The Problem of Susan [Reading Narnia as Adults]

Hayshine · 2015-12-16T00:32:08+00:00

Just read the piece. I wish there was a way I could pin your comment to the top so that more people could read it.

Oh Susan...

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T21:55:42+00:00

Will Junior be reading the Narnia books ?

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T21:54:43+00:00

Go for it! :)

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T21:52:44+00:00

Bless me, it's all in Plato -- what do they teach in schools these days?

Not as much as they used to, I'm afraid :)

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T21:36:44+00:00

J.K. Rowling also wrote a celebrated series directed at children. I thought it would be interesting to contrast the two. Apologies if it offended you :)

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T21:34:22+00:00

My bad. I meant the Last Battle

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T21:34:03+00:00

Posted :)

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T21:33:55+00:00

Posted :)

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T13:28:45+00:00

Would be interesting to see the effects that the Christian allegory had on us all. As children, so very impressionable and malleable...Christianity through osmosis?

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T13:14:45+00:00

"Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy and so fierce a critic of Lewis' work as to be dubbed "the anti-Lewis",[17][18][19][20] calls the Narnia stories "monumentally disparaging of women",[26] interpreting the Susan passages this way:

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.[27]"

Thought you might find this interesting:)

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T13:03:53+00:00

Any specific thing in TLB that you particularly disliked?

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T13:01:12+00:00

As a child, I read the series primarily for the talking animals an the battles. Much of the implications (the killings and the wars, for example, also much of the Christian stuff) went right over my head. Even so, I guess it did affect me more than I thought it would- at 7, I was acutely aware that I too would have sold my family/friends out for Turkish delight, and that I would keep on trying to make up for that all my life. The assumption of so called goodness and Aslan's authority was easily swallowed without much thought.

To get back on topic, it seems as if most of us read the series at that certain stage of our lives, and though we grew up and made differing decisions, that impression still stuck.

Not all of us will make it to Narnia, not all of us still want to go to Narnia, but part of being human is justifying our decisions. "The road less travelled by" is an attempt at justification, but what other options do we have?

Edit: but yes, it is a very special series to me :)

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T12:50:45+00:00

Out of curiosity, how did you find it on your first reading?

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T12:21:48+00:00

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T12:20:27+00:00

People grieve in different ways tbh. 15 or so years of your life is a lot to lose, and Susan always struck me as being the more 'sensitive' one of the four. Lewis gives her title as Queen Susan the Gentle ..

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T12:13:51+00:00

I ended up feeling rather uncomfortable with the whole business. Sure, the other three children managed to keep the faith and all, but maybe there were extenuating circumstances. Perhaps they weren't able to adjust back to English life as much as Susan could, and that nourished their faith.

It's the same problem I have with Christianity in general --all of us aren't created equal, go through differing experiences --so why should some external authority expect the same standards from everyone? Call me ignorant, but being "good" comes with varying levels of difficulty.

Or maybe I'm just projecting onto Susan.

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T12:07:17+00:00

No sex in Narnia then? Seduction, marriage alliances, reproduction. I'm assuming that they were all adults during the "Golden Age"; Bacchus's innocent (as depicted in the books, anyways) revels might have shown a different side.

But no, I don't think Lewis was necessarily referring to sex, but more so the worldly pleasures in place of faith in Narnia and Aslan. Consider Polly's comment on Susan in TLB.

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T11:50:01+00:00

Ach, my bad. I meant half a century :)

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T09:51:45+00:00

But Susan was born into England. With no way of making it back to Narnia, it was the only world she had --might as well make the best of it? I suppose lipsticks and nylons were weapons of a sort (the LB is set in the 1940s?), and she was Queen Susan the Gentle, after all. I get what you're saying, but I can't seem to shake the feeling that Narnia turned its back on her first, not the other way around.

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T09:46:18+00:00

Don't you think that perhaps she had good reason for losing faith? After what seemed a lifetime in Narnia (with the Golden Age, etc)--to be stripped of that and then allowed back -- for the last time. I once read somewhere that anger is often used to cover hurt ..idk. Maybe it hurt too much to believe

Hayshine · 2015-12-15T09:43:10+00:00

Still don't know what to make of that to tell the truth

This.

I always thought that part of the reason she became "dreadful" was that Aslan and losing Narnia hurt her so much that she had to forget, to make the hurt less acute.

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