In which I take a stab at this whole "Narnia" thing.

I read a few of C.S. Lewis's Narnia novels when I was a kid.  I never made it through the entire series, which has left me a little cool to the film adaptation of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe making its way to theatres in the coming months.  I read the novels before I was at an age to understand the theological implications thereof, though a few years later, I put two and two together; one of my neighbors ran a religious organization that took its name from the books, and the rest wasn't difficult to figure out.  Aside from that, my only real contacts with Lewis's life and work came from seeing the film Shadowlands when I was in high school, and the occasional reference to the man when I was a churchgoer.  (This happens when you're raised Episcopalian.) 

So, yeah -- there's this very hyped film adaptation on the horizon, and commentary on the man's work, his novels, their use of theology, and their merits as storytelling have cropped up.  The New York Times ran a piece on Lewis that focused on his romantic life and, in part, his friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien; The New Yorker also ran an essay on the man recently.  In response to those -- the latter, principally -- conservative Catholic writer Ross Douthat has chimed in with some thoughts on the novels and the response to them here and here -- particularly their use of allegory.  And I daresay that that's sparked some interesting debate -- and I can't argue with that.  One observation from Douthat:

There have been a thousand children's books about witches and dragons, dwarves and talking animals, and none have succeeded half so well as Narnia - and it's precisely because Lewis thought his fairy story wasn't just rich, but also fundamentally true in a way that no other fantasy could be.

Anyone want to chime in?