Here I thought I’d present a selection of AI-generated images that to me seem to be from the books.
The cave of the Bulgey Bears (Prince Caspian)
Cair Paravel on a stormy night (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)
The Northern Moors (The Silver Chair)
Mt. Pire in the Archenland mountains (The Horse and His Boy)
Tashbaan (The Horse and His Boy)
Courtyard in the Tisroc’s palace (The Horse and His Boy)
The Great Ice Mountains (The Magician’s Nephew)
Charn (The Magician’s Nephew)
This Aslan statuette, with a beard made of tentacles, probably wouldn’t fly with fans. (AI art)
Chiron Tutoring Achilles,lithograph after J. B. Regnault. This is how I always pictured the Narnian centaurs: muscled, bare-chested, bearded, their horse part proportional to their human one.
Detail from Centaurs, by Eugene Fromentin
Centaurs are one of the mythic creatures most associated with Narnia, along with fauns and nymphs. They appear in four of the seven books (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Silver Chair, and The Last Battle) where they are renowned for being wise teachers, prophets, healers, and stargazers, as well as fierce warriors vital to Narnia’s defense. They are so integral the land can’t be imagined without them, and C. S. Lewis, in the books, has a lot to say about them in offhand, conversational details sprinkled throughout the books.
The original centaurs, those of Greek myth, were not as wise. They were coarse, bestial beings, like the original conception of satyrs/fauns, though more given to fighting than recreational sex. In psychological terms, they could be said to embody the animus, that part of Man that is still beast, and given to bestial urges. In most of the myths they made up their own tribe. That tribe, which had various semi-divine origins, went to war with a neighboring human tribe called the Lapiths, in which the centaurs, crazed with drink, attempted to abduct the human women of the tribe during the Lapith king’s marriage ceremony. Little did the centaurs know that the Lapiths had wily Theseus (he of the labyrinth and minotaur fame) on their side, and were defeated.
Another myth showing the centaur’s uncontrollable nature — and how they couldn’t handle their liquor — was how Pholus, one of the rare civilized centaurs, treated his friend Heracles (Hercules in Roman myth) to some wine in his cave. When the jar was uncapped, the neighboring centaurs smelled it and came rushing over, already driven mad by the alcoholic fumes. In the ensuing battle, Hercules slew many of them with his poisoned arrows — arrows which had been dipped in the blood of the Lernaean Hydra in the second of of his labors — including Chiron, who had blundered into the bloody scene, and his original friend Pholus, who had stayed back but picked up one of the poisoned arrows, wounding himself with the tip. This myth, not as widely known as the Labors, illustrates the hard-luck nature of Heracles, who is doomed to kill his friends even as he performs amazing deeds of strength. His own, in fact, death occurs at the hands of a centaur, Nessus, who tricks Deianera, his wife, into giving him an acid-laced shirt as a present.
Roonwit the centaur, by Pauline Baynes (colorized version)
But is Chiron who most casual readers of Greek myth will be the most familiar with. Chiron was one of the civilized centaurs, like Pholus and Asbolus, who were renowned for being prophets, seers and teachers, and in Chiron’s case, skilled in medicine and herbs, music, archery, hunting, and gymnastics. (I’d sure like to see a centaur do a flip and tumble.) Apollo himself was Chiron’s tutor, and Chiron in turn tutored many other Greek heroes, such as Achilles, Jason, Actaeus, and Asclepius, the god of Greek medicine. The go-to guy for mentoring, so to speak.
It was from wise Chiron that Lewis took his template, making his centaurs into grave, yet good, Renaissance men/warriors.
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At that moment there was a sound of horse-hoofs tapping on rock from the mouth of the cave, and the children looked up. The two Centaurs, one with a black and one with a golden beard flowing over their magnificent bare chests, stood waiting for them, bending their heads a little so as to look into the cave. Then the children became very polite and finished their breakfast very quickly. No one thinks a Centaur funny when he sees it. They are solemn, majestic people, full of ancient wisdom which they learn from the stars, not easily made either merry or angry; but their anger is terrible as a tidal wave when it comes.— From The Silver Chair, by C. S. Lewis |  |
How did myths of such centaurs arise in the first place? Some historians think it was a more primitive peoples’ reaction to humans mounted on horses, seeing them as hybrids, rather than two creatures. Others, that these are older myths from Indian civilizations, where human-horse mashups existed long before the Greek myths. One Greek myth gives a very logical origin for them: they were the offspring of Centaurus, a man who mated with a herd of mares. Obviously, that wouldn’t make it into Narnia.
(By the way, the name centaur, in Greek, means not man-horse, but bull-piercer, or bull-slayer. An excellent name for a hunter and warrior, but it also means all those fantasy staples of unitaurs, tigertaurs, or rabbitaurs are referring to cattle hybrids.)
