My dear Lucy,
I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be
your affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis
—The dedication of THE LION, THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE
Dear Reader,
In July, I read C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia in their entirety for the first time and have been dying to share my thoughts on them since. I read The Magician’s Nephew when I was a kid but never moved on to the rest of the series, which, for an aspiring children’s fantasy author, is a travesty.1 Luckily, as C.S. Lewis firmly believed, you’re never too old for a children’s tale.
Originally my intention was to discuss all seven books in one post, but I found myself short on time. Instead, I have split the series into two parts: a) the Pevensie Parables, a.k.a. the three books that star all four Pevensie siblings, and b) the Scrubb Saga, or the three books that follow the Pevensies’ cousin Eustace.2 So, you get Part 1 on the Pevensie Parables today and can look forward to my take on the Scrubb Saga in two weeks.
What this is not: formal, academic, or a thesis of any kind.
What this is: a collection of thoughts, feelings, and opinions.
(If you have never read the Narnia books and have no interest in doing so, you are welcome to read on, but I understand that this month of Loose Baggy Monsters might not be for you. Don’t worry—I’ll be back with some other topic that’s tangentially related to writing in September!)
Obviously, this post contains spoilers for The Chronicles of Narnia. I read the Grafton Books paperback box set, which puts the series in chronological order according to the events of the books, so that’s the order in which I will discuss them. A ton of scholarship has been done on the series—on its own as well as in relation to C.S. Lewis’s other writing—but I have not read any of it, so when I inevitably repeat something that’s been written a hundred times before, you’ll have to forgive me.
After all, forgiveness is what Narnia is about.
I(or VI). The Magician’s Nephew - In Which Polly and Digory Witness the Creation of Narnia
“Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters.”
I read The Magician’s Nephew as a kid and remember feeling, if not exactly scared, at least unsettled by it. The scheming of Uncle Andrew, the anger of the Empress Jadis, and the eerie ruins of Charn cemented it in my mind as a dark and creepy book. As an adult, however, I found it to be in many ways the gentlest of the Narnia books. It certainly presents one of the gentlest versions of Aslan: the benevolent golden lion who literally sings the world into existence. And it’s full of humor, with a lightness of heart that makes it feel younger than the rest of the series—fitting, since the Narnia of The Magician’s Nephew is so young itself. Now, instead of the dark, creepy scenes, it is the funny moments that stand out to me: Jadis fighting off Londoners with a lamp post she ripped straight out of the ground, the Talking Beasts “planting” Uncle Andrew because they think he’s a tree, and Frank the cabbie’s super-chill reaction to being sucked into another world and crowned king. As Aslan tells the newly awakened animals,
“Laugh and fear not, creatures. Now that you are no longer dumb and witless, you need not always be grave. For jokes as well as justice come in with speech.”
Lewis’s disdain for the arbitrary, self-imposed madness of the grown-up world is on full display in this book—a theme that later features in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Silver Chair. Polly and Digory have to contend with grown-ups Uncle Andrew and Jadis, both of whom disregard the lives of others in their thirst for power. In Narnia, the two children find another way to live. That, I think, is one of the most important duties of a children’s story: to show young readers that the world does not need to be selfish or greedy or cruel, and that they should suspect any adult who claims that’s “just the way things are.” Our world may not be new, but like Polly and Digory, we have the power to shape it in our image. If we are forgiving and kind, the world can be forgiving and kind. That’s what makes it so meaningful that Digory grows up to be the Professor who takes in the Pevensie siblings. He becomes the kind of adult who actually listens to children and takes their ideas seriously.
At the end of the day, though, I don’t think The Magician’s Nephew stands on its own. It reads like an explanation for the events of The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe—which makes sense, as it was apparently inspired by a member of Lewis’s writing group who asked how exactly that lamp post came to stand in the middle of the Narnian woods. I’ll weigh in on the chronological-vs.-publication-order controversy and say I think it’s a mistake to read this one first. It’s not the best introduction to Narnia and is probably part of the reason I abandoned the series as a kid.
II(or I). The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe - Meet the Pevensies
See AlsoTrafficking of Youth in America: Risk Factors, Systemic Failures and the Way Forward - Human Trafficking AcademyWall v. State, No. 02-22-00173-CRKamala Harris' Attorney General Record, In a NutshellFt. Lauderdale Backpage: A Look at the Rise and Fall of Online Classifieds"Then [Aslan] isn't safe?" said Lucy."Safe?" said Mr Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs Beaver tells you? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good."
This is where I should have started—the most iconic book in the series. Here we meet Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie, as well as Mr Tumnus, the Beavers, and the White Witch (née Jadis). We have Lucy going through the wardrobe, Edmund’s betrayal/redemption, and Aslan’s sacrifice at the Stone Table. It’s a perfect introduction to the world of Narnia, at once whimsical and grave.
Also, Father Christmas is there.
In perhaps the most bizarre scene in the book, Father Christmas rolls up to Peter, Susan, Lucy, and the Beavers in his sleigh and gives them presents, including a sword for Peter, a bow for Susan, and a dagger for Lucy. He then warns Susan and Lucy that they should only use their weapons when they absolutely have to and should not participate in battles.
