posted on 17 Jan 2021

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

I have written before on this site about the fact that, as a child, I never read any of the books that are regularly cited as classics of the children’s literature genre. When I migrated from comics to books I leapt precipitously into some of the deeper waters of adult fiction as represented in the Penguin Modern Classics list.

As a result I have slowly, perhaps too slowly, tried to catch up with what I’ve missed and C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is one that’s been quietly nagging at me to read. Part of the reason for my tardiness has been the fact that it’s one of those books that feels such a part of the literary landscape, so often referenced, adapted and performed that I’ve somehow felt I knew the book without having to actually read it. I’m also a reluctant reader of fantasy and the idea of an extended Christian allegorical fantasy really didn’t seem to be my cup of tea.

However, I’ve felt for some time that not having read Lewis’ influential classic was a bit of a hole in my back catalogue and having a free weekend – I was between books – I thought I’d finally give it a whirl. I’m never sure what makes me finally settle on what I’m going to pick up and read but I guess that’s why you have a private library – to indulge your reading whims. On this occasion, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe seemed an ideal choice.

What surprised me most about the book was its simplicity. The plot is way less complicated than you might expect if more modern fantasy series like those written by Rowling or Pullman have been your staple diet and it can effectively be condensed into a couple of short paragraphs – as The Book Trust has done here:

“When the Pevensie children - Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy - step through a wardrobe door in the strange country house where they are staying, they find themselves in the land of Narnia. Frozen in eternal winter, Narnia is a land of snow and pine forests, and its creatures are enslaved by the terrible White Witch.

Tempted by the promise of endless Turkish Delight, Edmund becomes the White Witch's servant - and it’s up to his brother and sisters to release him from his enchantment and to rid Narnia of the witch. But just when it seems that all hope is lost, the Great Lion Aslan returns to help the children to save Narnia.”

The secret to Lewis’ success is, I think, dependent on a couple of key things: firstly, a prose style that is beautifully modulated and astonishingly direct. The voice of the author talks directly to you and, for the younger reader, there’s nothing patronising or deliberately fey about his voice.

Secondly, and for me the most important aspect of this book, is the way he doesn’t feel the need to explain or try and justify the magic. The wardrobe is a portal to another land – why and how simply doesn’t matter, it just is. I think this is incredibly important for the younger reader when it comes to fantasy settings because the minute you allow logical questions to have space, everything falls apart. Lewis is good at saying the equivalent of ‘here it is, just go with it.’

As a result, the plot isn’t overloaded and there’s plenty of space and air for the reader to build the imaginative world for themselves, to download their own detail and to embroider the environment in whatever way they want.

So I can see the reasons for its success but, for me as an adult coming to the book for the first time, I found it quite difficult to shake off my knowledge of presence of the Christian allegory that children will, I suspect, be largely unconscious of. Knowing that this sits at its heart constantly intruded as I tried to plot the working out of the symbolism. In the end I found myself almost reading this as a sort of biblical parable rather than the adventure fantasy it should really be judged as.

That’s a fault of mine as a reader and speaks more to my own prejudices than it is a criticism of the book. Perhaps more than any other children’s classic that I’ve read as an adult, I feel that I missed the boat on this one and that I really needed to read it as a youngster to really be drawn into the magic.

 

Terry Potter

January 2021