The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

I was referred to C.S. Lewis by my brother, through the backdoor of The Great Divorce, Lewis’ story about Heaven and Hell.   Although I had read the Elric books by Moorcock, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy (and the Silmarillion) by Tolkien, I had never read any of Lewis’ books.  I had seen “Prince Caspian” on DVD, but my impression of Lewis was that he was “Tolkien Lite”, very much a childlike, less sophisticated variant of Tolkien.  But if I could handle 7 Harry Potter books, surely Lewis was not beyond my tolerance.

 The Chronicles of Narnia are the books for which he’s most well-known. This order is completely different than the actual publishing order and was established after all seven books were published.

 The Magician’s Nephew.  Nominally the first book, Lewis wrote this after LWW as a prequel.  He introduces us to Aslan, the White Witch, Digory Kirke (the “Professor” in LWW), and Narnia, which actually Aslan brought into existence here.  I followed my brother’s advice and read this after LWW.

 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe [hereinafter, LWW].  Clearly the Dark Side of the Moon of Lewis’ series.  The Pevensie children – Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy – are introduced to the magical world of Narnia via a magic wardrobe portal.  Narnia is a magic land of centaurs, fauns, satyrs, dwarves, an evil White Witch, and the ever-popular talking lion, Aslan.  It starts out as a land of perpetual winter and snow – but no Christmas – but as Aslan’s power grows, spring returns and the snowmelts.  There is even a London lamp-post in the middle of nowhere. Theoretically you could get by with only reading this book, as it stands alone well on its own; indeed, Lewis wrote this one first and originally did not plan on writing any sequels. 

 The Horse and His Boy.  This is somewhat of a sidetrack to introduce the Calormenes to us, who are Lewis’ cartoonish, fairy-tale analogs to Earth’s Muslims/Saracens – think “Aladdin” and “Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves”.  They worship Tash, a deity whose true nature is revealed in The Last Battle.  Although they seem to have a rivalry with Narnia, to call them villains or enemies to Narnia is a bit of a stretch.  Tactically, the story involves two talking horses and a “Prince and the Pauper” plot with a noble-born boy, Shasta, who escapes his humble upbringing in the Muslim world and finds his twin Narnian prince brother.  He’s accompanied by Aravis, a stuck-up little Jasmine princess trying to escape an arranged marriage to some loathsome old noble.
  

 Prince Caspian.  Narnia has been taken over by an outside king, Miraz, and his Hamlet-like nephew Caspian enlists the aid of the oppressed talking Narnian animals – and eventually the assistance of Peter, Edmund, and Lucy – in overthrowing Miraz and liberating Narnia.  This has been made into a movie by the same people who made LWW.

 The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  A punk-like kid, Eustace Scrubb, the cousin of the Pevensies, is pulled into this adventure along with Edmund and Lucy, joining Prince Caspian on a voyage to the eastern seas to find his 7 uncles, lords who were banished by Miraz, also to discover exactly what lies in the eastern seas of Narnia (possibly Aslan’s homeland).  Along the way, Scrubb turns into a dragon and learns not to be a spoiled punk-ass.  This story has a very Star Trek (original series and movie VI) kind of flavor to it; it’s one of the better ones.  Sure enough, it’s due out in digital 3D on December 10.

 The Silver Chair.  Scrubb returns and pulls in Jill Pole (I love that name – Lewis would have done well to provide stage names for exotic dancers) who are enlisted by Aslan to rescue Caspian’s grandson, who had been captured and enchanted (not yet seduced, it seems) by a successor Evil Witch to the White Witch; this one uses a magical chair instead of candy.  They are assisted by Puddleglum, a depressing, tall and skinny elf-like creature. 

 The Last Battle.  This is the last story.  Scrubb returns again with Jill to Narnia.  It seems that a talking ape, Shift, has persuaded his donkey pal Puzzle to put on a lion’s skin and impersonate Aslan.  Claiming to be Aslan’s “mouthpiece”, as it were, Shift invites the Calormenes to enslave all the talking animals of Narnia.  Tirian, a direct descendant of Caspian, gets Scrubb and Jill to assist him in the resistance to Shift’s new form of tyranny, and they manage to fix everything.  Remarkably, the deity whom the Calormenes worship, Tash, is revealed to be something close to Satan; however, Aslan explains that “good deeds done in the name of Tash are in fact done in my name, whereas evil deeds done in my name are in fact done for Tash”, echoing Dante’s concept of “virtuous pagans”. Another remarkable element is that once Puzzle is revealed to the Dwarves to be a fake Aslan, the Dwarves then refuse to accept the existence of the real Aslan.  Anyhow, Lewis wraps everything up with this story in a grand climactic finale which ties up all the loose ends and ensures there will NOT be an eighth book.  No word on a movie of this, or whether Eddie Murphy will voice Puzzle.

