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

[genarti]

The end of Dawn Treader was when I clocked that Aslan was Jesus -- the lamb turned into a lion, and I went "ohhhhhhh." Child me always thought that was a bit of a cheat, though. It's not that I felt betrayed by the discovery of baked-in Christianity or allegory, exactly, but I felt that a self-contained numinous god-lion was far more interesting.

I do think there are parts of The Last Battle that stand alone, and they were my favorite parts -- Tirian and Jewel and Eustace and Jill, basically, and Jill and Eustace's return to Narnia with their feet under them at last, and grappling with how to save something beloved and dear and huge like a country and its people when you can't but you can't not try. Those were the bits I read and reread over again, and still have lines from memorized. But I'd always skip past the Shift and Puzzle bits -- they made me too mad for poor Puzzle -- and sometimes I'd stop before the end, even if some of the end was beautifully written and has stuck with me too. But its happy ending depends on the allegory being accepted, and you're right that for the rest of the stories, the happy ending works without that.

[osprey_archer]

Apparently Lewis received a lot of letters from anxious young readers who were concerned that they loved Aslan more than Jesus. There is probably something weird theological going on in creating a Jesus-Lion? It's a bit like how different Jesuses in different countries are painted to look like the locals... except when you're localizing Jesus for children, he becomes not a child but a lion.

In a weird way I'm looking forward to The Last Battle! I don't expect to enjoy it more, exactly, but I do think I'll see different things in it this time around.

[genarti]

Aww! But yes, that makes total sense to me. Aslan is there and physically present for the kids and Narnians (not all the time, and apparently not for long stretches of Narnia time, but at some point in every book) and also is a giant magic lion. I've seen a lot of fanfic that takes for granted that the Pevensies et al also felt that way, which I suspect was not Lewis's intent for them, but one does understand why...

I'm very interested to hear what you think of The Last Battle! I'm one of the few, I think, for whom it wasn't least favorite, but I always felt very conflicted about it. I still do, but in a more intellectualized way nowadays.

[osprey_archer]

Aslan is giant lion who will let you ride on his back and plunge your hands into his magnificent mane! Will Jesus do any of that??

Do you have a least favorite Narnia book? Very curious to hear what it is if it's not The Last Battle.

I think my response to a lot of children's books is more intellectualized than it used to be. (Narnia perhaps less than many others, actually: Lewis is just so good at sweeping you up in the story!) On the one hand this means I appreciate a wider range of books than I used to, but I don't love them with the same depth, perhaps...

[genarti]

My least favorite Narnia book was always Magician's Nephew! An unpopular choice -- I know a lot of people love it. But while I liked Digory and Polly fine, it didn't feel like a Narnia book to me, you know? I didn't see why Narnia needed any backstory about how it came to be -- you don't need to explain how the Earth came about, regardless of how religious you are on the subject, in order to write a book set here -- or when the first people from Earth went there. It was fun backstory to have Professor Kirke be someone who had been to Narnia too, but I didn't want him to be the first one, or for the first Narnia travelers to have been from Victorian England; I wanted there to have been occasional Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve throughout history, their origins and identities unknown to the Pevensies but known to Aslan. So in another book I might have loved the Wood Between The Worlds with its castaway guinea pigs and so on, but it felt to me like an unrelated Kids Encounter Magical Devices In London sort of book that happened to cross over with Narnia towards the end and establish a bunch of headcanons I preferred to ignore along the way. About the only part I really loved was when Fledge the carthorse came into his own. And I liked Frank and Helen; I always wanted more about them.

I agree about the more intellectualized response to children's books in general! Possibly it's an inevitable part of growing up, but I do sometimes miss the uncritical intense love and immersion.

[osprey_archer]

I wanted there to have been occasional Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve throughout history, their origins and identities unknown to the Pevensies but known to Aslan.

Oh yes, that would have been fun! (And IMO part of the problem with The Last Battle is that it closes down the possibility that You, Dear Reader, might find your way to Narnia yourself.) And in general I shared the feeling that all this backstory isn't really necessary and in fact detracts - do we need to know about the origin of the wardrobe or the lamp post or Jadis or indeed Narnia itself?

Also surely having evil come into the world from outside the world, as Jadis does, causes some sort of theological problem with the worldbuilding.

I did love Fledge the carthorse turning into a pegasus though. And the Wood Between the Worlds is SUCH a vivid image.

The intellectualized response may not be an inevitable part of growing up, but perhaps an inevitable part of becoming a critical/discerning reader who has more elaborate responses to books than "I loved it!/I hated it"? It isn't an ability I would want to lose but there are times it would be nice to just turn it off for a book or two.