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Re: Chapter 1 - The Grey Town

PostPosted: June 1st, 2010, 2:29 pm
by maralewisfan

Re: Chapter 1 - The Grey Town

PostPosted: June 3rd, 2010, 7:38 am
by agingjb
The description (although perhaps not the function) of the Bus Driver is, fairly certainly, a reference to the angel in Dante's Inferno, Canto 9, who forces open the gates of Dis. The angel in Dante fans the air from his face, and appears to be intent on his task.

Re: Chapter 1 - The Grey Town

PostPosted: June 4th, 2010, 6:39 pm
by Matthew Whaley
Except in this case the angel is taking Dante to deeper, darker levels of Hades and the residents are scattering in fear before the angel because he is from Heaven. The residents of Grey Town don't seem at all to be afraid of the Bus Driver, his joyful demeanor just seems to irritate them.

Re: Chapter 1 - The Grey Town

PostPosted: June 4th, 2010, 7:18 pm
by agingjb
I did say "perhaps not the function". But I do think that Lewis intended the reference to Dante. I could be wrong.

Re: Chapter 1 - The Grey Town

PostPosted: June 4th, 2010, 9:34 pm
by Matthew Whaley

Re: Chapter 1 - The Grey Town

PostPosted: June 9th, 2010, 6:21 pm
by Nerd42

Re: Chapter 1 - The Grey Town

PostPosted: June 12th, 2010, 2:25 am
by nomad
Sorry for the long absence. Always forget how busy one tends to be right after a long trip.

But, I have my book now! w00t! And I'd like to talk a bit more about the people in line and how Lewis plays them against one another. The man in the first couple, for instance, who doesn't get on the bus to spite his partner (I assume his wife). His insistence that he never wanted to go makes it quite clear that he does want to go, but would rather give it up than to let her "win". I presume the wife was doing the same thing, although she doesn't say enough to be sure. But to my mind, they probably both really did want to go, but valued "getting the upper hand" over the other more.

And then the short man and the Big man show two seemingly opposite attitudes which are really facets of the same problem. They both take great pride in their status. While the short man is obvious about it, the Big Man veils his in false humility but really he considers his station as a "plain man" to be morally superior to the hoity toity short man. His concern with his rights is smoke and mirrors too... since he was standing in front of the short man so obviously wasn't being denied his rights.

I must confess, I'm not sure what point he was trying to make about the young couple, other than maybe a disapproval of modern fashion. Their contentment (and giggliness) seems out of place in the Grey Town. Are they just distracted?

Re: Chapter 1 - The Grey Town

PostPosted: June 12th, 2010, 7:44 pm
by paminala

Re: Chapter 1 - The Grey Town

PostPosted: June 12th, 2010, 7:52 pm
by Matthew Whaley
I see that too and it seems they are so focused on each other that they are oblivious to their evironment and everyone around them.

Re: Chapter 1 - The Grey Town

PostPosted: June 13th, 2010, 9:59 pm
by maralewisfan
I saw the young couple in light of a reference in Screwtape Letter 20, where Screwtape is talking about the type of woman that the patient should be attracted to, "...we now teach men lto like women whose bodies are scarely distinguishable from those of boys." "It is all a fake, of course; the figures in the popular art are falsely drawn; the real women in bathing suits or tights are actually pinched in and more boyish than nature allows a full-grown woman to be." I see a continuation of a theme in the young couple.

Re: Chapter 1 - The Grey Town

PostPosted: June 15th, 2010, 8:34 am
by agingjb
Some possible but tenuous references. (Quite probably not in CSL's mind, but as with all good writers, the reader is reminded of other works, and anyway CSL had read "everything").

Blake: "I wander through each charter'd street", London.

Shelley: "Hell is a city much like London", Peter Bell III.

James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night.

Charles Williams, "All Hallows' Eve". Now this was written just before TGD. Had CSL read it? Well I think we can be sure that he would have read anything by Williams as soon as it became available. Was it an influence? Not directly I would think, but it does start with ghosts in an empty London. Anyway the book is worth reading. It does lead to my wildest speculation. Williams must have read Eliot's Four Quartets, and with a little shoving I can trace some links between that and "All Hallows' Eve". It would be ironic if CSL picked up anything from Eliot's poetry.

Re: Chapter 1 - The Grey Town

PostPosted: June 16th, 2010, 2:40 am
by nomad

Re: Chapter 1 - The Grey Town

PostPosted: June 17th, 2010, 3:26 pm
by paminala
Actually, this just occurred to me. If I remember correctly (looks like I'm going to have to start bringing my book to work) he says something about having a hard time not just telling which is of which gender but actually telling them apart. Thinking of a later scene in the book when one character inhabits 2 bodies, could the young couple be, in reality a single person so afflicted with vanity and self love that he is blinded to all else? In such an environment as the Town, such a thing could certainly manifest itself as one person finally becoming a couple so that he could walk hand in hand with the love of his life.

Re: Chapter 1 - The Grey Town

PostPosted: June 18th, 2010, 2:18 am
by nomad
LOL! Great thought... even if Lewis didn't intend that, it's a worthy interpretation. And it leads me to the (not quite as creative) thought that perhaps they are caught up with each other only because the other's interest in them sustains their ego. Co-dependent, I think that's called.

Re: Chapter 1 - The Grey Town

PostPosted: August 4th, 2010, 5:36 pm
by mwanafalsafa
On the Bus Driver...

By the logic of the allegory it seems to me like the Bus Driver would have to be God.

He and the bus for that matter aren't part of Hell but can shrink down small enough to fit in it. Later in the book it's clearly stated that only God can do this.

But it's also said that God, or Jesus, only went into Hell once and preached to everyone. The bus driver doesn't seem to be doing that.

Of course the entire thing isn't meant to be taken literally and is an allegory, a sort of metaphorical demonstration, of how God, Heaven and Hell work, so maybe it doesn't have such a strong need to be completely non-contradictory (as an explanation of a world really presumed to exist would need to be).