Further Up and Further In

Anyone who comments with “that’s what she said” gets a kick in the pants.

So, Narnia. The series that started it all for me. I really didn’t want to read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; at Brownies, another girl who was trying to bluff her way through her book-reader’s badge gave a summary of it that made me think it was about a girl trapped by a witch in a closet. (I was picturing Judy Garland cowering beneath the hangers in her blue-checked dress, with the Witch of the West’s big red hourglass spilling the seconds away.) Unluckily for you, my mom persuaded me to give it a shot anyhow. And from there, it was only a short step to having at least four Narnia books on my person at all times; waving a plastic sword at the TV as I watched the BBC adaptations; and knowing pretty much the entire series by heart.

My great love of the Narnia series engendered the deepness of the betrayal I felt when I slowly discovered that beneath the sword fights and walking trees and Talking Beasts lay an ugly bedrock of prejudice and proselytization. To be fair, it’s not like Lewis tried to hide it: his overblown “Mere Christianity” seems so obvious to my adult eyes, and it was my own growth as a person that led me to reject many of the morals of the Narnia books, rather than a sudden, “gasp! You mean that was what it was all about?*” revelation.

So despite everything, it’s still tough for me to look at Narnia with a critical eye. Just as I only now begin to appreciate, say, the cleverness and cause-and-effect plotting of the Bugs Bunny cartoons I watched since I was too young to understand them, it’s only as I grow as a writer that I’m able to see what’s under the hood of Lewis’s Narnia stories. But here’s my best shot.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe – The more I read this story as an adult, and especially the more I watch film and TV adaptations of it, the more I see how difficult its structure is. There are four protagonists, none of whom goes on an individual hero’s journey. You could make the case for Edmund being a traditional hero, but what would normally be the climax of his story, the here’s-what-I-learned moment, happens “off-screen”, with us picking up as Lucy gives him a drop of the cordial. Aslan gets to take over at the climactic battle. And yet, this story is still the most appealing to me: vivid characters like Edmund and Lucy; warm, fuzzy details like Mr. Tumnus’s tea and Father Christmas’s gifts; and dramatic moments that make you gasp like Susan and Lucy watching Aslan de-statuefy the White Witch’s prisoners.

Prince Caspian – Or, four British kids help Simba beat Scar**. This book is interesting to me as an adult because of the way it starts with the Pevensies pissing around Narnia, not really sure where or when they are, and then Lewis reveals that they’re actually a thousand years in the future (although the technology is still roughly the same). I mean, these books are so ingrained in me that this move seems natural now, but what a change that is for the second installment of a series! This book also has the Aslan-takes-over-the-climax deal, but I love the parallel action of the single combat between evil usurper Miraz and champion-for-the-rightful-king Peter, even if it did end in a confusing (for nine-year-old me) and somewhat anticlimactic way.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – This book really doesn’t have a plot — the youngest two Pevensies and their awesomely obnoxious cousin Eustace join Caspian for a Narnian road trip through the unexplored islands of the East all the way to the End of the World. They’re kinda sorta looking for vanished lords who were Caspian’s father’s allies, but, enh, who really cares? Each island they visit is its own chunk of a story, and some of them have the most strongly evocative atmosphere in the entire series. The empty-ish island with the, uh, special water; the start of the visit to the island of the Dufflepuds; Eustace creeping alone to the dragon’s cave; and not to mention the island where dreams come true  — all these scenes still make the hair prickle on the back of my neck.

The Silver Chair – Of all the Narnia books, I think this is the one with the most solid plot structure, which of course means nothing, considering I enjoyed the rest as well. Aslan charges Eustace and his friend Jill (best female character in the series — actually human and not just a symbol of belief, worldliness, etc.) to follow His four Signs and recover the lost Prince Rilian before Caspian, now an old man, dies. I love the plot because… they consistently mess up every Sign they encounter. Their Narnian guide, pessimistic, sardonic Puddleglum, rocks. And even though I know the villain is meant to represent “evil” atheism, well, that character is still scary and interesting nonetheless. (Also, much funnier if you imagine her as played by Richard Dawkins in drag. Does that make me a bad person?)

