Tag / cs lewis

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The Magician’s Nephew, Chap. 15: Why We Read

Oh, Narnia. It’s here that we go our separate ways…for now. Books transport you into a whole new world, and the best part is, they can do it over and over again. Of course, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know that already. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I never actually read any of the books after Prince Caspian. Re-reading The Magician’s Nephew now makes me want to go back and read through the entire Narnia series. I think I’d like to go back and read the rest of the books and see what I missed. Aware, of course, of all the religious symbolism, racism, and sexism that I missed the first time around.

The final chapter is perhaps the most insightful; at the very least, it gave me the most to think about as a child. Aslan takes Polly, Digory, and the sleeping Uncle Andrew back to the Woods Between the Worlds and shows them a hollow in the grass.

‘When you were last here,’ said Aslan, ‘that hollow was a pool, and when you jumped into it you came to the world where a dying sun shone over the ruins of Charn. There is no pool now. That would is ended, as if it had never been. Let the race of Adam and Eve take warning.’

‘Yes, Aslan,’ said both the children. But Polly added, ‘But we’re not quite as bad as that world, are we, Aslan?’

‘Not yet, Daughter of Eve,’ he said. ‘Not yet. But you are growing more like it. It is not certain that some wicked one of your race will not find out a secret as evil as the Deplorable Word and use it to destroy all living things. And very soon, before you are an old man and an old woman, great nations in your world will be ruled by tyrants who care no more for joy and justice and mercy than the Emperor Jadis.’

This book was published in 1955, though it takes place before World War I. I can’t help but think that Aslan’s warning to the children about the Deplorable Word was a thinly veiled reference to the atomic bomb. I couldn’t have known that when I read this more than a decade ago, nor could I understand just how bad the world could really be.

Now I see that our world is a scary place, and I’ve been very fortunate to have a comfortable life. Perhaps the question I’ve asked myself the most over the past two years, the one that I can’t answer, is, “Is the world getting worse, or am I just paying more attention?”

Unfortunately, I’m usually an optimist.  I want to believe that there is more good than bad, that love will conquer hate. More and more, it seems like the opposite of that is true.

But there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.

And that fight is terribly, terribly frustrating. Because everyday I want to change the world, but I’m just one person.

And that’s why we need books. Because Digory and Polly protect Narnia from the evil they brought into it; because Digory saves his mother with a magical apple. Because they give us simple solutions to our complex problems. Because the world is terrible, the characters we love go through endless trials and tribulations, and things turn out okay.

Because real life needs more happy endings.

Final Verdict: Keep

For now, anyway. This will likely make it to the collection of children’s books my mom has on the unlikely chance that I’ll ever give her a grandchild.

I’ll be taking next week off, but starting on May 30, I’ll be back with Angelic Layer by CLAMP, which just happens to be the first manga I ever read. Stay tuned!

by booksoverlookedblog

The Magician’s Nephew, Chap. 10: C.S. Lewis is a Jerk

There was a sequence in this chapter that rather confused me as a kid: the first joke.

I like that Aslan included jokes and laughter in Narnia right away. Laughter is important. I know a lot of people will say that they’d like to die in their sleep; if I had a choice, I’d like to die laughing. Besides, I think most of us would agree that God has a sense of humor, and so it’s only fitting that Lion Jesus would, too.

As the Talking Animals pledge to Aslan that they will remain Talking Animals and not revert back to their mute counterparts, a jackdaw embarrasses himself, and everyone laughs.

“‘Laugh and fear not, creatures. Now that you are no longer dumb and witless, you need not always be grave. For jokes as well as justice come in with speech.’ [. . .]

‘Aslan! Aslan! Have I made the first joke? Will everybody always be told how I made the first joke?’

‘No, little friend,’ said the Lion. ‘You have not made the first joke; you have only been the first joke.'”

As a kid, I didn’t understand how the jackdaw was the first joke, and I re-read the passage several times before I figured it out. Now I think it’s just kind of mean. God is personally making fun of you. Of course, probably a lot of people feel like that…

Aslan selects his council of animals, saying they have much to discuss, because evil has already entered the new world. It makes me kind of sad that Narnia has always known evil, even though it was literally formed seconds ago. It was never a pure, incorruptible place, and never will be.

