It was definitely an essay. But it might be against this in opposition to an article by Philip Latham (Robert Richardson, the astronomer) about it. I’ll check when I get home tonight - I may be doing him an injustice.
There might be a story also, but this was an article.
Actually, Susan wasn’t on the train, because she was “too grown up” to still play Narnia. Lewis certainly wasn’t impressed with the culture of youth for women being the ideal. There are more than a few other comments than just that one.
But there’s nothing in Last Battle that makes me believe that he feels that Susan has done anything worse than being foolish. A difference in emphasis, perhaps, but one I think worth noting.
And yeah, re: the OP, saying there’s no love in the Chronicles of Narnia is like saying that Shakespeare was just another popular hack writer.
I don’t know that I agree. Propaganda is, I think, more properly defined as any kind of media that is used to influence the views or opinions of others. The problem is that while the definition is relatively innocuous, the connotations are just as negative as you’ve said. I don’t recall who wrote it, but there’s a line I really like about propaganda: A lullaby is propaganda selling sleep to an unwilling audience.
To my mind effective propaganda is about slipping a message into the audience’s mind without quite engaging their mental defenses towards external ideas.
And thus, effective propaganda is going to be both factual (Or at least not a distortion of the facts - it’s hard to get hard facts on some topics, like religion.), and entertaining.
I love the Chronicles of Narnia, and believe they are some of the best propaganda ever written. 
This thread, although focussed more on a general discussion of ethnic slurs in “classic” books, has some interesting {ie, written by me 
} posts on racism in the Narnia books, as well as a take on the religious angle in The Last Battle.
If the Chronicles come off as propaganda I don’t think Lewis intended it. He said several times that he had no clear set of allegories in mind, and that he didn’t even intend to write more than one book. I think he just wanted to write some stories. He’d been distressed for some time about what he felt was the ‘fading influence’ of fairy tales on children’s imagination, and I think he was trying to spark a revival.
I don’t think Susan’s not being in Narnia at the end has anything to do with her sexual maturity. I think she’s lost her sense of wonder. She’s become like Eustace was in the beginning of the Dawn Treader. She no longer believes in fairy tales, and therefore can’t get back to Narnia.
By that test, what* isn’t* propaganda?
From dictionary.com, propaganda is:
Obviously much is propaganda, and I think the Narnia chronicles easily fit the definition. The problem, as I alluded to earlier, is that the Nazis gave propaganda a very bad name. At least in the US, when you hear the word “propaganda” you think of distortions and lies promulgated loudly and frequently enough to generate truly evil actions. While the definition has not changed with time, the connotation certainly has.
Lissla, Lewis certainly didn’t write in the manner given in your quote, but that doesn’t make the books any less Christian. The only argument over whether or not they are propaganda can be over whether they are systematic. There are no bones made that Aslan is Jesus. IIRC, Aslan even states that he is a lamb in some worlds. Aslan not only gives life to the world, but only those who follow him get to a platonic version of heaven. I believe that Lewis wanted to write a story for his niece, and being deeply Christian, wrote a Christian story.
furt, honestly, not much.
I know one writer of SF who said in a recent comment on his blog that he tries to sneak commentary into his novels, without making it obvious. At one point he has a character start debating the primacy of law over society, with the lead judge at a court-martial. Hilarious within the context of the story, and knowing the characters.
Damned serious stuff otherwise. And, I think, propaganda I approve of.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t works of fiction or literature that aren’t propaganda. To pick an example off the top of my head: The Diary of Anne Frank, while having been distributed by propagandists and edited by her father to remove certain things that he didn’t think were anyone’s business, isn’t something I think of as propaganda. It’s often used as such by many of the people who suggest others read it. That doesn’t leave me with the feeling that the author had a particular viewpoint she was trying to get across to her audience.
I can think of many other works considered great literature that aren’t propaganda: The Great Gatsby, The Tale of Genji, and Romeo and Juliet (If there’s propaganda in R&J none of the people who talk about the romance in the story seem to have noticed it.) are some quick suggestions. It really doesn’t matter to me, if the author as propagandist does a good job telling the story, and isn’t playing too fast and loose with facts, I have no objection to the propaganda. Sometimes, I’ll read books that I feel have a particular axe to grind, and think they’re great books, and still disagree with the propaganda purpose behind the book. Or, more accurately, incorporated into the book.
Racism-
The Calormenes are as much racist caracatures as classic Trek Klingons. Take that as one will.
Misogynist-
The two witch-villianesses are a bit much- interesting that Lewis has them as related to Lilith. And, sorry, but I do think it’s better to involve putting women in combat. There is a lack of romantic love, but there also was in Lewis’s life up to that time (then he was surprised by Joy ). Susan’s problem is superficiality, not being a teenage girl discovering her sexuality. Anyway, she’s still alive on Earth- no indication that she died in the train crash.
Reactionary- meh
Devoid of Love- :rolleyes:
Excellent! Others said much of it before, but you did a fine job.
“…(then he was surprised by Joy )…”
Beautiful! Probably the greatest proof that God does have a sense of humor, and loves to pull surprises on people. 
Well, at least you understood the implications of what you were saying… 
using your definition, I can come up with several possible ways Shakes was trying to “influence the views or opinions of others.”
