, 2008
http://www.taylor.edu/academics/supportservices/cslewis/colloquium/
“Charles Williams and His Contemporaries”
Sponsored by The Charles Williams Society
Sr. Hilda’s College, Oxford, England
July 4-6, 2008
http://www.geocities.com/charles_wms_soc/events.html
“Oxbridge 2008: The Self and the Search for Meaning”
Sponsored by the C.S. Lewis Foundation
Oxford University, July 28 – August 2, 2008
Cambridge University, August 3-8, 2008
http://www.cslewis.org/programs/oxbridge/2008/index.html
Please advise me with any questions.
Best regards,
David
David J. Theroux
Founder and President
C. S. Lewis Society of California
100 Swan Way, Suite 200
Oakland, CA 94621-1428
(510) 635-6892 Phone
(510) 568-6040 Fax
http://www.lewissociety.org
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