The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

I am so excited that we are moving into the Chronicles of Narnia.  I never had the experience reading them as a kid, and so in many ways I agree even more so with C.S. Lewis when he says that good children's books should be enjoyable for an adult audience.

We started our class discussion on The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.  Like Perelandra, this is a "supposal," not an allegory.  C.S. Lewis is not trying to say that this is the nature of how things are, but "suppose" God was acting in the form of a lion in an imaginary land, etc.  That is an important distinction to make.

This supposal was dedicated to Lucy Barfield, his goddaughter.  We talked briefly about the changes Lewis made through different publications and the orders, etc., but I'd like to take some time to talk about the symbols I find most pertinent to the story:

Peter- the head of the church after Christ leaves.  This one was pointed out in our class discussion.
Aslan- the Christ figure in the story
The White Witch- adversary, evil
Professor Kirke- I think that this name is not chosen by chance.  There was a Professor Kirk in Lewis' life who helped him become a Christian by teaching him to question things.  He is known in Lewis' autobiography, Surprised by Joy, as "The Great Knock."
Lucy- represents the threefold argument from Mere Christianity.  She is not a liar or crazy, so she must be telling the truth.
Statues- They come to life after the resurrection.  It could also be like the Tin Soldiers in Mere Christianity.
Witch's Castle- Like the realm of the dead/spirit prison.  Aslan leaps over the wall, showing that the gates of hell do not prevail against him
Turkish Delight- a spoiled good thing, as he discussed in The Screwtape Letters
 The Stone Table-like the Law of Moses
Father Christmas- Brings hope and cheer, talking about Aslan coming.  Could be compared to John the Baptist.
Gifts- spiritual gifts.  The cordial, for an Anglican, might be the sacraments
Edmund- could represent Adam, all of us, pride, insecurity, or perhaps Judas
Deep Magic vs Deeper Magic- Deep magic is the lower law while Deeper is the higher law, the kind that the White Witch does not understand.  Kind of like the new law after Christ came.

And then the obvious:  Death and resurrection through Aslan's sacrifice. 

Perelandra Symbolism

Reading Lewis' fiction for an older audience was a really interesting experience.  Perelandra is something of a sci-fi, the second book in a trilogy.  It is a re-telling of the fall of man, similar to Dante's journey.  While it was difficult to get into at first (mostly to orient myself with this new style), I really liked it.  Until I enrolled in this C.S. Lewis class I had no idea that he published adult fiction, yet, Perelandra has many of the same things that I've seen in his other works, like The Chronicals of Narnia.

There are countless symbols that Lewis uses in Perelandra, but I thought I would note a few of my own thoughts and some that we mentioned in our class discussion:

Midterm Time

This week was our midterm examination in my C.S. Lewis class.  It was  nice to review some of the books that I read at the beginning of the semester and link them all to each other, and so for that I was grateful for the opportunity, though testing always freaks me out.  The test consisted of free response answers to a few different prompt options, but there was one question that we all had to respond to.  I thought it would be the question at the bottom of the extensive study guide:

"the single insight of Lewis that has had the greatest impact on you; how Lewis' presentation was effective in reaching you; the results (present and potential) of this insight."

But it wasn't.  Still, I think it would be beneficial for me to write here what that response was for me:

Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis

Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by C.S. Lewis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After reading so many books by C.S. Lewis, it was really nice to hear in his own words what life experiences he had that made him that unique individual. I am not the biggest fan of autobiographies in general, so I appreciated the companion biographical story told in The Essential C.S. Lewis, but I think Lewis does a pretty good job at honestly representing himself, particularly his childhood and educational career.

Things I did not know before (including bits from class discussion):

Lewis went by the nickname Jack. His mother died of cancer when he was a kid; he had little to no relationship with his father, and was an atheist the majority of his young life. It was “The Great Knock,” a mentor and teacher, who taught him to really question things, and though an atheist himself, it was these principles that taught Lewis to rethink atheism, which lead to his conversion to theism, and later Christianity.

Miracles by C.S. Lewis

Miracles by C.S. Lewis

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I hate to say that this was not my favorite C.S. Lewis book so far. Without a class discussion, I’m not sure I could have waded through half of the arguments Lewis brings up. It was intended for those who are skeptical of miracles, and that subject was definitely one that I have wondered about.

I am a Latter-day Saint, and I believe in miracles. But I have always been under the impression that God would use natural laws to govern those miracles, and they are miraculous because we do not understand them. In that sense, I never thought that God could break laws that he was bound to (but then again, he is God), but that leads me to one of Lewis’ main points:

He begins with the argument against the naturalist. He believes that in order to really be Christian we have to be supernaturalists, believing that there is more to nature, or our current reality—that there is a God in charge of it all.