Douglas Gresham’s Fanon

.

Since Douglas Gresham currently manages the Lewis estate, I do suppose he has the right to influence Fanon however he wants. Naming the Star’s Daughter and introducing good minotaurs in the movies were all interesting things. Why he didn’t put his foot down when it came to corporeal dryads and naiads I have no idea (does he realize that the sons of King Frank have been movie-versed into celibacy?)

I found, and it was sort of accidental, since there isn’t a direct link to this in the menu, an interview Douglas Gresham did with Lion’s Call. Most of his answers are of the “Nobody knows” variety. But other answers I found quite interesting.

Q: The Timeline states that Telmar was first colonized by Calormen (this before the arrival of Caspian’s ancestors). The Timeline also tells us that they behaved very wickedly and Aslan turned them into dumb beasts. Now, Calormen was founded by outlaws from Archenland, and it has been proposed that the original Telmarines were therefore humans. In Prince Caspian Lucy says “Wouldn’t it be dreadful if some day in our own world, at home, men started going wild inside, like the animals here, and still looked like men, so that you’d never know which were which?” Is that what happened in Telmar? And what wickedness did they commit?

A: The original inhabitants of Telmar were Narnian Talking Beasts, whether they came in to that land from Calormen or from Narnia I do not know. They behaved so badly that they reverted to dumb animals, the Calormens took the land over but almost all died out or returned to Calormen. Their very few descendants were eventually defeated and driven out by the rising Telmarines descended from the Pirates of Earth.

I had to think about this answer for a bit, because I realized that the reason why I, and it seems most others, assumed that the original Telmars were humans was because we thought Talking Animals only live in Narnia. The more I thought about this, the more I realized that my assumption was probably mostly wrong. In SC the Giants kill and eat a Talking Stag. I don’t think the Giants went all the way down into Narnia to hunt, which means that the Stag was somewhere outside of Narnia when it met its unfortunate end. I have a feeling that there are other examples, but nothing else comes to mind, besides Bree and Hwin being in Calormen against their will. Certainly, being outside of Narnia could be dangerous of a Talking Beast, hunting parties of Giants and being sold into slavery being two obvious problems. But perhaps there could be nefarious reasons for abandoning Narnia? The Telmar Beasts, after all, apparently pulled a Ginger-the-Cat en masse.

Q: How, in a land of perpetual winter, and with borders closed, did Mr. Tumnus acquire bread for toast, or a host of the other things he served Lucy? One of the perks of working for the Witch? But then, the Beavers had a sticky roll as well.

A: Narnia is a land of magic, strange things happen in such places. But to ask such questions misses the whole point of fantasy. If you really want to reduce the fantasy to be utterly prosaic; well, there is always a black market in occupied territories, and the Narnians were probably trading with the Calormenes for what they could not get any other way.

AND HOW DOES MRS. BEAVER HAVE A SEWING MACHINE? Oh, yeah, it’s fantasy. But black market trading with Calormenes? What do they offer for trade, blocks of ice? I do suppose that in Calormene high summer ice blocks arriving by ship would fetch a pretty penny. But I don’t think Jadis would approve of trading with humans very much, after all, what if some enterprising Satyrs got together and traded enough ice blocks for a Calormene slave or two, or three, or four?

Q: Why are Calormenes dark, as they are descended from Archenlanders, according to the Timeline?

A: Over their many generations, they have developed epidermal melanin secretion as protection against the harsh sun of Calormen (you would be better to ask why anybody is fair and blonde in our world where all people are descended from a small common origin in Africa).

This is fine as explanations go, but I don’t think less than a thousand years is enough time for such drastic localization to take place. For that matter, I don’t think a thousand years is long enough to account for the human population numbers in Archenland and especially Calormen. Not unless humans bred like rabbits, and the Rabbits didn’t.

Q: If the Telmarines are descended from South Seas pirates, there would likely be a good deal of Chinese in their lineage, though there were certainly some Europeans taking advantage of piracy in that area as well. And the pirates married islanders, who would also have been dark. How then is Caspian fair haired? Or did they intermarry with Archenlanders?

A: Many if not most pirates in the South Seas at the time of which Jack writes were in fact English or Dutch Privateers.

Dutch Pirates. Cool. Also serves to explain a thing or two about the Telmarines. If you know anything about Dutch colonization methods you know what I mean.

