(no subject)
Read this article about Philip Pullman today.
Poor Susan Pevensie. She gets so completely misinterpreted for the lipstick and hosiery comment in The Last Battle (which is, admittedly, my least favorite of the Chronicles). And there's lots of people who have problems with Aslan telling the Friends of Narnia they can't come back 'cause they're too old. But Lewis was not against growing up.
On the surface, I can see people's point. There's the aformentioned prohibition, there's Susan's refusal of Narnia being linked with her desire to be grown up, there's the fact that five of the Seven Friends died suddenly as young men/women (not children, remember that only Eustace and Jill were still in school in TLB), we've got a boy king in Caspian and child saviors in the Pevensies, Cor, and Aravis. It looks like there's a pattern here. Noble Caspian kills his evil (adult) Uncle Miraz. The Pevensies help defeat the evil (adult) Jadis, whom Polly and Diggory fought against so long before. Eustace and Jill fight against the evil (adult) Emerald Witch. But that is not the only evidence to consider.
There's also a running theme of true maturity throughout the books that divorces it from age and links it instead to wisdom and humility. After the Pevensies defeat the White Witch, they do, indeed, grow up - in Narnia. We get a glimpse of them in THHB, dealing with a difficult political situation and a threat to their kingdom. Every time they return to Narnia, Lewis mentions how they feel and act "older" once they've been in Narnian air, as true kings and queens with all kinds of knowledge, skills, and experience. I always love the bit in PC when Lucy sees the stars and reminisces about memorizing them when she was a queen, and Lewis makes the point that she was a grown-up: otherwise she would not have stayed up so late. (Can you imagine? Reminiscing about when you were a grown-up? Boggles the mind.)
Caspian, too, grew up. And grew old. He married, had a son, had a long and illustrious reign. King Frank and Queen Helen were actually adults when they came to Narnia, and Lewis speaks eloquently of their merits. Cor and Aravis grew up and were married. Nearly every non-human character we meet is an adult, and they run the whole range of good to evil. Caspian relied on an adult, Drinian when sailing to the End of the World. Jill and Eustace relied on Puddleglum. (Puddleglum, how wonderful you are, one of my favorite Narnians ever!) Diggory and Polly grew up and grew old, and we know about Diggory's career.
But more than that, there's Aslan's country. Straight up, Lewis tells us that people "didn't seem to have an age" there. The labels "child" and "adult" lose all meaning in that far country; people are as they were meant to be. When Tirian first arrives in the New Narnia, he mistakes Jill not for a princess - not for a child - but for "the youngest of the queens."
The prohibition of the Friends once they got "too old" is no condemnation of growing up, either. As Aslan says, the Friends travelled to Narnia to meet Aslan, so that they might recognize him better in their own world. When they left for the last time, they weren't being forbidden, they'd graduated. When you graduate high school, you don't go back, except maybe to reminisce. It doesn't fit any more. You don't belong there. It was right and good for you at the time, but now you move on. The Friends had lives to live outside of Narnia, so of course they couldn't stay there forever. And it's not like it was a permanent goodbye, as they eventually discovered.
And as for Susan...
"Grown-up indeed!" said the Lady Polly. "I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can."
Susan's crime isn't merely being interested "nylons and lipstick and invitations," as Jill put it. It's being interested in nylons, lipstick, and invitations - the trappings of adulthood - to the exclusion of all else. Not to mention that she has managed to convince herself that a large chunk of her life never happened (we can only speculate why). But notice how Polly elaborates on the problem: Susan is not simply racing to adulthood, she is racing to a particular moment of adulthood. She may have spent all that time wanting to be, say, twenty-five, but now she's going to spend the rest of her time trying to stay twenty-five.
We all know people who do that. I've seen (and known) any number of women who just won't give up the girly clothes, trying to heft sagging boobs into tight tops, dying hair long past any semblance of nature, acting with all the maturity of a sixteen-year-old with a fake ID. (and please note, I draw a distinction between adults who never forgot how to have fun, like my dad hiding under blankets with his grandson, and adults who never figured out how to grow up) This kind of artificial freezing of oneself isn't adult at all. It's childishness taken to the extreme. It has all the silliness of a child playing dress-up, but has ceased to be cute.
Lewis was writing his stories for children, which is why his protagonists are (mostly) children. And he understood that childish evil isn't nearly as terrible as adult evil (though he did have Them at the Experiment House, and the pig-faced boys in PC) and therefore made all his villains adults. But his view was less about keeping children innocent and more about the difference between being childish and childlike. May I put all the selfishness and smallmindedness and pride and vanity that is childishness away from me, but embrace always the wonder and joy and honesty and impartiality that is being childlike.
I love English. It's a stupid language, but it's a fun stupid language. There are so many weird parallels and contrasts to be drawn with the words.
