A Visit to Narnia

I read two or three of the seven Narnia books when I was a young teenager.  I didn’t think much of them, but over the years I have occasionally felt that I was doing a disservice by not reading them all. So . . .  I took a vacation in Narnia, and at last have read all seven books.  I hope never to visit Narnia again.

I read the seven in the order of publication, not the stupid chronological order that the publisher has imposed upon them since the 1990s, which places the usual sixth volume, The Magician’s Nephew, as the first, thereby giving explanations for later plot developments before they could mean anything to the reader.

The main problem with the Narnia books is that they are filled with annoying children and various dated stereotypes.  These include gender roles as well as racial stereotypes, like the Arab-based Calormenes (who use scimitars, and Lewis tells us, “smell of garlic and onions” as if that’s a bad thing).  Modern education is mocked in The Silver Chair (Experiment House is, horror of horrors, co-educational, and Bibles are not encouraged there, as if it is a bad thing to discourage religious superstition). “Advanced” people are sarcastically called vegetarians, non-smokers, and teetotalers (what’s wrong with any of those qualities?). Most of these problems are expressed subtly, but Lewis bangs you over the head with Aslan, his Christ-figure who, shucks, does good things for only his friends who believe in him, but lets all those who don’t know his selfish “wisdom” fend for themselves; they receive deserved punishments.  Lucy is the dimmest of all the children in the series, as she is frequently mooning and yawping about Aslan. Susan, on the other hand, is probably the most sensible character to have visited Narnia, for she is no longer welcome there after she has discovered lipstick (i.e., sex appeal, and presumably sex).  Is this the kind of nonsense that “grown-ups” think children should read?  I don’t.  But C.S. Lewis does occasionally wander off track from his main proselytizing role, such as with the frequent kisses that young King Tirion bestows on his male unicorn named Jewel.  Does this reference homosexuality or bestiality, or both?  Alas, even such a reading does little to make Narnia palatable. Pauline Baynes's delightful illustrations, however, do raise interest in the series, but they are like the sugar coating on a poison pill, designed to get a someone to swallow something otherwise very unpleasant. 

Two More

The Third Magic (1988) by Welwyn Wilton Katz is a young adult fantasy by a Canadian author that re-imagines and redirects the familiar Arthurian story. It begins on the world of Nwm, where the First Magic of water and circles is worked by the women Sisters, and the Second Magic of fire and iron worked by the men of the Line. Morrigan (Rigan) and her twin brother Arddu live in Nwm, but they are separated when Rigan is missioned to Earth’s past to take part in the struggle with M’rlendd (Merlin) to raise Arthur.  Meanwhile in the twentieth century, young Morgan Lefevre, who is visiting Tintagel with her Canadian television-producer father, and who has some visions from the past, is spirited away to Nwm, where she is befriended by Arddu. Gradually they learn the complex plot which the Sisters are attempting to bring about, and make their own plans to alter its fulfillment. The main plot is fairly straightforward, but the implications of their actions get complicated, and as a whole the story is an ambitious one that is not entirely effectively realized.  Yet it is nonetheless an intriguing and worthwhile book. 

Embracing the Dark (1991), edited by Eric Garber, is a collection of eleven tales of horror and alternative sexuality. In the introduction, Garber notes that with few exceptions most horror writers “seem overwhelmingly misogynous, antisex, and homo-hostile.” This collection is intended to provide stories counter that trend, and in that aim it succeeds.  However, one wishes that the results made for better stories.  The best ones are among the five reprints:  “Cheriton” by Peter Robins, from his 1977 collection Undo Your Raincoats and Laugh!; and a new translation from the German of an 1885 story “Manor” by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, an early proponent of the gay movement.  A few original stories (those by Nina Kiriki Hoffman and Jewelle Gomez) are reasonably well-done, if unambitious, but some of the others are disappointing—“Blood Relations” by Jeffrey N. McMahan is simply-written  and clichéd; “The Strawberry Man” by Jon Peyton Cooke is simply stupid. A mixed collection overall.   

Two and a Half ...

The Wanderer in Unknown Realms (2013) by John Connolly is a horror novella, concerning a book collector, Lionel Maulding.  Set just after World War I, an injured former soldier, Mr. Soter, is hired by Maulding’s lawyer to find the usually reclusive but now entirely missing book collector. Soter gradually discovers that Maulding was searching for a particularly rare and expensive occult volume often referred to as the Atlas of Unknown Realms. As Soter delves into the world of eclectic book dealers and even seedier book scouts, he finds his own perception of reality coming apart, an apparent effect of the book he is searching for. An interesting and diverting tale, even though it doesn’t cohere entirely well.  

Oxford Days: An Inclination (2002) by Paul West is a kaleidoscopic memoir of West’s time studying at Oxford University. I’ve had a copy and intended to read it for some years. After West’s recent passing provoked eulogies in the press, I pulled it off the shelves at long last. Most reviewers always comment on West’s exquisite or elegant prose, but I confess that I find his prose highly allusive, and while smoothly readable, it is rather aloof, and puts a barrier of artifice between the writer and the reader. Thus there is a distance purposefully placed to dull the edges of meaning, and in a memoir already short on facts and details, it leaves the reader frustrated. For example, if one doesn’t already understand the differing and idiosyncratic Oxford or Cambridge educational set-ups, West’s explanations won’t help much. And even West’s time at Oxford is hard to pin down—apparently he arrived in 1950, and departed two years later in 1952 for Columbia University in New York, where he completed his M.A. in comparative literature. Yet there are times when West lets the reader see into his evolving feelings about literature and Oxford itself, and these are the most interesting parts of the book. In the sixth section, however, he tries to capture the various voices of “souls” around him—a rector, a college scout, a custodian, a dining hall scout, a groundsman, etc. This section is the low point of the book.  These vignettes feel merely like exercises in cleverness—empty, intrusive, and distracting. A better structure and focus could have made this a much better book.  

The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Seven (2015), edited by Ellen Datlow, continues her long tradition of editing an annual selection of the best-of-the-year in horror. I offer a review here of only the first half of the book, and hope to persevere and finish it, commenting on the rest of the stories in the future. The problem has been that none of the stories I have read have grabbed me, and a large number are real duds, including a tediously dull story about a sin-eater (“A Dweller in Amenty” by Genevieve Valentine); a somnolent trick story of a recurring awakening that plays out with some variations but reads like a script for a bad television show (“Allochton” by Livia Llewellyn); and the appropriately-titled “This Is Not for You” by Gemma Files.  Caitlyn R. Kiernan’s “Interstate Love Song (Murder Ballad No. 8)” is a yawn-worthy tale of twin female serial killers; the news that Kiernan is expanding this story into her next novel is even more unexciting. Some of the other stories are merely readable while remaining completely forgettable. Was 2014 really such a bad year for horror fiction? By the first half of this annual retrospective I’d think it was. But I will read the rest of Datlow’s best, hoping for some better stories.