Q: How did the Beavers become extinct?

A: Somebody killed them all, or they died out of some epidemic. We are not told.

Or, they just didn’t have any kids. They had bunk-beds after all, a la Leave it to Beaver.

Susan redux

.

It always happens that, just as I think I have figured something out, I immediately come across something which throws all of that in doubt.

Such was the case a few days ago when I decided to read Surprised by Joy in its entirety, instead of the snippets considered Edifying for Undergraduates At A Christian College. The first half of the book was not what I expected – who knew that British education could be so meandering and spotty. It would never survive the Standardized Testing System of today!

But along the way I met Pogo, the teacher Lewis had when he was twelve or thirteen. I think, chronology and the British school system are a bit spotty for me. Pogo was certainly not the teacher’s real name, Lewis clearly disliked Naming Names, his own cousins are referred to by their initials (or, “The Valkyrie”). I think Lewis was making a joke here to the Pogo stick, which was new and popular when he wrote SBJ. I think I usually get British humor, but Lewis confounds me sometimes.

Since I read about Pogo and his teaching method right after I wrote the post about Susan, I was more than a bit shocked to see Lewis saying what I posted about. Moreover, Lewis seemed to be saying that Susan’s problem was his own problem. Not only did he become a Non-Christian that year (not entirely Pogo’s fault), but he describes his fascination with “growing-up” by adopting the latest style of fashionable clothes, saying the right things, impressing the right sorts of people. The cultivation of lust also played a role, but Lewis says that it was really secondary to the Real Problem. Anyone needing a full picture of what Lewis thought about this phase in his life should just read the chapter in SBJ, but I was happy to see that maybe I wasn’t the only one who made this connection, and probably expressed it better than I am doing:

dr_con August 30th, 2005 06:34 pm (UTC)

Excellent essay, rj_anderson— thanks for posting it!

This past weekend I was flipping back through Surprised by Joy, and noted some of Lewis’ comments on his own youthful “apostasy” (his term; I’d use the word slightly differently). He views the Flesh as having been somewhat damaging to him during those years, but the World much more so (this comes up especially in his discussion of a youthful schoolmaster nicknamed “Pogo,” who had taught him to desire to be sophisticated). Indeed, Lewis’ consistent view of sin in general was one of viewing Lust as definitely sinful and damaging, but other things like Pride and Vanity as much more deeply corrupting to the soul.

The fact that Lewis wrote plenty of nonfiction works is handy for the scholar wishing to know what views his fiction works were, and were not, reflecting– lest we be “attributing to [him] views which [he had] explicitly contradicted in the plainest possible English,” as he complained of one scholar doing. Readers who know him only by his fiction stories will find it easy to make mistakes like that. (I agree with fernwithy that this probably isn’t something about which JKR has thought deeply– it’s her job to write stories, not to comment on others’.)

So anyway, yes, I agree– JKR’s criticism of Lewis here tells us considerably more about JKR than it does about Lewis. JKR is certainly not the only person to have interpreted Susan this way, of course; I imagine that it must be easy for a young woman with a fondness for makeup and fashion too see herself in Susan, and to wish to react fiercely against Lewis’ presentation. But the criticism would only be valid if the quest for popularity were inseparable from the hope of finding romantic love.

The odd thing about JKR being the one to say this is that her own stories seem (am I wrong?!) to show plenty of consciousness of the difference between a shallow young woman and a mature one. (“Three dementor attacks in a week, and all Romilda Vane does is ask me if it’s true you’ve got a Hippogriff tattooed across your chest.”) The most admirable young women in JKR’s stories (Hermione, Ginny, and Luna) are not the budding Susan Pevensies of Hogwarts, but those (each in her own way) who retain a sense of adventure– more to the point, the ability to be committed to something beyond herself– as Lucy and Jill did. And an important step in Harry’s maturation as a young man was when he got beyond the stage of “going for looks alone”– when he realized that “wanting to impress Cho seemed to belong to a past that was no longer quite connected with him,” when he matured to the point where he could start liking a girl because he actually enjoyed her company. (Notice that HBP never tells us that Harry thought Ginny was pretty or beautiful or anything like that– of course he does think so, but that’s no longer where the emphasis lies. Her attractiveness is only made known to us through the comments of others.)

