The Greatest Story Ever Told

I was surprised when reading a review of a new book has come out entitled The Magician's Book: A Skeptical Visit to Narnia, to note the bitterness with which the author, Laura Miller, recalls her realization as a teen of "what is instantly obvious to any adult reader: that the Chronicles of Narnia are filled with Christian symbolism."

C. S. Lewis is so forthwith about the Christianity in his works that her sense of betrayal is surprising. More surprising, however, is her claim that reading the Chronicles of Narnia as religious allegory is a willful misinterpretation and that she mean to reclaim them. "The Chronicles are unified," she writes, "not by anything resembling the exhaustive cultural stuff that Tolkien invented for Middle-earth . . . not even, really, by a cogent religious vision, but by readerly desire. Lewis poured into his imaginary world everything that he had adored in the books he read as a child and in the handful of children's books he'd enjoyed as an adult. And there is more, too: treasures collected from Dante, from Spenser, from Malory, from Austen, from old romances and ballads and fairy tales and pagan epics. . . The Chronicles," Miller concludes, "are a portal to other worlds, literary worlds."

Now, I have not read her book, but all of the reviews said generally the same thing. Which left me wondering how stories, other worlds and Christianity are mutually exclusive?

Myths and religion form the backbone of most fantasy. Sometimes their presence is overt-in The Iliad the gods are active participants in the plot. Other stories mask religion's presence but it is there; the injunction to follow a rule that is seemingly incompressible, to not open a box, eat an apple or to return home from the ball by midnight, points to the mystery of faith. The quest for some unattainable end, epic last stands, reliance on something besides oneself, these are all tropes that mirror and point to a Christian life.

Not only do most stories owe something to Christianity but the story of salvation history is itself thrilling. I know a professor who claims that you know the Bible was divinely inspired because of how perfect a work of literature it is, no person could have written it. It contains paradigms of tragedy and comedy, soul stirring pieces of poetry, the story of Jonah is even a perfect example of a ring cycle.

This is the point which seems to have eluded Ms. Miller, you cannot dismiss the religion and focus on the fact the C. S. Lewis wrote a smashingly good story because it is in large part the religion that makes it a smashingly good story. Grace, temptation, salvation these are what drives the plot of the Chronicles of Narinia. Incidentally, the same is true for many of the other books which Miller claims inspired Lewis as opposed to Christianity (Dante, have Christian undertones? No! He hid it so well also).

Sorry for the very heavy C. S. Lewis theme of late, I am going to leave off before start ranting about what was done to Peter's character in the Prince Caspian movie.