Narnia, Schmarnia

June 26, 2007


I never read The Chronicles of Narnia as a child. Undoubtedly that’s the time to read it. I find now that I can muster no affection for fantasy—not for Tolkien’s intricately worked out world of Middle Earth (which I loved as a teenager), and certainly not for Lewis’s jumbled kingdom. The talking beavers, the lamppost in the middle of nowhere, the weird eunuch Mister Tumnus—all of it leaves me, well, cold. So does the staunch medievalism, the skewed allegory, and the unexplained appearance of Father Christmas. And the stuffy traditionalism. I’m straining to grasp some nuanced Christian message, and it’s slipping through my fingers.

But of course I’m reflecting on the movies, not the books. The movies remove the nuance, the saving grace of language. It was the language, mainly, in Tolkien, that caught me up. The story? Well, there was a dangerous quest and a loyal and heroic band—that much I could buy into. What is there here, though? A quartet of bickering siblings, parent-less, are called upon to save the world. It scans a little bit like The Incredibles.

The kids are tested. Edmund gives in to his selfish appetites and his jealousy and so causes trouble for everyone. Peter has to grow into a warrior. Lucy, the youngest, believes—with purity. Aslan the Christ-type gives himself over to the Evil One, and by his willing death redeems. There’s a climactic battle. The cause is won.

Why am I not moved by any of this? Because it is not the Gospel? Because I don’t like the glorification of war? Because the Christ-type is a talking lion?

It was written for kids, I should remember that, and evidently it reaches them. Inspires them to be courageous and self-denying and true. Nothing wrong with any of that, of course. Except for the whiff of William Bennett, and triumphalism, and Christian home-schooling.