The Horse and His Boy – Words cannot describe my feelings of disappointment when I picked this one up. I got the Narnia books in sequence via the Scholastic book order sent to my school, and although I loved the ones I’d read, I had absolutely no idea what to expect from the next, save that it would appear next month. (Hey, I was young enough that the Internet wasn’t even a blip on my radar.) Imagine my shock at eagerly opening this book only to find… it started in Narnia! Without any familiar characters! Where were Eustace and Jill? Who the heck was this Shasta guy, and why should I care about him and his attempt to escape slavery in Calormene with Bree, a Narnian Talking Horse?

Eventually, I learned to enjoy the plot, especially since Shasta and his travel companion Aravis are some of Lewis’s better flawed characters. He hardly ever knows when he’s done the right thing because he’s so used to doing the wrong thing; she has to come off an ego trip and learn to function with other people***. The crazy racism about the dark-skinned Calormenes… eerrrrrrr. I mean, I see on one hand where Lewis is trying to flesh out a completely different society for them based on a weird take on the Islamic world of the Middle Ages, but, yeah, that kind of makes it worse, not better.

The Magician’s Nephew – Again, totally unprepared for this book to be about the weird old professor from The Lion, the Witch… etc., but when he was a kid. But once I got over that, the story was awesome. Not only did it get me into E. Nesbit’s wonderful Bastables books by mentioning them on the first page, but it had stay-with-you conceits like the Wood Between The Worlds with its gateway to infinite alternate universes. Its realistic characters, Digory and Polly, bicker with each other, have plausible moral choices to make (Digory’s mother is dying; will Digory disobey Aslan to steal an extra apple of life to save her?), even set the plot in motion by accidentally freeing Jadis and bringing her to newly born Narnia. (So it represents original sin. Whatever! It was still tense.) True, there’s a lot of elaborate description and not-so-funny-as-Lewis-evidently-feels Talking Animal hijinks. But I always enjoyed this as a solid book.

The Last Battle – Is there any Narnia fan who reached this one without a “WTF”? Eustace and Jill are back — but Narnia is going through the End of Days, and they and poor King Tirian are fighting a losing war until the world ends and everybody goes to heaven, aka Narnia Mark II. Maybe it was the downbeat deaths followed by more downbeat deaths, or the lack of agency of any of the characters by the end, but even as a kid I never liked reading any part of this book except the “heaven” part at the end. Then again, that plays more like, “Main characters of the Narnia series, THIS IS YOUR LIFE!” (“Lucy Pevensie, do you remember This Voice?” “I was the first person you met when you arrived in Narnia. We had tea in my cave, and I decided not to betray you to the White Witch.” “Why, it’s Tumnus, Mr. Tumnus the Faun!” *applause and hugs*)

I guess I should apologize, because this blog entry was more of an exercise for me: pulling apart stories so familiar I take for granted how they work. But the more I think about it, the more I come to conclude that the Narnia series is a great example of a series that changes drastically with every book. Some of its writing lessons seem outdated: for instance, unless you’re an established or genius writer, it’s awfully hard these days to sell an agent or publisher on an omniscient narrative voice that digresses from the story to address the reader directly. (And, from experience, they’re extremely difficult to handle well.) But others maybe offer food for thought, especially to those of us working on series — how and when switching things up works, allegories and their uses, what makes otherwise preachy stories run.

Or maybe I just needed a segue for my review of the new Dawn Treader movie next week…

* Polkaroo was the male host all along???

** I remember seeing a trailer for The Lion King and being super excited about it because it sounded like Prince Caspian.

*** Actually, come to think of it, their dynamic isn’t unlike that of Taran and Eilonwy in Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles. Only with more racism.

9 Replies to “Further Up and Further In”

  1. My kid has seen the movies but HAS NOT READ THE BOOKS though I’m still working on that. I said, “You know that Aslan is actually Jesus?” She said that no he’s not, he’s a lion, duh.

    She’ll figure it out soon enough.

