Out of all the books I read growing up, there are a few that remain strong in my memory; little snippets of images from them will simply pop into my brain once in awhile. Anne of Green Gables (I still would like to taste cherry cordial), Little House on the Prairie(I think of the pig-bladder balloon every time I buy regular, non-icky balloons), Noel Streatfeild's Shoesbooks (sarsaparilla, anyone?), Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet (how strange that I grew up to marry an IT man): all of these are still jingling around in my head, affecting my psyche, but none with more impact that C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. They're among the earliest books I remember reading, and I must have re-read them at least ten times. When I found out I was pregnant with Haley, one of the first things I did was buy the entire Narnia set and read it immediately, on the somewhat far-flung idea that what I was putting into my brain would affect her developing brain. I still have that set; Haley's read it twice and Jake is working his way through it right now.

So I guess it's putting it mildly to say that I'm a fan of C. S. Lewis. (Even his grown-up stuff, too, but that's a different post.) And, for me, seeing the movie wasn't so much about the story itself, or even (as in The Lord of The Rings) wanting to see the film version be as close to the book version as possible. Instead, it felt like a little reconnection to the bookish, shy child I used to be. I even made sure to reread Prince Caspian before we went to see it last Saturday, and I realized immediately that there would have to be more drama added. In the book, the battle is fairly mild, and Aslan's around almost all the time, and there is a lot of character development, none of which might add to that cinematic drama. So I expected much fiercer battle scenes in the movie, and a twisting of the plot, which is exactly what was delivered.

I think the film does a lot of things right. The scenery is absolutely gorgeous (I want to know where it was filmed so I can travel there!); the ruins of Cair Paravel and of Aslan's How spot on. Prince Caspian is perfectly cast, as are the rest of the Telmarines, and the Pevensies seem more believable as heroes than they did in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I especially loved Edmund in this movie, the sort of hidden affection he shows for Peter. The attempt at Dark Magic, to bring back the White Witch, was even better than in the book. And although Kendell kept laughing at the impossibility of the fighting mice, I was thrilled (in a very child-like way) to see Reepicheep on the big screen. The centaurs were wonderfully fey---wild and fierce and wise---and the griffins an unexpected inclusion. And the twists they added to the plot (namely the battle at the castle of Miraz) added the expected extra drama.

What I think the filmmakers forgot, though, is that while Lewis's fantasy can be enjoyed by adults (really: even if you're, say, 57, and haven't ever read Narnia, you could read them tomorrow and get more out of them than just a simple, fluffy fantasy), it was written for children. It is, in my mind, a story about children becoming adults but still holding onto the spark of their childhood. Take Prince Caspian. What was left out of the movie is that he believedin the old creatures of Narnia (his professor taught him about them), and when he found them in the woods he was seeing bits of longed-for fairy tales come to life. He becomes a man in the landscape of his childhood's imagination. Peter and Susan, too, who don't get to come back to Narnia, leave their childhoods in this world that nurtured them. The film almost succeeds in portraying this for Peter and Susan, but it fails with Prince Caspian.

Lucy, too, has her moment of knowledge. In the book, this happens earlier, and I think I like the placement in the movie---near the end---even better, because it really is the soul of Prince Caspian; the guts, really, of the entire Narniaseries. It is one of the images that pop into my head every once in awhile. While they are traveling to meet up with Caspian, Lucy sees a flash of Aslan, leading them in an unexpected way. She tells the others, but no one believes her, so she reluctantly follows the group. This decision leads them far out of the way, resulting in more losses on the battlefield. When Lucy finally meets up with Aslan, she tells him she wanted to follow him, only the others were being so difficult. He simply looks at her, and she knows: she should have followed him anyway. She should have had faith enough to believe. (Aslan is, after all, the Christ figure.) When she realizes that her decision to not have enough faith resulted in more deaths than necessary, she is (of course) devastated. "What would have happened" she asks, "if I had followed you?"

"We can never know that," Aslan tells her. Lucy learns, in that moment, the way that faith works, how we sometimes have to follow a path that seems to make no sense at all, trusting that our sight isn't always perfect. This is the main theme of the book, the idea that turns it from fluff to something substantial. The movie almost manages to convey it, and so is almostsubstantial. Still, despite all my hesitations, I left the movie feeling like my childhood self had received something extraordinary. The much-loved story brought to life is nearly as good as what that version of myself really always wanted: to escape the lonely little confines of her world and be in Narnia along with Lucy and Prince Caspian and everyone else.