Some very good points here; I like your line of thought a lot. (I've read the Chronicles several times myself; my faves are Nephew and Battle.) One does have to wonder how the dwarves could deny what was there for them to see, or how Susan could act as if her experience was just imagined. Is experience or memory so fickle? There must be other reasons. Vanity was a symptom, not a cause.
Someone earlier mentioned that Susan's trip to America and the resulting peer pressures there may have had an effect. I think this is also a good point, but they didn't apply it both directions: that the presence of others who had had a common experience helped bolster the validity of that experience for Peter/Edmund/Lucy. The same logic applies to why we go to church every Sunday, but I find we don't compare notes, or talk about things like the "Friends of Narnia" did.
Contradictorily, Professor Kirke admonished the Pevensies against talking about it at all, even among themselves at the end of LW&W. And I have a lot of trouble believing that several years' experience in a real place could be revoked by single year's worth of peer pressure, American or even Malacandran for that matter.
I suppose because I like the way you've considered these thing, I'll throw this out, too: what about Emeth the Calormene? Not to change the subject (this one being about the Problem of Susan,) but he says so many things that are true for me, I find him the most sympathetic in the entire series. His name is an Aramaic word variously translated as "truth, veracity, firmness." He relied upon his experience, made the most ethical decisions he could, displayed the greater part of valor, boldly faced his gravest fear, and did every bit of it with the most admirable nobility and comportment (and a delightfully foreign manner of speech, too!)
Hmm...as I re-read that, maybe this should be a new topic. But I'm too new at this, I don't know how to bring all these great people along to a new topic, so...well, there you have it.
Yes, and...
Date: 2008-02-23 12:28 am (UTC)Someone earlier mentioned that Susan's trip to America and the resulting peer pressures there may have had an effect. I think this is also a good point, but they didn't apply it both directions: that the presence of others who had had a common experience helped bolster the validity of that experience for Peter/Edmund/Lucy. The same logic applies to why we go to church every Sunday, but I find we don't compare notes, or talk about things like the "Friends of Narnia" did.
Contradictorily, Professor Kirke admonished the Pevensies against talking about it at all, even among themselves at the end of LW&W. And I have a lot of trouble believing that several years' experience in a real place could be revoked by single year's worth of peer pressure, American or even Malacandran for that matter.
I suppose because I like the way you've considered these thing, I'll throw this out, too: what about Emeth the Calormene? Not to change the subject (this one being about the Problem of Susan,) but he says so many things that are true for me, I find him the most sympathetic in the entire series. His name is an Aramaic word variously translated as "truth, veracity, firmness." He relied upon his experience, made the most ethical decisions he could, displayed the greater part of valor, boldly faced his gravest fear, and did every bit of it with the most admirable nobility and comportment (and a delightfully foreign manner of speech, too!)
Hmm...as I re-read that, maybe this should be a new topic. But I'm too new at this, I don't know how to bring all these great people along to a new topic, so...well, there you have it.