Chronological Narnia, and Again Susan

There is no good reason to read the Narnia Chronicles in chronological order as Harper Collins has ordered.  Lewis was right the first time, beginning with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. He later told an 11-year old boy that it didn't matter much but he supposed that chronological might be best, as the boy had suggested. The boys sounds a bit OCD, and the editors at Harpers who thought he had a good idea strike me as similar. ("But the events in Magician's Nephew come first. So that book has to come first.") Years later, when Lewis was in his last year Douglas Gresham asked him and Lewis again said that chronological might be best. But Lewis had an odd quirk of memory, one that is surprisingly common in writers.  He did not remember his own work that well once he had finished it.  It seems strange for Jack, who remembered everything else he read.

That is insufficient. Readers of Lewis are nearly universal in agreeing on this. Narnia is not mentioned for 70 pages in The Magician's Nephew, largely because it does not exist at the beginning of the book. There are references throughout MN referring back to other stories. When Lewis began writing The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe he did not know there would be others in the series. By the time he finished the first book he had some ideas of subsequent books, but he does not reference The Magician's Nephew as one of them. 

The Problem of Susan -Again

I accepted the designation that the Narnian Chronicles were children's books when I first read them, and long after. After reading Lewis's essay "On Three Ways of Writing For Children" (it can be found in Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories) it was solidified for me.  But in understanding his many references beyond the idea of writing adventurous stories in another world with Biblical themes, all the echoes of Spenser, and Shakespeare, and Greek mythology, and of course Michael Ward's theory that the whole batch of them draws from the Medieval belief in planetary influences, I have decided that they are better thought of as adult books, or adult ideas, in a form children can understand. 

As a fresh example, I encountered a new thought this morning on the Great Books discussion of The Last Battle, WRT the Problem of Susan. It comes from Monika Hilder of Trinity Western University in British Columbia.

We generally think of two types of heroism in our culture, the Greco-Roman and the Biblical.  Lewis - and Tolkien, and the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - highly value the former. Physical courage and use of weapons, and even skill when resorting to warfare are admired. But he considers the latter to be superior, and much of the literature he draws from is specifically written to highlight that discussion of which heroism is greater. Even Lewis's Christian and sympathetic readers get caught up in the idea of adventures and courage of that Greco-Roman kind.  We are rather conditioned to it, especially in latter days when Biblical heroism doesn't much make it into movies, or TV, or popular culture.

Susan fails pretty solidly at Biblical heroism, remaining steadfast to the end despite all danger and appearances, like Tirian, like Jewel, like Puddleglum, like Eustace and Jill. (Or Frodo and Sam.) One of the main values Lewis is trying to stress in the entire series requires examples to illustrate. He is careful not to declare her lost forever, only that she has failed thus far, and failed at the only test that is really important. In his later correspondence, he specifically allowed for her repentance and redemption. The specifics of what she was tempted by, which JK Rowling, shooting from the hip as she often does, found so significant and so irritating, are not actually that important. She had the temptations to renounce Narnia common to her age, culture, and predisposition of personality. Digory, Eustace, and Edmond had different temptations, all of whom failed but repented and were redeemed. 

Do we object more to it being Susan because she is female, and we feel Lewis or any modern author shouldn't pick on a girl? (Because after all, they were picked on more in earlier literature and culture and perhaps men show feel an obligation to put something in the other balance pan.)  Perhaps, but I think two other things drive our objection. First, the temptations she succumbs to are common to females and not to males, which seems unfair of Lewis.  I would argue that there are male equivalents of exactly these sins, just not involving "Nylons and lipstick and invitations." Lewis's essay "The Inner Ring" has entirely male examples, after all.

Here is an irony: if Susan were the bad example, the shallow girl in a coming-of-age novel for young adults, disdaining her would go down much better, wouldn't it? If she were the Mean Girl making fun of the others, all the female readers would know that the young heroine was absolutely correct in learning to separate from her.

But there is another reason that drives our objection. It feels final. However much Lewis backs away from it in clear terms, in the story, in the world we have suspended our disbelief to enter, her rejection is final. It may be a purely emotional response on our part, but I think it is at least emotionally correct.