04.06.06
Posted in Interviews at 4:52 pm by Roger Overton
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe contains several prophecies, mostly regarding the Pevensie children. Why did Lewis find it important to include such prophecies in his story?
In his essay “On Stories” Lewis describes a class of stories which “turns on fulfilled prophecies” and mentions The Hobbit as one of them. According to Lewis, such stories produce “a feeling of awe, coupled with a certain sort of bewilderment such as one often feels in looking at a complex pattern of lines that pass over and under one another. One sees, yet does not quite see, the regularity.” Prophecies, Lewis further explains, allow destiny and free will to be combined in such a way that free will can be “the modus operandi of destiny,” as it is in TLWW.
Some Christians are troubled by Lewis’s use of spells and magic. Why do you believe his use of them is acceptable?
I am not one of those Christians who is troubled by Lewis’s use of spells and magic, nor am I troubled when these elements appear in the Harry Potter stories, so I may not be able to provide a very satisfying answer to those people who are. What exactly did it mean for someone to be a witch in the Old Testament? These witches seemed to tap into an evil source of power, and for this they were condemned. In the New Testament when the Magi, who were pagan astrologers, drew upon a non-evil source of power or information, they were not condemned. The good uses of magic in Narnia—from Lucy’s reading the book of spells in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader to Roonwit’s interpretation of the stars in The Last Battle—are more like the practices of the Magi than the Old Testament witches.
In Inside Narnia (148-151) you provide a lengthy discussion about the appearance of Father Christmas in Narnia. As you note, a number of prominent critics have objected to his appearance, including Lewis’s good friend J.R.R. Tolkien. Why are you in favor of his inclusion?
I am not sure I am actually in favor of his inclusion, but I certainly don’t have a problem with it. Lewis, in a letter where he gives some advice on the writing of fairy tales, points out, “In a fantasy every precaution must be taken never to break the spell, to do nothing which will wake the reader and bring him back with a bump to the common earth.” Whether or not Lewis’s decision to include Father Christmas breaks the spell and creates exactly the kind of a bump which he warned against seems to depend more upon the reader than anything in the story.
Everybody loves the line “always winter but never Christmas.” If you are going to claim that Father Christmas does not belong in Narnia, then you also have to come up with a replacement for that line. (Good luck.) If you see Father Christmas as a mythological figure, then it could be argued that he is no more out of place than any of the other figures from mythology that Lewis includes.
By the way, people always want to point out how much Tolkien disliked the Narnia stories because they differed in several very specific ways from his own idea of what fantasy should be. What critics fail to note is the deep common ground that the stories of Narnia and Middle-earth share, particularly at their very centers. Lewis and Tolkien both portray the self-centered life as small and ignoble and leading to only to isolation and misery. They both show the virtuous life to be a great adventure and the only path to real fulfillment.
It’s somewhat easy to see Aslan as an allegory for Christ, especially in light of the events at the Stone Table, but Lewis didn’t see Aslan this way. Why is this view problematic?
First, the term allegory, though often used very imprecisely, has a very specific definition. In an allegory, 1) the surface story is not the author’s main focus, instead 2) there is a second underlying meaning which is the real focus and all or nearly all of the elements in the story will point to this second underlying meaning, and 3) we will all pretty much agree on this second meaning. A perfect example of a story which should be read allegorically is Pharaoh’s dream of the seven fat and seven thin cattle.
To see the Aslan, or any of the other elements from the Chronicles, as an allegory is to completely misread the books. Lewis himself pointed out that yes, he did write a book which was meant to be read allegorically—it’s called The Pilgrim’s Regress. He also made it very clear that he was not writing that way in the Narnia stories.
Trying to make Aslan an allegory simply doesn’t work. The details connected to him do not line up neatly with those connected with Jesus. The two biggest discrepancies are 1) the fact that Edmund is reconciled without ever accepting or even knowing of Aslan’s sacrifice, and 2) when Aslan returns to life, other than his being “larger,” nothing indicates that the resurrected Aslan is any different than his earlier self. Certainly if he had wanted to, Lewis could have given the resurrected Aslan a different sort of physical body, as was true for the resurrected Christ and as Tolkien did with Gandalf.