    I want to see Dawn Treader, though. I always liked Reepicheep.

  2. I absolutely loved these as a kid. The thing I think I appreciate the most now is that although there’s MORALS and LESSONS and MEANING in the stories, the actual stories themselves are still interesting and fun, even if you don’t get that Aslan in Jesus, or the get the various heresies the horse Bree adopts in his belief.

    This might sound scandalous, but I think the added scenes in Prince Caspian, the movie, actually improved the plot. Having the white witch actually tempt Peter and having the Pevensies try to go it alone and not trust in Aslan give them a better heroic arc and actually improve the themes. I can’t wait to see how they make Voyage of the Dawn Treader. And I would so love to see the Silver Chair on the big screen.

    Yes, I am a fanboy.

  3. @Melinda – Ha, I like that “he’s a lion, duh”. :) I have some adult friends who are in a similar position to your daughter; they see the movies of a variety of MG/YA fantasy series (Harry Potter, Narnia, etc.) but have never read the books, and it’s often interesting to hear their take on what they see. (Although… I am still dumbfounded by the idea that there are adult people who don’t like to read books. It’s something I can’t get past.)

    @Ted – I’m in no position to judge you for being a fanboy… none of that stuff at the end of the opening paragraph is in any way an exaggeration :P

    I, too, liked a lot of the changes that Walden made to the first two Narnia books, although I still liked their Lion/Witch/Wardrobe better than Prince Caspian.

    @both of you – So… I saw the new Dawn Treader movie this weekend, and I intend to blog about it eventually. But for now… there were some things that were good, some that were bad, but it’s the first of the Walden movies that made me feel like the BBC version was undeniably better. Saying more might spoil it for you, so I’m just gonna end all mysterious like that.

  4. Also, yeah, I don’t care how well the Walden movies do: I want to see Silver Chair, and come on, let’s have at least one version of The Horse and His Boy and The Magician’s Nephew!

  5. I agree with that 100%. The next 3 books are going to be the best movies. CGI is good enough now to do realistic talking horses, and the Magician’s Nephew has some of Lewis’s best set-pieces. The Last Battle won’t probably ever be done, it’s just too Christian (and Anglican) to pass muster with a general audience, although I do like the idea of the characters fighting the hopeless battle.

  6. Re: the CGI – I remember reading somewhere that Lewis was totally against films and plays of the Narnia series precisely because he didn’t think special effects could handle realistic-looking Talking Animals. Although, interestingly, my friends and I were watching the BBC The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe the other day, and we disagreed over whether they or Walden had the better Aslan. I liked Walden’s because it was more convincing; they liked the BBC’s because, they argued, it’s a really impressive costume, whereas Walden’s CGI is just run-of-the-mill CGI. Hmmm.

  7. Another fangirl chiming in to say I also have learned to live with CS Lewis’ overbearing allegorical and moralistic writing because–dare I say it?– he has the best voice ever in children’s literature. There’s such a beautiful conversational tone with sprinklings of dry humor and random asides that make me read these books again and again.
    I’ve heard random things about the Dawn Treader movie but still can’t wait to see it since this was my favorite Narnia book as a kid (as an adult I like the Magician’s Nephew more). I never saw any of the BBC films so I LOVE watching how some of the characters are brought to laugh (huge fan of Tumnus, for instance). I especially can’t wait to see the cliff scene at the beginning of the Silver Chair.
    Great to read your mini-crits of the series….might do my own….

  8. @Siobhan — I totally agree: C. S. Lewis’s voice is amazing. I’ve never found an author whose descriptions come to life like his do, the way he links everything to experiences most people have had and notices the details like how a train’s shadow looks as you travel on it past hills. I recently started picking up his adult works (The Screwtape Letters, and I have the Martian stuff on hold at the library), and it’s like finding a twenty dollar bill in your coat pocket you forgot was there!

  9. Don’t forget to read “Till We Have Faces”. It’s his last fiction book and (I think) the only one he wrote after being married. It’s a re-telling of the Psyche myth from the POV of her ugly sister.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.