C.S. Lewis The Notebook
Fr Conor McDonough
The 20th Century was the bloodiest of all centuries, a whirlwind time of evil extremes, but it produced some great saints and Christian leaders too: in the slums of Calcutta was found the great-hearted Mother Teresa; in the racist American South, Martin Luther King Jr; in the toxic atmosphere of Communist Poland, a young bishop named Karol Wojtyła; in the shadow of the Third Reich, steely resistance Christians like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Sophie Scholl; and in the bloody trenches of the Somme, two young men who would leave a unique and lasting mark on the Christian imagination: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.
We often forget that C.S. Lewis was at the frontline of war in his youth. We associate him with the bright goodness of Narnia, all the cheerful squirrels, straight-talking dwarves and hearty breakfasts which appear in his stories. But the innocence of this imagined world is hard-won. It’s an innocence on the far side of experience, a goodness that has been tested in the furnace of suffering.
A few months ago, I felt moved to experiment with a C.S. Lewis reading group here in St Saviour’s, Dublin, and the meetings have been immensely enriching so far. We read a book a month, and alternate between the Narnia books and Lewis’ non-fiction.
It’s really fascinating to see readers of different backgrounds react to Lewis’ writing. Some of us guzzled the Narnia books as children, others are opening the Wardrobe for the very first time. Some of us have studied theology and can spot signs of Lewis’ scholarship even in the simplest of paragraphs. Others again are actively involved in public debate, and mine the same paragraphs for ammunition. But we all agree that reading and discussing these books has had two clear effects on us: an amplified appreciation for the colour and richness of our Christian Faith and an increased desire for goodness in our daily lives.
Existence
Just to take one example from The Magician’s Nephew: it’s hard not to read the account of the creation of Narnia – with Aslan, who represents Christ, literally singing the stars and trees and animals into existence – without gaining an increased sense of the God-given harmony of our own world.
And when Aslan calls some of the animals to “awake, love, think, speak”, and to leave behind their former status as “dumb beasts”, the reader likewise feels invited to live up to the dignity of being a human, a ‘talking beast’ called to love. The goodness of Narnia is so attractive that it makes the reader better.
When we consider what Lewis experienced in war-time, and the other forms of suffering he endured, the sheer goodness of these simple stories strikes us with greater force. Their author witnessed depths of evil most of us can only imagine, but he had the courage to journey further, into the ever greater depths of divine goodness.
The goodness of Narnia is so attractive that it makes the reader better”
The Somme, the Reich and the Soviet Union are distant memories to us, but we have a different set of challenges.
Thanks to Netflix and YouTube, we are surrounded by stories and images that do little to lift up our souls. This sometimes results in the Gospel having little hold on us. The bright lights of the online world call us to splash in its shallow waters, and sometimes our faith seems a thin, colourless alternative. If this is how you feel, I can only recommend, with all my heart, that you pay a visit to a bookshop, hand over a few coins for some nicely tattered old copies of the Chronicles of Narnia, and let an old man tell you a story.
A wise and charming note…
Elements of the Narnia stories were already bubbling away in Lewis’ imagination when he was a teenager, but he was 52 years old when he wrote the first complete story, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. He dedicated it to his god-daughter, Lucy Barfield, with a wise and charming note: “I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realised that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already far too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still.
“But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”