In the Chronicles, Lewis names only four of the centaurs: Glenstorm, Cloudbirth, Roonwit, and Oreius. Only Oreius has a Greek name, which is odd. If you want more, here’s a list, culled from the centaur/Lapith battle I mentioned earlier.
| Amycus
Anchius Arctus Areos Bromus Chromis Clamis Crenaeus Doupon Dryalus Echeclus Elymus Gryneus Helops Homadus Hylaeus Hyles Iphnaeon Isoples |
Latraeus
Lycabas Lycidus Melanchaestes Monychus Nedymnus Ophion Orius Petraeus Phlegraeus Phrixus Pylenor Pyraethus Rhoetius Ripheus Styphelus Thaumas Thereus Uraeus |
Though Lewis did not mention female centaurs, the Greeks did: her name was Hylonome.
by Joan Didion
Open Road Media, 2017
(Originally published by Simon & Schuster, 1979)
[ #1 — 3rd Year, 23rd Letter: A book whose title begins with the letter W) ]
When I first made up my reading list at the start of the year I hadn’t decided on a candidate for the letter W, so I left it open. But a few months later Amazon Prime decided for me, because one of the free monthly downloads was Joan Didion’s The White Album. I’d heard a lot of things about it so I decided to give it a go.
This was a book that came with a lot of baggage and speculation on my part. I remember when it first came out (I was in high school) because I read about it in The New York Times Book Review, which my elderly uncle faithfully brought over to us every Sunday along with the rest of the Times. Since the book had the same title as The Beatles album I assumed the essays were all about the turmoil of the 1960s. Well, the first one in the book was, but the others ranged from that time up to the mid-1970s and were about Vietnam, architecture, infrastructure, and Hollywood. Wide-ranging, but the focus was on California.
But not California’s youth culture. Didion was born in 1934 so she was in her 30s when the decade began and wasn’t inclined to find resonance with drugs, sex, and rock and roll, only unease and a vague horror. I can guess for someone whose life had gone swimmingly until then, with hard work begetting success and that success buoyed by American society running smoothly, the likes of Charles Manson and campus shootings would have been a true shock, though frankly they pale compared to subsequent news events in the 2000s and beyond.
So the age of the book, and the long lens of the 2020s, didn’t allow me to find resonance with it either. Some of the essays were almost indecipherable, like one about feminism that was extremely dated, and another about the introduction of commuter lanes, called then “Diamond Lanes,” to the city of Los Angeles. As a writer she took great pains to be neutral, but I can sense her irritation at the idea, and she came across as bitching about a whole lot of nothing. The joke turned out to be on her, as today commuter lanes are alive and kicking.
Other essays were more timeless, or if dated, interesting slices of life back then. Like an essay on California infrastructure — that of water and electricity and how it is portioned out in the American West — and her personal experiences dealing with migraines, Malibu, and vacationing at The Royal Hawaiian Hotel, now dwarfed by the megahotels that have been built up next to it on the shores of Waikiki. She could turn a phrase, and it was interesting to read the original, deadpan style that in turn influenced luminaries like Hunter S. Thompsen, Fran Leibowitz, Lester Bangs, even Joanna Russ.
But like all of those, I wound up getting impatient with her authorial voice. Very self-absorbed. I think I’d like her more autobiographical work though.
With the magic of Midjourney, here’s some AI-created Narnia-themed bento boxes! Using a photorealistic style after those posted in Gourmet magazine.
This is the first one. Rustic container, Aslan cut-food art (I think it’s daikon radish) in the center, something that looks like Turkish Delight to his upper left. I had specified Narnian foods, thinking I’d get some of the delicacies Lewis describes, but most of it seems suited for animals — carrots, broccoli, grapes, cherry tomatoes, and dried apricots. Something that looks like arborio rice, and, disturbingly, two dishes that look like they contain mealworms. Aside from Aslan’s grimace, it’s plausible.
This Aslan face is nicer and has a pasta mane. The container is still rustic, and we also get buckwheat noodles, almond butter, a fresh star anise, tiny lemons, a fresh fig, small slices of parmesan cheese, a small bulb of fennel, and a tomato that looks to be made out of sundried tomato paste. I’ll call it the Italianate version.
And oh boy, Midjourney threw out this Christmas kid’s edition bento box! TWO Aslan cookies, goldfish crackers, and wafers depicting Mr. Tumnus and Mr. and Mrs. Beaver.
When the Prince Caspian movie came out in 2008, someone made this spoof.
Now we come to my favorite part of the Summer of Narnia — posting endless depictions of my favorite character, Queen Jadis, late of Charn. (She’s the same person as the White Witch, but Queen of Charn is her first incarnation, so to speak.)
There have been many stage productions of The Magician’s Nephew over the years, and, like most of the Chronicles, they rely heavily on the audience’s imaginations, and creative sets, lighting, and costuming, to convey the dramatic events of the story. These two Jadises (left and below) use simple costumes in rich fabrics but muted colors. This is so they can reflect the colored spotlights (red for Charn, green for the Wood Between the World, etc.)
This costume has a wonderful baroque crown and jewelry for the Queen, looking vaguely Byzantine.