“Why, sir?” said Lucy. “I think—I don’t know—but I think I could be brave enough.”"That is not the point," [Father Christmas] said. "But battles are ugly when women fight."
Okay, Santa Claus. I didn’t realize you were a master war strategist, but whatever.
Obviously it irritates me that Lewis won’t let his female characters anywhere near a sword. Even so, I love the fact that The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe isn’t particularly interested in battle. The story leaves the boys and their swords on page 135 and does not return to them until page 159, leaving the battle against the White Witch to happen almost entirely off-page. The reader instead spends that time with Lucy and Susan, witnessing Aslan’s death, his resurrection, and following him as he breathes life back into all the Narnians whom the Witch turned to stone. These are happy pages full of reunions and relief. The scene that sticks out to me is when Aslan and the girls play-fight with each other, which Lucy describes as “like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten.” There is so much joy to be felt there.
I love that Lewis chooses to linger in the joy as well as in fear. He is not afraid to walk his young readers into the darkness, but nor does he leave them there. I often think about how to handle violence and battle in my own stories. The Lewis approach appeals to me: focus on the behind-the-scenes of the violence, which could turn out to have been the most important part all along.
That said, the girls in my books will be properly armed.3
III(or V). The Horse & His Boy - Narnia, Calormen, and Xenophobia
“My good Horse, you’ve lost nothing but your self-conceit . . . You’re not quite the great Horse you had come to think, from living among poor dumb horses. Of course you were braver and cleverer than them. You could hardly help being that. It doesn’t follow that you’ll be anyone very special in Narnia. But as long as you know you’re nobody special, you’ll be a very decent sort of Horse, on the whole, and taking one thing with another.”
When my boss saw me reading The Horse & His Boy, she said something along the lines of, “Good luck getting through that one. It’s super racist.”
Reader, it is indeed super racist.
The story follows Shasta, a Narnian boy, and Bree, a Narnian talking horse, attempting to escape from the land of Calormen. Along the way, they join up with a Calormene girl called Aravis and her talking horse Hwin. This takes place during the golden age of Narnia; the Pevensie siblings make cameos as the grown-up kings and queens they became before they tumbled back through the wardrobe. It’s a fun adventure, but one I’m glad I didn’t read as a kid, because the xenophobic rhetoric would have been yet another thing I’d have to unlearn as an adult.
Fantasy racism, whether in a book, a TV show, or a game of D&D, is one of my pet peeves.4 Goblins are always greedy, elves are always regal and aloof, blah, blah, blah. It’s lazy writing; no group is ever a monolith. Lewis commits an even greater injustice in this book because Narnia is a clear stand-in for the Anglo-Saxon Christian west and Calormen for the Middle East writ-large. The Calormenes are a dark-skinned, desert-dwelling people who wear turbans and headscarves and are almost exclusively greedy, selfish, and cruel, while the Narnians are fair-haired, white, generous, and merry.5 There are exceptions, naturally—racism always makes exceptions, especially for characters like Aravis who want to leave their “inferior” culture to join the dominant one.
One could counter the racism accusation by pointing out that Aslan and the Narnians behave generously toward the Calormenes. They offer Rabadash mercy several times, which he repeatedly refuses, before Aslan turns him into a donkey. In fact, these scenes give me one of my favorite Edmund moments, when he reflects on his past mistakes:
"Your Majesty would have a perfect right to strike off [Rabadash's] head . . . Such an assault as he made puts him on a level with assassins.""It is very true," said Edmund. "But even a traitor may mend. I have known one that did." And he looked very thoughtful.
Sigh. I love him.
But generosity and forgiveness are not without power dynamics. The Pevensies’ generosity doesn’t sit right with me, especially in the context of their condescention toward Calormen. All writers, but especially children’s writers, have a responsibility to treat every character, heroes and villains alike, with the respect and dignity they would want a young reader to show their fellow human beings. I for one find it troubling that Lewis could find the humanity in two talking horses, but not in the very human Calormenes.
Still, there is so much I love about this book: a road trip through the kingdoms, twins separated at birth, a stuck-up talking horse, a weird old Hermit who shows up out of nowhere. And as always, Aslan. Aslan repeats the same piece of wisdom to Shasta—
“Child,” said the Voice, “I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.”
—as he later does to Aravis:
“Child,” said the Lion, “I am telling you your story, not hers. No one is told any story but their own.”
I like the meta-commentary here—that every story we read is in some way about ourselves. When we read The Horse & His Boy, we get to be Shasta and Avaris and the mischievous Prince Corin and the sweet Hwin and the noble Bree. That is why diversity and representation in children’s literature is so important: it allows readers to see the self in the other and the other in the self.
IV(or II). Prince Caspian - My Favorite of the Series
"Welcome, Prince," said Aslan. "Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the Kingship of Narnia?""I—I don't think I do, Sir," said Caspian. "I'm only a kid.""Good," said Aslan. "If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been a proof that you were not."
