C. S. Lewis

[maeve66]

And no, I haven't read The Screwtape Letters. But this semi-rant comes out of the general floating cultural reactions to the Narnia movie, as well as to many people who've counterposed it to Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. As such, it's in part a reaction to mistersmearcase's recent discussion of trying to read Pullman and his general distaste for fantasy novels, YA or otherwise, and in part a reaction to flowerlane's post about the Narnia movie. A lot of it is directly the comment I tried to make to flowerlane's post, but couldn't because of my mother's clunky old computer (no more -- now, she'll have DSL and a shiny new itty-bitty iBook).

So, for background: I like fantasy. I don't mind allegory, as long as I understand the allegory I'm being presented. I don't mind not understanding how everything in a fantasy works (this is to mistersmearcase, because it just seems like an extension of the "willing suspension of disbelief" notion. I do love Diana Wynne Jones, and loved most classic YA fantasy, from fairytales (Grimm Bros., Hans Christian Anderson*, the Fill-in-the-blank Color Fairytale books, to multicultural anthologies of same -- to mythologies from Greek to Norse. As an atheist child, I didn't distinguish between mythology, fairy stories, and religion. Seriously.

But C. S. Lewis is a special case, because to me, his work is only a slightly more polished version of exactly the sort of brainwashing he decries in his sci fi books, and to an extent in the Narnia books. Judging only from his young adult fiction and sci-fi work, he was very concerned that the secular humanists and commies and, secondarily, fascists, were taking over the world and destroying both the simple faith in a not-so-simple religion, and the irrational pleasure in "magic" that is the birthright of children. His is propaganda work, in other words, and it is propaganda work that is working really hard in exactly the areas that flowerlane identified in the movie, which (not having seen it yet) does seem to be pretty faithful to the book. His specific targets were: create a sense of wonder in children in the central tenets of Christianity, through surrogate figures; reinforce a basic system of Western "morals" and "ethics"; and reinforce standard Western gender roles for women.

Now, I will type the above (and the below) knowing full well that I liked the Narnia books AND his sci fi, as a child, though always with a twitching sense of unease. I could at one and the same time enjoy the stories and shudder at them slightly, knowing what I felt I was also seeing in them.

flowerlane's entry is a reaction to the movie, which she walked out of. And this was my response:

The worst thing I've read here (not having seen it yet, and somewhat dubious about doing so) is the change in the faun Tumnus. That's gross. For the rest of it, it's exactly the subtext and surface, too, of the book. Lewis was going (I think) for the pretty highly sadistic and sexualized Passion of the Christ with Aslan's sacrifice, and the shaving is just the Crown of Thorns, the binding is the scourging, etc. The first time I read it as a child, I cried and cried, and it was a pretty reliable weeper until my most recent rereading, which was last week. But I got the Christian allegory I think even the first time through it, when I was ten or whatever, and it made me very ambivalent and conflicted. The whole series did.

If you dislike this one, you should (well, should not, I guess) read The Last Battle, which is the final book in the series and an allegory of death and the hereafter, featuring the contrasting fates of faithful believers in Aslan, faithful believers (not their charlatan priests) in Pagan gods (in this case, a thinly disguised Islam), and atheists -- the grossly and curmudgeonly materialist dwarves. Guess who gets the worst of it? There's a scene at the end of the book when the rest of the (dead) characters are locked in a stable, but escape out the back into a purer, more "real", deeper Narnia. The dwarves refuse to leave the filthy stable and muck, because that's all they can perceive. NICE. C. S. Lewis was nothing if not theologically consistent.

For his adult version, see the sci fi trilogy Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength, all of which feature bonus anti-Communist plots, identification of Communism with Totalitarianism, and the worst, most awful essentialist gender stereotyping imaginable. Yes, I've been known to read stuff that horrifes and angers me. More than once. If I'm not mistaken, That Hideous Strength (which features a reawakened Merlin defending the Real Britain against modern scientific totalitarianism) has a nod to Louis Althusser in its arch-villain, a head-in-a-box who is a famous scientist who went mad after murdering his wife. I don't know. Maybe I'm making that bit up, in part. I know I read the book not long after learning that about Althusser (that he'd murdered his wife and gone mad)... he of the "base and superstructure is right ... in the final analysis", a construction I've always been fond of.

* and speaking of insinuating Christian ethics and morals in fairy tales; Hans Christian Anderson is the originator of that trope, I swear to god. His stories are horrific in their guilt-steeped and sadistically fitted punishments for failing one or other of the commandments. "The Red Shoes"? "The Little Girl Who Trod on a Loaf"? YIKES.

