Susan, Orual, Dwarves, Tragedian

Thanks for a great long post citing a similar theme in Narnia and
non-Narnia Lewis books!


On 1 Apr 2007 10:16:40 -0700, nystulc.RemoveThis@cs.com wrote:
Bree wrote:

/snip/

> Another highly interesting and relevant piece of writing, in
> my opinion, is the non-Narnia, post-Last Battle novel "TIL WE HAVE
> FACES". It is, essentially, the tale of the spiritual journey of an
> older sister (Princess Orual) who gets left behind after her younger
> sister (Princess Maia) gets summoned to what may be a sort of
> paradise. It is about Orual's rage and complaint against the gods,
> whom she accuses of stealing her loved ones, taunting her, excluding
> her, and keeping her alive only to torture her. She imagines the Grey
> Mountain God as a devouring monster, who devoured her sister quickly,
> and left her alive to be devoured slowly.

/snip/

>> I doubt if the debate is being conducted on a level where evidence
>> matters, but if it were, a good place to start might be reviews in
>> the press during Lewis's lifetime. Were serious people making
>> these interpretations then? If so, and if Lewis didn't answer
>> them, that might be evidence of a sort.
>
> If Gaiman's interpretation was being made then, and if Lewis were
> aware of it, then it seems clear to me that TIL WE HAVE FACES would
> have been his answer.

TWHF might have covered the same issues, but I think IF the negative
interpretation of LAST BATTLE were being made then, and Lewis wanted to
answer it, he'd have done so on an appropriate level -- either a published
essay, or a short story ABOUT Susan for the child readers.


>> If negative critics then were NOT making these accusations, that
>> suggests the accusations are some sort of artifact of time, and
>> don't apply to what Lewis meant and his readers understood. (Not
>> to mention a similar controversy about LotR.)
>>
>> My own take -- probably not much use in the debate even if I had
>> proof of it -- is that it's a flaw not in Lewis's theology or
>> values, but a minor literary flaw in the book! He goofed.
>
> In my opinion, it is DEFINITELY a literary flaw in the book. The
> ending is simply overambitious, and seeks to resolve too much and to
> cover too much territory. /snip/move/ In LAST
> BATTLE, the bulk of the story centers around Jill, Eustace, Rilian,
> the final days of Narnia, and their final arrival in paradise. Once
> they reach paradise, however, Lewis switches gears, starts focussing
> on the Pevensies and virtually every other hero that ever appeared in
> a Narnia story, and deals with Susan in a sort of shorthand. I can
> certainly agree that, if he was going to deal with the Susan issue at
> all, she deserved a more in-depth treatment.

Right. All that wordage about her nylons, and her siblings never even asked
about her after they knew they were 'dead' and saw the parents in the other
branch of paradise! Just a few words could have tied up that loose end.
Lucy ask "What about Susan?", and Aslan quote Lewis's letter about her
perhaps finding another way (certainly there are plenty of churches in
Earth), and then maybe the trope about never being told "someone else's
story."


>> Imo he
>> put in the conversation about Susan being 'no longer a friend of
>> Narnia' to explain why she wasn't there with Peter and the rest
>> (maybe he'd forgotten to put her there) and then later he forgot
>> to show her in the other branch of Heaven with the parents either.
>
> The story is being addressed to Children currently alive in our world,
> in the late 1950s. The story takes place after the end of Narnian
> time, but, evidently, not after the end of Our Time. The Pevensie
> parents are already there, because they are dead. They died in the
> same train crash that killed the rest of the Pevensies.
>
>> The Narnia books are full of little inconsistencies that would get
>> edited out of similar books now.
>
> I'm not so sure of that.
>
>> Some little inconsistencies got resolved in later
>> editions, and some didn't. Lewis died in 1963! He didn't have a
>> computer. I doubt he even typed his correspondence. Typesetting
>> was done by moving metal dies around, each letter separate. His
>> publishers couldn't just call up the file and add a few words.
>> Making changes in a published book, especially adding something,
>> was a big deal back then.
>
> Computers are an advantage, no doubt, but I am still unconvinced that
> the Narnia stories compare unfavorably to modern works of the sme
> type. I certainly see no inconsistency in the Susan situation.

I'm not saying Susan's absence was an inconsistency. You just agreed that
the way Lewis presented it in the book was less than perfect; I'm citing
inconsistencies as evidence that editing of the Narnia books was less than
perfect (by the best modern standards).


> Apart from the fact that Susan remains alive, and the parents to not,
> the inclusion of Susan might rather have undermined his point.

Okay, you're right there. Showing her with the parents (she might have
decided to travel with the parents, or been on the train as yet another
coincidence) would have solved the LITERARY flaw with just a couple of
words, but undermined the point you (and perhaps Lewis) were making about
apostacy or backsliding or some such.



> While
> it is true he never intended to make a judgment on Susan's ultimate
> spiritual fate, he nonetheless DID intend to make the point that, in
> moving towards God and towards paradise, we are nonetheless often
> forced to leave loved ones behind -- they have free will of their own
> and cannot be forced to join us there.

Excellent examples, below, thanks.


> The same point is made in PRINCE CASPIAN, when Lucy is, at first, the
> only one to see ASLAN, but cannot convince the rest (Peter, Edmund,
> Susan, the DLF) to follow her. Eventually, Edmund and Peter see
> Aslan. Interestingly, Susan is one of the last to see Aslan, and she
> and the DLF are forced to follow for fear of being left behind. Then
> Susan, and finally the DLF, see Aslan.
>
> But Lucy gets (gently) scolded by Aslan -- she should have come to him
> when she saw him. If she could not convince the others, she should
> have gone on her own, even if it meant leaving the others behind.
>
> A similar theme is explored with the Dwarves in THE LAST BATTLE. The
> protagonists plead with the Dwarves, but are unable to convince them
> to acknowledge paradise. Eventually, they leave the dwarves behind as
> they move "further up and farther in". We never find out what became
> of the Dwarves. We know only that Aslan did not let them be
> immediately siezed by Tash as his lawful prey, as were Shift and the
> Tarkaan.
>
> The theme appears again in TIL WE HAVE FACES, wherein Maia and Orual
> meet at the Grey Mountain God's castle. Each loves the other and
> neither of the two want to be separated. However Maia wants Orual to
> join her in her paradise, whereas Orual wants to convince Maia that
> her paradise is a fraud, and lure her back to the "real" world. I
> won't say how this resolves itself, except to say that, in Lewis's
> view, it would be a serious mistake for Maia to compromise with Orual
> in any way. Eventually, things work out fine for both Orual and Maia,
> but only after a LONG, LONG separation.
>
> The theme had appeared earlier in THE GREAT DIVORCE, wherein
> Missionaries from Heaven meet Tourists from Hell at the very borders
> of paradise. The Missionaries try to convince the Tourists to come to
> heaven, whereas the Tourists often try to convince the Missionaries to
> come back with them to Hell. In one scene, a hellish husband argues
> with his heavenly wife, attempting to draw her back to hell with him.
> He does so by appealing to her compassion and sense of pity for him,
> but finds that this weapon, which he used against her his whole life,
> has lost all power over her.
>
> Most of the Tourists then get on the bus and angrily return to Hell,
> whereupon the Missionaries merrily return to heaven. The only person
> saved is a Lecher (lechery being one of the easier sins to cure, since
> it is only a perversion of a desire for something good). But Lewis is
> quite explicit that he is making no judgment as to the ultimate fate
> of any of the souls involved, and it may even be that they all will
> ultimately be saved.


Thanks!


Bree