And so I don’t think the stories JKR and CSL have told are really all that much different in their handling of young adulthood after all. There are some differences, of course– but mostly on the surface. [Link]

The full article where that comment was left is well worth reading. It covers more ground than the other article I linked to (consideration of Lewis’s views on women in other works is offered, though the author inexplicably ignores Till We Have Faces), and it offers more consideration of Susan’s character as a whole.

Have I Solved This Dilemma yet? The only thing that is clear, and I’m willing to take a stake in, is that the character of Susan has been roundly misinterpreted, and this has negatively impacted how Lewis is read and the understanding of Lewis’s whole point with Susan.

But I am also willing to Posit that Susan’s Problem had nothing to do with her being Female.

I hate nylons and lipstick, but I love my eyeliner

.

Queen Susan by Achen089

The problem of Susan. Or, the problem with Susan. Or, the problem towards Susan. It doesn’t matter which preposition is involved, everyone seems to know that there is some problem or another.

The definitive treatment of this whole “problem,” I think, is Are the Chronicles of Narnia Sexist and Racist? by Dr Devin Brown over at Narnia Web. Dr Brown shows that the books nowhere say, nor even imply, that Susan’s problem was growing up, or discovering sex, or being a woman.

The relevant quote in this instance is (since I think it is important to see everything in context):

“My sister Susan,” answered Peter shortly and gravely, “is no longer a friend of Narnia.”

“Yes,” said Eustace, “and whenever you’ve tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says, ‘What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.’”

“On Susan!” said Jill. “She’s interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up.”

“Grown-up, indeed,” said the Lady Polly. “I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she’ll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one’s life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can.” (LB, 154-5)

Nylons and lipstick, and by extension, boys, are clearly peripheral to Susan’s situation. So why is the belief so rampant that they are the problem? Why does JKR think that Susan’s problem consists in her having sex, when she herself wrote a remarkably Susan-like character in Aunt Petunia?

Maybe Susan is the Excuse. People don’t like the Narnia books because of the Christian themes, and Susan becomes the Excuse to justify the hatred. It’s sort of like sparkly-vampires being the Excuse to hate Twilight. It’s a popular and socially acceptable reason to hate otherwise popular books, so people latch onto it, even though it has no intrinsic impact on the books themselves.

But I think that there is something more complex going on, and one that I don’t think the detractors even fully realize themselves (also much like the detractors of Twilight).

I think the crux of the issue is that people think that Lewis wrote that Susan lost her salvation.

Once-saved-always-saved or the Perseverance of the Saints is a common doctrine in Evangelical and Calvinist circles, respectively. Since those groups hold Lewis to be a type of high spokesman for their beliefs, I think a lot of people just assume that Lewis did, in fact, hold to the same doctrines. And even if not everyone fully understands OSAS, they do understand the principle that, if OSAS were true, then Susan lost her salvation, which means that she must have done something completely horrible like the Unpardonable Sin.

And everyone knows that, for Evangelicals, the Unpardonable Sin is having sex.

I almost rolled my eyes here, but, well, there’s a reason why so many people think that.

Anyways, if all that were true, then Lewis was a totally horrible person. I agree. And poor Susan has had a great injustice done to her.

But Lewis was not an Evangelical.

Lewis was not even much of a Calvinist.

Lewis believed that Christians could lose their salvation.

Lewis believed that Christians could lose their salvation is completely normal and mundane ways. He himself could lose his salvation tomorrow.

All Evangelicals wish that they could tell me that what I just wrote was wrong. But they can’t, and they know it. They’ll just carry on ignoring the parts of Lewis where he says things like that.

Evangelicals do not understand Lewis half as well as they think, and they think they understand him quite a bit more than they do.

For Lewis there is no “problem” other than Susan simply embodying yet another example of his “things which prevent belief” meme. Susan serves as a warning: even someone who has personally met Aslan and seen him resurrected can forget about him in favor of the more superficial things in the world, do not let yourself do the same, is the real message.

Susan could be anyone. And in our materialistic and capitalistic culture Susan could be a great number of people. Is that why people don’t like it?

Susan!fics are rampant in the fandom, and everyone has a different idea about how Susan is eventually “redeemed.” But my favorite is As I Love the Mouse by songsmith. Why? Because it shows that, as Dr Brown says, vanity is only a secondary problem; Susan is redeemed by returning to spreading Aslan’s grace in the world. Which is something anyone could do.

