欧宝娱乐

A mostly well-written, very imaginative, thoroughly enjoyable read. The narration is warm and witty, the protagonists are well developed and likable but not perfect (written perfectly, but with flaws that give the stories depth), and the settings are vivid and fantastic (remember those loony one-footed invisible things that hop around? and the ending, when the boat sails over that undersea city and then into the clouds at the edge of the world?).

I'm always annoyed when people confound the quality of this series as literature with the quality of the worldview it allegedly expounds, as if the literary world is some kind of neo-Stalinist monolith where the only legitimate art is that which edifies us by propounding a correct ethical system. It's just a story, and a good one at that. Furthermore, as an atheist, I think 1) the religious content of the novels is overstated, and 2) even if it isn't, oh fucking well, that doesn't detract from the novels one whit. The books really don't have any more to do with Christianity in particular than does any other story with a character who gives up his life to save others. See Harry Potter 7; see also, religious archetypes in general.

As for the Calormen, I think it's highly possible that the garb was just supposed to convey the exotic, and this particular nation just happens to be bad in the world of the book. Everything is not a political statement. The good faun from LW&W is not a statement about how pagan nature religions are good; likewise, I just don't see that the bad Calormen are necessarily a statement about how the people who once wore curly-toed shoes in the real world are bad.

In sum, it's a good story, and even if all the criticisms of the book-- it's racist, it's Christian, etc.-- are true, it's still a good story, and if all I ever read were wholesome books explicitly conveying a wonderful worldview, I would be bored as hell.