Book Review: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

[osprey_archer]

I first read C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in fourth grade, then read it again in high school when I was reading all the Narnia books, and to the best of my recollection didn’t reread it the way that I read bits of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Silver Chair over and over.

And yet upon rereading it with littlerhymes, I find that so many parts of the book are engraved on my memory.. Lucy’s journey through the wardrobe; her meeting with Mr. Tumnus. (The incredible tea that he gives her!) Edmund meeting the White Witch and eating the Turkish Delight, and then (horrible child!) pretending that he didn’t go into Narnia at all, but only pretended with Lucy. Mrs. Beaver’s sewing machine, and dinner with the Beavers (really desperately want to try that marmalade roll), and Father Christmas’s appearance, and the courtyard full of statues (more shades of Piranesi!), and the mice gnawing on the ropes that bound Aslan…

Although clearly the 2005 movie has to some extent infected my book memory: I was surprised to realize that the battle in the book is so short, dispatched in just a few pages. Of course this makes perfect sense: the real climax of the book is Aslan’s resurrection and the rescue of the creatures that the White Witch turned to stone, and the battle is a mere mopping up operation after.

I would love to be able to report to you if my fourth-grade self clocked Aslan as a Jesus-figure. Probably not. I strongly suspect that I had already been informed of this fact by the time I read all of Narnia in high school, because I don’t remember any a-ha! moment, and I certainly knew by The Last Battle that the series was an allegory, because I chalked the failure of that book up to that fact.

But I think The Last Battle fails because it’s nothing but an allegory. The rest of the Narnia books (even The Magician’s Nephew, which at the time I also deprecated) are allegories but also good stories with riotous, lush, overflowing, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink worldbuilding. (I love it. I can also absolutely see why J. R. R. Tolkien hated it.) Aslan is a Christ figure but his resurrection also simply works as story. I’m not sure why it works because it ought to feel like a cheat, oughtn’t it? To have the hero come back to life because of a secret never-before-mentioned Even Deeper Magic? But it didn’t when I was a child, and it doesn’t now.

Also, I love how Lewis keeps firmly informing his readers that it’s very silly to close a wardrobe door behind you. Clearly he knew that after reading this book, children around the globe would be crawling into wardrobes and cupboards and closets and anywhere else that might lead to Narnia!

Comments

[sovay]

I’m not sure why it works because it ought to feel like a cheat, oughtn’t it?

As I may have mentioned before, it worked for me because at the time when I first read the books, I knew more about year-kings and solstitices than I did about Christianity and so it didn't matter if I didn't recognize the sacrifice and resurrection of Aslan as paralleling those of Christ, I understood perfectly that the sun was slaughtered at midwinter and came back with a lion's mane of rays and then the world began to warm again; Lewis had built in a perfectly decent pagan backdoor.

[osprey_archer]

I've read that Lewis also loved all the variations of the resurrected hero in the stories of the world, and I think some of that layered love comes through here: yes it's a Christ story, but it's not just a Christ story, it's every hero who ever went to the underworld and returned.

[sovay]

I've read that Lewis also loved all the variations of the resurrected hero in the stories of the world

That makes sense to me. He threaded a lot of mythologies into Narnia.