We went to see "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe", though at the price of having to drive through a nasty and rather unexpected blizzard in which the car got stuck twice. I liked the movie. It wasn't 100% perfect, but I thought it was very faithful to the spirit of the book and all the additions made were good and justified.
As days went on and I found myself with a copy of the Making Of book of the movie (and early Christmas present from two people I still have to meet), I found myself thinking about the series quite a bit. I've only re-read the first two books (chronological order), but I remember the whole series fairly well. Specifically, I started to think about the final book in the series, "The Last Battle". (Yes, I know I need to change the name of my story. It was just a placeholder anyway.) I don't hear many people say it's their favorite of the series. It's kind of a tough read. This is the Narnia version of the end of the world, which means a lot of characters dying. I distinctly recall putting the book down for a while because a passage about the death of a bear was just too much for me.
But there's another reason a lot of people find "The Last Battle" rather harsh. See, if you read the books in publication order (Which I think works better if you're reading them for the first time), you learned about Narnia with the four Pevensie children. Gradually, you meet other children from our world who get to visit Narnia. "The Last Battle" gathers them all together again and returns them to Narnia. Well, all except one. If you haven't guessed who, then you aren't paying much attention to the title of this entry. But I'll show you how it's explained:
"Sir," said Tirian, when he had greeted all these. If I have read the chronicle aright, there should be another. Has not your Majesty two sisters? Where is Queen Susan?"
"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.'"
"Oh 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."Now C.S. Lewis was writing in the 1950s, which make could make sexism on his part somewhat forgivable. Fantasy author Neil Gaiman, best known for the "Sandman" comics series, is not so forgiving, feeling that Lewis is all around harsh on female characters who are not young girls or old women or friendly beavers. He's apparently written a short story entitled "The Problem of Susan", dealing with this very idea. I haven't read it yet, and that's partly why I'm writing this now; I want to get my thoughts on the subject out before I read his and start to be influenced by them.
Re-reading this passage, I'm especially surprised by Jill's lines. As far as I remember, Jill never actually met Susan in the course of the books. Yet here she is, talking about how Susan was always too eager to reach maturity.
I've seen some fans of the Narnia books act very much like Jill. With the clear-eyed vision that only hindsight can bring, they look down their noses at Susan. And there certainly are fairly legitimate reasons to do this. A reader can't help but feel sort of betrayed by Susan. It seems almost unthinkable that one of the few children to be able to go into Narnia - an enviable experience for most readers - would turn her back on the kingdom as its darkest hour approaches. For some readers, it may hit a little close to home, reminding them of someone they knew once who suddenly renounced all childhood in favor of "maturity", possibly leaving a few people behind in the process.
For, to be fair, there is no shortage of adolescent girls like Susan. You can find them in any high school, middle school, or increasingly, elementary school. They're the ones who seem to disappear into the school bathroom for unusually long amounts of time, the ones who start wearing revealing clothing and makeup long before it looks remotely appropriate, the ones who seem to believe that female existence revolves around the teenage years, with particular emphasis on sixteen through seventeen. Various media sources, magazines, and products encourage them in their thinking. As for those women who spend the rest of their lives trying to stay at that age, pop culture is littered with them. There's no denying that Lewis's vision of the older Susan has a basis in reality.
But I can't quite bring myself to believe that how Susan ends up is only a reflection of how some normal teenage girls end up. Susan is not a normal girl and I think there's something else going on with her. Something a little deeper and a little sadder.
Imagine yourself in Susan's position. You're a child during wartime, shipped away from your home to live with strangers so you'll be safe from enemy attacks. You don't have much say in this or much of anything that happens to you.
And then, you go to Narnia. And suddenly, you're somebody really important. All kinds of fantastic creatures are looking to you and your siblings to save their world from tyrannical rule and eternal winter. You never even dreamed this place existed and yet your coming and your deeds have been foretold. Of course, it's not without danger. Those in power know that you can bring about their downfall and they'll use any means necessary to stop you. But with your siblings and your newfound friends, you succeed. And then, you're queen! The four of you rule the land together and grown into young men and women.
But it can't last. One day, you find yourself back in the world you came from, the same as you were before. If you take the movie's view of the book, you've gained a new wisdom and appreciation for your family. But it still can't be easy, going back to being an ordinary girl after being a queen. So you're probably pretty happy when you get to return to Narnia. It's tough to see how much time has passed in what felt like a short absence, how much has changed. But it's still good to be back.
