I’m in the “you can’t go back” camp. I loved LOVED these as a kid, but upon trying to re-read them recently I was overwhelmed by the religious themes. Geez, if I want to read the bible, I’ll read the bible, eh?
I can’t agree.
I love the Narnia books, atheist though I am. But in reading LW&W about a year ago I found that basically every scene with Aslan would have read the same with Jesus in the role. I’m thinking in particular here of the scene right before Aslan’s crucifixtion where he plays with the despondant Lucy and Susan and they become much less depressed. The idea of the faituful taking solace in God’s presence even in the face of overwhelming misfortune is one I’ve heard believers speak about frequently. Then, of course, there’s Edmund, who does a heck of a lot of evil in that first book, but as soon as he asks for forgiveness it’s immediately granted with no repercussions for what he’s done. An unequivocally Christian view of forgiveness.
I’ve only read the first three recently, and it seemed that the allegorical nature dropped off considerably, but in that first book it’s very plain.
–Cliffy
I agree - if you read his Science Fiction trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength) he has lots of angelic beings (tho not called angels), and at the very end of THS there is a sort of fairy-tale-character who shows up who seems to be and Elemental of some sort.
Lewis and (his close friend) J.R.R. Tolkein both seem to have longed for the Return of the King - literally.
But on the anti-Darwin thing: sorry, I just don’t buy it.
And as far as the Narnia books, I re-read them regularly, even tho I stopped being a Christian long ago.
I first read them when I was in my twenties, and loved them, except for The Last Battle. I’ve kind of lost interest now, though it’s not because of the Christian allegory. It’s more because Lewis tends to say things, usually incidentally, that rub me the wrong way.
An example, and one that disturbed me on my first reading, come in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where Father Christmas shows up and, among other things, says “battles are ugly when women fight.” I thought then, and think now, that battles are pretty damned ugly when anybody fights.
The books are full of things like that. The portrayal of a country (Calormen) that clearly follows some sort of pagan devil worship as being remarkably similar to the Ottoman empire has already been alluded to. I should mention, though, that Lewis doesn’t really go to town on Calormen until The Last Battle. The Horse and His Boy, which is set in Calormen, is the book that is least devoted to Christian apologetics, and IMO is the best story in the series.
My distaste for The Last Battle is quite strong. It’s a huge bummer of a story. It does, however, have about the clearest description of the CoE view of hell I’ve ever read.
Anyway, aside from TLB, I recommend the series. It’s at least near-great children’s lit, and can hold an adult’s interest. Unlike, say, J.K. Rowling, Lewis knows how to move a story along.
Yes, TLTWATW is really the only allegorical one. It’s clearly a re-telling of the crucifixion, with Edmund in the role of Fallen Man.
The others are certainly full of Christian themes, and The Magician’s Nephew is a Creation story, and The Last Battle is obviously an apocalypse based on Revelation. And yes, the Christian themes do kinda hit you over the head as an adult.
But I still like them…
Chalk me up as another who read them as a child and missed the allegory.
It’s probably because I’m jewish, and at the time didn’t know much about christianity other than that “Jesus is the son of god and got crucified.”
I’ve been meaning to reread now that I know more and see how oblivious I was…
As you can see, the only answer to “Will an adult like them?” is “Well, some will and some won’t.” Which is what you can say about pretty much any other piece of fiction. Some children’s books will appeal to any given adult, some won’t, and there’s no rule about which ones will. You just have to read it and find out.
Whether the Narnia books are allegorical is a very common debate. Search the SDMB database using the words “Lewis,” “Narnia,” and “allegory,” and you’ll find a bunch of threads about this subject. Basically it depends on what the word “allegory” means. I would distinguish between a strict allegory and a loose allegory. A strict allegory is something like The Pilgrim’s Progress, where nearly every character, place, and scene can be matched to a particular allegorical element. Clearly the Narnia books aren’t a strict allegory. In a loose allegory, although some characters, places, and scenes have allegorical references, in general the story is much freer than that with many characters, places, and scenes that have no allegorical reference. Perhaps the Narnia books are then a loose allegory.
Couple of thoughts while reading this thread:
– While I have no problems with The Last Battle, I do think that Lewis’ treatment of Calormen in the whole series is an unfortunate product of Lewis’ culture. He makes liberal use of Arab/Muslim stereotypes to portray the folks of Calormen (with a few exceptions) as cruel, greedy, and heartless. The exceptions are Emeth in LB and – only after she experiences Aslan – Shasta’s friend the Calormen princess (I want to call her Arwen, but that’s someone else 
) Frankly, I find it a little racist, but fortunately it doesn’t play a large role in most of the books.