The other thing that caught my attention in this chapter was when Aslan called the animals for his council, he chooses “the chief Dwarf, and you the River-god, and you Oak and He-Owl, and both the ravens and the Bull-Elephant.”

There was something that bothered me about this when I was a kid, and there’s something that still bugs me about it now. Can you spot it?

The characters called into Aslan’s council are almost all male. The one exception is that Aslan called both talking ravens – a male and female – and we can probably make the assumption that a tree is genderless. The Narnia series – and C.S. Lewis – have both been called sexist. And…it’s not an unreasonable thing to say. For example, in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, when Santa gives Susan her bow and arrows, he says that he hopes she never has to use it, because “battles are ugly when women fight.” I still remember that line perfectly, because it enraged me so much as a kid, and I was so happy that it was removed from the Disney adaptation. Susan’s treatment in The Last Battle is also questionable, as she gets booted from Narnia for…growing up? Becoming interested in nylons and lipstick? Susan’s fate isn’t exactly clear, and neither are the reasons why she was no longer allowed back in Narnia. This might be a comment on growing up, but the eldest Pevensie child is allowed back in Narnia. This can be interpreted in a couple different ways, one of which is that she’s kicked out for discovering sex.

Discussing just The Magician’s Nephew and no other books in the series, there are still some big problems. Reading the book as an allegory for the story of Adam and Eve, Jadis (who would become Lewis’s most iconic villain, the White Witch) represents both original sin, and the serpent. Her holy counterpart is represented by a male. Even without reading deeper into the text, the adult woman is still the antagonist. Upon returning from Charn, Polly is quickly shoved to the back, out of the action as well. The Cabby’s wife, Helen, also makes an appearance, and becomes the first Queen of Narnia, but she has a decidedly bit part in the story, to the point where I didn’t even remember she was in it.

On the other hand, Jadis is the most powerful character for a good portion of the book, and a true magician, unlike pathetic Uncle Andrew. Polly also seems to be a bit brighter than Digory, and they wouldn’t have woken up Jadis at all if he’d listened to her. Throughout the series, there are a number of female characters presented in a positive light–Lucy most notably comes to mind. It’s also worth noting that these books were all published in the 1950s, a time when women were supposed to get married, have kids, stay home and cook the roast. It may be that these books are just a product of their time. However, it’s disheartening to think that even in a fantasy world, personally built by God, women are not equal to men.

Thanks, C.S. Lewis.

Jerk.

by booksoverlookedblog

The Magician’s Nephew, Chap. 7: Drawbacks of Childhood

In the first chapter of The Magician’s Nephew, C.S. Lewis captures the magic and wonder of childhood. In the seventh chapter, it’s all about the helplessness.

Digory and Polly go on the adventure of their lives, but it involves a lot of waiting around. Polly has to go home, and her parents punished her for getting her shoes and stockings wet under circumstances she can’t quite explain, and is out of the picture for most of this chapter. Jadis ends up getting a horse-drawn cab and is taking a romp around the city with Uncle Andrew. Knowing how dangerous Jadis is, Digory contemplates going after them. However, he’s faced with several limitations. He doesn’t know where they are, and his Aunt Letty would never let him leave the house if he couldn’t tell her where he was going. Besides that, he doesn’t have any money to pay for trams to take him around the city.

When you’re a kid, it seems like everything you do is on someone else’s schedule. You have to depend on adults for just about everything. They’re supposed to provide for you and protect you. Even as we get older and more independent, we still rely on our parents, and (in theory) live by their rules. Driving home the point is Polly, punished and unable to help. It’s a little frustrating that Digory can’t go after Uncle Andrew and Jadis, even though he knows that’s what he should do. Watching Digory sit and wait for them to come back may not be the most exciting thing to read, but it is realistic.

Along with that, there’s another part of this chapter that gave me chills, when Aunt Letty briefly discusses Digory’s mother and her failing health.

‘What lovely grapes!’ came Aunt Letty’s voice. ‘I’m sure if anything could do her good these would. But poor, dear little Mabel! I’m afraid it would need to be fruit from the land of youth to help her now. Nothing in this would will do much.’ Then they both lowered their voices and said a lot more that [Digory] could not hear.

