# C.S. Lewis and Ptolemy



## LawrenceU (Dec 13, 2010)

Has anyone on the PB read, Planet Narnia? If so, what were your thoughts? I will be picking up a copy this week. The book seems to make a very strong case that the Narnia series was Lewis' engagement with Medieval Cosmology. Apparently, it is causing quite a stir.


----------



## KMK (Dec 13, 2010)

I like how you preempted Joshua's attempt at humor by including, "Has anyone _on the PB_ read..."


----------



## puritan628 (Dec 13, 2010)

I'll be interested in reading your impression of it. I looked it up and I can get it for $9.99 for the Kindle, but I'd prefer to wait and see what your review is.


----------



## py3ak (Dec 13, 2010)

I haven't read it, but I went to the author's website. It would take a lot of convincing to persuade me. Lewis remarked that the wit of man can probably not devise any text in which the wit of another man cannot find an allegory, and I think the same thing can apply to meta-structural readings.


----------



## TimV (Dec 13, 2010)

I read a lot of C.S. Lewis when I want some divine inspiration

-Sarah Palin, a few days ago


----------



## CharlieJ (Dec 13, 2010)

I've heard of it before. I haven't gotten a chance to read it, but Narnia is of course imbued with tons of medieval ideas. Lewis was professor of Medieval and Renaissance English, and most of his work had to do with the medieval period. I've enjoyed his work The Discarded Image, a lucid introduction to the medieval mind and cosmos. So, I guess the question is not whether Narnia reflects medieval cosmology, but how and to what extent. _Planet Narnia_ sounds like a really fun book to read, even if it's not spot-on about Lewis' conscious intentions.


----------



## LawrenceU (Dec 13, 2010)

Charlie, those were my thoughts as well. I am looking forward to the book.

Sent from my super slick Android phone.


----------



## py3ak (Dec 27, 2010)

CharlieJ said:


> So, I guess the question is not whether Narnia reflects medieval cosmology, but how and to what extent.



I don't think that's quite accurate, even though _The Discarded Image_ is one of my favorite books of all time. Though Lewis was deeply interested in the Middle Ages, he had imaginative resources from many other periods as well. While probably not as broadly erudite as Umberto Eco, he was familiar with the classics, with French and Italian literature, with the Norse sagas, with a great deal of philosophy, and with more recent literature as well. How much medieval cosmology is to be found in his essay on Shelley and Dryden, in "The Dark Tower", or in _The Great Divorce_? I think it's a mistake of the same sort that he reprobated in _The Personal Heresy_ to believe that because Lewis had access to certain resources and was fond of them, that therefore he must have used them in everything or almost everything he wrote. If that were true, then Roman poetry and the cold northernness of William Morris would also have to appear in everything or almost everything he wrote.


----------