 The stories are nicely illustrated by Pauline Baynes, in a manner reminiscent of Tenniel’s Alice in Wonderland stories.  They were published around the same time as Lord of the Rings (early-to-mid 1950s), and Lewis and Tolkien were good friends and colleagues at Oxford.

 Narnia.  Unlike Middle Earth, which Tolkien apparently intended as a very old version of Earth, Narnia is a parallel dimension.  It gets confusing, because within the “world” of Narnia is a nation of Narnia, separate from some other nations such as the Calormenes.  The nation of Narnia is meant to be what we think of as fairy tale Europe, a romanticized and glamorized Camelot-type Euro-centric nation of blond haired, blue eyed Northern Europeans, as opposed to the swarthy, dark-skinned, Tash-worshipping Calormenes.  In Prince Caspian, the ruling class is said to Telmarines, as distinct from Narnians, but where the Telmarines come from is never quite explained. 

 Animals.  There are several classes of animals.  In Magician’s Nephew, Aslan separated the animals into talking, intelligent ones, who are slightly larger than their nontalking nonintelligent counterparts.  There are also giants, halfway between mythical giants and the Norse “jotuns”.  There are fauns, satyrs, centaurs (Greek mythology), dwarves, dragons, etc.  I don’t recognize any races or animals specifically created by Lewis; he seemed to be recycling familiar types of monsters and creatures, types the readers would probably already be familiar with from other stories.

 Cast of Characters

Aslan.  Instead of a tall guy with a beard and robes, the Jesus figure of Narnia is a huge, talking lion of immense wisdom and virtual omnipotence.  Aslan tends to stay in the background and ever-so-conveniently come out when he’s most needed.  He is the one who manages to get the Earthbound characters back and forth from Narnia.  Like Jesus, he has the ability to rise from the dead.

 The White Witch.  She is first inadvertently awakened by Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer, escapes to late nineteenth century London, and returns to the newly created Narnia.  Eventually she is defeated in LWW.

 Prince Caspian.  I find the “Princes” to be fairly interchangeable, differing only by generation.  Rilian, the prince of Silver Chair, is his son, and Tirian (Last Battle) is his descendant.

 The Earth Kids. The Earth kids spend years in Narnia, grow up, and then get magically returned to England where they discover that mere minutes have passed there.  They return to Narnia after a year in England and discover that hundreds of years have passed in Narnia.  The “Prince” they befriended in the prior adventure is long dead, and the prince they befriend in the next one is his son, grandson, or heir.  The Earth period, though, is WWII England; I liked how they added the Blitz, with Heinkel He111s dropping their loads over London, to the first movie.

 Peter.  He is the eldest of the Pevensie children and the wisest.  He ends up as High King. 

 Susan.  The older girl.  Later on she’s absent and slammed as being more interested in “nylons and lipstick” than Narnia.

 Edmund.  The younger brother.  In LWW he’s seduced by the White Witch, not by sex but with “Turkish Delight”, a sugary snack popular ages ago in England.  It has an effect on him which in a modern context would be considered crack or crystal meth.  After some “Turkish Delight” rehab he recovers and is OK from there on in.

 Lucy.  The younger sister.  She is the one who initially discovers the magical wardrobe, and unlike Susan does not forsake Narnia when she grows older in England.

 Eustace Scrubb.  He is the cousin of the Pevensies.  His parents are vegetarian atheist liberals with New Age ideas, who prefer to let children do as they please (no discipline whatsoever) and send the boy off to liberal school; no wonder he’s a spoiled punk brat to begin with.  Scrubb is introduced in Voyage, and becomes the main character thereafter.  He meets Jill Pole, who has been mercilessly bullied by the other children.

 Jill Pole.   Scrubb’s female companion in the last few books, almost indistinguishable from Polly Plummer.

 Polly Plummer.  Digory Kirke’s companion in The Magician’s Nephew, a generic girl character.

 Digory Kirke.  He first appears as a boy in The Magician’s Nephew, then as the wizened Professor in LWW, and has a brief cameo in The Last Battle.  Strategically not much of an important character.

 Allegories.  My brother remarked how Tolkien hated allegories and went out of his way to make sure Middle Earth had no clear God vs. Satan; even Sauron is not clearly the Devil.  Lewis himself denied any allegorical intent, insisting that the themes wrote themselves, so to speak.  But the allegories seem too obvious to ignore.  Aslan is blatantly a Jesus-type figure.  The Calormenes are clearly Muslims.

 Occasionally I’ll be at the gym in the morning and stuck on a treadmill in front of a TV tuned to children’s programming.  Unlike movies, which have substantial elements which appeal to adult intelligences, TV shows seem to wield their morals with a sledgehammer and practically zero subtlety.  Lewis’ morality is likewise front and center, impossible to miss.  Having read the seven Harry Potter books by now, and now the 7 (same number!) Narnia books, it’s likewise impossible to miss the clear Lewis influence in J.K. Rowling, far more so than anything Tolkien may have contributed.