– Feuds are stupid and destructive
– Romantic love is threatened by an uncaring and harsh world
– Nonetheless, the transitory beauty of romance is worth pursuing and celebrating.
And so on.
In order to qualify as “not propaganda” under your definition, the writer must be either unaware that anyone will read them (as with Anne Frank) or else have absolutely no desire to influence their readers in any way; in other words, a writer who *aims * to be irrelevant.
With respect, I submit that your definition expands the term to the point of meaninglessness.
I resemble that remark?
It was a short story that was written in response to someone else making that suggestion. I have it in a short anthology of short stories by CS Lewis called "The Dark Tower. The story is called “Ministering Angels”.
From the preface to the book, written by Walter Hooper:
I highly recommend the book. Nobody can send chills up my spine with description like CS Lewis can. His descriptions in the story “the dark tower” are really disturbing. It did get less interesting toward the end, but that might be why he didn’t finish it.
I won’t go into the discussion of whether or not it’s particularly propagandistic right now, but I might nudge it a bit: It might be better to debate, if accepting that everything is meant to be persuasive, the degree that the Narnia series tries to persuade, and whether it’s to a higher degree than most things.
Well, come on. The author plainly depicts you as willing to challenge a dragon to single combat or duel a stupid little boy to death for treating you like a dumb animal. Of all the ways to broad-brush your entire species. :dubious:
That’s the whole point. Emeth has the truth in his heart, and all the idiocy peddled by the priests or mullahs or shamans or whateverthehellyawannacallums in his homeland has not driven it out. He views “Tash” as holy and beautiful beyond measure, for which reason Aslan, in the Emperor’s name, welcomes him without a moment’s thought for any religious technicalities.
Rightly or wrongly, that’s much how I’d interpret John 14:6; Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no man comes to the Father except by Him - but it’s perfectly possible to do so without ever actually having the name of Jesus on the lips. But I don’t want to hijack this thread into a theological debate.
I thought it was interesting you mentioned The Great Gatsby, I’ve always felt that was a blatant condemnation of the corruption of the urban, modern lifestyle of the East, as opposed to the wholesome American heartland. And I’m not complaining, I love that book. Is perhaps part of your propaganda definition tied into the notion of an organized group that espouses a certain platform, like the Communist Party, or the Christian church?
Back to the tiresome Mr. Pullman, I for one think that his books have a little too much romantic love for my taste. I can get romantic love in my very own home, however I have not (as yet, I’m still holding out hope) had sea-faring adventures with a talking mouse. I like the His Dark Materials books well enough, but I’m left saying “eh” to the overblown sexiness he has given his characters. It annoys me that he has decided that an aspect of his own books is some sort of gold standard for children’s literature.
I am a big fan of the Narnia books (and I realize that it’s difficult to compare children’s books that I loved as a child – Narnia – and Pullman’s children’s books that I didn’t read until I was an adult, but whatever, it is what it is), although they are not perfect. I think that the Calormenes are a not very nice representation of unfortunate ideas about the Arab world, and also understand that it was very much a part of the times when the books were written.
The Susan thing was more disturbing to me, even as a child. I had a very emotional reaction to Susan’s fate in The Last Battle, so it’s hard for me to figure out intellectually what’s wrong with it. It’s the same problem I’ve always had with Peter Pan – that growing up is a terrible thing. I think that’s a scary message to some children, because it’s not as if you can avoid it. It’s all well and good for adults to look back on it and say “but you can still keep your child-like sense of wonder!” but I think that’s much easier to see in hindsight.
The problem with Susan was not that she had grown up - indeed, Peter was older than her, and it’s not suggested that he was infantilised in either body or mind - but that she had focussed on one particular shallow, silly and ephemeral stage of adulthood. She was so fixated on it that she had been determined to get there as early as possible and, once there, to stay there as long as possible. What was more, despite having known Aslan face to face and getting a pretty good idea of what he really was, she was prepared to turn her back on known facts in order to pursue her obsession with fashion, dating, and partying, and even dismiss what she had seen with living sight as nothing more than children’s games.
I like to think that Susan repented later in life, possibly when her outstandingly good looks had finally faded. She’d possibly been through a disastrous, but financially rewarding, marriage or two, and reached old age in a very genteel nursing home, where she was considered strange for her habit of talking nonsense to herself and may have been a little too fond of the sherry without actually becoming a disgrace. There’s a piece of fanfic that I’ve been telling myself to write for many years, but I don’t know that I ever will.
I’d say Pullman is overstating things, but anyone who can read the Narnia books and say with a straight face that they aren’t – at least – ethnocentric is really doing a fine job of avoiding even the most basic critical analysis. Even as a kid I knew they were ethnocentric. I didn’t know that word, but I knew he thought Christians were better than non-Christians, and favored a European-type civilization over other civilizations. I don’t think the books are devoid of love.
We had The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe read to us at school at the age of 10 and I loved it! I have to say though, I havent read it since. Perhaps if I did I might have a different view of it as an adult?!
I read somewhere (All My Road Before Me? one of the collections of letters?) that Lewis had an early affair during which he lived with an older woman. So, maybe Joy wasn’t all that much of a surprise.
And I had the vague apprehension that this was a rather joyless undertaking done out of loyalty to a friend, though I’ve not read anything on the subject for maybe 16-17 years, in which case Joy would be a huge surprise.