The same sort of problem occurs if we try to see Peter and Edmund as allegories. Is Peter Pevensie supposed to be the apostle Peter because both were leaders? If so, what do we do with the other Peter’s betrayal? Maybe Edmund is supposed to be the apostle Peter; if so, who is Peter Pevensie supposed to be? If Edmund is supposed to be Judas, what do we do with Edmund’s redemption?
What’s your favorite part of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and why?
I am going mention not one but two favorite scenes which are favorites for the same reason. While in earlier readings I have liked other parts, now my favorite moments are the tea Lucy has with Mr. Tumnus and the meal the children have with the Beavers. They are my favorites because they convey the sense of ordinary goodness, the sense of a sacramental ordinary that we ourselves need to regain for the commonplace things of our own world.
Do you think the recent movie successfully portrayed a helpful perspective of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?
Your use of the word helpful here is an interesting one. I suppose we could say that Andrew Adamson’s film adaptation was helpful in a number of ways. It certainly captured a good deal of the magic from the book, particularly, I think, in its first half. And it has certainly sent many people to Lewis’s original for a first reading or back again for a re-reading.
In attempting to portray the fact that Aslan is both “good and terrible” at the same time, the film did not make him terrible enough for my tastes. But there is hope that if the filmmakers read some of the reviews which pointed this out this profound sense of awe which is partly missing, they will be able to make the Aslan who appears in Prince Caspian a little less safe than he was in the first film.
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04.03.06
Posted in Interviews at 11:26 am by Roger Overton
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Of all the people throughout history whose works and personality you could have studied, why have you spent so much time with C.S. Lewis?
There’s that wonderful phrase in Shadowlands, “We read to know we’re not alone.” I would guess that the many of your readers feel alone lots of times because they are members of the small sub-culture of Christian thinkers. For various reasons, some of which are apparent and others which are not, in our generation many of the people who think carefully and deeply are looking to other answers besides Christianity. Conversely those who are looking to Christianity often do not tend towards much serious thought.
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I find most sermons today uninspiring simply because there is not enough thought behind them. After one particularly disappointing message, I asked my wife, “Where do Christians who think go for inspiration?” Unless you are lucky to have a group of mature Christian thinkers in your neighborhood, the answer is that you find an author who can fill your need for serious spiritual nourishment. For my wife this has been Henri Nouwen. For me it’s C. S. Lewis.
Secondly, I am of the opinion that everyday life is a lot harder than we typically let on. An ordinary day for me has more confusion, frustration, complexity, and sheer exhaustion than I would ever have expected when I was younger. So where does the power come from? Obviously, it comes from God above and the Spirit within, but what does this power come through? Lewis’s fiction is able to inspire me in ways that I have never been able to fully explain. After I read it, I am somehow stronger and life somehow easier.
In your opinion, why have the Narnian chronicles been so popular, not only among children, but also among adults? Furthermore, why has there been so much literary analysis of these books?
Daniel Taylor has written about a certain, special kind of story that tells us “who we are, why we are here, and what we are to do.” This special type of story gives us “our best answer to all of life’s big questions, and to most of the small ones as well.” According to Taylor, these special stories “receive us at birth, accompany us through the stages of life, and prepare us for death.” They give pattern “to otherwise chaotic experience, making it memorable and meaningful.” I am sure that for most of their readers, the Narnia books contain exactly this type of story.
Rolland Hein has pointed out, “Myth is something people desperately need, cannot, in fact live without. No other demand so profoundly defines our humanity. When true myths are absent, false ones rush in to fill the vacuum.” I would argue that one reason why the Narnia books have been so widely popular with both younger and older readers is because they have been so deeply needed.
And why so much analysis? Because there is so much in these works to discover, analyze, and to think about. In addition I would add that the activity of analysis adds to our enjoyment of them. Finally, reading the stories is an activity we engage in as individuals. Reading literary analysis and responding in discussion groups or in blogs like yours becomes a way to enjoy these works as part of a larger community.
