We have "The Problem of Susan, once Queen of Narnia," again. I mentioned in early February the YA novel Once a Queen by Sarah Arthur. You will remember that Granite Dad had ordered it and promised to read it and get back to me. He has not done so.
The CS Lewis Society also authorised a play by Kat Coffin called "Lost and Found: The Lamentations of Susan Pevensie." Doug Gresham loved it. Both works seem to have avoided going for the quick everything-works-out-just-fine plot and treat the subject in more complicated fashion. It will be staged in 2025 and they are hoping to have it live-streamed. It seems that people deeply want to see her in heaven, even if Narnia is lost to her as Eden is to us. That would be um, impressive for a fictional character. The theology of it seems a bit sketchy, but apparently there is a significant groundswell of Jesus, we have to find a way to make this work.
My wife became so upset by the pressure that a character in a James Clavell novel was under in the 1980s that she prayed for him after putting the book down for the night. I had a friend who prayed that Gandalf would be okay after Moria.
I think another factor might be that there is no foreshadowing of her falling away--or one might say "not enough" foreshadowing, since there is a smidgen in The Horse and His Boy. Some readers want to fix the story.
ReplyDeleteAnd, switching to Susan's POV, she's got a nice social life going and all of a sudden she's an orphan, with no brothers or sisters left either--quite a jolt into a life of superficial pleasures. What happens next? What's her story?