An artist’s illustration showing Jadis in Whore-of-Babylon red with a malicious expression as she recounts her wild ride through London on the roof of a horse-drawn cab.
Jadis in the ruins of Charn. Likely art-nouveau inspired AI generation going by the odd nature of her right hand, but I’ll give it the benefit of a doubt. Slinky and dramatic.
A Witch is Born, by Joel Chaim Holtzman
Again, not Jadis (and her nameless sibling.) Interestingly enough, however, the pair are also twin magic-using sisters in a fantasy setting. It’s a scene from a Conan the Barbarian story by the late Robert E. Howard depicting magic rivals Taramis and Salome.
Now I’ll move on to pictures of Queens and Empresses.
Luxurious and world-weary Empress Theodora.
Empress, by Bob Greyvenstein
A rather jumbled-up but panoramic depiction of an Empress and her kingdom which stretches out into the distance, like Charn does.
This Queen is unnamed, but it could be Jadis watching Charn burn under the attack of her sister.
A lovely Russian-inspired White Witch with a cruel expression.
A talking sloth at the local inn
By the end of the reign of the Telmarine kings, the human population of Narnia had grown. In The Silver Chair, in fact, it’s stated that one in five citizens was a human, the rest being dwarves, Talking Beasts, centaurs, and the like. And if there’s one thing humans love, it’s having a drink in the local pub. So here’s some inns which may have existed in Narnia at that time.
| Phoenix Hill Public Inn
Roughraven’s Den and Eatery Pursesprawlin’s Inn and Alehouse King’s Rest The Queen’s Harp Kingblossom Pub Griffon’s Crown The Inn of Dryadsdale The Puzzled Dragon |
The Naiad’s Neck
Queensgirdle Public Inn The Hamadryad’s Horn Longfeather’s The Hare’s Charm The Proud Lion The Leopard’s Fiddle The Ridgeland Inn The Dusty Stag |
Edited by Ian Jack
Granta Publications, 2004
[ #15: East meets West: A book taking place in Asia (Turkey to Japan, Siberia to Vietnam) ]
The local Little Free Library has, again, provided me with a challenge book! This one, The Granta Book of India. I had a good experience with the last Granta anthology I read some years back so figured I’d slot this one in as my Asian challenge, because Asia, contrary to how I think of it, also includes the Indian subcontinent.
Because I was still not sure what Granta is, I looked it up, and discovered it was founded as a literary magazine in 1889 by students at Cambridge University. It went pro in 1979 when it became a quarterly literary journal and has also been publishing specialty anthologies, like this one.
This was one of those books I found a joy to read. Of the seventeen stories, essays, and articles, I can call only two of them duds. The rest I’d rate four to five stars. All of them dealt with India and/or Pakistan: rural villages, big cities like Mumbai, memoirs of travelers to both. The India/Pakistan conflicts were touched upon in several, a subject which I didn’t know much about; one excellent article, “Jihadists” was about the conflicts that led to the 9/11 attacks and what was going on in Pakistan and Afghanistan afterward. Although the political commentary was outdated (most of the book’s material was from the 1990s) most of the writers were from India or Pakistan and so it was interesting to hear their viewpoints. The fiction was mainly slices-of-life from the lives of ordinary Indian people, like a businessman who is embarrassed by, but also enjoys, his wife’s singing talent (“White Lies” by Amit Chaudhuri).
Other favorites of mine were “What Bengali Widows Cannot Eat” by Chitrita Banerjee, in which an Indian-American cookbook writer describes her mother’s Indian widowhood customs, one of which is not eating any meat, ever again. According to custom widows are treated as bad luck in India among all classes and the older generation of women, at least, is still buying into this. It could have been another “Gee-it-sucks-to-be-woman-in-[name of country]” story that usually pops up whenever some Asian country in essayed, but the descriptions of the food were truly sumptuous.
The other article I enjoyed, also about a woman, was “Little Durga” by Shampa Banerjee (not related to the author above, Banerjee is something of the “Smith” of India). This was the adult recollections of the child actress who had played the role of older sister to Apu, the main character in the Apu movie trilogy of acclaimed director Satyajit Ray.
The other was the recollections of the actress who became famous for playing a little girl in an acclaimed Indian movie.
The two duds were an incoherent article/memoir about dervishes and a story about an Indian tutor, Ivy League educated, who agrees to ghost-write a college entrance essay for an unmotivated American girl living in Bombay with her expat father. The tutor has a bit of a crush on the girl. This wasn’t badly written, but just rubbed me the wrong way. First, the main character knowingly participates in fraud, second, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for spoiled teenage girls who can’t be assed to write their own essays, no matter how young and rich and beautiful they are.
The story just sort of… ended, without much of a conclusion, as most of the fiction did, and not a few of the essays. Which wasn’t necessarily bad, I enjoyed reading them. But I do wonder if that is considered the thing to do now when writing modern essays. I was raised, for example, to write a beginning, a middle, and an end, and if not handing the conclusion to the reader, point them to it with some very strong hints. But a lot of the material forced me to draw my own.