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starladyAs well as being Martin Luther King, Jr., Day in the States, today is the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first elected president of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. I recommend Adam Hochschild's piece in the Times to everyone.
Lewis, C.S. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. New York: Harper Collins, 1994. [1950]
I can remember this book not being my particular favorite when I first read the books in fourth grade, and I can see why; it's one of the shortest of the books, and on reread it's surprising to me how much of it doesn't actually take place in Narnia--not until the beginning of chapter 6 do Peter and Susan get into Narnia--and how quickly it feels like things wrap up once they do. Not that things actually do wrap up all that quickly, but I couldn't help but compare this to today's YA books, which are so much longer and more, well, not 'realistic,' precisely, but more invested in realism. I think it wasbedlamsbard who said at one point that the books read like fairy tales or legends abstracted out of real events, and that's certainly true of LWW. In particular, the utter cruelty of the final ending strikes me anew here; I just can't imagine writing this story and writing that ending. It may have been comforting to its initial audience, and intended as such on Jack Lewis' part, but it seems unspeakably violent to the Pevensies, and to Narnia. (I think at this point mentioning Cat Valente's complaint about portal fantasy, that it's always predicated on the need to return to one's original world, is relevant. Like her, I am highly skeptical of that automatic assumption.)
All that being said, I enjoyed this one a lot this time around, though I was surprised at how little screentime Edmund's actual repentance, forgiveness, and conversation with Aslan got; but I like all four of the Pevensies, though Lewis' investment to a large extent in conventional societal gender roles also grates--I much prefer Walden Media's revisionist take on that, though compared to Tolkien, the relative gender equity of Narnia--VDT is the only book in which equal numbers of boys and girls don't go to Narnia, at least initially--is remarkable. It's also interesting to read this book knowing that it was written first of all, and to see the little throwaway details and untied threads that dangle from it in places, and to try to think how they could possibly be made coherent--obviously, TMN is an effort on Lewis' part to do just that, but inevitably some things are still left dangling.
This seems like a good place to mention that I didn't understand until freshman year of high school the Christian aspects of these books, and that only then because I got my Quaker best friend to explain it to me. I think we can take this among other things as evidence of the fact that six years of CCD categorically failed to indoctrinate me into Catholicism in any meaningful fashion, or of the Christian privilege inherent in growing up even sort-of Christian; I also…well. This time around, reading about Aslan at the Stone Table seems ridiculously obvious (I do hope JRR had some scathing words for CS about the obviousness of the allegory), but on the other hand, I know it only seems obvious to me because I knew about it going in. I think it's perfectly possible to read these books and to believe, as I did, that Aslan ≠ Jesus, though this may require a certain obliviousness that probably isn't possible to sustain in the age of Wikipedia. I still don't really accept this whole 'Aslan = Jesus' thing, to be really honest. And I find myself asking, if the Emperor is God and Aslan is Jesus, where is the Holy Spirit in Narnia?
Another thing that's striking to me is the sheer blistering hatred C.S. Lewis had for school. It's a consistent motif--perhaps the most consistent motif in the books--that school is by definition awful, awful, awful. Considering that Lewis was writing the books in his later fifties, a good forty years after he'd finished that sort of school, it's quite striking how much those emotions remained with him. I know from Roald Dahl's memoirs that school was a living hell for boys of a certain temperament, or more probably most boys, but Lewis clearly never got over it entirely.
