Reassessment
C. S. Lewis — Chronicles of Narnia
Bel Mooney
Dedicating The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to his God-daughter, C.S. Lewis wrote'. . . some day you will be old enough to start reading fairytales again'. In the penultimate story about the magic land of Narnia he picks up the idea: • . people have no particular age in Asian's country. Even in this world, of course, it is the stupidest children who are most childish and the stupidest grownups who are most grownup'. The imagination does not celebrate birthdays, nor should it ever put away childish things. Yet C.S. Lewis's 'Chronic. lesof Narnia' have been pigeon-holed as delightful books for children' — rather as ne might describe the Ancient Mariner as a good yarn'. The seven books Lewis wrote Over 25 years ago should be required reading for all adults fascinated by the Power of myth. For the benefit of those who have never entered Narnia (either as a child, or, more recently, with a child), there are seven stories: The Magician's Nephew, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Horse and his Boy, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair and The Last Battle. All but one involve the actual transference of certain Chosen children from our world into the .other' world of Narnia — a land where time Is different, which is peopled by talking beasts and fantastic creatures like centaurs, fauns and dryads, and guarded by the benevolent yet awesome presence of the great lion, Asian. At the end of each tale the Children return to England sad, since they see Narnia as perfection. Each book is a superb example of storytelling, which is what makes them such successful children's classics. In all seven stories the Quest is the central motif, driving the narrative forward, using susPense to grip the reader. Yet whereas adults are free with praise for Lewis Carroll, and his sleight of hand with ideas, a similar skill lfl C.S. Lewis has been ignored, or patronised. I suspect the patronage creeps in because of an aversion to religion. 'The Chronicles of Narnia' — seven separate stories which combine to make one great epic — can be read as an extended religious metaphor. In the first book Lewis describes the creation of a whole universe — Narnia and the surrounding nations, and their populations. It is the universe of myth and of fairytale, just the other side of the wardrobe door — and entered through that amazing piece of furniture in one story, through a picture in another, and by sheer magic in others. It is crucial to start with The Magician's Nephew. Only then can you appreciate that in the seven stories Lewis gives an account of creation, of the birth of evil, of temptation, sacrifice, resurrection and redemption, with all the majesty of the Old and New Testaments put together.
Central is the idea of Narnia as a stage on which the battle between good and evil is fought. Though Narnia was created 'perfect' by Asian, evil could not be kept out of this utopia, and always threatens its stabil' ity. Evil takes the form of witchcraft in some stories, and human greed, malice, ambition or envy in others. Always it is aided by the stupidity of those who ought to know better. In The Last Battle a band of dwarfs provide a vivid example. Sitting in paradise, under a blue sky, with a feast spread before them, the stubborn and selfish dwarfs believe they are still in a murky stable, eating filth — and they think this because they refuse to believe in 'humbug', in magic, in Asian. The lion remarks: 'They will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison, and are so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out'.
In fact, Lewis, the master storyteller, rarely allows such overtly philosophical asides. Nevertheless Lewis the theologian weaves into the tapestry of his narrative fundamental concepts of religion — Divine Love, Divine Justice, Providence, Revelation, Salvation. He poses the question of free will, and indicates the limitation of human knowledge: "Child", said Asian, "did I not explain to you once before that no one is ever told what would have happened?" In the last volume, after 'the last battle', we contemplate the four last things — deaths judgment, heaven and hell — as the astonished children watch their Narnia, overcome by evil, die; only to discover another Narnia, rising like the phoenix, world within world, promising eternal joy.
The relationship between God and Man, demanding much of both sides, gives the stories their dynamism. Man is represented by the children, Digory, Polly, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy and Eustace and Jill — old fashioned little kids who go to boarding school, exclaim 'By Jove!' and 'Great Scott', and who call each other 'bricks' and `rotters'. They are perfectly ordinary; they quarrel and lie and forget what they have to do, as well as exhibiting perfectly understandable weaknesses like a longing for turkish delight. The battles they fight, with flashing swords, are those of fantasy and fairytale. Their moral battles are those of mankind's history, and they become transfigured, inch by inch, as they conquer. Always what is demanded of them is the same — faith, obedience and love. Not that Lewis ever puts it like that. Just as those concepts are implicit in the covenant between God and Man, so they are implicit in the stories — abstracts which never hold up the action.
At the centre of the stage (or playing deus ex machina) is Asian himself — who is obviously identified with Christ. Asian represents goodness, power, dignity, gentleness; he is capable of great anger, showing (more often) great tenderness and great sadness too. Lewis's vision of this divine presence is telling: always the lion addresses the children as 'dearest' or 'dear heart' in tones reminiscent of Herbert's gentle Lord. Children see Asian as the sublime Goody, getting rid of the baddies and making things nice again. When he doesn't appear, and danger threatens, the cry is 'Oh where is Asian? Why doesn't he help?' Two lessons have to be learnt, by those in the story and those reading it. First: that providence requires that you try to help yourself. Second: that where magic may be achieved by human trickery, miracles occur only through grace.
In simple language, with humour and with pathos, C.S. Lewis identifies the impulse behind all religion — the belief that there is more to reality than meets the eye, that the visible world, the people around us, even ourselves, transcend our perceptions. To make the unseen visible, to give flesh to the concepts, religions need symbols — and these Lewis provides in abundance: the white witch, the lion, the stone table, the mysterious gateway, the donkey, and so on. Lewis's stories have the power of myth because they deepen our view of reality and cause us to question its parameters.
Again and again, to this end, he returns to paradox. A child entering a garden at the end of a quest, notices that it is 'a happy place but very serious'. Lucy, recalling distant music, says that it was so beautiful it would break your heart — yet it was not sad. Face to face with Asian, the children always experience the terrible fear that is at the heart of all great love — the fear both of failure and of loss. They discover that tenderness can be fierce, that hatred can seem sweet. Lewis's greatest achievement is to convey the sense of sadness that accompanies any perception of great beauty, the awareness that it must be transient, that at the heart of all finite things lies decay, unless . . • The promise of rebirth, renewal, lies at the heart of the Chronicles of Narnia — and with it the comforting thought that, although sin may prevail and humans may be weak in flesh, mind, and spirit, always there exists the possibility of grace. It is the magic of the 'happy ever after', the conviction at the heart of humanism, and the central spirit of Christianity. The last chapter of the last story makes those of us who do not believe the Christian myth ache with the knowledge that, through the power of reason, we are imprisoned forever in the Shadowlands, .outside the wardrobe door.
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