Stuck in the wardrobe. Reading Narnia during a pandemic

Haven’t read the Narnia books since I was a child.  And on a claustrophobic impulse I thought I’d do so.

It’s a very leisurely yet frenetic accomplishment to schedule over the course of a week.  There’s not more than a few hours reading in each of these seven books.  And so my immediate impression of these children’s book was of their brevity.  They are down in a gulp.

The politics/ideology/theology of Lewis’ creation has been widely debated of course.  These are very Christian books.  The apostasy of Susan has resulted in a deal of spilt ink as well.  But there are other peculiar qualities to these books that deserve consideration.

The importance of food and drink is remarkable – and the detailed descriptions of deliciousness remind us of the importance of food fantasy to a generation long habituated to rationing.  The centrality of wine is also striking.  It is hard to imagine any modern children’s book casually assuming the healthy normality of alcohol consumption.  And there is the smoking.  Lewis was of that World War One generation that regarded smoking as the natural activity of every adult male (with the exception of a few cranks like Eustace Scrubb’s parents).  This was the only thing that Lewis may have had in common with Bertolt Brecht.

The books vary in quality.  The Lion and the Witch and the Wardrobe feels more like a stand alone story that is intended for a slightly younger readership than the others.  Prince Caspian is the weakest of the seven, relying on an elongated back story.  The Voyage of the Dawn Treader contains perhaps some of the most original ideas, while The Silver Chair offers some of the (literally) darkest moments – as well as providing an extended version of Plato’s cave parable.

The Magician’s Nephew offers some of the same delights as an E. Nesbit novel and the character of Uncle Andrew is masterfully drawn.  The Horse and his Boy might be the most exciting of the seven since it is an escape narrative as well as a race against time.  It is also the sort of short novel that might well have inspired a fat chapter by Edward Said.  At least it ends with an inter-racial marriage.  As for The Last Battle, it is two thirds despair and one third exclamatory rapture.  If you don’t buy into the eschatology, it is hard to imagine enjoying it.

These are books that are ideologically focused – far more so than Tolkien’s words are.  Indeed, Tolkien angrily and repeated eschewed all forms of analogical literature.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, angered Tolkien more than analogical readings of his fantasies.

Lewis works with analogies all the time – and the older you are of course, the more transparent the analogy.  In some ways, reading Narnia books as an adult makes you actually nostalgic for an age when you saw “through a glass darkly”.