It wasn’t the talking about the obvious foreshadowing about fruit from the land of youth, but the part where the adults lower their voices so Digory can’t hear. I can tell you from experience that when you have a chronically sick relative, conversations like that are a big part of your life. My sister and I would overhear things that we weren’t supposed to, almost always worrying news. We almost never heard the end of those conversations. Either it would get quiet, or I’d become so uncomfortable that I’d somehow make my presence known. Hopefully in such a way that the adults wouldn’t realize I’d been listening in, though I might never know for sure. It turns out they’re a lot more perceptive than I thought. Of course, I used to sneak out of my bed and think that throwing a blanket over my head would prevent my parents from spotting me and sending me back upstairs.

Childhood logic.

I don’t know how other kids in similar situations handled things like this, but I was too anxious to ask my parents questions about what was going on. The information I got about my aunt was either from what they told me directly, and what was overheard. It’s funny, the things grown-ups will say when they think you’re not paying attention. And for something this big, I always paid attention.

Let’s not delve into childhood fear and sadness for a moment, though, and appreciate a very minor, nameless character: the maid. She has no idea what’s going on, and it’s something of a running gag in this chapter.

While Aunt Letty was hurtling through the air, the housemaid (who was having a beautifully exciting morning) put her head in at the door…

‘Oh, Master Digory,’ said the housemaid (who was really having a wonderful day)…

‘Sarah,’ she said to the housemaid (who had never had such a day before)…”

I don’t know why I like this so much. It just makes me smile.

by booksoverlookedblog

The Magician’s Nephew, Chap. 6: Unexpected Plus One

We’re a third of the way through the book, and I’m getting pumped to go back to Narnia! Digory and Polly haven’t quite escaped the clutches of Jadis, but they’re able to escape back to the Woods Between the Worlds and…return to London?

Wait, when do they go to Narnia? No, seriously, I read this, I know Digory and Polly accidentally take the Witch to Narnia. Why are they going back to London?

Well, it turns out I forgot a lot more details in this book than I realized.

The children and Jadis wind up back in Uncle Andrew’s study, and it becomes immediately apparent that Uncle Andrew just got a lot more than he bargained for.

In Charn she had been alarming enough: in London, she was terrifying. For one thing, they had not realized till now how very big she was. ‘Hardly human’ was what Digory thought when he looked at her; and he may have been right, for some say there is giantish blood in the royal family of Charn. But even her height was was nothing compared with her beauty, her fierceness, and her wildness. She looked ten times more alive than most of the people one meets in London.

Maybe that description is a bit cliche now, but I love it. Jadis’s presence also puts Uncle Andrew in his place pretty quickly. I like the contrast between the two. When Digory and Polly see Uncle Andrew in the beginning of the book, they see him as someone fighting and powerful. Compared to Jadis, he’s weak and cowardly. And, it would appear, not too bright, either.

Children have one kind of silliness, as you know, and grown-ups have another kind. Uncle Andrew was beginning to be silly in a very grown-up kind of way.

I’ll give my compliments to Lewis for that one. Not only does he capture the magic of childhood, but also at least one true fact about adulthood as well: that we have no idea what we’re really doing, but pretend that we do.

We also see more of Uncle Andrew’s character; along with being totally unprepared to deal with the consequences of meddling with magic, it turns out he’s pretty lousy at being…well, being an adult. It’s not just the “silliness” of thinking that Jadis would fall in love with him, but you can see it in other details. In one side note, the narrator says that Uncle Andrew has blown through his own money, and quite a bit of his sister’s.

Honestly, I’m a little disappointed that Uncle Andrew ends up being this pathetic. He looks small, literally and figuratively, next to Jadis, and is something of a fraud when it comes to being a true Magician. But he was able to use magic to send the children to another world, and have them return (with an unexpected plus one). Using magic in a world where none exists is pretty awesome, even if he was a schmuck about it. But as soon as Jadis comes into the picture, everything interesting and intriguing about him is out the window.

I guess the moral here is: Playing with magic can be cool, but you’re a jerk and not as cool as you think you are.

