Readingground Blogazine

by Dave McGee

Before JK Rowling flew in on her broomstick and obliterated all comers, there was a time when CS Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe was the go-to young adult fantasy novel. Everyone I knew loved it. Or maybe everyone I loved knew it. Whichever, it was one of my favorite books when I was a lad. There’s a decent chance that it was one of your favorite books too, right? I’ll acknowledge that it may have just been ubiquitous around me because I grew up in a very conservative, very Christian San Diego suburb… but no, I’m pretty sure it had reached critical mass elsewhere as well. Everybody loves lions, everybody loves witches, and my goodness gracious who doesn’t love a wardrobe? Universal appeal!

It also has a titling convention that I feel should be used by all authors everywhere: “Protagonist, Antagonist, Some Other Thing.” So like “Moby Dick” could instead be called “The Outcast, the Leviathan, and the Counter-Pane” or “The Grapes of Wrath” could be called “The Itinerant Farmers, the Natural World in All Its Fury, and the Jalopy.” Maybe? No? That’s cool too.

In addition to having read the book (I think this was the series’ only volume I read multiple times), I also remember watching the cringe-worthy BBC adaptation, which I found clumsy when I still thought that Saved By the Bell was good television. Even then, I knew a book was always better than a film version. Except for Children of Men. Holy crap.

Just in case you’re a n00b, this is what transpires: Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie (four plucky WWII-era British kids) go into a wardrobe and discover Narnia, a land in the thrall of an evil witch who has made it always winter and never Christmas. However, once every twelve months they do get to celebrate Wiccan Yule (not really). Edmund, who likes snacks so much that he will sell his family out for extra treats, sells his family out for extra treats. With the help of some carnivorous beavers (I saw them at Lilith Fair one year), the three non-snacking children are swept away to meet the mysterious and powerful Aslan, whose mystery is exceeded only by his power. The witch wants to kill Edmund, but Aslan trades his own life for Edmund’s. He is crucified, died, not buried, probably not descended into Hell, he rises again the next morning to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom shall have no end. What were we talking about? Oh yeah, Aslan frees Narnia from the witch’s evil spell, caps her, then bounces. The four kids rule over Narnia with preposterous syntax for many, many years, until one day when they are all adults they find a strange entrance into another world, and they tumble out of the wardrobe as kids again, and in Earth time they’ve only really been gone for a minute or two. Then, their house is destroyed by the Luftwaffe.

First things first here: preposterous. syntax. The kids have been speaking fairly normally the whole book, but after ruling Narnia together for a few years, they’re popping off with “Fair friends, here is a great marvel, for I seem to see a tree of iron” and “I know not how it is, but this lamp on the post worketh upon me strangely.” The book skips the part where Aslan hires them an elocution teacher and buys them the collected works of Chaucer, and also makes them stupid, but I guess we can fill in those gaps. Seriously, when they went in the wardrobe Susan (who doesn’t know what a lamppost is) was what… ten? Eleven? If I can remember plot details of books I read at that age, I’m guessing that Susan would be able to remember, you know, what a lamppost is. Seriously, tree of iron? In any case, I really found myself empathizing with Edmund as I read through it this time. Because 15 years ago, I didn’t know what Turkish Delight was. But I’ve had it now, and that stuff is delicious. I would absolutely sell my family to a witch for some Turkish Delight. Or an apple. Or like a really, really good muffin. On second thought, maybe I just need to eat dinner.

So… sadly, I must say that this book is sort of a mess. Much of that mess comes from its serious inconsistencies with its prequel. TMN raises questions way more than it provides answers or context. For instance, upon meeting Edmund and hearing how he came to Narnia, the Witch says “A door from the world of men! I have heard of such things.” You sort of… came in one, right, Your Highness? Or even if her surprise is because it’s a literal door, why does she seem shocked at the very idea of travel between the two worlds? Unless being in Narnia for any stretch of time makes everybody (including its creator) forgets what happened beforehand? That could be it. Or maybe –just maybe– C.S. didn’t plan very well. Occam’s Razor says: Option B!

Here’s another illustration of TMN messing with continuity:

“Have you forgotten the Deep Magic?” asked the Witch.

“Let us say I have forgotten it,” answered Aslan gravely. “Tell us of this Deep Magic.”

“Tell you?” said the Witch, her voice growing suddenly shriller. “Tell you what is written on that very Table of Stone which stands beside us? Tell you what is written in letters deep as a spear is long on the firestones on the Secret Hill? Tell you what is engraved on the sceptre of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea? You at least know the Magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning. You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill.”

