Hurrays! For I've finally finished the entire series of "The Chronicles of Narnia"! Which is a blardy big book of 767 pages consisting of 7 separate novels and weighs a ton! Not a chore to read though as all the stories are truly interesting and out of this world. It's quite like the Harry Potter series really, with all the magic and good fighting evil, except that there isn't really many magicians but more of talking animals, and things took place in old-day England.

But to tell the truth, this poor book has been lying on my table for ages, gathering dust as the last time I touched it was when the Disney movie "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" was screened quite a while ago and I busied myself reading the first 2 stories "The Magician's Nephew" and "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" in an attempt to get the whole picture correct after watching the movie. As the same goes for all movies taken from good books, while the movie might be an enjoyable visual experience, the book itself is always a much clearer picture. If you have watched the "Harry Potter" movies and read the books, you'll find that the books have much more details and more characters that were left out in the movies as it would be mission impossible for the director to adhere to the book completely. In fact, for the last HP movie "The Goblet of Fire", while I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere of the movie and its effects, the movie was almost a flop and almost incomprehensible had one not read the book beforehand.

Luckily these few days, all I've on my hand is time and I've finally given the book the attention it well deserves. To sum it all up, "The Chronicles of Narnia", written by C.S. Lewis, a classic of children's literature, present the adventures of children who play central roles in the unfolding history of the realm of Narnia, a place where animals talk, magic is common and the bad is always trying to harm the good, all in futile attempts, while the good eventually kick all their asses. Written by Lewis between 1950 and 1956, "The Chronicles of Narnia" contains Christian themes and borrows from Greek and Roman mythology as well as traditional British and Irish fairy tales.

In fact, "The Chronicles of Narnia" contain many allusions to Christian ideas which can be easily picked up by the reader, unless like me, you are a non-Christian who knows nuts about the Bible. I'd to read up to the last story "The Last Battle" when it gradually dawned to me that Aslan, the Great Lion, the Mighty One in the stories, might be, holly golly, God or Jesus. And that all the children from the previous stories came back to Narnia although Aslan told them that they couldn't come anymore because of their ages, probably because they have all died. And indeed, bloody hell, it was true. They had all died in a train crash and had finally been allowed entry into Narnia, which was probably Heaven. And yes, Aslan was not God, but his son Jesus. *faint*

After I finished the last page, I went to my sis who had been nagging me to finish the entire book since I'm so free, and said to her, "Walau, Aslan is Jesus ah?". My sister laughed in glee cause she knew that I would despise that type of ending and nodded her head. How I was feeling then is like eating a very crunchy and juicy big fat red apple happily and then finding a worm inside the core. Ya, I kinda felt cheated because I hate it when people try to sell me their religion, especially Christians preaching me to go to their church events. So to read a really good book and then finding at its end an ending that involves Christianity kinda sucks. Don't tell me that I'll find at the end of the last book of J.K. Rowling that Albus Dumbledore didn't die and in fact he is God himself and is just resting in Heaven.

However, after the initial shock of learning the truth about Aslan (which, to be fair, is not really an allegorical representation of Christ, but more of a literal representation of Christ, in another body, in another universe, and by another name), actually I didn't mind so much of the ending anymore as the books told a fantastic tale of adventure, colour, and mythological ideas like the Fauns, the Dryads, the Centaurs and the dwarfs. And boy, growing up reading fairytales by Enid Blyton, I love mythical creatures even though they don't exist (but you will never really know for sure). Somehow they work wonders on my soul, never failing to make me light-hearted and young, though for no apparent reasons.