I don't hold no assumptions about the primacy of gender for human identity, but that's by the by. I am shocked -- SHOCKED! -- to discover that you find Reepicheep "irritating", Jonathan. Words absolutely fail me.
Ha! If this was one of those blogs read by millions a flame war would now ensue.
I meant a flame war about the irritatingness or otherwise of Reepicheep, though I suppose gender's always good for a virtual punch-up as well.
Actually, I am wondering if you find Reepicheep irritating because he is overly cute, or perhaps because he is so very martial? It pains me to say it, but I have to admit that as an adult I've never been able to recapture my childhood experience of the Narnia books. My love for them at the time simply could not have been more intense or influential, but they are one of the few things that I just can't seem to revisit. (In some ways I suspect that this is part of what makes them so remarkable. It really is a secret door, and adults can't get in.) I suspect you must also therefore find Bonaventure irritating, for Reepicheep is clearly his literary father. But curiously that doesn't upset me. I feel much more defensive about poor dear Reepicheep...
P.S. If I was asked to list what I considered to be the most important things about me as a person, I don't think my gender would even make it into the top 5.
Cassandra: I love Bonaventure, who has none of the Jar-Jar Binks qualities I associate with Reepicheep. But you're right -- I didn't read any of the narnia books as a child, and their joys are pretty much inaccessible to me.
On the gender front, I wasn't thinking about what people consider to be key about themselves, but about things that generally precede consideration, things that determine how one dresses, say, or wears one's hair, or prepares one's face for the world; or whether one thinks twice before going to certain places at night; or what information is conveyed about us by our personal names.
Actually, if Bonaventure really was Reepicheep's son, the sad fact of the matter is that Reepicheep would be probably be ashamed of him. I'm glad you like Bonaventure, although I hasten to assure you that it's not compulsory.
Btw, not having seen a Star Wars movie since c. 1977, I had no idea who Jar Jar Binks was. Having googled, and read several snippets here and there, I am none the wiser. What I mean is, I really can't work out what his character is meant to be. Apart from the fact that he has a distinctive mode of speech.
He's a remorselessly cheerful non-human sidekick. unlike Reepicheep he is also dim.
THAT IS SO FUNNY! I feel like I have turned a corner on a narrow mountain pathway in my mind and been confronted with a panoramic vista of irritation!
Reepicheep's irritating because he's a bloke. That's my very belated contribution to/attempt to blend the threads of the conversation AND start a flame war, which I don't think I've done since the great post-9/11 Seussian Towelhead incident on child_lit. (And I promise, I've only had one glass of wine. OK, maybe two, by those irritating "official standards".
(I actually adored Reepicheep as a young 'un...)
But he's only a bloke in an Errol Flynn sort of way, surely? He's a valiant idealist, I guess, a dreamer, like Galahad in the Arthurian cycle. In fact he really is like Galahad because he's the only one to go on in the little coracle into the Sea of Lilies. ("Sweet! Sweet!") I suppose at this point in history it's harder for us to put that together with someone who is a warrior, but viewed through the Arthurian lens you can see what Lewis had in mind (and he did not have anything like our degree of discomfort with war). I had an interesting discussion on a panel at Reading Matters some years ago about the difference between Reepicheep and Bonaventure. I said R was a warrior whereas B was an artist; someone more perceptive, I felt, than me said, no, you're missing the point. What matters is, they're both idealists. And I thought she was right.
What an interesting conversation. One person's thowaway disparagement gives rise to another's thoughtful meditation. (The throwaway disparagement was min. I think Jud's comment was a bit of throwaway pot-stirring.)
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