Of This and Other Worlds

But Peter was a complete prick...

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How?

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So bloody elder-brotherly. Grr.

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And this is a bad thing in your opinion, I take it. :)

I liked Peter because he seemed so... centred. Responsible. Mature. But not a jerk about it, not supercilious, just a decent guy trying to do the right thing. Plus, Pauline Baynes's illustrations, particularly of grown-up Peter, didn't hurt either...

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Hmm. He always struck me as a bit sanctimonious, but hey.

Still most bitter about Susan's lapse into the evils of lipstick. Thanks for that one, Clive... It bloody would be Susan, because of course pretty girls are inherently bad. Grr.

They tied Rilian to a chair, on the other hand. Now that was nice. Was clearly a warped child that my teachers were right to fear.

Probably had crush on Lucy. Ho hum.

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I suppose Lewis' depiction of Susan never troubled me all that much because there *was* a Susan in my life, and she was just like that--all fascinated with growing up too quickly and losing all sense in being "boy crazy" and being totally absorbed in makeup, clothes, etc. From the time she was eight she was busy trying to pass as eighteen. Lewis' Susan merely seems copied from life, to me. 8-)

And my alarm bells were going off about Susan before it was even really established that she was considered the "pretty" one of the family, because the first words we hear from her are that she thinks Professor Kirke is "an old dear" and then she's busy telling the younger children that "it's time you were in bed"--to which Edmund quite rightly snaps back that she needs to stop talking as if she were their mother.

Mary Anne

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Lewis says positive things about Susan -- just off the top of my head I recall him saying she was kind-hearted, plus he gave her the chance to outshoot Trumpkin in the archery contest (which to me proves that whatever he meant to imply with Father Christmas's line about battles being ugly when women fight, he did not mean that they would be ugly because of the women's incompetence).

But there are signs in the early books that all may not be right with Susan either -- in fact, the foreshadowing of her eventual rejection of Aslan and Narnia comes way back in Prince Caspian, where after the debacle in the woods she admits to Lucy she "really believed" and even "knew" that Aslan was leading Lucy in the other direction but consciously rejected that knowledge because "I wanted to get out of the woods and -- oh, I don't know". To me, it's that tendency in her, only temporarily checked in Prince Caspian by the shame of having been proven wrong, which leads to her apostacy -- not the "lipstick and nylons and invitations" which are only symptoms of or excuses for that choice.

I think Susan's being pretty is, if anything, irrelevant when it comes to her deciding not to be a friend of Narnia. The problem goes far deeper than that. And yes, it sucks because we liked Susan (which proves Lewis didn't slander or stereotype her -- we could hardly have cared about her fate if she'd been unsympathetic or flat). But I have met, loved and lost people like Susan in my own life, and though that scene in The Last Battle is painful to read it also strikes a realistic chord which is, I think, meaningful and not gratuitous.

Judging from past discussions on this subject, I do not expect many people to agree with me on this, however.

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I liked Edmund. Given how cloying he could have been, he was rather good.

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He always struck me as a bit sanctimonious

Judging from your immediate mental connection to Susan, I suspect this is a case of shooting the messenger more than anything. I can't think of any point in the books during which Peter behaves in a supercilious or self-righteous fashion. He takes the lead among his siblings, but then he's the oldest -- plus Aslan basically puts him in charge anyway. But he delivers the bad news about Susan, so everybody resents him for it.

If you look at that scene, however, Peter is very grave as he says "My sister is no longer a friend of Narnia," and in fact that's all he does say -- it's evident he would rather not talk about it because it grieves him. It's the women -- Jill and Polly -- who jump in and give us the details and the criticisms of Susan that everyone dislikes so much, not Peter.

*hugs Peter* My poor defamed woobie.

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Not a mental connection, fear not. I didn't like her either, it just peeved me that she was such an obvious Lapser Into Worldliness. In fact, she was considerably more appalling than Peter, I'll grant you, but it was so damn contrived.

And Aslan as the Patriarchy - hurrah...

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lizbee.livejournal.com

I attributed my crush on Peter to my obvious weakness for priggish Gryffindor types. I wonder if there's a support group?

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I'm afraid you'll have to bear the burden of your Albion-love all alone, dear. Nobody else seems to like him, though (largely thanks to your persistence) he's rather starting to grow on me...

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lizbee.livejournal.com

Oh well, at least there's no competition. ::contemplates planting a flag, decides firmly against it::

I'm alone in my love for

mctabby's Albus, too. He has an underestimated little brother as well. There's a pattern here...

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I have an Albus crush too, but it's for

viola_dreamwalk's version... I still need to read

mctabby's fic.

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lizbee.livejournal.com

I like Viola's Albus a lot, too. But it's very discombobulating to crush on two different versions of the same character, so I'll stick with McTabby's version.

