N�rnberg, Mittelfranken, 2005-05-06 - 12:46 a.m.

as we from the old, the preservors of tradition, of at least the heritage of an already dead poet - C.S. Lewis - know - that the first of the Chronicles of Narnia, was "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" - that was were it all started - the second was "Prince Caspian", then "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", "The Silver Chair", fourth "The Horse and his Boy", then "The Magician's Nephew" & at last "The last Battle" -

An author has the freedom to tell in the midst of the story things from the past, then jump to the future - a story including a lost of single tales within, doesn't have to be chronical.

But now some "better-knowing child-literature pedagogics have decided to change the order of the Narnia book exactly chronical - like this:

The Magician's Nephew
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Horse and his Boy
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle

Hmm - why!?!

these educationalists feared that childs would get confused if they were confronted with stories not in the perfectly right chronological order - how stupid do they think, children are? past, future and present is known by most children at the age of five and they know to use it well.

How I come to mention the Narnia Chronicles. 20 years ago I lived for a quarter of a year in the USA, Massachussets - like my friend Ed Morgan said: 'the cultural heart of USA' - I started reading english books then & I started with child books - like rabbit & mother goose stories & very fast growing better in understanding - Beagle with "the last Unicorn" (funny that in this time in the states I was just writing a story about "the first Unicorn" - but I wrote it, before I read 'the last unicorn' -

Also I bought a lot of english books there like the collected works of Lewis Caroll (Alice in Wonderland etc.) - the whole collected E.A. Poe works for only 1,95 $ etc - & also the 7 Narnia books - I sent them in a parcel to Germany - u know: too much baggage - & read them all here - became meanwhile quite perfect in reading & understanding english
- when I read the Narnia ones I got quite enchanted & enthusiastic about them - read them one after the other without long pauses between them -

OK - that was a long time ago in the early 80th (yes I am that old) & the Narnia books are slowly dusting on one of my many book-shelves & the pages getting yellower & yellower - you don't imagine how old an book gets within only 20 years - you have the feeling if you touch the pages, they crumble to dust -

Recently a friend asked me wether I could lend her a book in english, easy to read for a German or Greek (she's Greek but grew up here), to improve her english. I thought about the 2 Lewis'es - & then decided for C.S.Lewis & gave her the first of the chronicles "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" - that was on 1st of May -

the same evening & date, when I came home & later on read Gentry's diary (culotte.diaryland.com - well it's private & password hidden) she coincedantly had mentioned just this book:

"Stinging nettles are a sort of plant that we only read about in British books like The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.."

because she had the day before a bad experience with Brennesseln (stinging nettles) who behaved not very kindly to her.

Next day, May the 2nd - we all know that Gentry had birthday - what I didn't know was, that Tui the daughter of my thai-ish friend Peo, had also birthday & I was invited late in the afternoon to be there at the birthday dinner.

Hmm - I didn't even had a present - just bought quickly a bottle of wine & some Mon Cherie, to arrive there not totally with empty hands.

Later in the evening she told me, she doesn't like sweets, when I offered her the Mon Cherie's -

Later in night - still Narnia in mind - I thought I ebay or amazon the first book of the Narnia's in German - I never read that translated to German, but Tui's english is very poor - I mean very, very poor!

That was, when I saw, that they changed the order of these books.

Even worse - they translated titles of the books totally wrong - ok it's marketing strategy - they sell better, if the titles are accustomed what the masses of consumating Germans would tend to buy.

I'll translate them back to you to understand the change (I wonder, what kind of translation they did within the books!!!):

"The Magician's Nephew" = "Das Wunder von Narnia" (The miracle of Narnia)
"The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" = "Der K�nig von Narnia" (The King of Narnia)
"The Horse and his Boy" = "Der Ritt nach Narnia" (The ride to Narnia)
"Prince Caspian" = "Prinz Kaspian von Narnia" (Prince Caspian of Narnia)
"The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" = "Die Reise auf der Morgenr�te"
"The Silver Chair" = "Der silberne Sessel"
"The Last Battle" = "Der letzte Kampf"

the last 3 titles were relative correctly translated, so I didn't re-translate - but the first 3 titles - aargh! I alway liked the title "The Horse and his Boy", when you expect "The Boy and his Horse" - or the fine typical british scurile title "The lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"

one of these funny translation things I remember - there was an US- Film a long ago with Art Garfunkel called "Bad timing" - Here in Germany it was in the cinema under the name "Blackout" - they even didn't translate it, but gave it just another english name - maybe because a lot of Germans know not too much english - blackout is already in common use in Germany like "Rucksack" & "Kindergarten" in USA, so probably more known than 'bad timing'.

There's more in my mind about this bad translation thing & the originality of the "word" - but to be continued in one of the next days.

Ooh - this was a long entry & I'm tired of building words to sentences, who even should have some meaning.

so good night for tonight - dear dawn treaders!