Dragaera

A question re: Beginning Fantasy for Youth

Mark A Mandel mam at theworld.com
Mon Nov 25 15:33:55 PST 2002

On 25 Nov 2002, David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

#Matthew Hunter <matthew at infodancer.org> writes:
#> As for Narnia, no denying the allegory, but it's a good story
#> nonetheless.  It's not a book that tries to convert you, it's
#> just told from an explicitly Christian viewpoint.
#
#That's what bugged me, it's *not* explicitly christian.  It's a
#fantasy world, with non-christian fantasy religious elements, which he
#whips the covers off at the end and blatantly associates with
#christianity.  That's what pissed me off about it.

Well, yeah. Except that for Lewis, the Christian mythos is absolutely
true about the universe. The fair question, as I see it, is: Did Lewis
expect the series to hit people this way, or could he reasonably have
expected it to? And if so, how did he feel about it? -- Not necessarily
questions we can answer.

-- Mark A. Mandel