The Trouble With Narnia
Well, then.
Warning for spoilers, here; why discuss this at all if not discuss all of it?
I did my re-reading, just a few years ago. I remember Narnia pretty well; I'm sure I read the books at least twice, as a kid - and as a kid with very little religious education outside the myths and folktales I chose to read myself. I loved those books, some more than others, of course. The Horse and His Boy stuck with me not at all, but the image of the children falling off the cliff - I think it's from Prince Caspian, though as with any series I do tend to mix up my stories - that stayed. Running away from the unpleasant schoolyard into a world of adventure and magic? Yes, please. Sailing to the end of the world? Ditto.
Re-reading is an interesting thing, especially when - as now - one goes in looking for the subtext. And one does not have to look very hard. It's funny that Pullman gets some gripes for his blatant anti-Authority, contrary-to-Lewis stance, when Lewis' stance is just so very clear in the first place. It's all there, every bit of it, Aslan dying and being reborn; the three less mature Pevensie children returning to Narnia at the dark end, after they've been killed in a train crash. How very morbid. The Problem with Susan, as I believe Neil Gaiman termed in in the title of a short story I'm itching to read, bugged me greatly, this adult-reading time through: She cares too much for nylons, and lipstick, to return to Narnia.
Only the innocent are allowed in to the fairy promised land. No matter she was a Queen there, once.
The stories can be moralizing, racist (see the aforementioned Horse for a nice dose of this one), sexist and more. I don't see how this can be argued against. The real question is, does it matter?
I don't think it does. I'm biased, sure; I love the stories. And that's what matters: the stories. What Lewis does with religion, with dumping Susan on her head for liking boys - kids, when they read this, take out of it what they have context for. A child raised by a misogynistic father may or may not see what happens to Susan for what it is. A child raised deeply Christian may or may not see Aslan as an animal personification of Jesus.
A child raised in a hippie home without religious schooling, a child in a Catholic school who goes to church every Sunday; any child may or may not see anything but a beautiful tale of escapism and magic that stems from the likeliest, commonest places; that mixes myth and religion and says that if you are true of heart, you will succeed.
In short? The kids don't care. We do, sure, and we can talk about it all day long, and read, and re-read, and that's what all this talk is about, I hope. It's when people start assigning values to things, making decisions about what they Are and Aren't Supposed to Be, I get troubled. I don't want to be beat about the head with Christian mythology when I head to the theater opening night. But I expect the story to bear some resemblance to the one Lewis wrote.
And I expect that ten-year-olds will leave the theater exuberant and thrilled, and looking for adventures of their own.
Warning for spoilers, here; why discuss this at all if not discuss all of it?
I did my re-reading, just a few years ago. I remember Narnia pretty well; I'm sure I read the books at least twice, as a kid - and as a kid with very little religious education outside the myths and folktales I chose to read myself. I loved those books, some more than others, of course. The Horse and His Boy stuck with me not at all, but the image of the children falling off the cliff - I think it's from Prince Caspian, though as with any series I do tend to mix up my stories - that stayed. Running away from the unpleasant schoolyard into a world of adventure and magic? Yes, please. Sailing to the end of the world? Ditto.
Re-reading is an interesting thing, especially when - as now - one goes in looking for the subtext. And one does not have to look very hard. It's funny that Pullman gets some gripes for his blatant anti-Authority, contrary-to-Lewis stance, when Lewis' stance is just so very clear in the first place. It's all there, every bit of it, Aslan dying and being reborn; the three less mature Pevensie children returning to Narnia at the dark end, after they've been killed in a train crash. How very morbid. The Problem with Susan, as I believe Neil Gaiman termed in in the title of a short story I'm itching to read, bugged me greatly, this adult-reading time through: She cares too much for nylons, and lipstick, to return to Narnia.
Only the innocent are allowed in to the fairy promised land. No matter she was a Queen there, once.
The stories can be moralizing, racist (see the aforementioned Horse for a nice dose of this one), sexist and more. I don't see how this can be argued against. The real question is, does it matter?
I don't think it does. I'm biased, sure; I love the stories. And that's what matters: the stories. What Lewis does with religion, with dumping Susan on her head for liking boys - kids, when they read this, take out of it what they have context for. A child raised by a misogynistic father may or may not see what happens to Susan for what it is. A child raised deeply Christian may or may not see Aslan as an animal personification of Jesus.
A child raised in a hippie home without religious schooling, a child in a Catholic school who goes to church every Sunday; any child may or may not see anything but a beautiful tale of escapism and magic that stems from the likeliest, commonest places; that mixes myth and religion and says that if you are true of heart, you will succeed.
In short? The kids don't care. We do, sure, and we can talk about it all day long, and read, and re-read, and that's what all this talk is about, I hope. It's when people start assigning values to things, making decisions about what they Are and Aren't Supposed to Be, I get troubled. I don't want to be beat about the head with Christian mythology when I head to the theater opening night. But I expect the story to bear some resemblance to the one Lewis wrote.
And I expect that ten-year-olds will leave the theater exuberant and thrilled, and looking for adventures of their own.
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