Lewis, C.S. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. New York: Harper Collins, 1994. [1950]
I can remember this book not being my particular favorite when I first read the books in fourth grade, and I can see why; it's one of the shortest of the books, and on reread it's surprising to me how much of it doesn't actually take place in Narnia--not until the beginning of chapter 6 do Peter and Susan get into Narnia--and how quickly it feels like things wrap up once they do. Not that things actually do wrap up all that quickly, but I couldn't help but compare this to today's YA books, which are so much longer and more, well, not 'realistic,' precisely, but more invested in realism. I think it was
bedlamsbard who said at one point that the books read like fairy tales or legends abstracted out of real events, and that's certainly true of LWW. In particular, the utter cruelty of the final ending strikes me anew here; I just can't imagine writing this story and writing that ending. It may have been comforting to its initial audience, and intended as such on Jack Lewis' part, but it seems unspeakably violent to the Pevensies, and to Narnia. (I think at this point mentioning Cat Valente's complaint about portal fantasy, that it's always predicated on the need to return to one's original world, is relevant. Like her, I am highly skeptical of that automatic assumption.)All that being said, I enjoyed this one a lot this time around, though I was surprised at how little screentime Edmund's actual repentance, forgiveness, and conversation with Aslan got; but I like all four of the Pevensies, though Lewis' investment to a large extent in conventional societal gender roles also grates--I much prefer Walden Media's revisionist take on that, though compared to Tolkien, the relative gender equity of Narnia--VDT is the only book in which equal numbers of boys and girls don't go to Narnia, at least initially--is remarkable. It's also interesting to read this book knowing that it was written first of all, and to see the little throwaway details and untied threads that dangle from it in places, and to try to think how they could possibly be made coherent--obviously, TMN is an effort on Lewis' part to do just that, but inevitably some things are still left dangling.
This seems like a good place to mention that I didn't understand until freshman year of high school the Christian aspects of these books, and that only then because I got my Quaker best friend to explain it to me. I think we can take this among other things as evidence of the fact that six years of CCD categorically failed to indoctrinate me into Catholicism in any meaningful fashion, or of the Christian privilege inherent in growing up even sort-of Christian; I also…well. This time around, reading about Aslan at the Stone Table seems ridiculously obvious (I do hope JRR had some scathing words for CS about the obviousness of the allegory), but on the other hand, I know it only seems obvious to me because I knew about it going in. I think it's perfectly possible to read these books and to believe, as I did, that Aslan ≠ Jesus, though this may require a certain obliviousness that probably isn't possible to sustain in the age of Wikipedia. I still don't really accept this whole 'Aslan = Jesus' thing, to be really honest. And I find myself asking, if the Emperor is God and Aslan is Jesus, where is the Holy Spirit in Narnia?
Another thing that's striking to me is the sheer blistering hatred C.S. Lewis had for school. It's a consistent motif--perhaps the most consistent motif in the books--that school is by definition awful, awful, awful. Considering that Lewis was writing the books in his later fifties, a good forty years after he'd finished that sort of school, it's quite striking how much those emotions remained with him. I know from Roald Dahl's memoirs that school was a living hell for boys of a certain temperament, or more probably most boys, but Lewis clearly never got over it entirely.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-18 00:52 (UTC)I don't think the parallels are intentional--Anthroposophy claims not to be Christian, and Lewis claimed to be--but I suspect that both were part of a broader move away from mainstream Christianity towards Christ-flavored spirituality in the wake of the First World War.
On the topic of how little time they spend in Narnia, I tend to think of LWW much more as a house-with-a-mystery book than a going-to-Narnia book. That the mystery winds up being Narnia, and sets up the rest of the series for adventures back and forth, is sort of separate from how I feel about the book as a whole.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-18 03:22 (UTC)I tend to think of LWW much more as a house-with-a-mystery book than a going-to-Narnia book.
*nods* That's a good point, particularly in light of how Lewis summarily divests Digory of the house in VDT.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-18 06:05 (UTC)For the most part, what they have in common is that they're very spiritual adaptations of Christianity that stray incredibly far from the religion as it's traditionally practiced but are nevertheless thoroughly steeped in it. No criticism of the "secret Christianity" in Narnia has ever come close to the sheer wtfery of saying morning prayers to the Sun God Who Is Totally Mithras and Not Jesus We Promise But Wasn't His Resurrection Awesome?
One of the most important books in my early development was The Seven-Year-Old Wonder Book, a series of short stories and fables about the best way to live your life. It has the exact same blend of neutered Greek myth and vaguely Christian metaphors that I came to know and love in the Narnia books. To this day, I can't always remember which series is the source of certain stories in my personal mythology. Lewis was a much better author than Wyatt, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-18 06:33 (UTC)Yup, that's Narnia. I'm still pondering what's going on with the whole Bacchus interlude in PC.
Still, wow, yeah, they sound extraordinarily similar.