Lament for Susan Pevensie

[GrayMouser]

And even more off-topic, the Narnia timeline seems to feel a little off to me. While TLTWTW conveys the feel of England during the Blitz, VDT and SC seem to be much more post-war.

I especially note Mr. Pevensie taking Susan with him to America in Summer 1942- smack in the middle of the worst of the Battle of the Atlantic, with the U-boat wolf-packs ravaging all shipping between England and the US. Hardly time to take your 14-year-old daughter for a holiday cruise!

[inked]

I submit to all those that think the deaths of Pevensies morbid,

LIFE IS A 100% FATAL PROSPECT.

You are either prepared for the inevitable or you are not. No one, not even God, got off this planet without the experience (since we are not able to establish that the taking up to heaven of Enoch or Elijah or the Blessed Mother did not involve the process however they were translated).

Most people in most places at most times have lived well less than 40 years and still do. This is the consequence of life on a dangerous planet such as ours. That CS Lewis wrote small what is writ so large that we choose not see it, well, that is a boon, not a defect; a feature, not a bug.

Know well that you too shall face the inevitable. How one chooses to live one's life in the face of that knowledge has repercussions. If Susan's proclivity towards nylons and stockings mean anything at all, it has less to do with sexuality than it does with being blinded by the materialist assumption and faith that this world is all there is. To choose to major on the minors is a loss all too evident in these times. You have at least the advantage of having to consider whether such a choice is the sole choice for life direction.

There is a major difference here between Lewis and Pullman to which you are to respond. Both authors intend that.

Keep on thinking!

[Midge]

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

I suppose you could compare it to going to church. I went to Sunday School every week, and even won prizes- but it didn't take. I have friends who are Christians who were converted suddenly as adults.

Do you mean that I could compare Susan's experiences with Aslan to those who attend church and are "good at it" but aren't truly converted? I think that is exactly what Lewis is doing here.

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

Susan seems the type who is very down to earth- not necessarily a compliment in Narnia-it's a trait shared with witches and dwarfs.

This is a funny play on words.. Dwarves, the "sons of earth" are very down-to-earth. Do we know if Lewis based this description of dwarves off how Tolkien created Dwarves in the history of ME?

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

So, maybe just personality types- which leaves me to believe that "faith" is a very poor method of deciding on who gets saved- cheers to Lewis for his nod to inclusivism.

That's the whole point of being saved: that you have faith. That you can trust in things you have not seen.

[frodolives21]

i know i always hated that part. but that's life, and c.s. lewis wrote narnia from a Christian perspective. things like that do happen. when you write, you don't always have to have a happy ending!

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by frodolives21

i know i always hated that part. but that's life, and c.s. lewis wrote narnia from a Christian perspective. things like that do happen. when you write, you don't always have to have a happy ending!

That's the point- everybody dies, and that is the happy ending

[GrayMouser]

And don't get me started on Dwarfs- I have some rather idiosyncratic views on some of the symbolism in "The Last Battle".

[inked]

Ahh, GrayMouser, the mortality rate is 100%. Whether or not one is happy in the life to come is THE issue. And the way one lives one's life is part and parcel of that ability, witness the dwarves (dwarfs).

But about them you were going to say?

I do remember when one had no recourse after Lewis or Tolkien but the Sword of Shannara. THAT dates me, doesn't it? There was science fiction, of course. Heinlein, Asimov. Also, one could turn to George MacDonald. Then, mystery novels by Dorothy L. Sayers. Dante...

Ah, so much to read, so little time.

Now, there's Harry Potter, too!

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by inked

Ahh, GrayMouser, the mortality rate is 100%. Whether or not one is happy in the life to come is THE issue.

No, whether or not there is a life to come is more of an issue- or at least an issue that has to be dealt with first

And the way one lives one's life is part and parcel of that ability, witness the dwarves (dwarfs).

But about them you were going to say?

I do remember when one had no recourse after Lewis or Tolkien but the Sword of Shannara. THAT dates me, doesn't it? There was science fiction, of course. Heinlein, Asimov. Also, one could turn to George MacDonald. Then, mystery novels by Dorothy L. Sayers. Dante...

Ah, so much to read, so little time.

Now, there's Harry Potter, too!