(You should read TWIB. It's probably slashier than you'd like, and I can't swallow all of her ideas, but it's a reeeeeeeeeeeally good fic. And in the interests of remaining the Flaky OC Fangirl while everyone else in this comments page discusses Narnia, I'll show you the scene where I fell in love with TWIB!Albus:

Albus Dumbledore stood beside the Master's desk.

What a dreary prospect, having to watch him twice in one day. Still floating, still fighting, I glanced past that cursed priggish look of false modesty which always made me queasy. I saw the prefect's badge shining silver against his black robes, the white flower suspended in mid-air, the dark red-brown of the wand... And then Switch nodded to him, and he began.

I made no sound, there in the classroom. The game taught me to control every aspect of the semblance I presented to the world. No sound, as the stem of the flower turned to pure gold and my focus shattered to send me falling forward, helplessly, into the spell.
...

It was the power of the heart, yes, my point of the Triangle - yet not mine, not mine. I experienced Transfiguration as command, imposing my will on the objects of change. This power beckoned, persuaded, virtually invited the changes into being as it drew the flower into its vision, fitting it to an image already complete.

Caught by the colors, I watched the flower respond to the call. Streaming up from the stem of gold, circles of yellow, sulphur and primrose, saffron and dandelion, shading into honey and topaz and amber... I could feel the changes, see how the illusion of concentric rings was created: blindingly fast sequences for the petals within each ring, slowing slightly in between. Tones of red blending in as the rings followed the curves of the flower's sides, then moved inward toward its heart: ochre and carnelian, coral and garnet...

The Transfigured flower shone with the hues of breaking dawn and kindling fire: vivid, beautiful, alien... The hairs on my arms rose in a shudder of gooseflesh and aversion as the force which called those changes carried me into the flower's heart.

It became dragon's blood, steaming, burning with color richer than rubies. And in that instant I tore myself free.

He held the spell, but I was clear of it: shaken, bristling in outrage, still seeing colors everywhere, and longing to curse him to shreds. The chrysanthemum glowed, its Transfiguration complete, perfect. Changes I could have worked myself, changes I'd never have chosen, changes I had felt as if through my own wand... how?

Now Switch was examining the flower, smiling as he produced a few choice compliments for his pet... I ground my teeth. If the old gowk would only stop talking and hand out the inevitable ten points, we could move on and this class might finally end. The colors grew still brighter, and the floor swayed beneath my feet. Get on with it. Ten points to Gryffindor for a damnable degree of skill. My fingers twitched on my wand.

Switch poked at a petal. "This one here - what is it?"

"Raspberry jelly, sir."

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LOFL!!! That's wonderful. Raspberry jelly! And so perfectly Albus, too.

mctabby rules.

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It's important to note, I think, that Lewis saw Susan as fallen, but not irredeemably so:

The books don't tell us what happened to Susan. She is left alive in this world at the end, having by then turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman. But there is plenty of time for her to mend, and perhaps she will get to Aslan's country in the end-- in her own way.

-- C.S. Lewis, Letters to Children, p. 67

However, concerning the "evils of lipstick" in general: I think the relevant factor there is that Lewis did not agree with the underlying assumptions of feminism, nor did he pretend to. Therefore it is natural that someone approaching the books from a feminist point of view would find them a bit distasteful on certain points, and any attempt to make Lewis' books acceptable to feminists seems to me doomed to distort one side or the other, and probably both.

(I continue to hold the view that it would be best, to market the Narnia stories as "religious fiction," rather than "general children's fiction." After all, based on Lewis' explanations of his thought process in writing the series, the "ideal reader" he had in mind was a child favorably inclined toward Christianity although not yet fully committed to it. I don't think it does Christianity any favors to let kids be surprised at "who Aslan really is" if they're going to find that surprise an unpleasant one. Certainly I think there's value in reading books written from differing religious and non-religious viewpoints; but I think it's best to be open with the reader about it, whether the author is Lewis or Pullman or anyone in between.)

By the way, on a somewhat related topic: I find it interesting that JK Rowling has mentioned Eustace as one of her favorite characters in kids' literature:

I really like Eustace in THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER by C. S. Lewis (third in the Narnia series). He is a very unlikeable character who turns good. He is one of C. S. Lewis's funniest characters, and I like him a lot. --Barnes & Noble Interview (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?sit=T&ean=9780590353403&displayonly=ITV)

Even if JKR's general perspective is different from Lewis', one point they do have in common is a belief in the possibility of "bad" characters being redeemed-- as we've seen with Snape, and (she's hinted) eventually with Dudley as well.

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Thanks for that quote (indeed, those quotes, but particularly the one from Lewis). Yes, I quite agree that it's unreasonable to expect Lewis's work to appeal to everyone; he wasn't attempting to write for everyone in the first place. Anyway, I don't agree with the notion, even in theory, that any negative portrayal of a female character (even one like Susan who possesses stereotypically "feminine" traits and interests), amounts to a slur on women generally.