You note in Inside Narnia that the wardrobe is “wild in the sense that it can not be forced to allow entrance into Narnia.” (58) Why do you think this is, considering it seemed to allow the children to exit Narnia as they pleased?
Near the start of The Silver Chair, Eustace, who has met Aslan, is talking with Jill, who has not, about how they might enter Narnia. Eustace tells her, “It can’t do any harm just asking,” but is quick to make it clear Aslan would not like any actions that “would look as if we thought we could make him do things.” The wardrobe seems to have a will of its own, meaning it can’t be forced to allow passage to Narnia. But readers soon figure out that the wardrobe is subject to Aslan’s will, that he is the one behind all the stories, including the story of the wardrobe.
In the New Testament, we come across the phrase “in the fullness of time,” an expression which means all the circumstances are just right and everything is in place. Here with the wardrobe’s picking times of its own choosing, we have a similar sense of the fullness of time.
My good friend and fellow Lewis-scholar Don King has pointed out that while the wardrobe permits the children to enter Narnia only at certain times, once there none of them are compelled to stay. They are always given the choice to turn their backs on the invitation to adventure and to return to the safety and comfort of the Professor’s house.
What were some of the literary influences Lewis used to compose The White Witch?
Tracking down Lewis’s influences could be a book in itself. Certainly he used aspects from a number of literary sources to then create characters which were all his own. The White Witch has elements in common with Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen. Both characters seem fair but feel foul, to borrow words from Frodo. Like Tolkien’s villain Sauron, the Witch desires to dominate everyone around her, to “rule them all.” Like Milton’s Satan, she will not be a subject, but must be a tyrant and have subjects of her own.
In one sense, the creators of all of these villains drew upon the same source: real tyrants, who, despite great differences in time and place, all share similar motivations and a similar narrowness of perspective.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe contains several prophecies, mostly regarding the Pevensie children. Why did Lewis find it important to include such prophecies in his story?
In his essay “On Stories” Lewis describes a class of stories which “turns on fulfilled prophecies” and mentions The Hobbit as one of them. According to Lewis, such stories produce “a feeling of awe, coupled with a certain sort of bewilderment such as one often feels in looking at a complex pattern of lines that pass over and under one another. One sees, yet does not quite see, the regularity.” Prophecies, Lewis further explains, allow destiny and free will to be combined in such a way that free will can be “the modus operandi of destiny,” as it is in TLWW.
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02.22.06
Posted in Interviews at 12:46 am by Roger Overton
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“We most accurately discern the spiritual world of Narnia in the biography of Aslan.” (xvii, Not a Tame Lion) Why is Aslan so central to the Narnian chronicles?
“He’s the King, I tell you.” That statement from Mr. Beaver really says it all. Aslan is the creator, savior, sustainer, convener, adjourner of Narnian history and destiny, the end and the goal of its existence. To try to read Narnia as “just” a children’s adventure tale is to miss the grander vision at work in Narnia, and to read it as a tale of smart, savvy wanderers who experience an initiation into adulthood—this is to trivialize it. It is quite necessary to see it a “canonical” set of seven tales, and thus crucial to see each story and cast of characters in the context of the whole . . . What happens to Susan is just as dear to Aslan as what happens to Reepicheep. Digory’s story as poignant as it is, is no more so than Eustace’s—and what ties everyone, every theme, every incident together is Aslan and his active presence and nurture. So we must start with him. And end with him.
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Why is it important to understand Aslan as being untamed; as being “not safe, but good?”
If Aslan is the King who lays down his life for his friends and then takes it up again—he must be free and untethered, must be able to obey his own rules, even if it means his own demise. He must seen as wild and untamed precisely for his willingness to witness to the truth under any and all circumstances. Only then can the cost of goodness, and the risk of obedience, be calculated. And also, only then, is it possible to see its reward: pleasing the Emperor-Beyond-Sea, His father. Aslan’s goodness—and ours—rules out safety as a virtue, just as Jesus rebukes the young ruler in Mark’s Gospel for calling him “good” without a clear sense of what it is he is really saying or implying, “There is one who is good, and that is God.” If he had known what he was saying, he would realize that he was confessing Jesus is the Son of God, and Jesus cautions that that kind of faith inevitably requires him to lay down all his possessions and to follow him. Likewise, Aslan is, reversing Mr. Beaver, “GOOD, but not SAFE,” and thereby challenges our concept of goodness, and redeems our fears of insecurity. Aslan will not leave his beloved alone—they will be changed if they seek and stay in his presence. Good thing He’s good!
