You have forgotten to clean your sword

I recently re-read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which didn't take very long. Having all of the Chronicles of Narnia together in one volume with small print and few pictures makes me realize just how short the individual books are. It's a little weird to re-read a book so soon after seeing the movie, as it's difficult to get the film's images out of my head. I did notice a few interesting differences between the book and the movie, though, some of which I thought were true while I was watching the film, but now I know for sure that they are.

• One thing I did remember was that the children's last name, Pevensie, actually wasn't provided until The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Neither was Professor Kirke's, but I can't recall whether they said his name in the movie.
  
• The film made the Pevensies more reluctant to fulfill their destiny. Of note is how Peter kills the wolf pretty much immediately in the book, but struggles with it in the movie. I actually thought this was a nice touch on the part of the filmmakers, because it made the children more realistic.
  
• There are a few tidbits of trivia given in the movie that weren't in the book. Lucy says her mother's name is Helen, and Tumnus explains that his father had gone off to war before the long winter. I'm pretty sure C.S. Lewis never gives the Pevensies' mother a name, but the cab-driver's wife who becomes the first Queen of Narnia is given the name Helen by Aslan.
  
• A bit of trivia that's in the book and NOT in the movie is Mr. Beaver's statement that the White Witch is half a Jinn and half a Giantess. I've seen some people argue that this is contradictory to the origins that Lewis eventually gave her in The Magician's Nephew, but I don't know that it really is. Besides, Mr. Beaver could have been wrong, I suppose.
  
• The lion at the Witch's house no longer has his moment of annoying enthusiasm in the movie, but he IS retained for a later joke, where the glasses and mustache that Edmund had drawn on him are still there at the coronation scene.
  
• Mr. Beaver's line late in the book about how Aslan isn't a tame lion is given to Tumnus in the movie.
  
• The movie has Professor Kirke admitting to Lucy that he had tried to enter Narnia through the wardrobe himself. He doesn't say this in the book, but it's consistent with his character.
  

I'm planning on re-reading the rest of the series, although I'm not quite sure what order I'll read them in. The collection I have puts them all in chronological order (with The Magician's Nephew first), which seems to be the general standard nowadays. When I was a kid, however, they were numbered in the order in which Lewis wrote them (with The Lion) first. I think I might actually move ahead to The Magician's Nephew now, and then read the rest in the order that the book I have uses. For a new reader, though, I'd probably recommend reading them in the written order, rather than the chronological one. Actually, I guess Nephew doesn't necessarily have to be saved for sixth, but I think it should definitely be read after The Lion. That's just me, though, and no one actually asked my opinion.

bethje and I have now finished watching all of the episodes on the first three discs of the Simpsons Season 7 DVD set with commentary. I remember the episode capsule for "Bart on the Road" including a debate on what "Langdon Alger" is referencing. It turns out that he was a childhood friend of one of the writers.

Speaking of The Simpsons, it says here that next week's episode has Homer thinking someone other than Abe is his real father. I really hope this isn't another one along the lines of "The Principal and the Pauper" or "Viva Ned Flanders," where the writers totally ignore established continuity and decide that a ridiculous new fact about a character is true. I guess I'll wait until it actually airs before I judge it, though.

( A quiz result, and some thoughts on interests )