# Spoil and advise me on The Chronicles of Narnia **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 30, 2009, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245 "2009-03-30T01:39:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/121 "2009-04-10T22:56:57Z")
> [@Fenris](#): > > You have to read another book _The Great Divorce_ to get some resolution on this > but Lewis was really clear that no-one is “forever trapped” in Hell. The Dwarves are only trapped there as long as they continue to value their “independence” from God\*. As soon as they give that up and accept Aslan, they’re welcome to join him. > > _Divorce_ is 2/3ds of a great book–The first 2/3ds are Dante-worthy in their exploration of Hell and Heaven and then it bogs down into a creepy hero-worshippy Socratic dialogue (the level of hero worship is what was vaguely creepy to me) between the unnamed narrator (presumably Lewis) and George MacDonald (an author Lewis very much admired). > \*“Dwarves are for dwarves. We don’t need no Aslan or Tash.” I have a great deal of time for TGD and I have to say that there is one inaccuracy here - the narrator in that book was aware (and so were the saved souls) that morning was coming soon, and that when it did, those who had not ascended into the mountains would lose their chance irrevocably. For those who had left the grey town and ascended into the mountain, it would have been Purgatory; for those who stayed there, it would be Hell - _and it would always have been Hell_. Oh, and it’s “dwarfs” in Narnia, not “dwarves”. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/122 "2009-04-10T22:58:15Z")
PS - Something screwy happened to my carriage returns in that post, and I cannot fix them on editing. I’ve no idea why - it has never happened before. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/123 "2009-04-11T00:41:48Z")
> [@Jodi](#): > > of course, one of Lewis’s lesser-known books is _Through A Glass Darkly_ Is it? If so, could you dig up some proof? And if you can, then add the title to his [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.s._lewis) entry, because I can’t find any reference to a _Through A Glass Darkly_ by Lewis. ---
**Author:** ![yandoodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/d6d6ee/32.png) [@yandoodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yandoodan)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/124 "2009-04-11T02:55:23Z")
> [@toadspittle](#): > > Is it? If so, could you dig up some proof? And if you can, then add the title to his [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.s._lewis) entry, because I can’t find any reference to a _Through A Glass Darkly_ by Lewis. The title sounds funny to me. Would Lewis put a famous quote in a title? OK, he used a quote in _That Hideous Strength_, but that quote was really, really obscure. Lewis mainly quoted himself (_Til We Have Faces_ and _Mere Christianity_) or made ironic references other people’s quotes (_The Great Divorce_ and _The Pilgrim’s Regress_). There’s a few cleverly descriptive titles – _Out of the Silent Planet_, _The Allegory of Love_, _The Discarded Image_. However, most of his titles are simply descriptive: _Perelandra_, _The Problem of Pain_, _The Screwtape Letters_, _Studies in Words_, and _English Poetry in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama_. Perhaps it’s one of the posthumous publications. Walter Hooper could’ve come up with that. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/125 "2009-04-11T12:11:27Z")
Sorry, Jodi, but you’re simply wrong. C. S. Lewis did not write a book called _Through a Glass Darkly_. I just made a pretty thorough check for any evidence that such a book exists, but there’s just nothing. I suspect that you’re vaguely remembering a book or an article which discuss (among other things) C. S. Lewis whose title was _Through a Glass Darkly_ (and there do exist articles and books with that title), and you’re mistakenly remembering the book or article as being by Lewis. ---
**Author:** ![Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Petrobey_Mavromihalis)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/126 "2009-04-11T13:52:09Z")
> [@yandoodan](#): > > I discuss Lewis’ biography in this thread only to dispel Pullmanesque canards about _Narnia_. I consider Pullman to be a morally vicious bigot Do you see what you’ve done here? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/127 "2009-04-11T14:40:34Z")
> [@yandoodan](#): > > I discuss Lewis’ biography in this thread only to dispel Pullmanesque canards about _Narnia_. I consider Pullman to be a morally vicious bigot; there’s a white sheet under that humanist disguise. Unfortunately, his poison deceives many. Unless Pullman rewrote my copies of _A Horse and His Boy_, I don’t think he’s responsible for the way I read it. Nice try, though. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/128 "2009-04-11T14:58:19Z")
yandoodan writes: \> The simple reason I am getting stuff wrong is that I am upstairs, and my Lewis \> books (which I’ve been buying and reading since the mid-1960s) are \> downstairs. Then may I make a suggestion? Look things up before you post. The SDMB works better when people look things up, even if they think that they’ve remembered correctly, than when they just post what they remember offhand. ---
