{"id":96,"date":"2006-01-09T02:50:37","date_gmt":"2006-01-09T07:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=96"},"modified":"2018-08-23T22:50:33","modified_gmt":"2018-08-24T02:50:33","slug":"c-s-lewis-the-chronicles-of-narnia-the-magicians-nephew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=96","title":{"rendered":"(C. S. Lewis) The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician\u2019s Nephew"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"06-01-09<\/a>I found myself real\u00adly enjoy\u00ading this book, which is first in the sto\u00adry chronol\u00adogy of the Nar\u00adnia books, but the last to be writ\u00adten. Last month, I read a biog\u00adra\u00adphy of C. S. Lewis, and the man\u2019s per\u00adsonal life was fresh in my mind. One thing is clear: Lewis despised and resent\u00aded the British class sys\u00adtem as much as George Orwell did, and it comes across strong\u00adly in this book. He also shared Orwell\u2019s hatred for his Pub\u00adlic School expe\u00adri\u00adence. In the char\u00adac\u00adter of the Magi\u00adcian, who is mer\u00adci\u00adlessly flayed with sharp lit\u00adtle razor-cuts that a child can eas\u00adily decode, he demon\u00adstrates his loathing for the amoral tech\u00adnocrats whom he obvi\u00adously felt were tak\u00ading over the world. <\/span>Lewis and Orwell form an inter\u00adest\u00ading pair to com\u00adpare. They both wrote scathing denun\u00adci\u00ada\u00adtions of total\u00adi\u00adtar\u00adi\u00adan\u00adism, both in adult sci\u00adence fic\u00adtion and children\u2019s fan\u00adtasy. Yet, by the ide\u00ado\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal con\u00adven\u00adtions of the time, they were sup\u00adposed to be ene\u00admies of each oth\u00ader. Orwell wrote rather snide\u00adly of Lewis\u2019s radio broad\u00adcasts. How\u00adever, they pret\u00adty much feared and opposed the same things. Where Orwell thought he could fight those things with per\u00adsonal hon\u00adesty and a humane, sec\u00adu\u00adlar, demo\u00adc\u00adra\u00adtic social\u00adism, Lewis some\u00adhow man\u00adaged to see the same val\u00adues in a kind of car\u00adtoon ver\u00adsion of the Church of Eng\u00adland. His ver\u00adsion of Protes\u00adtant Chris\u00adtian\u00adity will be rather hard for fun\u00adda\u00admen\u00adtal\u00adist protes\u00adtants in the Unit\u00aded States to deal with, if they exam\u00adine it close\u00adly, and I won\u2019t be sur\u00adprised if the Nar\u00adnia films end up caus\u00ading con\u00adfu\u00adsion and dis\u00adar\u00adray among them. Those raised in the easy-going protes\u00adtant church\u00ades that dom\u00adi\u00adnate in Cana\u00adda will feel more at home with it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The series as a whole shifts in sen\u00adti\u00adment and style from one vol\u00adume to anoth\u00ader. One thing I noticed is that, as he puts basic ideas of Chris\u00adtian\u00adity into the form of a fable, the very process of doing so brings out the log\u00adi\u00adcal prob\u00adlems inher\u00adent in those beliefs. Is Aslan the one deity, the shad\u00adow of a deity, or mere\u00adly the agent of a deity? If Aslan has all this pow\u00ader, why does he seem to use it so incon\u00adsis\u00adtently and capri\u00adciously? Why, in fact, is the White Queen able to get away with any of her dirty deeds if she is not a pow\u00ader in some way com\u00adpa\u00adra\u00adble to the good pow\u00ader? The implied solu\u00adtions in the fan\u00adtasy are def\u00adi\u00adnitely not <\/em> ortho\u00addox Chris\u00adt\u00adian doc\u00adtrine. It would be impos\u00adsi\u00adble to make sat\u00adis\u00adfy\u00ading fan\u00adtasy fic\u00adtion of any that were. Lewis would almost cer\u00adtainly have found him\u00adself burned as a heretic in any world actu\u00adally con\u00adtrolled by the Church that held his alle\u00adgiance. In this, he is like most lit\u00ader\u00adary con\u00adverts to some tra\u00addi\u00adtional faith. Lewis was an ardent non-believ\u00ader and cyn\u00adi\u00adcal \u201cratio\u00adnal\u00adist\u201d for the first half of his life, of pre\u00adcisely the kind that you just know is head\u00aded for con\u00adver\u00adsion to piety. But such types almost always end up writ\u00ading up a faith of doubt\u00adful ortho\u00addoxy, no mat\u00adter how des\u00adper\u00adately they want to belong to what they pre\u00advi\u00adously despised and now embrace. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

But ortho\u00addox or not, Lewis\u2019 ver\u00adsion of Chris\u00adtian\u00adity is def\u00adi\u00adnitely humane. He hat\u00aded cru\u00adelty, hypocrisy, snob\u00adbery and greed. He thought that a sense of the mirac\u00adu\u00adlous and the accep\u00adtance of faith would work against those things. I doubt this myself, but I can see why his hopes led him in that direction.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chil\u00addren who read the series will not nec\u00ades\u00adsar\u00adily find them\u00adselves con\u00adverted to Chris\u00adtian\u00adity, but, hope\u00adfully, they will at least learn that it\u2019s not right to betray your friends to get some turk\u00adish delight.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
BL<\/span> \u2014 Read\u00ading 2006<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I found myself real\u00adly enjoy\u00ading this book, which is first in the sto\u00adry chronol\u00adogy of the Nar\u00adnia books, but the last to be writ\u00adten. Last month, I read a biog\u00adra\u00adphy of C. S. Lewis, and the man\u2019s per\u00adsonal life was \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bu-reading-2006"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9793,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions\/9793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}