And I agree with you about frank and open marketing of Lewis's work for what it is and what he intended it to be. The idea of a spiritually expurgated Narnia designed to appeal to the broadest possible audience (which is a concept I've seen bandied about, though I sincerely hope the project has fallen through) is misguided in the extreme, IMO.

I wonder/worry what's going to happen with the proposed Narnia movie(s).

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All right, now you've got my mind going here. :) Let me talk myself through the questions: Under what circumstances might one perceive Lewis' portrayal of girls in Narnia as a 'slur on women'? And how, if at all, would I disagree with such a view?

There are five leading girls in Narnia: Susan, Lucy, Jill, Aravis, and Polly. Only Susan ends the series on the wrong path. Thus Lewis certainly was not portraying girls as inherently bad-- in fact, I think that Lucy comes across as the most ideal of the human characters in the series, more so than any of the boys. But one may still think that Lewis was presenting a wrong feminine ideal-- forcing his "good girls" into a "patriarchal" stereotype.

Let's also ask: What characteristics lead Susan to the wrong path? It would seem to be her desire for approval or popularity, expressed by trying too hard to be grown-up.

What virtues do Lucy, Jill, Aravis, and Polly have that Susan lacks? It seems to me that the biggest difference is that Susan is clearly the least adventurous of the five. Aravis of course is very feisty and independent; she mellows a bit in the end, but remains recognizably herself. Jill is "a wondrous wood-maid," who in England had done well in the Guides. Polly enjoys hiding out in the rafters dreaming up adventures, and also shows a very sensible head on her shoulders once the real-life adventures happen. Lucy perhaps fits the stereotype of dainty femininity the most closely of the four, but in H&HB is described by Corin (from his youthful male perspective) as being "as good as a man [in battle], or at any rate as good as a boy." Susan, on the other hand, is (says Corin) "more like an ordinary grown-up lady."

So on at least one point I think Lewis and feminism are in accord. Feminists tend to encourage girls to be independent and not feel they have to spend their lives seeking others' approval; and Lewis agrees. (Incidentally, Lewis' eventual wife seems by all accounts to have been a rather spunky sort of lady herself!)

On the other hand, if being "grown-up" (and, a few years later, being "sexy") is what a girl wants, then I can see how she might feel offended by Susan's being the one to reject Narnia. Such a girl might perceive Susan as the strongest expression of female sexuality in the series, and feel that female sexuality is rejected by the narrative through Susan.

The other girls, conversely, never seem to have those feelings-- not on-camera, anyway. Aravis does grow up to marry Shasta, so they must have some feelings that way (their youthful rows being probably the first hints of it). Jill does have the first stirrings of a crush on Eustace in book 7, but nothing comes of that.

But I think this may be explained by the fact that Lewis was writing primarily for pre-teens, whom he perceived as needing to be encouraged not to try to grow up too fast-- which he perceived as one of his own errors in childhood:

When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

C. S. Lewis, "On Three Ways of Writing for Children"

So thus the disagreement at hand may be a simple one of interpretation: Lewis' critics may view him as rejecting female sexuality in general, when I believe he was actually rejecting premature sexuality. However, if one believes that it's a good thing for early adolescent girls to be able to dress like young women if they so choose, then the disagreement with Lewis is a deeper one.

Of course, if Lewis' critics believe that no proper portrayal of the sexes would allow boys or men to take roles that are not permitted to girls or women, then of course Lewis will never satisfy them, and the discussion need proceed no further-- there again, the disagreement is a real and spiritual one, beyond mere literary concerns. And if they read with the habit of looking for traces of "patriarchy," they'll probably find it here. I find in Lewis no intention of satisfying such readers.

Hope that made sense!

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Jill does have the first stirrings of a crush on Eustace in book 7

Does she? *is delighted* Do tell where you found that. I've always been a Jill/Eustace 'shipper, but I could never exactly pin down why...

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It's right after Eustace's first battle with a Calormene in Book 7. The text says something about her suddenly feeling shy around him (sorry, don't have the book handy-- that's the best I can do from memory).

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Here's the actual quote (thanks to a Google search on "Jill Eustace Calormene shy" while waiting for my next meeting here at work):

Jill, besides being disgusted with the Dwarfs, was very impressed with Eustace's victory over the Calormene and felt almost shy.

Perhaps a bit open to interpretation, but the phrases "very impressed" and "almost shy" struck me as at least slightly proto-romantic.

The same text search also brought up the following page (http://www.heartless-bitches.com/culture/kidsbooks.shtml), which (if you'll pardon the site name) credits Lewis for having "evened out the playing field" and gives high marks for feminine independence to Polly, Aravis, Jill, and Lucy-- and that from a source which scarcely seems vulnerable to accusations of "patriarchal" bias! (They also mention Aravis' high-society counterpart Lasaraleen Tarkheena, whom I had forgotten in my post of last night, and who provides a much worse example of "the wrong sort of femininity" than Susan could ever have been.)

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