**Author:** ![Second\_Star\_to\_the\_Right](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@Second\_Star\_to\_the\_Right](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Second_Star_to_the_Right)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/129 "2009-04-12T01:45:48Z")
> [@GameHat](#): > > Spoilers ahead: > > Honestly, I consider all of the Narnia books to be about equally good. If I had to pick a “weakest” it would be Prince Caspian. > > The Last Battle is probably my least favorite though, just because the atmosphere is so different. It’s dark. Yes, there is a _very_ happy ending but it takes the complete destruction of Narnia to get there. > > Previous villians (The White Witch in her various appearances, the Calormen, etc.) were all evil but identifiably “fairy tale evil”. On the other hand Tash is straight-up a demon. > > Near the end of the book a lot of Narnians die violently. > > The Dwarves that reject Aslan are forever “trapped” in the stable. That’s kind of depressing. > > The mood of the story is an increasingly desperate last stand. And the last stand fails. The Narnians are defeated. Some of them reject Aslan. Aslan only meets the remaining believers after they are all dead. > > Aslan watches over the destruction and unmaking of Narnia. I always find this kind of sad. > > …of course, the ending is a happy one, but it’s a pretty grim tale up until then. > > FWIW my absolute favorite of the series is The Horse and His Boy. I think a lot of people can’t get into this one because 1) It doesn’t take place in Narnia and 2) There is no aspect of jumping from England to Narnia. But I like it a lot. > > Close second is tied between Wardrobe (first one I ever read, at age seven. Magic.) and Dawn Treader. I definitely have some reading to do. I mentioned upthread I got weepy when I first read the summary of how The Last Battle ends- I’ll probably be a wreck when I actually read it. Does the stable=purgatory? I didn’t realize The Horse and His Boy took place outside Narnia. Where is it set? I’m glad I started this thread, all the side discussions it has provoked are intriguing. Thanks everyone! ---
**Author:** ![yandoodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/d6d6ee/32.png) [@yandoodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yandoodan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/130 "2009-04-12T03:06:25Z")
> [@Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](#): > > Do you see what you’ve done here? Yup. I’ve accused Pullman of being a bigot for stereotyping religious people in general, Christians in less general, and Roman Catholics in the least general of all. Pullman makes it clear that he considers himself intellectually superior to all religious people, and that religious people (particularly Catholics) are all either fools or sociopathic manipulators. I was raised in the South, where my parents and their peers saw anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic bigotry as a sign of low-brow tobacco-chewing cousin-marrying Crackerhood. When I see the signals and buzz words of this sort of nonsense, I react. Pullman signals and buzzes like a toy train. ---
**Author:** ![yandoodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/d6d6ee/32.png) [@yandoodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yandoodan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/131 "2009-04-12T03:10:29Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Unless Pullman rewrote my copies of _A Horse and His Boy_, I don’t think he’s responsible for the way I read it. Nice try, though. I am under the impression that Pullman introduced the claims that Lewis sent Susan to Hell, and that the Calormens were an allegorical attack on Islam. I really don’t think there is any way to derive either of these ideas from any of the Narnia books – considering the specific passages in Narnia that state just the opposite. You might not have gotten them from Pullman – but you didn’t get them from Lewis either, cause they ain’t there. ---
**Author:** ![yandoodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/d6d6ee/32.png) [@yandoodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yandoodan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/132 "2009-04-12T03:12:19Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > yandoodan writes: > > \> The simple reason I am getting stuff wrong is that I am upstairs, and my Lewis > \> books (which I’ve been buying and reading since the mid-1960s) are > \> downstairs. > > Then may I make a suggestion? Look things up before you post. The SDMB works better when people look things up, even if they think that they’ve remembered correctly, than when they just post what they remember offhand. Point taken. I’ll be good! (Although I may take a broad interpretation of “good”…) ---
**Author:** ![thirdwarning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@thirdwarning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdwarning)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/133 "2009-04-12T04:22:14Z")
> [@Second\_Star\_to\_the\_Right](#): > > I definitely have some reading to do. I mentioned upthread I got weepy when I first read the summary of how The Last Battle ends- I’ll probably be a wreck when I actually read it. I sobbed through a lot of it. I kept waiting for something to come out right. Well, in the end it did, but there was so much bad before that. > [@](#): > > I didn’t realize The Horse and His Boy took place outside Narnia. Where is it set? It’s in the world of Narnia, but not in the country of Narnia, if that’s not too confusing. The Kings and Queens have gone to visit the country of Calormen, to discuss the possibility of Susan’s marriage. Then it moves through the desert to the country of Archenland. Doesn’t get to the actual country of Narnia until the end. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/134 "2009-04-12T06:00:18Z")
> [@yandoodan](#): > > I am under the impression that Pullman introduced the claims that Lewis sent Susan to Hell, and that the Calormens were an allegorical attack on Islam. I really don’t think there is any way to derive either of these ideas from any of the Narnia books – considering the specific passages in Narnia that state just the opposite. You seem to be under a lot of impressions that you are pulling from thin air, so I’ve had enough of this conversation. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/135 "2009-04-12T07:03:39Z")
