Chronicles of Narnia - POLL

xp he wrote that in a reply to a young fan who was upset about the ending

oh okay

The relevant part of the letter is here:

In an early 1955 letter to a girl named Marcia, Lewis first revealed his decision to have Susan lose her way in The Last Battle. “Peter gets back to Narnia in it. I am afraid Susan does not. Haven’t you noticed in the two you have read that she is rather fond of being too grownup? I am sorry to say that side of her got stronger and she forgot about Narnia.”

“The books don’t tell us what happened to Susan. She is left alive in this world at the end, having been turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman. But there is plenty of time for her to mend, and perhaps she will get to Aslan’s country in the end—in her own way. I think that whatever she had seen in Narnia she could (if she was the sort that wanted to) persuade herself, as she grew up, that it was ‘all nonsense’”

Though, contrary to a popular internet rumor, Lewis never planned to finish writing Susan’s story himself. In another letter, he wrote: “I could not write that story myself. Not that I have no hope of Susan’s ever getting to Aslan’s country; but because I have a feeling that the story of her journey would be longer and more like a grown-up novel than I wanted to write. But I may be mistaken. Why not try it yourself?”

I at once cringed at the assumption that young women are prone to conceit and silliness, smiled at Lewis' humility ("But I may be mistaken."), and chuckled at his Christian generosity, as if it didn't matter who wrote these books ("Why not try it yourself?")

I think the conceit and silliness thing is something that troubles me about the children going from adulthood back to childhood in an instant. Maybe Susan found it harder to go back to being a child than the others? I’ve read some good analyses of this ending over the years and I get what he was going for ito the overarching theory of his series, but that aspect upset and pissed off lots of people over the decades, and probably still does if they are reading it now!

there's an avoidance (maybe a fear) of not just sex but adulthood in the narnia books which is of course typical of 50s children's books - and complete avoidance is infinitely preferable to the icky way jk rowling deals with adolescence - but you do have to wonder, if jack had survived to see the 70s or even the 80s would he have tackled these questions, if just for his now-grown-up fans?

chuckled at his Christian generosity, as if it didn't matter who wrote these books ("Why not try it yourself?")

What about Rabadash's lust for Susan? It is of course telling that it's the dark-skinned Calormen whose clear about his rape fantasies.

I have a memory of Tirian hitting on Lucy in The Last Battle.

_chuckled at his Christian generosity, as if it didn't matter who wrote these books ("Why not try it yourself?")_
Narnia officially open-source! can you imagine the fan fiction if these books were first published in the 21st century?

I remember now there being quite a good bit about adult life & relationships right at the end of TH&HB but will hold off on it until we've read that.

xp not really familiar with eo3 or fanfic world so went to check this out, this was the second result, so a yikes and a nope here

https://i.postimg.cc/pLWzMPwR/Screenshot-20230320-122138.jpg

Yeah, people will post stuff like that, there’s plenty of tools to avoid seeing content you want to avoid too.

This is quite obvious but I liked it, and I think it is the kind of thing CSL was nudging his young readers to explore.

it's good but seven years of catholic schooling has left me with a revulsion towards any kind of explicit religious parable, so uh guess I'm reading the wrong books.

Ha! I went to Catholic school for six years and we treated the Bible like a dead snake in the road, so these stories fascinate me.

Yeah I genuinely could probably quote more of this series than I could the Bible.

I read the Bible on my own and was regarded as a dead snake in the road.

any good deed performed in tash's name is aslans and any evil deed in aslans is tash's is how i prepare for job interviews

nah I just shout "Beware, the bolt of Tash falls from above!" when students ask for assignment extensions

Searched for a virgin Aslan/chad Tash meme but no joy

However!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYao6AQX0AAFmjC?format=jpg&name=large

lol

I always assumed that they'd been kings and queens in Narnia for like fifty years, I mean when they are hunting the white stag and come across the lamppost in the woods none of them even remember what it is at first!

