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The Narnia Code: A DVD Two years ago, Michael Ward published a scholarly work on his startling findings, the discovery of the golden theme that ties together virtually every page of C.S. Lewis' seven book childrens series, The Narnia Chronicles, into a cohesive whole. The book, Planet Narnia, rocked Lewis' ever-growing ranks of serious scholars yet no one can convincingly refute the findings. Unfortunately, the book is so dry and esoteric that only a reader whose education level matches that of Dr. Ward can get through the thing. Now it is time to popularize the exciting concept. Enter the Narnia Code. Unlike the Da Vinci Code, this one respects its source materials, is internally coherent, and probably true. Still, it is a sexy title that will pique the average Narnia fans curiosity. After all, the books don't really hang together as a whole, do they? After you know the code, they will! (Sorry, I'm not going to spoil the surprise.) This video presentation was originally prepared for airing on BBC at Easter so the production values are excellent. There with enough funds to dramatize Lewis' life at key moments yet plenty of time to hear directly from Dr. Ward and other Lewis experts. The crew followed him all the way to Wheaton, Illinois to look at Lewis' wardrobe, to his home the Kilns in Oxford, and the University itself as well. The viewer will leave with a far better understanding of the forces that shaped Lewis and set the Narnia saga in the context of the rest of Lewis' accomplished intellectual life. The DVD includes a lot of extras to round out the picture of this remarkable man and his environs. This will be an excellent addition to any home or school library. Linda Lafianza
Director Norman Stone has already filmed a biography of C. S. Lewis and for the first fifteen minutes, he sketches the formative influences in the writer’s life. He covers the idyllic childhood that shattered when Lewis’s mother died from cancer and he was sent away to school. Stone points out how experiencing war first hand similarly dismantled Lewis’s rosy views of human nature and divine purpose, fuelling a bleak atheism, stoked by his private tutor, known to most as ‘The Great Knock.’ We then see how that worldview also broke when Lewis became “perhaps the most reluctant convert in the whole of England” after mixing with “The Inklings,” a group of writers that included J. R. R. Tolkien. Having shown Lewis’s influences, and how they instilled a secretive side to his nature, the documentary takes us to the room in which Michael Ward discovered the "Narnia Code" – the third level in Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles (after the plain story and Christian allegory), which holds the series together. Ward tells how, “The secret, fundamental layer came from the planets. Lewis turned the planets into plots; he turned the symbols into stories; and it’s that layer which undergirds and irradiates each novel at a level which escapes your conscious notice, but which Lewis secretly, intentionally put there.” This was the reason he wrote the novels: to create “a meaning-drenched universe.” It is at this stage that the detail of the code emerges. The jollity and kingship of Jupiter pervades The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe to counter the cold misery of Saturn, shown in the contrast between King Aslan and the White Witch. This explains the presence of the jolly Santa Claus. It is also the connection between this book and the Lewis phrase, “Winter passed and guilt forgiven” that unlocked the code for Ward. Briefly, the DVD outlines the other links. Prince Caspian is based on Mars, the Narnian war story; Voyage of the Dawn Treader is based on the sun; The Silver Chair is based on the moon and so on. Lewis was basing the planets not on those we list as such today, but on those noted in medieval times as the seven heavenly bodies that were seen with the naked eye to move, the same ones that give us the names of our days of the week. Written by the ever-reliable Murray Watts, this concise and engaging DVD has something to offer both newcomers to Lewis and those who are already familiar with Narnia. Derek Walker
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