In Not a Tame Lion you explore many of the spiritual and moral qualities of Narnia as experienced by its characters. Can you give us a taste of one of these qualities?
Let’s take the famous “liar-lunatic-or-Lucy” argument early in LWW. This is the scene where Peter and Susan give incredulity a bad name. Lucy has gone to Narnia, Edmund has lied about his sojourn there, and the “older, wiser” Pevensies conduct their interview with the Professor as an occasion to reinstate their authority over their two squabbling siblings. Kirke will have none of that, and asks a series of unsettling rhetorical questions that turn Peter and Susan inside-out. Reason is no ally, or, rather, is, but not in the way they thought. Reason must yield to “revelation” (“other worlds, just around the corner”) and, thus chastened, is liberated to embrace the imagination as a partner-organ for the discovery of truth. Lucy, by sight, not faith, enters Narnia; the other Pevensies are then called upon to exercise faith in their sister’s report based not only on reason but also on past experience; Kirke calls this “logic,” and it is, but only the kind that “they don’t teach you in schools.” It’s the kind you acquire by first acknowledging that you indeed live in a universe with many mansions, the most important of which are unlocked by the imagination, by the heart. See “Nicodemus.”
Though Lewis didn’t experience postmodernism to the degree we do, his work still speaks to our experiences today. You note that, “Reason and imagination are held in useful, creative tension in Narnia, given Lewis’s romantic worldview.” (181) In a culture that often frowns upon reason (or rationality), how might Lewis respond?
I don’t think we have to guess. Certainly, The Abolition of Man is “about” some of the fallout of what we could call incipient postmodernism. He forecast that rationality itself would be under attack, and precisely because of post-Enlightenment attitudes that enshrine science as the new opiate of the people. Science makes a good servant but a terrible master. He knew that Westerners would not endure evolutionary anthropology, whether trumpeted as “fact-based” or not, for long—since it “abolished man,” i.e., made a man an anachronism in his own universe. So, he mused (and treated novelistically in That Hideous Strength) there would be the rise of a “conditioner” class, who in the name of education, would politely indoctrinate students in the belief that their existence had no dramatic or ultimate beginning or ending. Their “job’ so to speak was to reduce humanity to basic instincts and behaviors that could allow for “peaceable” (i.e., conformist) communities. Voila, the 1960s (ala B. F. Skinner).
When you do that, you also destroy the motivation to tell stories in a certain way or to “believe” them in any traditional sense. The whole enterprise ironically, at least as Lewis depicted it, reveals that religion’s demise in the West is a double calamity—we lose reason AND faith: since faith provides the ultimate foundation for trusting reason in the first place. What’s left is the imagination without compass—tempered by neither grace nor nature, and left to self-indulgence and a rather naked hedonism. Cf. the Internet.
Lewis’s description of longing (what Kreeft calls the “argument from desire” and you call the “appeal to homesickness”) has captivated the hearts and minds of countless readers. Why is it so appealing?
We are exiles from Eden, castaways trying to hack our way back into Heaven by our own ingenuity, and doomed to failure without outside intervention. We are those who long for news from home, who know it when we hear it. Lewis’ works, like many Western Christian writers of the past two centuries in particular (e.g., G. K. Chesterton, Walker Percy, Flannery O’Connor) seize this metaphor and call people homeward. The longing for a true homeland, a place of rest and reunion, is nearly a universal in world culture and its stories. Lewis tells us tales that have not only the ring of truth, but are, in fact, true. They are true not in some hedging-our-bets, Pascalian wager, hope-against-hope sort of way, but a surety, a truth in the most basic, straightforward sense, reminding: “our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. . .” (Phil. 3:20).