Does my love for Prince Caspian have anything to do with my childhood crush on Ben Barnes? Almost certainly. But I do genuinely believe that it’s the best in the series. Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy return to Narnia a year later in Earth time, which turns out to be thousands of years later in Narnian time. They join up with Prince Caspian and the Narnian rebels to overthrow the corrupt Telmarine king Miraz. This is the last book with all of the Pevensies siblings in it and has each of them at the peak of their character development.
A major plot point in the book involves the siblings and their new dwarven friend Trumpkin trying to find their way to Aslan’s How. Lost in the woods, Lucy sees a vision of Aslan—or Aslan himself—telling her to take the upward path over the canyon. The others can’t see Aslan and don’t believe Lucy, so they end up following the wrong path down through the trees. How each sibling reacts to this test shows how they have grown since their last adventure, and how they will continue to grow in this one.
Peter, whose tie-breaking vote led his siblings down the wrong path, becomes the high king of humility when he takes responsibility for the mistake. It is in this moment of humility that the narrative refers to him as “king” for the first time since his return to Narnia:
"Oh, Aslan," said King Peter, dropping on one knee and raising the Lion's heavy paw to his face, "I'm so glad. And I'm so sorry. I've been leading them wrong ever since we started and especially yesterday morning.""My dear son," said Aslan.
Meanwhile, Susan spends the first half of the book feeling anxious and doubtful and picking fights with her siblings. She condescends to Lucy, becoming increasingly snippy as Lucy continues to insist that she saw Aslan. But eventually, she too swallows her pride and makes amends:
"Lucy," said Susan in a very small voice."Yes?" said Lucy."I see [Aslan] now. I'm sorry.""That's all right.""But I've been far worse than you know. I really believed it was him—he, I mean—yesterday. When he warned us not to go down to the fir wood. And I really believed it was him tonight, when you woke us up. I mean, deep down inside. Or I could have, if I'd let myself. But I just wanted to get out of the woods and—and—oh, I don't know. And what ever am I to say to him?""Perhaps you won't need to say much," suggested Lucy.
Lucy is right—Aslan forgives Susan as easily as breathing, and his breath imbues her with courage again.6
Edmund, who spent The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe acting like a snot to his baby sister, stands up for her when she wants the group to change course:
"Well, there's just this," said Edmund, speaking quickly and turning a little red. "When we first discovered Narnia a year ago—or a thousand years ago, whichever it is, it was Lucy who discovered it first and none of us would believe her. I was the worst of the lot, I know. Yet she was right after all. Wouldn't it be fair to believe her this time? I vote for going up.""Oh, Ed!" said Lucy and seized his hand.
Even picture-perfect Lucy messes up and has to apologize for not following Aslan by herself in the first place:
Lucy buried her head in his mane to hide from his face. But there must have been magic in his mane. She could feel lion-strength going into her. Quite suddenly she sat up."I'm sorry, Aslan," she said. "I'm ready now.""Now you are a lioness," said Aslan.
I love how much apologizing there is in Prince Caspian. Apologizing is a powerful—and rare—magic. We could all take a page out of the Pevensie Parables, myself very much included. In a world in which our leaders act like admitting their mistakes is the ultimate weakness, I have even more respect for the young kings and queens of Narnia, who view it as a great strength.
My feelings about Prince Caspian are best summed up by another English fantasy author, the great Terry Pratchett:
Why does the third of the three brothers, who shares his food with the old woman in the wood, go on to become king of the country? Why does James Bond manage to disarm the nuclear bomb a few seconds before it goes off rather than, as it were, a few seconds afterwards? Because a universe where that did not happen would be a dark and hostile place. Let there be goblin hordes, let there be terrible environmental threats, let there be giant mutated slugs if you really must, but let there also be hope. It may be a grim, thin hope, an Arthurian sword at sunset, but let us know that we do not live in vain.7
What I love most about Narnia is its earnestness. The characters are earnest in their grief, in their fear, in their joy, and in their faith. So much of (adult) life, and by extension (adult) literature, can feel like it’s wrapped in several layers of irony, as if love and happy endings were trite. But life is hard enough. Lewis doesn’t shy away from that, but neither does he let himself be swallowed by it. That is why I want to write stories that are unashamed in their earnest hope for the future.
I’ll be back in two weeks with my thoughts on the rest of the series. Until then, thanks for reading.
Yours,
Jane
1
I did watch the movies a lot growing up, so I had a general idea of the plots of The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader going in.
2
The Magician’s Nephew, which features none of these characters, I have smushed into the beginning of the Pevensie Parables. That’s what you get for being a prequel.
3
Seriously, if Santa Claus rocked up out of nowhere and told me not to fight, I’d tell him to get stuck in a chimney.
4
Assuming that the racism goes completely unchallenged by the narrative—otherwise it can be a different story.
5
This is not an exaggeration: the word “fair” is used in the context of skin/hair 7 times, the word “white” 3 times, and the word “dark” a total of 4.
6
And Susan lives happily ever after and nothing bad ever happens to her again and she certainly doesn’t disappear from the series entirely as a punishment for *checks notes* wearing lipstick???? (More on this in Part 2)
7
Terry Pratchett, A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction (New York, NY: Doubleday, 2014).