OK. So the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea (God, presumably, in the allegory) created Narnia… but in TMN, Aslan created Narnia. From nothingness. And didn’t say anything about “in addition to these talking animals, I’m going to set some rules: betrayal must be paid back with blood, and all betrayers belong to that tall woman I just banished.” That might have made TMN creepier, but it also would have made it more consistent with its sequel. So seriously, who the hell is the Emperor Beyond the Sea? And if he or Aslan or whoever demands blood atonement for any betrayal WHY ARE WE TO IMAGINE THAT THEY’RE GOOD? We tend to look rather poorly on those people in the real world who demand blood atonement, like fundamentalist extremists and the United States government. Wait, not that last one. I don’t want this particular qualm (i.e. “the good guys don’t seem particularly good”) to put a damper on all of these books, so I hope that the next few volumes will at least move away from justifications for Aslan’s ineptitude and more toward, like, Muslim bashing and Odyssey ripoffs (spoiler!).

The Magician’s Nephew Effect is not just a problem in a few sparse places; it actually ruins a large part of the book. If we take LW&W as a stand-alone tale, we have no reason to suspect that Aslan’s power is any greater than what’s shown here. To wit: he’s really fierce in battle, he can revive creatures whom the witch has turned to stone, and he can come back from the dead (which he doesn’t know until it’s happened). With that set of powers, it’s actually really moving that he chose to die in place of Edmund, because it was… entirely selfless. Really and truly noble. From a pure story perspective it’s fantastic, and Lewis (to his credit) writes Aslan’s bitter sadness very effectively. And affectingly. Aeffectivgly?

But given what we saw in TMN, we know that Aslan’s power far, FAR exceeds what we see here. We know that, if he wanted, he could with a single breath destroy all of the evil everywhere, and wouldn’t have to force many of his followers to die for him in battle. So TMN, which was supposed to provide context, instead entirely stripped the power from LW&W because the emotional crux of the book now just seems like poor planning by either the author or the characters.

All that aside — forgetting The Magician’s Nephew for the moment (please, God) and really just addressing LW&W as an adventure story with no concern for its prequel or for its allegorical context — it’s not bad. It’s not really good, but it’s not bad. As I said, Lewis writes Aslan’s sadness well, and the White Witch is just awesome. Lewis understands that suddenness is actually often scarier than just blatant evil, and that a smile can be more terrifying than a grimace. Word. And yet, it’s got a lot of storytelling ticks that I find particularly irksome. Like the kids are very surprised to find a lamppost in the middle of the woods, but evince no surprise whatsoever at discovering the woods in the back of a goddamn cupboard. And the fact that three times in twelve pages, C.S. reminds us “It is very silly to shut oneself in a wardrobe.” We got it, dude. PSA quota fulfilled. Oh, and I can’t tell (I’m not sure Lewis can tell) if Aslan walks upright, or on all fours. Because he shakes hands (?) with Peter, and sits in a throne (??) and keeps clapping his paws together (??!??). When I asked aloud in frustration “Why does Aslan keep clapping his paws together?” Stephanie (Your Columnist’s Special Lady) said, reasonably, “Because he’s a British man!” I found that joke so funny I shook hands with her and reminded her not to close herself in the broom closet. Then I had to sleep on the couch.

Oh yeah, there’s also the part where Santa Claus (really) shows up, gives all of the kids weapons, and announces that “battles are ugly when women fight.” Guhhhhhhh…

In conclusion: this isn’t one of my favorite books anymore.

Oh wait! There’s one other major question I had when considering the book’s plot and its raison d’etre (French for “Dried Grape of Being”). It may seem silly, but I think it’s actually valid: the kids are called Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve. They don’t say “Who are Adam and Eve?” which means that, presumably, if they’re not Christians, they’ve at least had some Biblical instruction. So, like… why don’t any of them notice the obvious parallels between this story and the Gospel? Like as it’s happening. I was their age when I read it, and I could tell, you know? It would have been nice of Susan to tell Aslan before the Witch killed him, “Don’t worry, dude, you’ll be dead three days tops.” But she didn’t notice. And did they ever figure it out? And if not why not? And if they did, did it really mess with their heads? Maybe we’ll find out in A Horse and His Boy?

Eh, probably not. Oh well.

Vocabulary words: frowsty, saccharine tablet, aeffectivgly.

Final rating: If you don’t read the prequel, don’t think about its allegorical nature, and can ignore how bad it is, I guess it’s not that bad.