What took him so long?

Yes, Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy and Richard Dawkins of the literary world has been on the warpath against The Chronicles of Narnia again. When The Guardian ran a feature previewing the film a few weeks ago which described The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as “a story of unimpeachable moral integrity from a golden age of British literature”, I knew that Philip Pullman would be spluttering away in indignation given his long-running jihad against the books. It took him longer than I expected for him to recommence the attack on C S Lewis, but he got there in the end when he spoke to The Observer to reiterate his criticisms of the books:

‘If the Disney Corporation wants to market this film as a great Christian story, they’ll just have to tell lies about it…’

The Narnia books, Pullman said, contained ‘…a peevish blend of racist, misogynistic and reactionary prejudice; but of love, of Christian charity, [there is] not a trace’.

Let’s have a look at an extract from The Last Battle by C S Lewis, the final volume in the Chronicles of Narnia:

“Sir,” said Tirian, when he had greeted all these. “If I have read the chronicle aright, there should be another. Has not your Majesty two sisters? Where is Queen Susan?”
“My sister Susan,” answered Peter shortly and gravely, “is no longer a friend of Narnia.”
“Yes,” said Eustace, “and whenever you’ve tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says, ‘What wonderful memories you have! Fancy you still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'”
“Oh Susan!” said Jill. “She’s interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up.”
“Grown-up, indeed,” said the Lady Polly. “I wish she would grow up. She waster all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she’ll waster all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. er whole idea is to race to the silliest time of one’s life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can.”

Short, isn’t it? But this passage has caused a lot of fuss! The comment about Susan being “interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations” has been said by some to show Susan becoming aware of her sexuality, which is the basis of Philip Pullman’s criticisms of Lewis on this point. He claims:

Susan, like Cinderella, is undergoing a transition from one phase of her life to another. Lewis didn’t approve of that. He didn’t like women in general, or sexuality at all, at least at the stage in his life when he wrote the Narnia books. He was frightened and appalled at the notion of wanting to grow up.

But read in context, “nylons and lipstick and invitations” is indicating Susan’s shallowness and superficiality. Polly corrects Jill – the problem is not that Susan is growing up, but rather that she’s not growing up enough. The passage doesn’t seem to me to be saying that “nylons and lipstick and invitations” are in themselves bad, but that Susan is very immature to make them the centre of her life even in to adulthood to the exclusion of all else, including Narnia. Lewis is in fact criticising Susan’s failure to grow up.

I’m puzzled about why Philip Pullman gets so annoyed with this. A similar situation in his books would have been if Lyra, when she was living with Mrs Coulter in London, on finding out about the Oblation Board and so on had decided that she liked the life of cocktail parties and nice clothes and so on, and so decided not to do anything about it, not to run away to the North, but to stay to enjoy her pampered lifestyle as Mrs Coulter’s pet. Such a decision would be weak-willed, shallow and wrong.

Lewis does perhaps occasionally reflect some of the prejudices of his time, which is a pity but hardly unusual. But Pullman (among others) seem determined to take all he writes in the worst possible sense – see Pullman’s blatantly false claim that “One girl was sent to hell because she was getting interested in clothes and boys” (article). Sadly, it seems that Pullman is intent on doing down Lewis on whatever score possible because of Lewis’s Christianity (as some Christians do to Pullman for his atheism, as it happens, equally sadly). We should give the benefit of the doubt to writers – be charitable in our readings, criticising where criticism is due, but not rushing out to gleefully attack authors for their perceived wrongs.

An interesting article from Mythlore discusses C S Lewis’s and Philip Pullman’s views of the Fall, in particular in relation to Susan. It argues that they do, in fact, share very similar views on the importance of growing up, but disagree fundamentally on the nature of the Fall in the Christian story. Well worth a read! It seems to me that Pullman confuses experiential innocence and moral innocence – he views the loss of moral innocence as a necessary part of growing up and hopefully becoming wise. According to Pullman, wisdom and moral innocence are mutually exclusive. That’s a very different assumption to Christian theology, and I think that Pullman’s problem with Christianity partly comes from arguing against a version of it based on his assumptions rather than taking it on its own terms.

Another of Pullman’s criticisms of Lewis’s writing is that it’s “anti-life”. Actually, I think Pullman has the glimmerings of a point on this one. The ending to The Last Battle is one where they all seem to disappear off into an afterlife, but that’s not where the story ends in Christianity. The Big Exciting Thing in Christianity is not that we have a wonderful afterlife to go to (though we get that in the meantime) but that there will be the resurrection – we have new life and the new creation to look forward to, at least if we are being made one with Christ through faith in him and so share in his death and resurrection. On the other hand, Aslan’s country is basically a “new creation”, but considering how much C S Lewis drew on the themes of Christianity in his books, I find it strange that the resurrection gets such short shrift.

But as for “love” being absent from the books – what version is Pullman reading of the Chronicles? Aslan’s self-sacrifice to save Edmund and Narnia, Mr Tumnus’ compassion for Lucy, the love the children have for each other, Diggory’s love of his mother, which is weak and paltry compared to the great love that Aslan has for her, and so on and so forth, all demonstrate the presence and importance of love in the books.

Still, with His Dark Materials languishing, ironically enough, in Hollywood’s development hell, Pullman’s got to do something to get attention and keep sales up!