Comments

[flowerlane.livejournal.com]

I discovered the Screwtape Letters in high school and remember thinking they were clever. But I think the nuns never gave C.S. Lewis to us in grade school. Hell, our school was so minimal that we did not have a library. I really don't know where books in our house came from when I was a kid. Anyway, I blush to admit that I did not know what Narnia was and thought we were taking my nephew to just another Christmas movie. Last year we saw Polar Express - what do I know?
So I had no prior acquaintance with the book to compare with the Disney version. And nobody told me in advance that we were going to a kid's version of Mel Gibson's Passion - in English. My reaction was, as they say, unmediated. Simply on the terms of the movie, sado-masochistic misogynist militarist nationalism, I fled. As someone pointed out in a comment, that pretty much describes modern western Christianity.
Sorry about the long comment. This just turned out to be very interesting.

[celesteh.livejournal.com]

I just re-read the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and while Aslan is a Christ figure (duh), it's still a charming story. I've read that the movie dialog is really heavy-handed and awful, but that book isn't. Some of the later books are. I can't remember which one, but the one about "experimental schooling" which does get referenced in the LWW. Prince Casipan is even more strongly anti-education.

The "science fiction" books, though are just awful. Anti-science fiction is a more apt term. Christian hostility to education and science at least makes sense for Lewis. Look at the horrors wrought by industrialization during the war. But now? People must hate and fear their gadgets. Which, might make some sort of sense, if their can't afford them, or if their ipod is making them deaf and disassociating them from everyone and their cellphone is giving them brain tumors.. And the hatred of medical science (and biology) is sort of logical in a place where healthcare is generally unaffordable and doctors are arrogant, rude fuckwads who do nothing for you while substantially lightening your wallet. Maybe it all boils down to class issues.

[nothings.livejournal.com]

Well, chalk me up as an unmilitant atheist and a lousy feminist, because:

1. Tumnus' bare chest never struck me as sexualized; it was a matter of creating an interesting and convincing partially-CGI (?) character, and probably the movie cliche of keeping things simple (you can't say they look different from humans, they have to look different from humans, and if you want them to look different, having them not wearing clothes helps; it's also just the movie cliche of having the beasts be less civilized, regardless of the subtlety in the source material).

2. I guess the Stone Table scene could be interpreted as sexualized in the way that all pagan rituals can be read as being sexualized and in the way that modern dance is sexualized and in the way that, sure, a knife can be seen as a phallic symbol and stabbing with it is sexualized but, uh, it never crossed my mind.

3. I honestly don't think tLWatW is going to do much religious brainwashing or indoctrination. I even doubt that Lewis intended it to do so, but maybe so, since it sounds like the stuff in The Last Battle is much more that way (but then again, his approach could well have changed by then). Let's put it this way: despite some structural similarities, Aslan is a lousy Jesus figure. Emperor over the seas? Ok. Stone Table ressurection? Check. Forgiving, let the past be the past? Roger. Killing the White Witch? Well, I guess you can argue that's some sort of Satan metaphor... Killing random "bad guy" underlings in a ferocious or even animalistic way (or, ordering Peter to)? Not much turning the other cheek going on here.

I don't read this as "Aslan is a hipped-up Jesus meant to be more appealing to children"; I read this as "Lewis decided to borrow some story elements from his religion because he thought they were really interesting story elements (or at least, better story elements then the crap he was coming up with himself)". I read this as Lewis was no Tolkien, and in trying to come up with an interesting backstory/world setting, created a mythology by borrowing from his religion. I have a lot of trouble seeing how this could indoctrinate somebody. I mean, I guess you could have a Sunday School revelation, "Oh, this is just like Aslan" and somehow be more hooked, but, uh. I remain unconvinced. To me it's more like Shakespeare ripping off plots. (Not to compare Lewis to Shakespeare. (Oops, too late.))

4. As to rampant sexism, I guess I noticed it with the beavers, but I was particularly struck by the scene where Santa gives Lucy the magic healing vial. "Wow, this is just like 90% of computer RPGs; the women are the healing mages."

Really, my problems with the movie were, I imagine, identical to what my problems with the book would be if I read it now: it's a dumb children's story. Everyone (good) is magically all right in the end, and Edwards "treachery" is (a) unconvincing and (b) not all that treacherous, so the dramatic engine of the story doesn't drive.

((b) might be different from the book, I dunno. They just hedge his treachery in certain ways to make him more forgiveable; he doesn't tell the White Witch the destination of the other children until she threatens someone else in front of him. (a) is probably identical to the book, and maybe it just works less well in the movie because of poor acting or something (although other people I've talked to about it didn't have any problem believing Edward's actions, so mileage may vary))

[felicks.livejournal.com]

The Screwtape Letters is a great read, and really, more palatable as Christian propoganda because it is straightforward in its goals.

Meanwhile, I actually think the gender roles in Narnia are much more open than in most fantasy literature. Namely - there are female characters at all! Who have speaking parts! And participate fully in the adventure! And risk their lives!

Yes, they are given different roles from teh boys, but much more than most of the other, even more contemporary fantasy literature I was reading as a kid.