Laura's Tolkein and Lewis Project

Welcome back to “Laura Meanders Through The Narnia Books While Also Navigating The End Of American Civilization And Tries Not To Talk About Politics!” We have fun here. Grab a drink. When we last left Narnia, I was sighing over the Aslan/Jesus correlation. I asked some friends on Threads, and many of them said they figured it out themselves, some said they missed it until the end of “Dawn Treader,” some learned it ahead of time from parents of friends, and some missed it altogether until later. My parents made sure to point it out to me right away. I don’t remember how I handled it, and my daughter doesn’t either. The general consensus DID seem to be “Publication Order is Best” but we will fight that battle later. Anyway. Aslan. He has come back to Narnia, and he wants to meet the children—tomorrow, if possible. Lucy still wants to save poor Mr. Tumnus, but the Beavers assure them that the best way to save him is by meeting Aslan. There are prophecies, you see. When Aslan returns? Spri...

Well. Last week was rather a mess, wasn’t it? I’m referring partly to my notes and partly to the final week of January, 2026. (Here’s the part where i absolutely am not gonna talk about American politics in this blog.) **shudders** Well. It’s February. The groundhog has seen his shadow, so the rest of the planet is preparing for a ridiculous Narnian winter. I’m hoping for less ice. And less ICE. (Ok, ok, I got it out of my system.) Back to the Pevensies. We’re in the midst of Chapter 6, and Lucy and Co have found themselves in the midst of the forest. They put on coats from the wardrobe (“it isn’t as if we wanted to take them out of the house; we shan’t take them even out of the wardrobe.” LWW 55) and head off to explore. And Edmund almost immediately blows his cover by looking for the lamp-post. Peter calls him on the carpet, and the grudge that has curled up in Edmund stretches a little like a cat that’s trying to decide whether or not to wake up. Lucy takes the lead and the group hi...

In which I (hopefully) read more than two chapters of LWW and think about them. In the first paragraphs of LWW chapter 3, Lucy returns to her siblings, but discovers that no time has passed while she has been in the wardrobe. She insists that she has been on a glorious winter adventure, but they insist there has not been time. The children even go check the wardrobe to look for the magical winter wood, but there’s nothing in the back of the wardrobe…except the back of the wardrobe. And some hooks.   Why? Why has Lewis pulled this trick on his little heroine? Why does the magic only work sometimes? Perhaps it’s just part of the magic? I’ll have to come back to that later, I think. For the time being, we’re gonna take a closer look at Edmund. He is a spiteful little pill and teases Lucy mercilessly about the magic land she has allegedly found. (But again, he’s really just a completely ordinary older brother who used to be the baby. Kids are MEAN.) So a few weeks later when they’re st...