Then, the bombshell drops. You are told that this is it. You will never be able to return to Narnia.
(This, incidentally, is something of a contradiction, as Aslan tells Peter that he won't be coming back either. He eventually tells Edmund and Lucy the same thing. I'm not sure whether there's some Biblical reference I'm missing or Lewis simply didn't realize at the time that he'd be bringing three of the children back to Narnia some day. Either way, it is a little troubling and I don't recall any given explanation for it.)
So you go home. You know this time for certain that the adventures are over. No more tea with kindly fauns, no more rescuing innocent creatures turned to stone, just regular life like before you even knew Narnia existed. Except now you do know it exists. But no one else does, save your brothers and sister and possibly that eccentric old professor. You can't tell anyone else about your adventures in Narnia, about the wonderful things you saw and did. They would think you were crazy or ill or just making it up. Heck, even you didn't believe your own sister when she first told you about Narnia. So now you're back to being ordinary you. You've grown from your time in Narnia and you've learned things, but you just can't figure out how to put them to use back in your world. Because no one understands and everyone is still treating you like a child. You've got all these adults still bossing you around and acting like manners and homework and proper nutrition are the most important things in the world. And it's not so much that they aren't treating you like a queen; it's that you've grown so much and no one seems to see that. And all the while, you see all these adults running the country and the world and making a total mess of it and you know you could do better because you did. But n one here is going to give you a chance.
I do realize that the element of the spiritual is an important one in the Chronicles of Narnia, even though you can happily read through them without being at all aware of it. I don't feel I'm really qualified to discuss it too deeply as it relates to Susan. I'll just say that I think it would be very hard to go from a world where the savior figure is very near and physically present and you can get close enough to touch him and feel his breath and even play with him after his resurrection, to one where the savior figure your seeking might seem more distant and less tangible. Religion is tricky and personal, so I'll leave it at that.
Anyway, there you sit, becoming more and more certain that your best days are behind you and nothing you do in this world will ever be as wonderful or as meaningful as what you did back in Narnia. What do you do? How do you keep yourself going? What's your new purpose in life when it seems like destiny is done with you?
I, at least, like to think pretty well of myself. So I'd like to imagine that I'd use what I'd learned from my time in Narnia to put my energy into curing diseases or ending wars or running for prime minister or some such thing. But I can see, and I hope you can as well, how easy it would be to fall back on something more immediate and more superficial. We are talking about a teenager here, so she's limited in what she can actually accomplish right away. So Susan throws herself into being a stereotypical teenage girl. Her energy goes into getting the right clothes and going to the right parties with the right boys. She makes herself believe the hype that if she does all this, she'll be happy and popular and loved and grown up. And somewhere in the back of her mind, she knows she wants this because she wants to be the woman she was in Narnia again, the queen who everyone thought was beautiful and gentle and wise. The adolescent concept of maturity is a poor substitute for the real thing, but she believes it's the best she can get since Narnia is gone now. And slowly, she convinces herself that Narnia couldn't possibly have been real, because knowing that it was real, but she can never go back, is just too painful. So she convinces herself that Narnia was just a childhood game and that this, what she's doing now, is what life is really all about. And she tells herself she's happy and she's never been happier.
It's not the best reaction to being exiled from your kingdom, but it is an understandable one. C.S. Lewis may have intended Susan's turning away from Narnia to seem more clean cut, more black and white. But I can't just turn my back on her as suddenly as Jill and scoff that Susan was always too eager to grow up. I never saw that in her when I read the books. Her actions, as reported to us, may be poor choices, but they are human ones.
All of this begs the question of how the movies might handle this upsetting idea, assuming they get as far as "The Last Battle". The film's characterization of her is setting her up as scholarly and logical, which may be laying the groundwork for what's to come. And yet, the movie is the story of a family becoming closer and stronger through their magical experiences. And I just can't see Susan's siblings turning their back on her, or allowing others to talk about her in such nasty terms, as they do in the book. Even if it does happen, the movie is a long way off, so I won't know for some time. Meanwhile, I'll be trying to find a copy of Mr. Gaiman's short story. Now that I've got my thoughts out, I want to see what he has to say.
