Book Review: The Last Battle

[osprey_archer]

When I first read the Narnia series, I didn’t like The Magician’s Nephew or The Last Battle. Upon reread, I learned that I now enjoy The Magician’s Nephew, so I’ve been wondering if I would also find new things to appreciate in The Last Battle. But while there are of course things to appreciate in the book - my God C. S. Lewis can keep a story galloping along! - I still don’t like it.

It’s just so grim. No plucky children appear until the fourth chapter. Instead, we start off with an Ape bullying his donkey friend Puzzle into putting on a lion skin to pretend to be Aslan, and then using the false Aslan to enslave the Talking Beasts of Narnia, forcing them to cut down dryads and send the timber to Calormene, among other travesties.

One of the dryads manages to warn King Tirian, the last king of Narnia, as C. S. Lewis tells us right from the start. Fair play to him: he tells us exactly where this book is going. The dryad dies at Tirian’s feet as her tree is cut down, and Tirian and his unicorn friend Jewel rush off to try to rescue the Talking Animals, for of course they know that this can’t be the real Aslan…

But they fail. Even after they’ve rescued poor Puzzle and start showing everyone, “See? He’s just a donkey in a lion skin, not the real Aslan at all!”, many creatures refuse to believe them. (“Trump supporters,” I sighed. C. S. Lewis is wrong about a lot of things, but he is also really incredibly right about human nature almost always.) The Calormenes conquer Cair Paravel, Tirian and Jewel (joined by Jill and Eustace and a few other companions) attempt to rally the Talking Animals to their side, but only a few join them, and they all die in a heroic last stand…

But it’s fine! They wake up in Aslan’s Country, also known as Heaven.

So I think what Lewis is going for here is eucatastrophe: everything is dark and terrible, and then suddenly there’s a break in the clouds, the light comes down, and the happy ending is all the more transcendent for seeming so impossible just moments before. The climax of The Lord of the Rings, basically.

The problem is that the sense of eucatastrophe here relies on a deep investment in the Christian cosmology, far more than the other Narnia books. The literal-minded reader may otherwise be just a trifle upset that all the Friends of Narnia (except Susan!) just died. (There are many fine essays about The Problem of Susan, so I won’t get into that here, but know that I did indeed notice.) The protagonists we’ve gotten to know and love over the last six books? Killed all at once in a train crash. Yes, yes, they’re in Heaven, but I don’t care about Heaven, dammit! I’m here for Narnia, and Narnia just died too, and bigger better Narnia Heaven doesn’t feel bigger and better than Narnia at all!

I did laugh when Professor Kirke yells, “It’s all in Plato!”, though. “The real world is a mere reflection of true reality” is indeed all in Plato! And I found it nuts there, too.

Comments

[sovay]

BANG it's heaven, but heaven always seems flat and dissatisfying compared to *living*.

It feels like Lewis' imagination ran out when it came to the ultimate numinous, which on the one hand I understand is a real problem, but on the other he conjured up Bism with like three sentences and the creation of Narnia is gorgeous, so I don't know why he didn't at least try.

[asakiyume]

I think maybe the secret is in limiting yourself to three sentences? Same problem as Dante has. You go longer, and it's so. damn. fatiguing.

--He did Aslan's country fine when it was momentary. When it was the transformation of old Caspian into young Caspian. When it was a still wave at the end of a sweet sea of lilies. When it was a natural spot at the top of a high, high, high cliff. But when you spend longer there....

Also--a different problem--"Here, have this better replacement Narnia, after I've taken the one you loved away" feels like God to Job, giving him a replacement family. Holy crap, God, don't you understand anything? It's not the concept of family; it's that particular family. It's not the ideal toward which all things lean, it's those flawed, particular things, doing the leaning, that we, also flawed and leaning, want.

[oracne]

This.

[asakiyume]

^_^

[marginaliana]

"It's not the concept of family; it's that particular family. It's not the ideal toward which all things lean, it's those flawed, particular things, doing the leaning, that we, also flawed and leaning, want." - incredibly well said.