Well, I date you by a fair bit then, being fifteen when Lin Carter started reprinting the classic fantasies under "The Sign of the Unicorn" in 1969:

Together we saw it all. I remember as Lin and I climbed onto the back of a reptilian shrowk to fly above the mountains of the Ifdawn Marest with Maskull and the wild and beautiful Oceaxe in David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus. Or when we stood by the cairn with Rhiannon in the world of The Mabinogion, the Welsh Iliad, through the works of Evangeline Walton, a quartet of books beginning with Prince of Annwn. Parched with thirst, Lin and I crossed the burning deserts of the dying continent Zothique and stood frozen in fear with Ralibar Vooz in the caves of Hyperborea with Clark Ashton Smith. We crept down the seven hundred onyx steps and beyond the Gates of Deeper Slumber with H.P. Lovecraft in The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath. We eyed one another in silent awe as we fled from the descending Powers of Evil, through the Utter Darkness toward the safety of the towering Great Redoubt of William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land, that bizarre and beautifully flawed story of an earth whose sun has died. Swords in hand, we fought the bloody manticore upon Koshtra Pivrarcha with Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha in E. R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros, a work written with power and elegance in archaic English.
....
We slipped past the Pool of the Blue Flamingo through the Gate of Khoire in Hannes Bok's Beyond the Golden Stair. We crossed into Faery itself with Alveric to win the heart of the Princess Lirazel in The King of Elfland's Daughter, with Lord Dunsany, possibly the greatest writer of prose in the English language. We crossed those borders again, this time through Dreamland with C. S. Lewis' old mentor, the Scotsman George MacDonald in Phantastes and in Lilith

We trod the dusty roads to Utterbol to The Well at the World's End with a genuine Renaissance man in both the arts and literature, William Morris, who might well be called the father of modern fantasy. Lin and I donned masks and gave chase through the streets of turn-of-the- century London in G. K. Chesterton's farcical The Man Who was Thursday and pondered detective's mysteries in Arthur Machen's The Three Impostors. We traveled to the East, in George Merideth's seductive oriental fantasy The Shaving of Shagpat, where I held the hair, while Lin wielded the scissors. We bottled genies in F. Marion Crawford's Khaled, saw the gates of Hell itself in William Beckford's bejeweled Vathek, and sat by the roadside in China to watch the great oriental storyteller, Kai Lung himself, unroll his mat and spin his tales in Ernest Bramah's Kai Lung's Golden Hours.

http://www.beyond49.ca/Carter/stoddard_trib.html

And on the S&S front Conan was reprinted in 1966/67 and my own dear Gray Mouser and Fafhrd in 1970.

[Midge]

This has nothing to do with Susan and the Lament for her. Y'all are jumping into other books!

[inked]

Midge, actually it has a lot to do with Susan. It may be a bit difficult to see that until you have read the other books and discovered how the ideas are related but shown in different ways.

For instance, GM is proposing are sheerly materialist world view which would say that Susan had it right to be concerned about lipsticks and stockings, and contending that she was right because this life is all there is and "you should grab all the gusto you can" whilst here. After here there is nothing.

Lewis' depiction of the dwarfs shows the end result in the next world: you get what you imagined, self-determination, and he shows what that results in for those "who will not be taken in".

So, do you think that Susan will side with the dwarfs or not?

Of course, she was a Queen in Narnia and nothing can take that away, but it remains entirely probable that she will release it and deny her knowledge just for a materialist world view. That is the edge of the knife on which all our journeying takes place! (Unless of course you want to be a materialist and say it is the very best knife money could buy and isn't it wonderful to be killed by so gloriously expensive a knife since we all die anyway and are gone!)

[Jonathan]

This has been a very interesting thread, thank you. I've read it from top till bottom.

Having just finished The Last Battle today, my first thoughts as I lay down the (audio)book, were thoughts concerning Susan. Her absence at the very end gave a bitter-sweet taste to the whole series. I'm still not sure whether I liked it or not, story-wise. In any case, it provides a good ground for further contemplation.

[hectorberlioz]

I found this very well argued article on Narnia controversies. It's kinda hard to get more definitive than this: http://www.narniaweb.com/resources-l...st-and-racist/