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A review by wetblanket
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
2.0
Hear me out!!!!!! I picked this book up for two reasons. It's a "classic" and it was a childhood favourite of a dearly departed friend. I had very little knowledge of what this book was about other than it had Christian undertones/allegories. I had no problem with that. In fact it was interesting to look for them within in the text. BUT THE RACISM. WOW!
Some may say "it was a different time". NO.
The author knew what they were writing and the language they chose to use. It was unacceptable then but they chose to use those words.
Someone has to be good and someone has to be bad in these types of kids books but this author's clear racism towards (if not Turkish/Ottoman) middle eastern/asian people is clear. The author chose to use the name Aslan (or can also be spelt Arslan in some countries) to name the lion. Yet this actually means lion in Turkic and some asian languages.
For this reason I could only give 2 stars. These 2 stars were for the writing and the story. If some adjectives were changed this would be a great book, the story/writing is fun. But that would be something akin to censorship, which I don't support.
Read it if you want. But beware of the writing. If you want to read this to children, please read it first and make up your mind if you wish to expose this book to children.
Some may say "it was a different time". NO.
The author knew what they were writing and the language they chose to use. It was unacceptable then but they chose to use those words.
Someone has to be good and someone has to be bad in these types of kids books but this author's clear racism towards (if not Turkish/Ottoman) middle eastern/asian people is clear. The author chose to use the name Aslan (or can also be spelt Arslan in some countries) to name the lion. Yet this actually means lion in Turkic and some asian languages.
For this reason I could only give 2 stars. These 2 stars were for the writing and the story. If some adjectives were changed this would be a great book, the story/writing is fun. But that would be something akin to censorship, which I don't support.
Read it if you want. But beware of the writing. If you want to read this to children, please read it first and make up your mind if you wish to expose this book to children.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racial slurs and Racism