That’s a strange lesson.

by booksoverlookedblog

The Magician’s Nephew, Chapter 4: Curiosity Killed the Kids

The first pool that Digory and Polly jump into is the wrong one. The story would be very different if they’d gone to any other world, but then, they’d never make it to Narnia without going into this one first. Polly and Digory enter the world of Charn, and it’s…chilling.

Everything about this world is old and still. They wander through ruins, and there’s absolutely no sound. There’s no people, no animals, nothing but empty courtyards. Even the light in this world is described as feeling old, as well as reddish. That last detail is more unnerving to me now that it was as a kid. I don’t know how much C.S. Lewis knew about astronomy, but the red light makes me think of Red Giants: cool, dying stars, millions of years old. It’s not just an old world, it’s a dying one.

I was a little wary about re-reading the Narnia books at first, because of the narrator. The last book in the series I read, Prince Caspian, I found the narrator so annoying, I wish I could have skipped the descriptions altogether.  Lewis uses an intrusive narrator to tell the story, and he’s not shy about making his presence known. I won’t go as far to say that the book’s written in first person, but every so often someone – referring to themselves as “I” – pops his head in and gives you his frank opinion on the matter at hand. Either there’s not as much of it as there was in Prince Caspian, or it doesn’t bother me as much now. It can be a little jarring, but I don’t actively hate it. It makes me think of a grandfather telling his grandkids this story, which is probably the way Lewis intended it to be. There’s a warmth to it, and it makes me think of my dad, reading this book to me when I was sick. On the other hand, it also allows Lewis to be a bit lazier with his writing, and he sometimes uses it to avoid writing in-depth descriptions, or to fast-forward scenes.

If you were interested in clothes at all, you could hardly help going to see them closer. [. . .] I can hardly describe the clothes. The figures were all robed and had crowns on their heads.

Digory and Polly inspect the rows of people who resemble wax sculptures. It becomes apparent that they’re all set up in a particular order. First come people whose faces are kind, and look like the type of person you might want to have a cup of tea with. But as they continue, the faces get crueler and crueler, until they finally reach the most beautiful – and cruelest – looking person of all.

In a lot of fairy tales (and Disney movies), your inside matches your outside. That is, the more evil you are, the uglier you are. Of course, all the high school outcasts like myself know that the opposite is true, and it’s the pretty girls who are the mean ones. I’m glad to see Lewis didn’t fall into the same cliche of beautiful people being good, and ugly ones being evil. Perhaps it’s too predictable.

It’s been a long time since I read this book, and I’ve forgotten a lot of the details. It’s sort of nice, actually; it’s almost like reading it for the first time again. The order that Digory and Polly find the frozen people in seems important, starting with the kind people and ending with the evilest. I wonder if there’s a point to be made here that I haven’t picked up on, or if it’ll be revealed why they’re arranged in this way. I hope it’s explained.

This chapter also played on a fear that I didn’t even know I had until I read this book. Digory and Polly come across a bell, a hammer, and a poem:

Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, til it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.

Polly doesn’t want to ring the bell; she wants to put on her yellow ring and leave this world. Digory, on the other hand, already feels the magic start to work on him. After an argument with Polly, he rings it, mostly out of spite. After a couple paragraphs describing the sounds it makes, the ruins start collapsing around them.

The choice here is that you can either ring the bell, and something terrible will happen, or go crazy wondering what that terrible thing would have been. I think we all deal with “what-ifs” and “might-have-beens”, and they can gnaw away at you. That’s bad enough, but when something is magically cursed to make you perpetually wonder what would have happened if you walked away… well, I’ve never had much willpower, so I would probably give into the temptation of ringing the bell. But the idea of losing my mind, even as a kid, was scarier than the potential risk of whatever would happen when that bell rings. If there’s actual, physical danger, then you can find a way to escape it. If it’s in your mind, how do you fight it, and will you ever be free of it?

Again, this is one of the hazards of traveling to a new world. I’ll have to be very careful not to read any cursed poems that will drive me mad.

by booksoverlookedblog

The Magician’s Nephew, Chap. 3: Pool Party

It took two chapters, but the adventure has finally begun. Digory takes two green rings, one for himself and one for Polly, puts on a yellow ring, and winds up in the “Other Place”. This is one of my favorite things in this book series: the Woods Between the Worlds. Even the name sounds magical.