> [@Second\_Star\_to\_the\_Right](#): > > I definitely have some reading to do. I mentioned upthread I got weepy when I first read the summary of how The Last Battle ends- I’ll probably be a wreck when I actually read it. > > Does the stable=purgatory? > > I didn’t realize The Horse and His Boy took place outside Narnia. Where is it set? > > I’m glad I started this thread, all the side discussions it has provoked are intriguing. Thanks everyone! The stable would be more like the Vestibule of Hell, I suppose - the dwarfs aren’t being actively tormented, but they are missing all the fun. The match-up isn’t exact though as you couldn’t quite call the\*\* dwarfs “righteous pagans”. Harking back to _The Great Divorce_, the spirit guide pointed out late in the story that, being a dream-vision, it wasn’t speaking authoritatively on the possibility of choosing Christ after death, and that all the conversations the Ghosts were having could equally well be read as commentary on the choices they made in life. ---
**Author:** ![Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Petrobey_Mavromihalis)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/136 "2009-04-12T07:13:26Z")
> [@yandoodan](#): > > Yup. I’ve accused Pullman of being a bigot for stereotyping religious people in general, Christians in less general, and Roman Catholics in the least general of all. Nope. What you did is try to dispel a canard by raising one. Which is kind of funny. > [@](#): > > Pullman makes it clear that he considers himself intellectually superior to all religious people, and that religious people (particularly Catholics) are all either fools or sociopathic manipulators. > > I was raised in the South, where my parents and their peers saw anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic bigotry as a sign of low-brow tobacco-chewing cousin-marrying Crackerhood. When I see the signals and buzz words of this sort of nonsense, I react. Pullman signals and buzzes like a toy train. I think you are approaching Pullman loaded with prejudice, exactly as you think some of us are approaching Lewis. For what it’s worth I enjoyed the Narnia books when I was young (late 1970s), but even at the age of eight I was appalled by the Last Battle, especially the ending. When I reread the earlier books I found them tainted with traces of what I hated in the last book: (racism, moral superiority, misogyny). ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/137 "2009-04-12T12:04:38Z")
> [@yandoodan](#): > > I am under the impression that Pullman introduced the claims that Lewis sent Susan to Hell, and that the Calormens were an allegorical attack on Islam. I really don’t think there is any way to derive either of these ideas from any of the Narnia books – considering the specific passages in Narnia that state just the opposite. > > You might not have gotten them from Pullman – but you didn’t get them from Lewis either, cause they ain’t there. I don’t think **jsgoddess** is alone in this. I first read the Narnia books as a little kid (many years ago) and I loved them. I still consider myself a big fan. But from the books, I was very disturbed by what happened to Susan and was aware that his portrayal of the Calormenes was the product of an earlier time when even educated Western people were enchanted with stereotypes about the Islamic world. On the first point, I blamed Lewis very much … the second issue simply speaks to the way the world has changed. ---
**Author:** ![GameHat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ed655f/32.png) [@GameHat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GameHat)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/138 "2009-04-12T18:45:36Z")
> [@Second\_Star\_to\_the\_Right](#): > > I didn’t realize The Horse and His Boy took place outside Narnia. Where is it set? Mostly in Calormen. Shasta and Aravis do have to flee Calormen to Archenland to warn of the Calormene invasion. The Narnians from Wardrobe do play a role, but IIRC I don’t think any of the characters set foot in Narnia throughout the book. If you look at this [map](http://www.brokensword.org/images/narnia.jpg) of Narnia you can see how Calormen is to the south, Narnia to the north and Archenland in between. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/139 "2009-04-12T18:57:57Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > I don’t think **jsgoddess** is alone in this. I first read the Narnia books as a little kid (many years ago) and I loved them. I still consider myself a big fan. But from the books, I was very disturbed by what happened to Susan and was aware that his portrayal of the Calormenes was the product of an earlier time when even educated Western people were enchanted with stereotypes about the Islamic world. On the first point, I blamed Lewis very much … the second issue simply speaks to the way the world has changed. Yep. I know I’m not alone in it because my husband couldn’t even finish reading _A Horse and His Boy_ because he thought it was both boring and ugly. This was about 1998. He was wrong about it being boring, though. I still like the book. I think I gave it four stars on Goodreads, but that doesn’t blind me to the discomfort I feel when I read it. ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245/140 "2009-04-13T17:34:32Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Sorry, Jodi, but you’re simply wrong. C. S. Lewis did not write a book called _Through a Glass Darkly_. I am wrong, in fact could not be wrong-er. I was thinking of _Till We Have Faces_. I have no idea where the title I used came from – the dark recesses of an addled brain, I suppose. Guess I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue! Sorry, all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spoil-and-advise-me-on-the-chronicles-of-narnia/491245.md?page=8)