Poor Susan Pevensie. She gets so completely misinterpreted for the lipstick and hosiery comment in The Last Battle (which is, admittedly, my least favorite of the Chronicles). And there's lots of people who have problems with Aslan telling the Friends of Narnia they can't come back 'cause they're too old. But Lewis was not against growing up.
On the surface, I can see people's point. There's the aformentioned prohibition, there's Susan's refusal of Narnia being linked with her desire to be grown up, there's the fact that five of the Seven Friends died suddenly as young men/women (not children, remember that only Eustace and Jill were still in school in TLB), we've got a boy king in Caspian and child saviors in the Pevensies, Cor, and Aravis. It looks like there's a pattern here. Noble Caspian kills his evil (adult) Uncle Miraz. The Pevensies help defeat the evil (adult) Jadis, whom Polly and Diggory fought against so long before. Eustace and Jill fight against the evil (adult) Emerald Witch. But that is not the only evidence to consider.
There's also a running theme of true maturity throughout the books that divorces it from age and links it instead to wisdom and humility. After the Pevensies defeat the White Witch, they do, indeed, grow up - in Narnia. We get a glimpse of them in THHB, dealing with a difficult political situation and a threat to their kingdom. Every time they return to Narnia, Lewis mentions how they feel and act "older" once they've been in Narnian air, as true kings and queens with all kinds of knowledge, skills, and experience. I always love the bit in PC when Lucy sees the stars and reminisces about memorizing them when she was a queen, and Lewis makes the point that she was a grown-up: otherwise she would not have stayed up so late. (Can you imagine? Reminiscing about when you were a grown-up? Boggles the mind.)
Caspian, too, grew up. And grew old. He married, had a son, had a long and illustrious reign. King Frank and Queen Helen were actually adults when they came to Narnia, and Lewis speaks eloquently of their merits. Cor and Aravis grew up and were married. Nearly every non-human character we meet is an adult, and they run the whole range of good to evil. Caspian relied on an adult, Drinian when sailing to the End of the World. Jill and Eustace relied on Puddleglum. (Puddleglum, how wonderful you are, one of my favorite Narnians ever!) Diggory and Polly grew up and grew old, and we know about Diggory's career.
But more than that, there's Aslan's country. Straight up, Lewis tells us that people "didn't seem to have an age" there. The labels "child" and "adult" lose all meaning in that far country; people are as they were meant to be. When Tirian first arrives in the New Narnia, he mistakes Jill not for a princess - not for a child - but for "the youngest of the queens."
The prohibition of the Friends once they got "too old" is no condemnation of growing up, either. As Aslan says, the Friends travelled to Narnia to meet Aslan, so that they might recognize him better in their own world. When they left for the last time, they weren't being forbidden, they'd graduated. When you graduate high school, you don't go back, except maybe to reminisce. It doesn't fit any more. You don't belong there. It was right and good for you at the time, but now you move on. The Friends had lives to live outside of Narnia, so of course they couldn't stay there forever. And it's not like it was a permanent goodbye, as they eventually discovered.
And as for Susan...
"Grown-up indeed!" said the Lady Polly. "I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can."
Susan's crime isn't merely being interested "nylons and lipstick and invitations," as Jill put it. It's being interested in nylons, lipstick, and invitations - the trappings of adulthood - to the exclusion of all else. Not to mention that she has managed to convince herself that a large chunk of her life never happened (we can only speculate why). But notice how Polly elaborates on the problem: Susan is not simply racing to adulthood, she is racing to a particular moment of adulthood. She may have spent all that time wanting to be, say, twenty-five, but now she's going to spend the rest of her time trying to stay twenty-five.
We all know people who do that. I've seen (and known) any number of women who just won't give up the girly clothes, trying to heft sagging boobs into tight tops, dying hair long past any semblance of nature, acting with all the maturity of a sixteen-year-old with a fake ID. (and please note, I draw a distinction between adults who never forgot how to have fun, like my dad hiding under blankets with his grandson, and adults who never figured out how to grow up) This kind of artificial freezing of oneself isn't adult at all. It's childishness taken to the extreme. It has all the silliness of a child playing dress-up, but has ceased to be cute.
Lewis was writing his stories for children, which is why his protagonists are (mostly) children. And he understood that childish evil isn't nearly as terrible as adult evil (though he did have Them at the Experiment House, and the pig-faced boys in PC) and therefore made all his villains adults. But his view was less about keeping children innocent and more about the difference between being childish and childlike. May I put all the selfishness and smallmindedness and pride and vanity that is childishness away from me, but embrace always the wonder and joy and honesty and impartiality that is being childlike.
I love English. It's a stupid language, but it's a fun stupid language. There are so many weird parallels and contrasts to be drawn with the words.