– Speaking of The Last Battle, I don’t find the Ape thing anti-Darwinian at all. What it does reflect is the common theme in Lewis that there is a natural order, and everyone has their part to play, and that you should not pretend or try to be something you are not.
– Re: the Lion of Judah… the reasons Aslan was depicted as a Lion have been mentioned, but I will point out that he did in fact also appear as a lamb, at the end of Voyage of the Dawn Treader. At least that’s my recollection. I think he appeared as a lamb and then changed into a lion, IIRC.
– Dawn Treader is also my favorite in the series. I love the redemption of Eustace. I asked Mrs. Skammer if we could name our newborn son Eustace, but she kept changing the subject.
Trumpkin: “The boy is useless, you say?!”
How did I forget the Lamb Appearance! :smack:
Skammer- you’d have to make his middle name “Scrubb” also. And even Jack didn’t think that was a nice name to foist upon a child “There once was a boy named Eustace Scrubb and he almost deserved it.”
Good call about the Carlomen. I fully expect some cleaning up of that for the movies.
Her name is Arvis, IIRC. Hey, wasn’t that the geek’s name on “Head of the Class”? [/aside]
I found the Calormen people a bit of an 1900s Arab caricature, but that doesn’t make them bad books. Kipling gets pretty close to racist in a lot of his stuff, and you can make that argument about a lot of authors that wrote before 1960. Even Tolkien has evil people from a desert land. They are a product of their times, for better or for worse. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Yes, that’s correct. It was at the very, very end, when they landed after leaving Reepicheep. And the Tarkheena’s name was Avaris. I didn’t think she was greedy and cruel, exactly, but massively lacking in empathy and charity.
Also, Susan wasn’t barred from heaven because she liked makeup and boys. She wasn’t killed in the train crash, for one thing, which made it very difficult for her to be in heaven even if she had kept the faith. But she hadn’t kept the faith. She denied the existence of Narnia and Aslan, which was a metaphor for turning away from God.
Awesome! Got pics?
Love TCoN! Read them first as a child, then later my family read them out to each other, then I read them again as a teenager. They have been on my reread list forever. Now, a bunch of my friends have reread them recently so the pressure is on!
Oh yeah - I think they are making a new movie version. Anyone heard anything about it?
Quoth PunditLisa:
Not quite. You must be Christian to be saved, but what it means to be Christian isn’t necessarily what most folks think it means. According to Catholic theology, at least (and I’m pretty sure that this is also the Anglican view), anyone who loves his neighbor as himself, and who feeds the hungry, gives drink to the thirsty, clothes the naked, shelters the homeless, etc., is a Christian, regardless of whether that person has ever even heard of Jesus son of Mary.
I enjoyed these books since before I could even read (which was pretty early on), and as of a year ago or so when last I read them, I still enjoyed them. I noticed also that there was a lot of subtlety I had missed as a child (though I did realize on first exposure that Aslan = Jesus, etc.), especially in The Horse and his Boy. Contrary to what kelly5078 says, there’s quite a lot of Christian theology in that one, but it’s very subtle, and might not be apparent to a non-Christian reader. I think that, now that I understand it better, it’s my second-favorite (after Voyage of the Dawn Treader).
I’ll agree that The Last Battle is my least favorite of the books, but that’s mostly because of the very different style, and partly because, on some level, I don’t really want a final resolution of the series. But I didn’t pick up an anti-evolution theme at all. If anything, it seemed to me that he chose an ape for the anti-prophet precisely because an ape is so similar to a human.
First of all, if I recall correctly, the gir’s name is Aravis.
Secondly, they are in fact making a movie of TLTWATW, a featurette about which can be found here.
<hanging my head in shame>
I believe that was Arvid.
nothing to see here, carry on…
No, he most certainly is not.
RitzyRae, I have lots of pictures of the Castle but I don’t have a scanner so I have no way to put them online. The beavers were my favorite part, really. Mr. Beaver has teeny glasses, and Mrs. Beaver is wearing an apron. They were molded out of candy clay which I tinted dark brown, and their tails are small, flat pieces of gingerbread. The castle itself had stained “glass” windows, and one of these had a stylized representation of a lion’s head.
Truly a masterpiece I’m sure! I shall mourn the pics I can not see. 