Revisiting the Chronicles of Narnia

The Chronicles of Narnia were never my favorite growing up: I recall them being boring, forgettable, and either heavy handed (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) or esoteric (Prince Caspian). Lewis' adult fiction left me similarly unaffected. As an adult, Lewis' books (both fiction and non-fiction) I found much more compelling, and recently I revisited his Narnia series in the hopes of a more revelatory experience.

Alas, they are still tedious, disjointed books in which brevity is their only literary merit (though head and shoulders above the bilge that passes for YA fiction today). Yet, there are snippets and quotes in each book that are of such poignancy as to almost be worth the slog. And here they are:

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

"And the dagger is to defend yourself at great need. For you also are not to be in the battle."

"Why, Sir," said Lucy. "I think—I don't know—but I think I could be brave enough."

"That is not the point," he said. "But battles are ugly when women fight."

Prince Caspian

"You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve," said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content."

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

• "Consequently, when the Pevensie children had returned to Narnia last time for their second visit, it was (for the Narnians) as if King Arthur came back to Britain, as some people say he will. And I say the sooner the better."

• "In our world," said Eustace, "a star is a huge ball of flaming gas." "Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of."

• "No. Why should your Majesty expect it?" answered Reepicheep in a voice that most people heard. "My own plans are made. While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan's country, or shot over the edge of the world in some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise and Peepiceek will be head of the talking mice in Narnia."

Horse and His Boy

• He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.

• "No. The King's under the law, for it's the law makes him a king. Hast no more power to start away from thy crown than any sentry from his post."

Silver Chair

• "Hangeth from what, my lord?" asked the Witch; and then, while they were all still thinking how to answer her, she added, with another of her soft, silver laughs: "You see? When you try to think out clearly what this sun must be, you cannot tell me. You can only tell me it is like the lamp. Your sun is a dream; and there is nothing in that dream that was not copied from the lamp. The lamp is the real thing; the sun is but a tale, a children's story."

  "Yes, I see now," said Jill in a heavy, hopeless tone. "It must be so." And while she said this, it seemed to her to be very good sense.

• For, with the strength of Aslan in them, Jill plied her crop on the girls and Caspian and Eustace plied the flats of their swords on the boys so well that in two minutes all the bullies were running like mad, crying out, "Murder! Fascists! Lions! It isn't fair." And then the Head (who was, by the way, a woman) came running out to see what was happening....After that, the Head's friends saw that the Head was no use as a Head, so they got her made an Inspector to interfere with other Heads. And when they found she wasn't much good even at that, they got her into Parliament where she lived happily ever after.

Last Battle

“Remember that all worlds draw to an end and that noble death is a treasure which no one is too poor to buy.”

Actually, I need to talk more about The Last Battle. This was the Narnia book I had understood the least in my childhood. I had remembered that everyone died, and that Susan did not make it to heaven. I remembered that a dedicated Tash worshipper made it to heaven (!) and that the fill-in for the Anti-Christ also somehow made it to heaven (!!). My memory to some extent failed me. “Everyone dying” seemed like a weird and sad ending to the book, but on re-reading this was hinted quite strongly from the very first time we meet Jill and Eustace in Narnia, and hints continued to fall as the story unfolded. Susan was not in heaven, but this did not mean she wouldn’t eventually…she simply was nowhere near the train crash and so was still alive on earth.

I had read the book as a child steeped in a pre-millennial milieu where Puzzle, the donkey, was the Anti-Christ. I am not sure of Lewis’ eschatology but he may have been more a-millennial…in which case Puzzle is not THE Anti-Christ and indeed likely has no direct correspondence with any prophecies.

I still have reservations about the unconverted Tash follower being in Heaven, though Lewis at the same time makes it extremely clear that all religions are not equal, and rejects the moral relativism that emphasis the act of belief over the object of belief.

About half-way through the book the scene is one of utter despair. Narnia is taken over by Calormens and all the main characters are dead or about to be killed. And then, suddenly, it doesn’t matter: the entire Narnian universe is destroyed and the whole Calormen/Shift conceit is rendered inconsequential. While literarily this is jarring for the reader, I think it is intentional: all the evil and death that we see in the world is trivial compared with the new heavens and the new earth that await us. Even Tash, who while being utterly evil provided some comeuppance to Shift and the Calormen army, is suddenly gone without any explanation or commentary.

Similarly, the news of the children all dying in a train crash is possibly jarring to the reader, but the children greet the news with celebration…why would they want to return to a fallen, broken world when they can enjoy the perfect, sinless heaven for eternity?

The weirdness of The Last Battle inspired me to search for other analyses of the book. A simple Google search brought a surprising number of progressive takes, completely ignoring the context in which Lewis wrote. Here are a few, with my response:

Shift is actually Donald Trump! He wants to Make Narnia Great Again!

If thats the case, who is Puzzle? Pence? Who are the Calormens? If I had to impose current politics on the story, Shift would be better represented by Soros or as a symbol of the deep state. Puzzle would be Biden. The dwarfs (“Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs!”) would be the closest stand-in for Trumpists, though Lewis clearly intends the Dwarfs to represent extreme nationalism/fascism (they kill fellow Narnians in cold blood). And yet even some of these are brought into Heaven.

The main characters put on blackface! How RACIST!

I dare say anyone would put on blackface to escape detection and death…it doesn’t seem a sin worth dying to avoid.

The dwarves used racist language! How RACIST!

Yes, they are a stand-in for racist groups. They then kill a bunch of fellow Narnians. Their racism is explicitly frowned upon.

These progressive revisionisms ironically fall into the very trap that Lewis warns about in Screwtape Letters: “We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under. Thus we make it fashionable to expose the dangers of enthusiasm at the very moment when they are all really becoming worldly and lukewarm; a century later, when we are really making them all Byronic and drunk with emotion, the fashionable outcry is directed against the dangers of the mere “understanding”. Cruel ages are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle ones against Respectability, lecherous ones against Puritanism; and whenever all men are really hastening to be slaves or tyrants we make Liberalism the prime bogey.”