Bunyan in Oz
From Mr P.M. Lawrence
Sir: Peter Hitchens CA labour of loathing', 18 January) asserts that Philip Pullman is writing a sort of inversion of C.S. Lewis's Narnia books, tracking them but inverting values and incidents that work their way out in the books and so producing something atheist where Lewis was Christian.
This is hardly the first time something like this has happened. In the 19th century, a clear pastiche of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress appeared, with a journey that ended not in Heaven but in finding and taking the way back from the very destination that Bunyan warned was there. It even inverted identifiable incidents, such as Christian's ingenious way of avoiding being destroyed by the glory of Heaven before he was ready for it. I am amazed that this obvious antiparallel was not seen for what it was and banned by every library in the USA.
I refer, of course, to The Wizard of Oz.
P.M. Lawrence
Melbourne, Australia
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