Chronicles of Narnia

Surprised there isn't a thread for this book series yet.

So what do people think of the Susan problem?

I think that seeing her relatives dead was way out of proportion for being a teenager who thought superficial trappings of adult life made an adult (as far as I can tell this is the most generous reason behind the nylons and lipsticks remark) and even for dismissing Narnia as made-up.

I agree, this is not at all unusual teenage behaviour, and leaving her behind on earth with her entire family dead seems excessively cruel.

There’s a very good discussion of it on tor.com in this piece: https://www.tor.com/2021/05/12/the-problems-of-susan/

Who is saying that Susan was forever left behind?

I think something that confuses matters is that Susan's rejection of Narnia is simultaneously:

1) Her forgetting/dismissing her childhood make-believes now that she's older. 2) Her turning her back on the Christian spirituality that Aslan and Narnia represent. 3) Her going full repressed memory when it comes to Narnia, denying the reality of her own experiences.

There's two different metaphors going on at once, as well as the literal interpretation where Susan is insisting something never happened when it undeniably, one hundred percent, actually did. How you blend those different readings together, and which aspects you place the most emphasis on, can lead to wildly different views of what's happening here.

Well, that's the implication with the Christian allegory. You don't get to turn your back on lion-Jesus and still go to lion-heaven.

If that were the case then the story would have just had her join the dwarves in denying the reality around them. She's not in Real Narnia or Real Earth because she's not dead, and so hasn't had the option. She still has her lifetime to come back around to acknowledging Narnia and Aslan as real and finding her way back to them.

@Galadriel - that is a very good and succint article, I especially liked the respect it showed to the readers' interpretations AND to authorial intent, proving that even when they differ they are not mutually exclusive.

Well fair is fair if you go strictly by Christian allegory, Saint Peter is said to have rejected/denied knowing Christ three times in a very short timeframe before seeing the error of his ways, and since his repentance was sincere he was made the first Pope. There's also Saint Paul who was an avid and active persecutor of early Christians and made such a change of heart half the New Testament is his sermons/letters.

Edited by akanesarumara on Aug 1st 2021 at 10:03:01 AM

Those are good points. So maybe Susan will become a saint, then.

I'm rereading the books, and I noticed something interesting: once Jadis has arrived in our world and has left the room, Polly is basically like "well, she's your problem now, bye", and goes home. Both kids seem to be pretty nonplussed about what they are supposed to do about her, it seems.

Well what can they do about her, really. Plus she's now run off in Narnia with no way to go back to their world, and even if she did go back to their world, she's powerless there and thus not a threat.

I mean they are just kids. Not sure their is anything they can do?

True, but even for kids they seem rather unconcerned, especially since they seemed to understand the threat perfectly well a chapter earlier when Jadis mentions she wants to conquer our world.

Man, I had forgotten how funny Magicians' Nephew is, especially once we arrive in Narnia. Lewis made sure to insert plenty of comedy and mild snarking when things threaten to get too serious.

According to the book, that bird made the first joke in Narnia, but I'm pretty sure Fledge was the actual first one, with his snarky comment about not really knowing all that much yet after Aslan's impressive proclamation to the animals. That horse is quite the comedian once he starts talking.

Man, Narnia sure seems small in the story. From Fledge's back, they can see all the way to pretty much every place ever mentioned in the books, and that's before they fly over that cliff. Either it's a tiny place altogether, or that cliff is miles high.

I’d like to reread The Magician’s Nephew, it’s been a while.

I love the idea of the Wood Between Worlds. When I was a kid I decided that all the other pools led to worlds from other books, so you could go there and hop into any universe you liked - Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, whatever.

If you read some of Lewis' apologetic work you'll see that no, Susan's ultimate fate is by no means decided. Lewis wrote a story, The Great Divorce, about souls in Hell being allowed an opportunity to visit heaven and repent, a heaven quite similar to the true Narnia in The Last Battle with its "upward and inward". Susan is still alive at the conclusion of the series, with most of her life ahead of her. There is plenty of room for her to re-connect with her childhood spiritual experiences.

Edited by Bense on Aug 2nd 2021 at 6:40:14 AM

The article Galadriel linked up above even shows some of Lewis' letters pointing out that Susan could very well get back to Narnia "in her own way". He didn't write it because he felt the story would "be longer and more like a grown up novel" that he wanted to do.

He then encouraged the person he was writing the letter to to write that story themselves if they so wanted to. Which is probably the earliest blessing of fanfiction from an author I've ever seen.

I noticed on the Fridge page for the books that someone raised an interesting premise; That the Chronicles of Narnia (minus The Last Battle) are actually the stories Susan herself told to Lewis to write down based on her own memories or what others told her about their adventures.

That reminds me, earlier today I discovered that Tolkien considered killing off Pippin near the end of LOTR, but CS Lewis and some others were like, "Nah, man. Pippin's too cool to die" and argued that Gollum dying was enough. I like to think that makes Lewis the godfather of all of Pippin's descendants and somewhere down the line one of them has a crazy uncle who makes some magic rings and Pippin Jr is like, "This feels familiar..." but puts it on anyway and ends up dragging himself and his gal pal on some adventures.

Yeah, Susan's still a young woman, and the death of all her siblings might be something that could push her back to Narnia to reminisce about happier times and possibly pass that on to her own children. Susan struck me as one of those girls that wanted to grow up as fast as possible and leave her "childish fantasies" behind her.

So since there is a Narnia heaven at the end of the series, would that pool now lead there?

The pool probably dried up like Charn's did. Not like they need it anymore. The heavens on Earth and Narnia are already in sight of each other, I'd imagine you can just go further in and higher up and you'd get from one to the other soon enough.

Makes me wonder what Charn's looks like. There was good there too at one point.

Edited by Parable on Aug 2nd 2021 at 6:03:22 AM

It's probably also noteworthy that Lewis put Susan in a position similar to what he himself had been in - someone who lost their childhood faith during their adolescence. And Lewis wasn't merely irreligious, he considered himself an atheist during that period of his life. He didn't come back to Christianity until his early thirties.

I remember thinking Pippin had died the first time I read Lord of the Rings. His encounter with a troll at the Black Gate reads very much like a death scene.

I would think the Narnia pool dried up when Narnia was destroyed, just as Charn's had. It seems unlikely to me that there would be pools that lead directly to a world's heaven. That would be, in a sense, too easy.

Edited by Bense on Aug 2nd 2021 at 7:53:15 AM

Yeah, that puts a very different spin on it. Makes me think that Lewis really should have spent a little more time on that after all.

I wonder if Lewis has ever been trapped in a closet as a child. He sure keeps going on after not closing the door behind you.

Also, what kind of closets are these that you can trap yourself inside them?

Wait, where did Mrs Beaver get an electric sewing machine? I thought Narnia was supposed to be Medieval Stasis? Where is the electricity for it coming from? Or perhaps Mr Beaver is running Narnia's first hydroelectric dam.

Edited by Redmess on Aug 4th 2021 at 4:54:48 PM

It’s not a closet, it’s a wardrobe. Tall wooden box with doors, that you hang clothes in. Not as common now.

And I expect he emphasized it because kids COULD shut themselves in wardrobes and get stuck and he didn’t want his young readers doing so.

Edited by Galadriel on Aug 4th 2021 at 8:43:59 AM

You notice all sorts of little details when you read it as an adult. Like how Mr Beaver is drinking a pint at dinner, and I'm pretty sure Mrs Beaver handed everyone a drink of alcohol or something in that hiding hole, the way it is being described as burning in your throat and then making you all nice and warm.