[asakiyume]

💛 Thanks

(Wow, that ends up looking kind of cold? When really I wanted to signal appreciation! Please feel it as a shy and pleased thank you, not as a cold one!)

[rachelmanija]

Yes, that is so beautiful and true.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, his glimpses of Aslan's country are so beautiful and evocative! The sea of lilies, the high, high cliff... But chapter upon chapter of Aslan's country is too much even for Lewis. And any ending that involved destroying all of Narnia was probably destined to upset and alienate a bunch of readers, no matter how it was presented, because as you say we don't want a better replacement. We want this flawed, particular Narnia.

[asakiyume]

You really can't replace in a couple of chapters something you've built up over six books--even if the thing you were trying to replace it with wasn't inherently terrifying when you scratch at it even a little, which is the case with anything wrapped up in notions of eternity.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, exactly! And even something really great, like Bism or the lilies at the edge of the world, wouldn't feel like enough if it were meant as a replacement for the entirety of Narnia.

[sovay]

When it was a still wave at the end of a sweet sea of lilies.

The water turns to glass and light and you can drink it! The edge of mystery, which is not the same as miracle.

It's not the concept of family; it's that particular family. It's not the ideal toward which all things lean, it's those flawed, particular things, doing the leaning, that we, also flawed and leaning, want.

That is very well said and I also happen to think true.

[edit] The problem of Replacement Narnia is also, for me, one of the places where the Christianity interferes with the story, because I happen to think that the world itself is real and valid and worthy of preserving, not merely a disposable rehearsal for unimaginable immanence that I shouldn't care about dying or losing my loved ones or the planet which is so full of lovely and strange things so long as I get to participate in. It was incomprehensible to me as a child; as an adult it strikes me as irresponsible and scary.

[asakiyume]

I entirely agree with your edit. I even think it's crummy theology. But I guess maybe I need to concede that Lewis is better at Christian theology than I am, so maybe it's just a place where I think Christian theology is crummy. To me it seems like the present world **is** the holy thing. It's the thing that's vibrating with song. I suppose this is me suddenly doing an about-face on the Emerald Witch-and-Puddledglum confrontation, but that's because in *this* case what Lewis is presenting us with *isn't* something that beats the real world hollow. A real pebble, a mosquito bite, the taste of warm bread, the sound of cicadas--they are worth infinitely more than "further up and further in."

And I agree: it's scary and irresponsible to give up on what's right here, right now. The *only* way we can know about anything beautiful or good is through what we have in front of us. The only place and way we can learn to love is HERE. The only place and way we can do compassion is HERE. THIS is the only place we for coming to understand and practice any virtue we should care to choose.

[sovay]

A real pebble, a mosquito bite, the taste of warm bread, the sound of cicadas--they are worth infinitely more than "further up and further in."

I don't know that Lewis is better at Christianity than you are.

(If you haven't read Elizabeth Goudge's The Valley of Song (1951), I am sure I have recommended it to you before, but I still think you would like it.)

Actually, the trains-crash-everyone-dies ending reads more like an about-face on Puddleglum's confrontation with the Lady of the Green Kirtle, because Puddleglum isn't advocating an abandonment of reality so much as a refusal to accept that reality has to be as small and sad and meaningless as the Lady of the Green Kirtle is trying to make them believe—or if it does, if there's no way out of the black pit, that it means there's no point in dreaming better. As an argument, it has a lot more in common with Le Guin on escapism (and Tolkien) than with pie in the sky when you die. It's a pushback on nihilism and it's not vague at all. "Further up and further in" is a bigger and better cat.

[asakiyume]

Thank you--yes!! You are right. Further up and further in is the bigger and better cat, and YES, I was just arguing the other day that it's because we can dream better that we make things better. We don't just settle.

You did recommend The Valley of Song to me, and I got as far as buying it! But not yet reading it. But Wakanomori and I are trying to read more this summer. I committed to five books (which seems like a small number, AND YET) but have only chosen four--I should make that my fifth. Thank you for the reminder!