Digory finds himself, not in Narnia, but in a lush forest. There are shallow pools of water every few feet, and the place is so quiet, it’s as though you can hear the trees growing. As enchanting as it sounds, though, the Woods Between the Worlds scared me as a child. Digory isn’t there long before he starts to forget who he is, or why he came here.  He finds Polly in a similar state, half-asleep, and she doesn’t recognize him. When they see that they’re both wearing yellow rings, their memories are jogged, and they remember who they are and what they’re supposed to be doing.

While I was still hoping that I’d find a magical world in the back of my closet as a child, this scene helped me be aware of all the risks that might entail. I obviously knew that I’d be charging into battle to fight against evil, but I didn’t think of all the obstacles that would come before that. If I ever traveled a magical world, I would have to bring a friend with me, in case I wound up in the Woods Between the Worlds. I also really hoped that friend would be a unicorn.

I love the idea of the Woods Between the Worlds, though. Each pool of water is an entrance to a different world, provided you have your magic ring on. The Woods seem to stretch on endlessly, with pools every few feet. There are so many worlds that the children would just be able to walk into, which is a dizzying thought. As they’re about to try one out, Polly suggests that Digory marks their own pool of water, so they can find their way back home.

I rather like Polly. She seems like the brighter of two, and maybe even the braver.

The Magician’s Nephew was the second-to-last book written in the Narnia series, which means that Lewis most likely hadn’t thought of the Woods Between the Worlds before then. It’s a bit of a shame, I think, because it’s too good of an idea to waste. With endless worlds you could literally jump into, you could spend a lifetime exploring in the Woods and never visit the same place twice. Hence why it’s so important for Digory to mark the pool that will take him and Polly home, when they’re ready. That’s another scary thought: losing your world, and trying for the rest of your life to find the right pool and get back home. Even though that sounds like it would make a great story, that was another childhood fear of mine. When I discovered a new world (because I knew it would happen, someday) I would also have to take precautions to get home. Because as much fun as exploring other worlds is, sometimes you just need to sleep in your own bed.

by booksoverlookedblog

The Magician’s Nephew, Chap. 2: Ethics Review Board

We’ve made it the second chapter, and we’re on the cusp of the true adventure. Digory’s the nephew, and we at last get to meet the Magician. His name is Uncle Andrew, and he’s as close to a mad scientist as the Narnia series gets. He’s got crazy, fly-away gray hair, everyone around him thinks he’s mad, and is, in fact, something of a genius. Before wardrobes and strange cupboards at school, Uncle Andrew figured out a way to send people to someplace…else. He doesn’t quite know what that other place is, but he’s more than willing to use Digory and Polly as his human guinea pigs.

Most of the second chapter is dedicated to Uncle Andrew explaining how he was able to make magic rings that could travel between the worlds. He received an ancient box from his godmother (who was said to actually have fairy blood), containing dust from Atlantis. After many years of study, learning everything he could about magic, he created several yellow and green rings. The yellow would send anyone who touched it to the “Other Place”, and the green ring would, in theory, bring them home again. Before Polly and Digory accidentally found their way into his study, Uncle Andrew had only tested the yellow rings on literal guinea pigs. They all vanished, but none of them returned. Unsuspecting Polly became his first human test subject, when she takes a yellow ring, and disappears from the study, and the universe altogether.

I remember not liking this chapter very much. To me, it cemented Uncle Andrew as a villain in the story (and what nine-year-old likes villains?), and the attention was all on him. When I read it now, I really enjoyed it. In fact, I wanted more.

‘Meanwhile,’ continued Uncle Andrew, ‘I was learning a good deal in other ways (it wouldn’t be proper to explain them to a child) about Magic in general. [. . .] I had to get to know some–well, some devilish queer people, and go through some very disagreeable experiences.’

Okay, so we’re in London, in a world without magic. Uncle Andrew has found a way to use magic to send people to other worlds, and it’s suggested that the way he learned things was not on the up-and-up. Tell me that backstory doesn’t intrigue you. Who are these people, what are these disagreeable experiences? I want to know!  C.S. Lewis should have just skipped writing The Horse and His Boy and given us Uncle Andrew’s story instead.
There’s no room for moral ambiguity in the Narnia series, though, so he wouldn’t be an acceptable Lewis protagonist. And it’s made very clear that even though Uncle Andrew is, in fact, “beastly” for sending Polly to another world without telling her what she’s getting into.

