Nick DeHoust: Reflections on the Nature of the Literary Series and the Chronicles of Narnia

When considering the Chronicles of Narnia and how I might use this journal to reflect on them further, I realized that I wanted to step outside of the narrative itself for one of my entries. In other words, with this entry, I want to embrace the perspective of the reader as a physical, actual, extended, living being, rather than as the necessary co-establisher and location of the narrative itself. I could pursue another dive into what the books themselves may or may not mean, or, perhaps, what is so special about them. However, in order to do so I would have to fully surrender myself to the abstract world of ideas, entering into it through the narrow door of the Chronicles of Narnia. Let us not forget that the Narnia books are books, and that they were written by a man named C.S. Lewis. In reading and exploring them, we complete them—we humbly open the door. To borrow from the old adage, though, if a book is written in the forrest and no one is there to read it, does it mean anything? Can it speak? We readers give books their voices, and our privilege is to decide what we will allow the books to say (though, of course, all books offer strong suggestions for how we ought to do so, and the significance of this reader/read dialectic cannot be overstated). This is fantastic, and I love books, but I want to entertain a somewhat foreign (for me, at least) perspective with this post. I want to come to and interrogate the arrangement of the literary medium as it pertains to Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia.

What does it mean for a work like the Chronicles of Narnia to be written as a series? Immediately I am struck with the realization that no idea seems to ever achieve perfect completion. One idea leans on another for support, and that idea in turn leans on another. We find ourselves navigating a challenging and complicated arrangement of ideas, and it seems rather impossible to apprehend them all satisfactorily. Every thinker since the beginning of thought (even Hegel) has failed to complete thinking’s task before dying. Plato writes a dialogue packed with wonderful ideas and insights. Great. Then, he writes another. The second presumably speaks to ideas and insights that he failed or declined to address in the first. He writes a third, and a fourth, and so on. Eventually, the ideas he had not yet written die with him. We are left with a fantastic “body of work” and a cornerstone of Western philosophy, but it is not quite equipped to address every aspect of every truth as they constitute the ever-elusive absolute Truth (presuming, of course, that there is such a thing). Ideas, then, rest on other ideas, just as the books in a series rest on each other. Toward the beginning of the semester, we discussed the “correct” way to read the Narnia books (internal vs. external chronology). In a sense, though, there is no right or wrong order. By splitting his narrative into seven books, Lewis simply participated in the unavoidable and despotic fact of ideological complexity within the essence of what it means to be human. What does order matter? Seven rafts floating on a vast ocean will cover the same surface area no matter their placement, but they will never come close to covering the whole thing. Suddenly, where before a brilliant world was opened to us by the books, it seems that the much larger world of actuality absorbs and dominates this brilliance. The bright flame of wonder is now just a momentary flicker as it dies in the black ocean of existence, and we once again find ourselves faced with an insurmountable task. What is knowledge and who decided? Thanks, Prometheus. 

I really didn’t mean for this post to take such a dark turn, but I’m not sure I would change anything about it. I suppose I’m playing devil’s advocate in a way. This course has been deeply concerned with celebrating the ability of myth to reveal truth, and we have all enjoyed reading and exploring Lewis’s magnificent stories. Perhaps this celebration can be accentuated by the realization that it arises despite the seemingly impossible nature of complete knowledge. To quote Lewis’s reference to Pride and Prejudice in “Myth Became Fact,” “‘Would not conversation be much more rational than dancing?’ said Jane Austen's Miss Bingley. ‘Much more rational,’ replied Mr Bingley, ‘but much less like a ball’” (2). We’ve had a ball in this class; let’s not allow it to be for lack of opposition.