Spoil and advise me on The Chronicles of Narnia

Cafe Society
1

Spoilers, natch.

Let me explain what I mean by the thread title.

I’ve read the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe(thus abbreviated LWW) many, many times. It’s one of my favorite books. I’ve also read Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I barely got through those books and in fact remember very little about them. For some reason neither book drew me in the way LWW did. As a result I’ve never finished the series.
Reading previous dope threads about the series, I’ve picked up on some things that happen later on that interest me. So the other night I went on Wikipedia and read up on all 7 books. Since Wiki isn’t always 100% accurate I thought I’d ask questions and get clarification here.

FTR, I’m not interested in the published order/chronological order debate; if I choose to carry on and read the rest of the books, I’ll read them in the order they were published in. Just saying.

What I’m curious about:

What exactly happens with Susan? She is no longer a friend of Narnia because she starts to like boys and lipstick? Wasn’t she “too old” to return to Narnia after Prince Caspian anyway? What book does this occur in? Is there more to this? Edmund betrays his whole family to the Witch in LWW and come out ok. What’ the deal?

The Professor from LWW was there when Narnia was created? Along with Jadis, the White Witch? How and why does he leave Narnia? Does he just eventually outgrow it like the others?

I’m most intrigued about The Last Battle. The plot of the book sounds, well, a little weird. A donkey or something pretends to be Aslan and everyone buys it? I know there’s more to it but I can’t remember it all. What piqued my interest was reading about the end. Everyone is judged by Aslan and those who have remained loyal go with him to a new country. I get the Christianity reference- they’re basically at the pearly gates. Then, back in “our” world, the Pevensies, Eustace, and a couple of other characters I’m not familiar with(Polly, Jill?), die in a train crash. Except Susan lives, right? Is she present during the “judging” sequence?

This is what made me want to read that book, actually, because it sounds rather moving(I actually cried reading about it on Wikipedia.) Will The Last Battle make any sense if I’ve not read the books in between or does it work as a stand alone for someone fairly familiar with the series? Also, in your opinion, will the ending be as effective seeing as how I pretty much already know what happens?

Am I alone in not really enjoying Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader? Should I give them another try as an adult? (I’m 27. I started reading these books at around age 11 or 12)

Thanks in advance for any answers and insight!

2

Susan allegorically becomes an apostate.

Yeah, he travels there from Earth when he is a kid. He witnesses the creation of Narnia by Aslan.

I loved Dawn Treader.

Susan isn’t saved. I don’t remember if she dies specifically, but she is “damned,” I guess.

When I was a kid, I found the ending extremely moving. Now it just makes me angry. But there were rereads in between where I knew what was coming and it was still moving.

Polly is from Magician’s Nephew, I think, and Jill is from The Silver Chair.

3

Polly traveled to Narnia with the Professor when he was a child and they were both there when Narnia was created.

Jill went to Narnia with Eustace? (I can’t remember exactly).

I would recommend trying them again. When I was a child I got stopped by The Silver Chair. I have since read through them all and enjoyed them as an adult. I also knew the ending before I read it. I found it a little odd, but very interesting and moving just the same.

4

Everyone is eventually too old to go to Narnia, but they stay friends. The idea is that they will get to know Aslan (Jesus) in their own world.

Susan is not damned. She’s still alive; her story isn’t over. She has decided to leave Aslan and Narnia–she denies it ever happened and calls it silly pretend games. She has become interested in superficial, materialistic things–denoted in the book as lipsticks and invitations–but it’s not that she uses makeup and therefore is a bad person, it’s that she’s decided to pursue shallow things over the reality of Aslan.

Now, since she’s only quite a young woman, she has plenty of time to grow up and change her mind. C. S. Lewis was thinking a lot of himself as a young man when he wrote this about her; he considered himself to have been pretty shallow and superficial at one point in his youth too. So she’s not damned–she can’t be, she’s not done yet. She has every possibility to choose her path.

Edmund betrayed everyone, yes. He left too. And then he repented and came back. Each child lives an example of a certain kind of faith or problem–Edmund is the repentant sinner, Peter is the High King–sort of like an apostle, Lucy is childlike, joyous faith (“except ye be converted, and become as little children…”*), and somebody had to leave for good (as of the end of the series), so that’s Susan.
Once you read them, you might enjoy checking out Planet Narnia, which analyzes what the author thinks is the plan Lewis used for the books. It helps if you really like Lewis and have read his space trilogy, though; it’s on the academic side. I loved the book and think he’s correct in his analysis.
*Matt. 18:3

5

Hi,

I loved Voyage of the Dawn Treader probably the most of all the books, followed closely by The Silver Chair (I LOVE the part with Jill and the Giants who want to eat them) and A Horse and His Boy.

The Magician’s Nephew is also quite good, especially the part with the uncle and Jadis in London.

I agree with dangermom, it is very clear that Susan is not damned, but instead lives on in our world, free to come to faith again. In fact, I would consider it a mercy that she was not killed on the train- because Aslan/God knew she was not ready.

What little religion I have left in me, pretty much can be credited to these books. That probably sounds pretty dumb, but when I think about the books, I believe in God. Other times, not so much.

6

Susan later goes to Bracton College and is caught in the struggle between the St. Anne’s circle and N.I.C.E. She ended up OK.

