Covering two things I love: Christmas and Narnia, Laura Miller writes an interesting op-ed, published in the New York Times this week, called “It’s a Narnia Christmas.” Calling Christmas essentially a “Victorian fabrication,” she links the much-beloved Narnia books, by C.S. Lewis, to Christmas. The connection is not a difficult one to make, given Father Christmas’s appearance (among other things) in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the first-published of the Chronicles of Narnia books.

I appreciate the way she appreciates Narnia and find it interesting to consider Christmas as a conglomeration of various traditions from over the years. Given C.S. Lewis’s appreciation for the ways in which the literature he studied did similiar things, that does make some sense, and seems apparent given the various literary and mythical traditions he pulls into his Narnia novels.

Of course, as a Christian, I necessarily see Christmas as primarily a time to remember how God came to the earth like even the least of us, to show us how much he loves us. When I read the Chronicles of Narnia, I similarly cannot help but find the often beautiful ideas of a creator who would give his life for even the worst of us children. I look forward to giving my children Narnia one day, soon!

The Detroit News (of all things) has provided this concise commentary on Dan Brown’s supposed fiction-writing-rule-breaking with da Da Vinci Code novel. Apparently there are explicit, mostly-unwritten rules about fiction writing, but, that irony aside, check out http://del.icio.us/schellack/DaVinciCode for the link to the article. I appreciate the conciseness, and if you have not yet heard that Mr. Brown’s book may in fact lack historical veracity,then you should read this.

[added 5.19.06, 11:51] So the movie comes out/came out today and isn’t receiving very good reviews: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/da_vinci_code/