Lately I’ve been bumping into quotes by C.S. Lewis in unexpected places. I took that as a sign that it was time for me to revisit his Chronicles of Narnia.
Aaah! That’s fine! The book we had is falling apart, so we ordered a boxed set (the one pictured above: you can find it at amazon, or Christianbooks.com) with colorized illustrations by Pauline Baynes. I was quite surprised by how heavy the box was, until I discovered the high quality of the books: strong, glossy paper.
But it’s what’s inside the books that counts. I’ve just finished The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, a parable in which the great Lion, Aslan, stands for Jesus Christ. I can’t imagine there’s anybody here who’s totally unfamiliar with these books. Suffice it to say that these are Christian books, truth brought out through fantasy, that are just as well-loved now as they were when they first came out in the 1950s. They have stood the test of time; and if our civilization survives, they’ll be part of it.
Really, you have no idea what a relief it is to put away the nooze and pick up a Narnia book. I’m in The Magician’s Nephew now, watching in delighted astonishment as Lewis uses a mere few words to mow down all the self-important self-anointed bogus intellectuals who ever lived. Gee, I originally typed that as “self-imported.” Now I think I ought to let it stand. Self-imported they certainly are.
I love these books, and they have inspired my own. If you haven’t read Narnia yet, there’s a treat in store for you.
I was most disappointed that at the end of the series, Lewis did not “save” Susan, the beautiful sister who had rejected Narnia for a life in “the World.” It never made sense to me. Unless Susan were stupid ~ and we have no reason to believe that! ~ she experienced all that the rest of the children experienced in Narnia. Now, it is possible that when she became an “adult,” she chose a different world than that of her siblings, but certainly the deaths of her whole family and even Eustace would have intruded into the secular life she had chosen as she grew older. Lewis’ fable would have been complete had he redeemed Susan even at the end of her life.
A lot of readers have wondered about this, and we ought to remember that C.S. Lewis died when he was only 65–younger than me. Had he lived longer, he might have written that “missing” Narnia book. He did mention the possibility in a letter or two. He did have Aslan say, “Once a king or queen in Narnia, always a king or queen in Narnia.”
I like to believe Lewis would have made good on it, if he’d lived longer.
Whenever we can, we need to buy from other vendors beside Amazon. Why keep feeding the beast? It is long overdue to break up Amazon, Telecommunications, and the Big Tech monopolies. Here we are in a recession and these huge corporations are making money hand over fist while State governments mandate lock-downs that cause small business people to lose their dreams.