But that story hasn’t been written yet.

7

He was in Narnia basically for the purpose of seeing its creation. He had a lot going on at home, though, so afterwards he was sent back. This is also where Polly comes in.

A lot of people have Dawn Treader for their favorite. I think you should give both it and PC another shot, if only because I highly recommend Silver Chair. PC, DT and SC are kind of a series within the series, so SC will have more impact if you read the other two first.

8

That’s all I ask. :smiley:

I loved TLTW&TW, so I was disappointed to find things so changed in PC, and then upset again when other characters besides the Pevensies were introduced. However, I soon got over it and learned to love the entire series. I would hope that if you read them over again, it would work the same for you.

I think dangermom nailed the situation with Susan.

The only times Christianity has come close to making any sense to me is when I read C.S. Lewis. (Doesn’t last, though).

9

Really? For me, I read the books first when I was really young and I didn’t catch the Christianity aspect. Later, when I did, it was one of the things that made Christianity sound so… well, silly. Made up. It was okay in a kid’s book, but not okay for Real Life.

10

Well, not just the Chronicles, but Lewis’ other books on Christianity. However, once I caught the subtext of the Chronicles, I could better comprehend the idea of* loving* [del]Aslan[/del] God. The God I heard about in church wasn’t half as cool and never gave anyone rides on his back as far as I know. :slight_smile:

11

I didn’t read anything into Susan’s absence in The Last Battle indicating that she might repent or change her ways. It seemed rather sad to me that she’s the one in the family left out and on top of that, it seemed somewhat mean spirited. Hey she likes lipstick, so she’s not welcome anymore. But that’s how I read it and I was definitely taking it literally.

I read all of the books to my daughter and we just finished LB. We didn’t read all of A horse and His boy, we had a tough time getting into it but we both liked Dawn Treader and Silver Chair.

12

Neil Gaiman wrote an absolutely fantastic short story, “The Problem of Susan”, about the uncomfortable issue of Susan (obviously.) It’s been collected in a few different places, but I know it’s in his anthology Fragile Things.

13

I think you can read The Last Battle without having read all the others. I didn’t like it, however. It’s unpleasant. Also, it seemed to me like Lewis ramped up the didacticism and basically forgot to write a good story. (I suppose the very things I didn’t like about it would cause some people to feel that it was the best of the series, or even the only one with any merit.)

14

Well, Susan gets a whole half a page in the entire book, it’s not like she’s discussed terribly deeply. But her life is still going on, so it’s all an open question. Here’s the text:

So, what we can see is that Susan denies Narnia and insists that it was all a childish game. She doesn’t want to come. Also, she’s intent on getting to the age of about 21 as fast as she can and then staying there as long as possible (which sounds remarkably like some people we all know–in fact, like what our society encourages)–she doesn’t enjoy the time she’s got, but is either hurrying on to the future or trying to cling to the past. What will happen to her eventually? That’s up to her–she has as much choice as anyone else.

No one is leaving Susan out–heck, they tried to keep her in–she took herself out. She can come back at any time, theologically speaking.
I always liked the Last Battle–after all, there’s a unicorn in it.

15

Not true. Here’s what CS Lewis said "“The books don’t tell us what happened to Susan. She is left alive in this world at the end, having by then turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman. But there’s plenty of time for her to mend and perhaps she will get to Aslan’s country in the end…in her own way.”

She doesn’t join the others after “The Last Battle” as she doesn’t die in the train crash.

It’s pretty clear in that world that only the young and then later the elderly but young-at-heart can invest that sort of beleif in Aslan’s country. Susan would likely come back later, when she’s a Grandmother.

16

Which is actually the problem with Gaimen’s story. There is no “Problem of Susan”. Susan just plain has a problem, and she’s not willing to accept that yet. And that’s all.

His version of Susan, IIRC, is a rather bitter, pathetic wretch constantly complaining, at the heart, that reality wasn’t bending about her little ego. Gaimen, of course, didn’t realize this, nor that his character was actually even more childish than book-Susan ever was, or that Lewis even remotely imagined.

17

dangermom, that quote just made me think of an interesting detail about the characters and the timing - specifically, Eustace and Jill acting all disgusted about Susan not wanting to talk about Narnia with them.

Neither of them ever went with Susan - in fact, it was after Susan and Peter were told that they could not come back before either Eustace or Jill had their first adventures.

So, when relative to ‘Dawn Treader’ and ‘The Silver Chair’ did Susan outgrow the whole thing, I wonder? Did either of the new kids have a chance to actually talk with her about it before her attitude changed?

18

Well, I might have a problem too if my entire family got slaughtered in a train crash and I didn’t.

19

I don’t think that’s fair to say. She isn’t in the train crash that kills the rest of the Pevensies, Digory, & Polly, and she’s only in her early 20s (at most) when it happens. All we know is that she is not in a state of grace when THEY die. But…um…so what?

I don’t think Aslan would have given up on her so easily. And, if I were a Christian, I could give an argument in which her eventual salvation was more likely rather than less because of the loss of her brothers & sister.

20

We don’t know. But I think probably they did get to talk with her about it, at least Eustace probably did. He’s a cousin after all. But I do think it’s worth noting that the most disparaging comment comes from Jill, who knows her least.