Lessons I Have Learned From Reading C. S. Lewis's Narnia Books
Posted 2 September 2008 in Books by Catriona
Since books taught me all I needed to know about navigating my way through girls’ boarding schools, especially if they exist in the 1930s, I assumed that reading the Narnia books would give me the necessary information to become royalty in an imaginary universe—or at least to rule wisely, once that state of being comes about.
If I never unexpectedly become High Queen of a fantasy kingdom (and if that’s the case, I’ll be rather annoyed, frankly), at least I’ll have grasped the following important points:
1. Wardrobes are inherently untrustworthy. Not only do they sometimes contain fantasy kingdoms, which is confusing if you’re only trying to locate your winter clothes, but they also sometimes don’t contain fantasy kingdoms.
I know! It seems unfair to me, too.
In fact, sometimes the same wardrobe can randomly switch in a matter of moments between being a magical gateway to another kingdom and a space-wasting repository for clothes that, let’s face it, I’ll never wear again.
This has taught me two things.
Firstly, if someone walks in on you while you’re trying to see if your wardrobe is the magic kind, it can be very embarrassing. Especially if you’re in your twenties at the time.
Secondly, it’s safer just to keep your clothes in random piles on the floor, and save yourself the heartache.
2. Bears are stupid. So are giants. Giant stupidity is worse, however; giants are prone to bursting out of the woods at completely the wrong point during a battle, causing horrific casualties to their own side.
At least the worst a bear will do is suck on its own paws when it’s supposed to be acting as a marshall during your duel with a usurper. This will, necessarily, make the entire army look gormless, but it probably won’t be fatal.
(Except perhaps to the bear, depending on whether you’re a beneficent monarch or not.)
3. Spending your childhood and much of your adult life as rulers of a fantasy kingdom and then unexpectedly finding yourself falling out of a wardrobe back into your adolescence in 1940s’ England presents no problems at all for your mental health.
You won’t find it difficult to head back to boarding school when you’ve been accustomed to subduing giants on your northern border or partaking in tournaments in the Lone Islands.
You won’t end up in trouble from shouting “Uncover before your queen, knave!” to people whom you pass in the street.
You won’t have any trouble whatsoever reconciling the fact that you’ve lived several extra decades and are now a child again, despite the fact that you remember those decades in sharp detail, right down to the specific occasion on which you lost one of your chessmen while playing in the orchard outside your castle.
Clearly, anyone who suffers a psychotic break under such trifling circumstances is not fit to be a king or queen, anyway.
4. Kissing a badger is not a girlish thing to do if you’re a king. (Or, presumably, a girl.)
This dictate refers specifically to a kingly salute to the badger’s forehead. The books are rather silent on whether snogging a badger is a girlish thing to do.
(Note: this blog does not recommend snogging badgers. In fact, underlying every entry on this blog, no matter how far removed the subject matter may seem, is a strong recommendation not to try and snog a badger.)
5. Foreigners can’t be trusted, especially if they dye their beards scarlet.
The problem is that you can’t always tell which people are the foreigners (unless they dye their beards scarlet).
Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve don’t count as foreigners, to begin with. But the Telmarines—who are as human as anyone, being descended from pirates who happened to find their way through a gap in reality—do count as foreigners. At least, the bad ones do. And no-one ever explains whether the people from Archenland are also Telmarines, or where the Calormenes come from.
At this point, it’s often easier to give up and just stick to trusting badgers.
6. Bears that have lived on honey are fruit are apparently delicious, whereas bears that are meat-eaters taste rather revolting.
You’ll have to trust the books on this one, since I have no intention of attempting to eat a bear (for, oh, so many reasons. I mean, have you seen a bear? They’re enormous!).
7. But the most important lesson is this: if you’re too interested in boys and nylons, you’ll never be allowed back to Narnia, even if you die in a railway accident.
I understand the embargo on boys (although I’m not sure if the embargo applies to both genders, or whether the embargo also applied to girls) but I’ve never really understood what’s so sinful about tights.
Still, better safe (and cold in winter) than sorry, eh?
Share your thoughts [14]
1
Wendy wrote at Sep 2, 12:49 pm
I knew I had a good reason for keeping my clothes in “random piles on the floor”…
2
Catriona wrote at Sep 2, 11:43 pm
I hesitate to admit it, but there may be some ret-conning going on here. There’s a slight possibility that I’m merely thinking, “Hmm, what’s a plausible reason for using every surface of my house other than my wardrobe for storing clothes?”
Childhood trauma due to the inability to find my way into a magical kingdom was the closest to plausible that I could get.
3
Tim wrote at Sep 2, 11:44 pm
Re 3: The end of LTWTW indicates that the Pevensies lose (or suppress) most of their memories when they return to Earth. Also note that in LB, Eustace mentions Susan as saying ‘What wonderful memories you have! Fancy you still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.’ Presumably some of them retain or re-remember general events, but they begin to remember more details once they go back.
