What a storyteller this guy is. Moreover, even though I know what is behind all of it is religious, I don't object to my kids listening to it. I thought I would, but I don't.
We're making our way through the audio Chronicles of Narnia, and we're almost done with Book 6, The Silver Chair.
Knowing the outlines of Lewis's apologia arguments in Mere Christianity, which I really should read one of these days, I've been having a fun time making the cultural literacy connections where his stories are retellings of Biblical stories.
Even though Lewis was the most famous Christian apologist of the 20th century, I find it fascinating that none of the books are heavy-handed with a Christian sense of ethics. (That, alone, would make it as unappealing as Rainbow Fish.) No, the characters just do what the situation objectively calls for. Lewis sets it up so that obedience to the will of Aslan (a lion, who represents God or Jesus depending on the context) is what is required for success in the world of Narnia. But see, that's ok, because in these books, there really is an Aslan and he really did create Narnia, with creatures with free will, and he really knows what's best for it.
That Lewis is a crafty guy. I kept looking for Biblical references in The Silver Chair and finding hardly any, until Chapter 12. The Lady of the Green Kirtle is very annoyed to discover that the our three heroes have freed Prince Rilian from her 10-year enchantment, and sets out to convince them that there was never such a thing as Narnia, after all. Other sources have said that this is a parallel to Plato's Allegory of the Cave, but I see it more as a twisting of arguments people have made against the existence of a God. I transcribed this:
"It is all a dream," the witch said, thrumming [on an instrument]. "There never was such a world... There never was any world but mine."
...
Puddleglum was still fighting hard. "I don't know rightly what you all mean by a world," he said, talking like a man who hasn't enough air. "But you can play that fiddle till your fingers drop off, and still you won't make me forget Narnia, and the whole Overworld, too....but I know, I was there once, I've seen the sky filled with stars, I saw the Sun coming out of the sea of a morning...I've seen Him up in the midday sky, when I couldn't look at Him for brightness."
,..
"Why, there it is!" cried the prince. "Of course! ...How could we have forgotten it? Of course, we've all seen the Sun!"...
Then came the witch's voice, cooing softly like the voice of a wood pigeon..."What is this Sun that you all speak of? Do you mean anything by the word?"
"Yes, we jolly well do!" said Scrub.
"Can you tell me what it's like?" asked the witch...
"Please it your Grace," said the prince very coldly and politely. "You see that lamp. It is round, and yellow, and giveth light to the whole room, and hangeth moreover from the roof. Now that thing that we call the Sun is like the lamp, only far greater and brighter. It giveth light to the whole overworld and hangeth in the sky."
"Hangeth from what, my lord?" asked the witch. And then while they were all still thinking how to answer her, she added with one of her silvery laughs, "You see, when you try to think out clearly what this Sun must be, you cannot tell me. You can only tell me it is like the lamp. Your Sun is a dream. There is nothing in that dream which is not copied from the lamp. The lamp is the real thing. The Sun is but a tale, a children's story."
"Yes, I see now, "said Jill in a heavy, hopeless tone. "It must be so." And while she said this, it seemed to her to be very good sense.
Slowly and gravely, the witch repeated, "There is no Sun."
After a pause, and after a struggle in their minds, all four of them said together, "You are right. There is no Sun." It was such a relief to give in and say it. "There never was a Sun."
[Jill brings up the subject of the lion, Aslan. The witch replies:]
"I see that we should do no better with your lion, as you call it, than we did with your Sun. You have seen lamps, so you imagined a bigger and better lamp, and called it the Sun. You have seen cats, and now you want a bigger and better cat, and it's to be called a lion. Well, 'tis a pretty make-believe, though to say truth it would suit you all a bit better if you were younger. And look how you can put nothing into your make-believe without copying it from the real world of mine, which is the only world. Come, all of you, put away these childish tricks. I have work for you all in the real world....To bed, all, and let us begin a wiser life tomorrow."
[Shortly thereafter, Puddleglum comes to himself, and proclaims:]
"Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up all those things...suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's the funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game if you're right, but four babies playing a game can make a play world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can, even if there isn't any Narnia. ... We're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for the Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think. But that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."
If there really were some objective, demonstrifiable God as there is (in the story) a Narnia, then the argument parallel that Lewis is cleverly trying to draw would hold some water. But that's one awfully fraudulent straw man that he's setting up there.
I don't object to the girls listening to this, because in the story it really is true: We have all the evidence that Narnia is real. So, given the fact that there really is a Narnia, the witch is an evil deceiver in the story. Her arguments are all just tricks to make you think that what is real is not. (Like those atheists must be doing, Lewis is implying, when they argue against the existence of God.)
Of course, Puddleglum's proclamation in that last passage is pretty bad; I certainly wouldn't want the girls to take anything positive away from it. But it really is all the Christians have. They decide to live their lives as if there were some supernatural, because they think it's better than what they've been convinced is a dull old terrible empty lonely existence here on the Third Rock.
Then again, none of them have lived with Madison and Ella.
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