This is exactly the reason why we have ethics review boards. Sure, they might stop you from doing some of the really fun social experiments, but at least you won’t wind up in a different universe when you’re filling out questionnaires with Lickert scales.

Wait, is there actually an experiment out there that can send me to a magical world? SIGN ME UP!

Unless you’re sending me to Westeros.

by booksoverlookedblog

The Magician’s Nephew, Chapter 1: Growing Up is Hard To Do

I’ve always loved fantasy stories, and I think one of the most influential ones in my life has been The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis. All told, I would read the first four (in chronological order) of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; The Horse and His Boy; Prince Caspian. I never quite made it to the three final books, though I owned them all. If anyone ever asked me which book was my favorite (and no one ever did), I would have told them The Magician’s Nephew. It was the first in the Narnia series that I ever read, and it opened up a world of magic to me.

When I was in grade school, my Aunt Linda was sick with ovarian cancer. I spent many weekends traveling to hospitals two or three hours away from home to see her. It was a hard time for me, and I think one of the reasons I really fell in love with fantasy books was because I needed some magic in my life.

Right from the first few pages of this book, though, I realized that it wasn’t just a need to escape that compelled me to read — and love — this book as a child. When the main character, Digory, meets his friend Polly for the first time, she can see that he’s been crying. He explains:

‘And so would you [. . .] if your father was away in India–and you had to come and live with an Aunt and an Uncle who’s mad (who would like that?)–and if the reason was that they were looking after your Mother–and if your Mother was ill and going to–going to–die.’

Well, shit. Already something I could relate to, and we’re only on page six.

I also forgot how quickly children’s books start. Digory and Polly meet, they’re friends, they go explore houses. There’s not much build-up before they reach Uncle Andrew’s study and begin their real adventure.

Now, there’s plenty of criticism about C.S. Lewis, but there is at least one thing he does right: captures the enchantment of childhood. Polly has a secret “cave” in the attic of her house, and it’s a place that I would have loved to have as a child. Re-reading this, I still wish I had a place like this.

 Polly had used the bit of the tunnel just beside the cistern as a smugglers’ cave. She had brought up bits of old packing cases and the seats of broken kitchen chairs, and things of that sort, and spread them across from rafter to rafter so as to make a bit of floor. Here she kept a cash-box containing various treasures, and a story she was writing and usually a few apples. She had often drunk a quiet bottle of ginger-beer in there: the old bottles made it look more like a smugglers’ cave.
 A cozy hideaway, a space just for you to be alone in. And there’s something about making this in her attic that makes it truly child-like. Perhaps because even if I had a hide-out like that as a kid, I wouldn’t be able to fit into it as an adult. If I did, and I returned to it, it would be a place full of nostalgia, certainly, but not a place of wonder as it once had been.

Childhood is a common theme throughout the Narnia series. Peter and Susan get booted out of Narnia at the end of Prince Caspian because they’re too old, and the only people who can save Narnia are children. There’s a little sadness when it comes to leaving your childhood behind, knowing that magic isn’t really real, that you’ll never find a secret world in your closet or get a letter delivered by owl. (My owl with my Hogwarts letter just got lost! I swear!) There’s one passage in the first chapter that captures this exquisitely, when Digory and Polly are discussing what might be in the empty house they’re trying to sneak into.

‘But I don’t expect it’s really empty at all,’ said Digory.

‘What do you expect?’

‘I expect someone lives there in secret, only coming in and out at night, with a dark lantern. We shall probably discover a gang of desperate criminals and get a reward. It’s all rot to say a house would be empty all those years unless there was some mystery.’

‘Daddy thought it must be the drains,’ said Polly.

‘Pooh! Grown-ups are always thinking of uninteresting explanations,’ said Digory.

When we talk about the end of childhood, we talk about children losing their innocence, or gaining responsibilities. Maybe every so often, we should think about their imaginations, too, and keeping our own ones intact.

We all have to grow up, but our imaginations don’t have to be a casualty of adulthood.