 

Ana Mardoll Reads Narnia

.

I was recently introduced (quite belatedly) to Mark Reads Harry Potter. Do not click on that link unless you can spare a great many hours being glued to your computer screen. Mark Reads Harry Potter, to briefly summarize for those who do actually have to go do something in the real world, is a guy named Mark who reads all the Harry Potter books and comments line by line (or so). Since he demanded from the start that all comments be spoiler-free, it’s really interesting to see his “I’m reading this for the first time,” face-value reactions. It includes gems like: “Ok, so it’s totally some version of heaven or something. Which means Harry actually died. J.K. Rowling actually went through with it. Holy shit, guys.”

Uhh…we all knew that already, right?

Anyways, so I also stumbled across the blog of Ana Mardoll, who does largely the same thing to the LWW, but not a “first read” reaction, more of a complete deconstruction, because who today hasn’t read Narnia as a kid? At first I wasn’t sure if I liked it. Lewis wrote Narnia in the style of a fairy tale, and while I like deconstructing fairy tales, I’m not sure if it’s very fair to just heave-ho that onto what is obviously a children’s book. She doesn’t read the books as Christian, nor Aslan as an infallible God, but at the same time she doesn’t try to twist them into something that they’re not, which I appreciate. She hasn’t gotten too far along in LWW yet, but if you go through and read all the comments (which are surprisingly above-par), you will also be glued to your computer for many hours. I have warned you.

Reading Narnia….

.

In What Order Should the Narnia Books Be Read? by Andrew Rilstone over at Narnia Web succinctly points out how a “reader’s response” to how they read the Narnia books impacts their interpretation of it. I’ve made the decision to organize the collected fanfiction chronologically, even though I first read the books in publication order and am entirely sympathetic to that method (for more than sentimental reasons), because I expect that everyone who reads fanfiction has already read the books (or at least seen the movies – :wince: ).

But as Rilstone points out, both methods have their merits and drawbacks. In this case, despite my sympathies, I feel that both methods have something valuable. It reminds me strongly of my college theology professor, who insisted on the principle of Both/And (which stood, I suppose, in opposition to the Either/Or dialectic). Narnia can be read both as strict allegory and imaginary history. But then, isn’t that the whole point of fantasy, to tell old things in new forms? The better one understands the new forms the better one understands the old things, and the more the old things are understood the richer the new forms are. Or, at least, that is how good fantasy should work. Goodness knows how much most fantasy falls short of this.

What is most interesting about Narnia (I think) is how the two intersect and grow off each other. Which only goes to show much people should not “pigeon-hole” the meaning, no matter how they read the books, and it also shows how much the books can offer upon re-reading them, again, no matter how they are re-read. By holding both readings together the reader can begin to approach the Both/And meanings, recognizing the strength of the message of both, while also seeing the inherent limitations.

Why Uncle Andrew Couldn’t Hear the Animals Speak

.

There’s an interesting article at Narnia Web, Why Uncle Andrew Couldn’t Hear the Animals Speak by Kevin Kinghorn. As the title makes clear, it explores why Uncle Andrew could only hear the newly-created animals bark and growl, even after Aslan had given them speech. Through virtue epistemology Kinghorn notes how Lewis intersects knowledge, belief, and faith throughout the Chronicles.

I found it to be an excellent read, and though I’m not sure Lewis meant to present virtue epistemology, it doesn’t matter (since all good philosophy is true to real life anyways, even if we don’t know about). Though it raised an interesting point for me: could Uncle Andrew be the only example of someone who only hears animal noises when they meet a Talking Animal? Bree and Hwin say that they don’t speak, and certainly most Calormenes are aware that Narnian Animals can talk. But what about the Telmarines? They are afraid of “the woods” and perhaps some of this fear comes from the sort of thing Kinghorn speaks about. They refuse to believe that animals can talk, hence they mistake language for aggression, and this furthers their fear of “ghosts.” Caspian is the exception, perhaps because of the influence of his nurse and teacher, and hence mentally allows for the idea of Talking Animals, which allows him to accept it.

My only criticism of the article is that it touches on belief only briefly, and I think this was one of Lewis’s main themes, the things that keep someone from belief. But I think the author knows that, but instead to approach it from a different angle, and I therefore recommend the article without reservation.