From: gere@umunhum.stanford.edu (Susan Gere)
Subject: C.S. Lewis  (Re: Jumping to conclusions in r.a.b, etc.)
Organization: Stanford University CSL
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 18:41:53 GMT

crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford) writes:
Susan Gere writes:
>>
>>C.S. Lewis maintained that he did not *intend* Christian allegory 
>>in his Narnia books.
>
>OK, I'll bite.  Can you cite your source(s) for this?  
>

 I hope y'all are happy; I had to grub through the boxes in my garage
for this. But it was worth it; I'll quote some of the priceless parts 
below.

 But first, Walter Hooper (literary executive for the Lewis estate) 
speaks:
	There are, doubtless, others besides myself who were puzzled 
	not to find in the fragment a high theological theme such as
	that which runs through the other interplanetary books. I think
	the answer is--indeed Lewis says so himself--that he never began
	any story with a moral in mind, and that wherever there is one 
	it has pushed its own way in unbidden.

	[--from Notes to "The Dark Tower"]

 BTW, I haven't said there *is* no allegory, simply that C.S. ought not 
be excoriated for writing it as such when it apparently rises simply 
from his pure unclouded heart. I reported that he had read this ms. to
the "Inklings" (in about 1939) and here are the more choice selections 
concerning the experience of the newly created "Stingingman":

 ...in the very act of setting the girl down he found his whole mind reeling 
 under the effort of resisting a desire which horrified him both by its 
 content and by its almost maniacal strength. He wanted to sting. There was 
 a cloud of pain in his head so that he felt his head would burst if he did 
 not sting. And for one horrible moment it seemed to him that to sting Camilla 
 would be the most natural thing in the world. For what other purpose was she 
 there?
 	Of course Scudamour has read his psychoanalysis. He is perfectly well 
 aware that under abnormal conditions a much more natural desire might disguise
 itself in this grotesque form. But he is pretty sure that this was not what 
 was happening. The pain and pressure in his forehead, as he still remembers 
 them, leave no room for doubt. This was a desire with a real physiological 
 basis. He was full of poison and ached to discharge it.
 . . .	
 	Scudamour groaned and put his hand to his head. A second later he 
 drew it away with a scream of agony. ... His hand was sore and swollen for 
 several days but he was otherwise unharmed. In the meantime the accident 
 had one result which he counted cheap at the price of the pain. The tension 
 in his head was relaxed, the throbbing grew less, and the desire to sting 
 disappeared. He felt once more master of himself. 

 
Gentle Readers, I can fleetingly regret that I am what he calls later 
in this same story so "modern"* that I can read the above with but one 
interpretation.  And so it is for some with Christian-like images. It's
unfortunate, and one of the things that makes Tolkien a superior writer
of fantasy. His acquired Catholic faith does not show through to middle
earth much at all (thank you, Jeyzus).

*("She was so free to talk about the things her grandmother could not 
  mention that Ransom once said he wondered if she were free to talk 
  about anything else.")
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books