Re 5: We know from the timeline that Calormen was founded by outlaws from Archenland, and Archenland was settled by the followers of Prince Col, son of Frank V. Admittedly, we don’t know the ancestry of Col’s followers; it’s possible they were all descendants of King Frank and Queen Helen, or alternatively there were other human arrivals in Narnia’s first two centuries.
4
Catriona wrote at Sep 3, 12:02 am
Ah, I was waiting for someone to mention the memory suppression!
I, personally, think it’s ambiguous.
Certainly, as they pass through Lantern Waste at the end of the Golden Age, their memories of life in England return. We’re also told that as they reign in Narnia, they come to remember their early life in England as a dream.
But when they return to England, they tell Professor Kirke of events, and he believes the “whole story.” That’s an ambiguous phrase: it could mean that he believes everything that they tell them (with no information on how comprehensive that is) or that they tell him absolutely everything and he believes it.
Similarly with the memories that return when they camp in Cair Paravel in Prince Caspian. Susan says that finding the chessman “brought back—oh, such lovely times!” I also think that that phrase is ambiguous: it could mean that she’s only just starting to remember things that have been repressed, or it could just be referring to a specific spur to memory (which we all experience, even without missing decades).
On the other hand, we’re told at the beginning of Voyage of the Dawn Treader that Edmund and Lucy talk about Narnia a good deal, when they get the chance. That suggests that they do have memories of it. Perhaps these are just general memories, but I do think the text is ambiguous on this matter.
(I also wouldn’t trust Susan’s attitude on this matter, since she consciously turns her back on Narnia. And we have a sense that she’s doing this from early on in their adventures, and doing it knowingly, when she believes Lucy sees Aslan in Prince Caspian but argues against following him anyway.)
Now I didn’t remember those details about Archenland and Calormen. Are those from The Last Battle or The Silver Chair? (Those are my least favourite books, and I don’t re-read them very often—though I think I’ve done The Silver Chair, at least, a disservice.)
5
Tim wrote at Sep 3, 12:37 am
Yes, it also seems that the younger children remember more. I don’t think it’s all that ambiguous within LTWTW, but the effect is apparently reduced in later books.
The historical details are from the timeline (unpublished in Lewis’s lifetime) that Lewis gave to Walter Hooper.
6
Catriona wrote at Sep 3, 12:47 am
Ah! I’m pleased that the historical details didn’t come from the books. I had no memory of that whatsoever and, while my memory’s not that sharp, I would have hoped that it would at least ring a bell.
I agree the ambiguity is not as great in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (which, on another note, should win an award for “most potentially ridiculous book title that actually turns out to be awesome”) as it is in later books. But, then, I know nothing about the publication history of these books: if Lewis never intended to write a series but was emboldened to by early success, then that would explain the relatively closed ending of the first Pevensie adventure as well as the more open conclusions to later books.
(I do agree that the younger children remember more, but I’d also like to be able to compare their memories with Peter’s. He’s such a cypher after Prince Caspian. But, as I argued above, I don’t think Susan is the most effective comparison, since she does actively reject Narnia—we know Peter doesn’t do that, because he ends up there at the end of The Last Battle.)
7
Tim wrote at Sep 3, 01:13 am
Does Susan actively reject Narnia, or does she lose her memory of Narnia because of her active acceptance of a secular/materialist lifestyle?
(Answer in 500 words or less. MLA referencing preferred. Please use the official cover page provided.)
8
Catriona wrote at Sep 3, 01:23 am
Well, that’s unanswerable, isn’t it? Or, rather, you could effectively argue from either perspective.
My argument, clearly, would be the first. But perhaps one could also argue that Susan is more restricted than the others in her ability to fit herself to living in more than one world. She can live fully in one or the other, but can’t straddle both as easily as, say, Lucy can.
After all, Susan’s the only one who is reluctant about continuing to chase the White Stag when it disappears past Lantern Waste.
It could be that she gives herself so fully to whatever world she happens to be living in that there’s no room for anything else.
9
John wrote at Sep 3, 03:02 am
So, no snogging of badgers then?
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Catriona wrote at Sep 3, 03:11 am
I give this advice for your own good. Have you seen the teeth and claws on a badger?
I’m willing to withdraw the recommended embargo if you have proof positive of the badger’s consent.
Otherwise, it’s just commonsense.
11
Tim wrote at Sep 3, 03:30 am
> Well, that’s unanswerable, isn’t it? Or, rather, you could effectively argue from either perspective.
Exactly.
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Matthew Smith wrote at Sep 3, 05:48 am
Bah it’s all just allegories for some theological point that Lewis was trying to make against some other crusty dude, he had no love for those children.
13
jaima wrote at Nov 20, 05:42 pm
Ithink he is a magician and he had a great result in science
14
Catriona wrote at Nov 24, 04:34 am
I think you could be right, there, Jaima.