The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe: A review with a remembrance

I chose The Chronicles of Narnia, Book 2: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as my first book of the new year. There was a practical reason for this choice as I am tutoring a student and needed to refresh my memory of the details of the book. But, even more than that, I wanted to revisit this book that I read way back in my adolescent days.

Some 40 years ago, when I read the Narnia series, I remember not especially liking it, a strange thing in itself because I did like fantasy and science fiction. I think I found the story too heavy-handed with the allegory or the characters too stupid or too unbelievable. I couldn't quite accept Peter as a young kid able to do battle against the White Witch with no training whatsoever. At the time of my youthful reading, it was already well known that the stories were Christian allegories. I had already made my way through John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and strangely liked it, but LWW seemed too telegraphed, too predictable somehow.

This time as an adult reader I can appreciate C.S. Lewis's skilled writing. He captures the sensory experiences so clearly and succinctly: "But when the next morning came there was a steady rain falling, so thick that when you looked out of the window you could see neither the mountains nor the woods nor even the stream in the garden." I know what that rain looks and smells and feels like. Now I can see what a sensualist Lewis is, especially apparent in this passage: "Looking into the inside, [Lucy] saw several coats hanging up--mostly long fur coats. There was nothing Lucy liked so much as the smell and feel of fur. She immediately stepped into the wardrobe and got in among the coats and rubber her face against them." And this one from near the end of the book: "...Aslan leaped again. A mad chase began. Round and round the hilltop he led them...now diving between them, now tossing them in the air with his huge and beautifully velveted paws and catching them again...and whether it was more like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten Lucy could never make up her mind."

I also appreciate the theology more, and now the battle-ready Peter makes sense to me. In Christian theology, God equips his believers with the skills they need to battle the challenges that face them--though in the book only Peter and Edmund fight while Lucy and Susan are more of caretakers. I thought that might be sexism until I realize that Lucy and Susan had followed Aslan out of compassion the night before and were not present at the battle until it was all but over.

I liked the book, simply put. I didn't expect to and probably won't read the rest of the Narnia series, but I enjoyed Lewis' writing immensely.