Under the Moon: The Platypus Reads Part LXVI
I have a bit of a theory. I think "The Voyage of the Dawntreader" is Lewis' grail legend. If that's so, then I'd hazard a guess and say that "The Silver Chair" is his "Pilgrim's Progress." -just think about the shape of Puddleglum's hat and the fact that he lives in the Fen Country and you'll see what got me thinking down this line.
That brings me to why I like "The Silver Chair" so much. When I was little, we had a children's version of "Pilgrim's Progress" that my mom used to read to me. I lived in New England and the Christianity I was raised with had a heavy tinge of Calvinism and the Puritans. Puddleglum spoke my language. We New Englanders are cold and formal people, with more than a little well-relished pessimism. As far as Christendom goes, there's a reason why we're exiled to the ecumenical fens (those of us who haven't gone Unitarian). Still, at the uttermost, there's a vein of steel there that will stand true when all else has failed. One of my favorite images from Narnia has to be Puddleglum, when all argument has been defeated and his friends have given up, defying the green lady and her empty world right before he thrusts his bare foot into the fire to stamp it out.
People don't really like the Puritans, but Lewis reminds us why they are there. They keep going when the fair-weather Christian-hedonists have given up. A marsh wiggle may not be the most pleasant companion, but when something sets itself up against the knowledge of God, no matter how high, then they will be there to defy the tyrant to the last. Chesterton said that the sanity of Christendom was to assign a proper place for everyone. Lewis' Narnia is an outworking of that idea. So let's hear a cheer (but a very proper one) for the Puritans.
Comments
The other two favorite of mine are The Horse and His Boy and The Last Battle.
The Horse and His Boy was my favorite when I was young, but when I got older, I told myself I was silly to like it so much, because I thought I must only like it because it was exotic and full of adventure.
But when I was in the hospital for six weeks, wondering if I'd come out of it with two live children, I realized there was more to it than I'd thought. For Adam and I, the picture of slogging through the desert, with the mountains visible in the distance and never seeming to get any closer . . . well, it took on new meaning. And now I'm not so sure I was silly to like that story so much when I was little.
The older I get, the more I realize how much is in those books. A few weeks ago in the CPE process, I used the scene from Voyage about Eustice's cure from dragondom to describe some of how I feel that the process is affecting me. It's like I need to get the skin off, but Aslan needs to really scratch deep to cut it off and it's going to hurt. But it will be worth it in the end.
I enjoyed The Voyage of the Dawn Treader because rather than just seeing it as one comprehensive story (though it's that, too), I saw it as a weaving together of several smaller stories. You have the stories of each of the lords that Caspian goes out in search of, and the decisions they make that ultimately lead to their fall or their redemption, and yet here they are all being sought out, and as each is, more or less, found in turn, the crew of the Dawn Treader has the opportunity to learn from these brief glimpses into the lords' lives.
In particular, there's the island where dreams come true, and all the voices chime up wanting to go there as soon as they hear what it is... only to find that it's something far, far worse. It ends up taking all of them working together to escape the island's clutches, something they may not have done if not for the lord's warning.
I would have never thought of The Silver Chair the way you presented it if left to my own devices. Puritains are hardly common in this corner of the world. For me, what made the story so amazing is how Aslan knew that Jill and Eustace would bumble through their tasks, and yet the clues he gives them to find the prince end up still being exactly what they need. It was a great story of how God works through us in spite of our faults, and even using our faults for His own purposes and His own glory.
The Last Battle was the one that I think eventually took the spot at the very top of my list (though it has been a while since I read through the whole of the series). However, it was not until I read Tolkein nearly a decade later that I actually found the words for why I liked it so much. It was because, like all the best stories, it gets so very dark before the end, but in the end, things turn out right like they should. The monkey making himself the man-king of Narnia, the animals and creatures being swallowed by the lie, and the horror of the final battle where Narnians turn against Narnians... it's all very dark and seems quite hopeless. But then they pass through the gate, and once the waves have settled and the world we have grown to love has gone dark, a new and brighter world is revealed. More than anything else I've read, I think it was this book that shaped my theology and worldview growing up, and it is this book that reminds me that even when things get so very dark, God is waiting, in one way or another, on the other side of it, and so I will raise my head and continue to look toward Him through the darkest days, because to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
Now that I am older, I find I gravitate more towards The Horse and His Boy. (I find this highly ironic since it was my least favorite as a kid, finding it tedious to slog through all the flowery language.) I find it to be the funniest of the books, with the humor coming from characters, situations, dialog, and Lewis' commentary. Since the humor is more sophisticated than the boys turning into pigs in Prince Caspian or Eustace's difficulties writing in the sand as a dragon, it's no wonder I missed so much of it when I was younger.
It tells a great quest story. While in Dawn Treader the journey is what is important, with the lost lords serving more as MacGuffins to push the story along, and in The Silver Chair the destination is key with the whole journey working towards getting our three travelers to Rillian, in The Horse and His Boy, the journey and the destination are equally important. Shasta and Aravis both grow along the journey. But if they never reach their destination, the news of the invading Calormene army never reaches Archenland and Narnia falls to the surprise attack. This is one of the reasons why I think The Horse and His Boy is the best suited to be turned into a movie.
I love how Aslan is presented in the book. He is constantly at work, but is most active behind the scenes, orchestrating events so they play out according to His will, but never really showing up front and center until the very end when He pops in to show Rabadash for the ass that he truly is.
And it also features my favorite Lewis quote of all time: "In Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you're taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays." This really hit home in the middle of my high school freshman English class when I suddenly realized that all the writing I had done through the whole class had been essays, and the only thing that came close to being a piece of creative writing was part of our unit on the Odyssey, so it was still based on Homer.