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osprey_archer) wrote2023-05-15 12:19 pm
osprey_archer) wrote2023-05-15 12:19 pm
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Book Review: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
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 withlittlerhymes, 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!
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!
no subject
I managed to read the entire Narnia series without ever clocking the Christian allegory part of it, somehow, but the Aslan resurrection bit worked for me anyway even without that context. The Stone Table and the Deep Magic From Before The Dawn Of Time still sends shivers through me, it's so compelling. Somewhere in my parents house there's a book review I wrote when I was about 6 which cites The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe as my favourite book, and it includes me describing that whole sequence.
And I hated The Last Battle because a) Narnia is destroyed! How can you destroy Narnia?!, and b) there's a line at the end that's something like "and then everyone went on to have many magical adventures that cannot be related here" and I was so mad about this. How dare you tempt me with adventures you won't describe, Lewis, what do you think I'm here for?!
no subject
Oh gosh I love that you write a book review when you were six retelling the best bits of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. That's so perfect.
There's bit in... now I can't remember which book, actually maybe Dawn Treader? Where Lewis is like "Maybe I'll write a book about the Lone Islands someday!" And then of course he never did! Why dangle the possibility before us like that, sir?