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02.21.06
Posted in Interviews at 10:38 am by Roger Overton
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Of all the people throughout history whose works and personality you could have studied, why have you spent so much time with C.S. Lewis?
Clearly, because of the impact his work and life have had on me personally and professionally. I grew up in a very fundamentalist, sectarian environment, and attended a very conservative Bible college. . . Ironically, it was there I was introduced to Lewis’s work in an apologetics class. To paraphrase Lewis, “a young fundamentalist cannot be too careful of his reading. . .” He pulled me out of my “true church” sect, and led me to “mere Christianity”: a welcome rescue. After a period of local church ministry, then I went on to further graduate studies, and eventually the PhD, where Lewis was a natural topic for me, but not, at the time, especially his fiction or fantasy, but rather his “hermeneutics,” his literary critical principles. I wrote a dissertation on his principles for sound literary encounter, and in return got quite a salutary discipleship experience.
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In Not a Tame Lion you claim that what makes Lewis effective for readers today “is not his formidable skill of philosophical argumentation, the considerable lucidity of his prose, or the legendary perspicacity of his reading and scholarship.” (190) In your opinion, what is it that makes him effective?
As I say in the book, it’s his identification with the lost, his understanding of what it means, in Walker Percy’s terms, to be a “wayfarer” in this world. His empathy and grace in dealing with the homelessness and homesickness attendant to living in a fallen world is what extends his audience into the 21st century and beyond. Lewis’s narrative voice reveals a winsome memoirist who comforts, challenges, counsels, and cajoles readers who share his sense of “being made for another world.”
Most fans, including myself, were introduced to Lewis through the Chronicles of Narnia. Especially since the publisher rearranged them, there’s been some debate over which volumes should be read first. In your important preface to Further Up & Further In, you suggest that the order is something like the Old and New Testaments. What do you mean by that?
Well, I believe that the “original” order, the order of publication and the order, more or less, in which Lewis wrote them, is the appropriate one. As I say in FURTHER, how would you best introduce someone to Christ—start him reading in Genesis and hope he makes it to the New Testament, or give him a copy of the Gospels of John or Matthew straightaway? We need to meet Aslan as savior and protector before we meet him as creator; we need to go through the wardrobe first or the history and origins of Narnia make no sense—dramatically or eschatologically. Besides, there are too many spoilers in The Magician’s Nephew; to put that one first would always ruin the magic of LWW. Chronology be darned!
Further Up & Further In is certainly a different type of book than most readers are used to reading. Instead of telling the reader what to think about Narnia, you aim to offer a unique perspective. Can you tell us a little about your approach and why you chose it?
I tried to write a book about LWW that kept the reader inside Narnia and did not send her continually “outside” to check references, trace allusions, examine character traits, or create “lessons.” The story is the thing. I tried to follow principles Lewis himself enunciates in An Experiment in Criticism; It is, admittedly, a paradoxical effort, but one that I enjoyed immensely. What I have tried to accomplish—and, for many readers, seem to have done successfully—is to start a dialogue with the reader as if we were telling the story aloud and experiencing the adventure together with Lucy and her clan. Thus, the effect is to be “looking along” rather than “looking at” the story as it unfolds. We want to look through the eyes of the characters and to see what they see, rather than at each other and addressing our evolving questions. The questions get answered by experiencing the story, not by checking the encyclopedia. So my “companionship” to the reader is meant to be an “indigenous” rather than “intrusive” experience.
Do you think the recent movie successfully portrayed a helpful perspective of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?
As far as the movie goes—I can’t state succinctly all that is genuinely gratifying or disappointing in it, but I can certainly say that I am happy with 85% of it. It’s that 15% that keeps one up at night (or did): the skewered dialogue foreshadowing Aslan’s first appearance, the deployment of Aslan during his actual screen time, and his lamentably truncated explanation of how “deep magic” worked redemptively (since the “deeper magic” and the Emperor-beyond-sea never get referenced) are the key personal criticisms I would venture. But I think the broader achievement of the movie, and the unmistakable identification/recognition of an adoring worldwide audience, is to be celebrated; a window has opened on the world of the supernatural for many viewers (and new readers), and we can be grateful for this gift.
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