It's an entirely different sense of narrative that we seem to be kinda incapable of dealing with today. Yeah, if you think about it of course as a king or queen of Narnia you're going to repeatedly go see if you can still get back to Earth through the wardrobe (like... you would probably want to check in with your parents?) but Lewis clearly shows that once they got crowned, they didn't even think about their life in Earth ever again.

it isn't like they don't have anyone to talk about their old lives with either. the "returning as a child having lived an adult life" thing seems like a rich seam, left entirely untouched.

I don't mind that it doesn't make "rational" sense, because it follows its own fairy tale/dream logic.

Yeah, and I think part of the Narnia thing is that it’s more “real” than the “real world” bcuz, y’know, it’s God’s country, quite literally. So when you’re a kid there and you’re a king or queen, makes sense that you’re living in that moment an not in this one.

I think there’s some indication that they mostly forget what happened while they were reigning — like as though it had been a dream — and so they don’t end up as adults in kids’ bodies.

did none of ye ever go to yere cousins for summer holidays at that age

by mid october its as well never to have happened

i this lewis captures the dreamy immediacy of it all well enough for nolanesque forensic questioning of the timelines to be handily enough dismissed tbh

Yeah but I like the between the two worlds thing, as both a Gemini and a person with bad opinions in general.

Wet Hot Narnian Summer

Not even visiting your cousins -- it's like remembering a summer trip to Disney World in the middle of taking finals.

xps

as a midlander

xp look some of us have cousins in nicer places than others i dont mean to brag

Wet Hot Narnian Summer

― the absence of bikes (f. hazel),

i.e. Eustace + Jill visiting Puddleglum.

The Perks of Being a Marsh-wiggle

Lev Grossman “The Magicians” is pretty much the Narnia for adults

i just read all of these again. while he spotted the many obvious ones, i appreciated pointing out to my son the less obvious biblical allusions, because whatever their value, that aspect does allow an early lesson in a certain style of reading, which i didn't get until much later, and which is rewarding and mind expanding. the horse and his boy is the worst one. the last battle is a letdown.

not otm

i was pretty disappointed with the “experiment house” shade, and its “headmaster, who was a woman” and jill just kind of standing by and trying not to cry while rilian and eustace and puddle-glum use their swords

last battle is next and my son is psyched “because all the OGs will be there”

Susan's pretty deadly with her bow and arrow tho

tash tash inexorable tash

^^the most og of all

Started these for bedtime reading to the kids and finished Nephew last night. As a lapsed Catholic whose sick mother did die, I found this story uncomfortable.

also, fuck this inheritance ending. These people are always finding old bank stock notes in the attic or inheriting some great uncle's fortune.

tbf I'd probably be all Catholic mystic, too, if that shit happened to me

Former Catholic, same, though Aslan was never gentler than in this book. Lewis at his best writing those Aslan speeches about Jadis, the tree/fruit, and suffering.

also, fuck this inheritance ending. These people are always finding old bank stock notes in the attic or inheriting some great uncle's fortune.

― Enumerated funks of Walsh, Joe. (Sufjan Grafton), Saturday, 10 June 2023 17:33 (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes but this was prob p true for the likes of c s lewis et al tbf

we recently finished The Horse and His Boy, yes it is still my favourite, have to say my son didn't care for it at all though. I think there are maybe too many passages of dialogue, and using impenetrable old-fashioned language too, though I still enjoyed those. think the runaway kid adventure is a genre I generally love, and Tashbaan reminded me of Mont St Michel (I went there when I was 10 and read the book later the same year) - it just seems to have more possibilities outside the text than the other books in the series, a world barely glimpsed.

I did remember fondly the last paragraph - "..years later, when they were grown up, they were so used to quarrelling and making it up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently..." - but if I'm going to be honest there wasn't a lot of quarrelling and making up in the book, so maybe CS could have spent a bit more time on that and a little less on the heavy-handed parable stuff, idk.

yeah it is a bit racist too.

it just seems to have more possibilities outside the text than the other books in the series, a world barely glimpsed.

otm -- and why I love ....The Dawn Treader too.

Interesting: https://www.tor.com/2021/05/12/the-problems-of-susan/

Not totally sure about the fanfic, but I do appreciate the wider delve.

all critical activity is fanfic

Where is your Middle-earth novel