Sweet Freedom, and a New Quest

 Here I am, dearest ones! Having finally completed that semi-disastrous round of summer school, I find myself free (for the next 3 weeks, at least) to do some pleasure reading! And pleasure reading equals blogging about stuff, as you well know.
 Before I get started on my newest literary obsession, I am going to brag, just a little bit. For my American Lit class, I wrote a paper on The Scarlet Letter. The thesis was 'Pearl and Chillingworth represent opposing supernatural forces in The Scarlet Letter'. The three points were opposing characterization, purposes, and ends. For the first point, I drew largely from the thoughts generated when I wrote about the novel for this fair blog. My result? I got a B on my final draft. >slight round of applause< I was very happy with that grade.
 Now that I am free from the shackles of online academia, I have rediscovered a series that I have long been fond of, but have rather forgotten in the whole 'growing up' thing. The series?

  The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.

I don't know why this is. It may be because before I left for vacation (to visit fam in Michigan) I may have kinda been investigating Narnia fanfiction. >kinda sheepish<. But anyway, I am really, really intrigued by these books again. I remember the first time I heard of them. I was in 2nd grade, and still going to school instead of being homeschooled. There was this thing where you get this Scholastic catalog of books, and you buy some and something special happens for the school or something. Anyway, I saw this boxed set of the books (shown right) and the whole idea of 'a series of books with a unicorn on the cover' was incredibly attractive to me. So I begged and pleaded, and Mom said that this would be the only time she did the whole Scholastic thing, and she got them for me. It was a year or two before I actually read it them, though. And I loved them. But then time went on, and distractions and other books came. When the movies started to come out, I fell in love again. But life happens, til I am a sophmore in college and having a sudden urge to read Narnia fanfiction for kicks and giggles. The End.

  Aslan and Lucy have pretty much always been my favorite characters. Aslan because, please, he's ASLAN. Actually, he may be my most favorite character of all time. And Lucy, because she always, always believes. She believes in Narnia, in Aslan, and in her family. The rest of the Pevensies rather bugged me. Peter thinks he knows everything, and so does Susan in an even more annoying way, and Edmund is just a brat. But lately, I have become intrigued by the relationship between Peter and Edmund. In all my reading experience, there has never been a brother relationship as close as portrayed with Peter and Edmund. I don't know what exactly the appeal to me is, but the appeal of such a close, non-romantic/sexual bond between people is enticing. Maybe it is so because C.S. Lewis was fascinated with 16th century English lit; I learned in my Brit Lit class that male friend relationships were closer than in modern times, without the stygma (sp?) of homosexuality. At any rate, I am beyond intrigued. Because I am on vacation, I do not have access to the books (although, I actually may, because my nieces might own them....). But I did have room in my bag to bring this guidebook to Narnia type thing. I started reading it in the car on the way here, and it was very interesting (before I absolutely had to nap, because of the ungodly hour we had to get up). So I will continue to read that, and I shall get back to you. Perhaps these next 3 weeks shall be my own Narnian adventure/quest thingy. Won't that be fun? :) Until next time, my darlings.