Narnia, Part the second

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 stuck inside again and they all play hide and seek, Lucy hides in the wardrobe—and Edmund hides there too.

And the magic is awake again.

Edmund finds himself near the lamp-post and in the path of “a sledge drawn by two reindeer” (LWW 30). Riding in the sled is a tall pale woman who the reader will guess is the White Witch, but she introduces herself as the Queen of Narnia. (I’ll use the narrator’s name for her as the book goes along.)

And as much as she’s “the bad guy” in the story, I’ve always found her fascinating . My youngest sister played the role on stage in high school and it’s one of my favorite performances.

The Queen asks Edmund, as Tumnus had asked Lucy, if he was a Son of Adam, meaning human.

**Footnote: It’s interesting that the obvious biblical references fly over the heads of the earth children, and yet the Narnians know this reference. Hmmm. Another interesting thing to think about.**

The Queen almost ends the whole story with her wand right then and there, but she changes her mind and offers Edmund food and drink.

I wonder, reading these books now and with the gift of hindsight and knowledge of the rest of the story, what the White Witch was thinking in that moment. If Tolkien was writing this story, we would probably have three pages and a song about prophecies and spring and Deep Magic. But Lewis? Lewis didn’t even have that part figured out yet when he was writing this. 

When I’m reading these books now as an adult, having read thousands of books and watched thousands of movies in my life, and having even tried my hand at storytelling, I can’t help but wonder how much the author knows and when. I know that Tolkein was notorious for his note-taking and map-making and pre-writing, working out again and again events and languages and backstories and lineages. Lewis, on the other hand…didn’t. 

I’ll have to find it, but I feel like Lewis wrote something about not even knowing that Aslan was going to show up in the story until he had a dream about him. And that’s when the whole story came together.

And this? This has been a bunch of Laura rambling. I wasn’t gonna do this as much. But the White Witch and her story are such a big part of Narnia it’s hard not to stop here when we first meet here and just ponder her character for a while.

Chapter 4, “Turkish Delight,” is almost entirely a conversation which takes place in the witch’s sledge. It’s the point at which the plot begins to thicken. Edmund has met the Queen who is very interested in the fact that there are two brothers and two sisters. (Mr. Tumnus briefly mentioned the four thrones of Cair Paravel, but we don’t know if Lucy told him about her siblings.) The Queen and Edmund make a plan for Edmund to bring all four of the Pevensie children back to her house. She promises to make Edmund a prince and eventually a king, and promises rooms full of Turkish Delight (it’s a gummy candy popular in Europe, for those who are wondering. It’s stupid hard to get in America.)

Shortly after the queen drives off, Lucy walks into the clearing and is delighted to find that Edmund has found his way into Narnia. Lucy reminds us that Mr. Tumnus is safe—so far—but Edmund’s encounter with the Queen has us doubting Tumnus’ future safety. 

Lucy returns to England thinking she has a compatriot in Edmund. But alas…chapter 5. “Back on This Side of the Door” Edmund reveals his true colors and lies to Peter and Susan, saying that he was just playing and that Narnia is pretend after all. Lucy continues to insist that she is telling the truth, and Lewis tells this story using almost as many commas as I do and goodness gracious me his writing has influenced me more than I realized.

LOL. Oh well. 

Moving on. Finally Peter and Susan go to see the Professor and tell him all about the magical country.

And here I must pause again and wonder just how much Lewis knew about all of this magical world he has created. For readers will know (ummm…spoilers? I guess?) that the Professor is Diggory Kirke who was one of the very first two humans in Narnia. He was there at the beginning. The wardrobe is made from the wood of a tree which grew from the seeds of an apple which came originally from Narnia.

I can’t help but wonder how many times Diggory pushed those coats apart looking for a lamp-post. 

And now, these children that Diggory has rescued have wandered right smack into his childhood.

Did Lewis know all of this? Was it planned? I have no idea. I don’t think so, but I’ll have to do more reading to find out.

But Lewis has the professor ask Peter and Lucy a very important question: “How do you know,” he asked, “that your sister’s story is not true?”

**record scratch** This is also an introduction to Lewis’ “great trilemma” about the person of Jesus. Lewis said that Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. Lewis missed that Jesus might have been genuinely mistaken. Not crazy, not trying to mislead others, but genuinely believing that he was called to help others and to seek and to save the “lost.” I’m…still working through my thoughts on the person of Jesus. That’s not what this chapter is about, but it IS one of the things that drove Tolkien absolutely nuts about Lewis’ writing.

Anyway. Back to Lucy. 

The Professor insists that Lucy is facing her own trilemma: “Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth.” Susan and Peter push back on this, but the Professor reminds them that Lucy didn’t hide for a long time, but she insisted she had been gone for hours. 

And again, this would have been the end of it. Except…the Professor’s house was famous. And one summer day a group of people came for a tour. And the children were trying to stay out of the way. And there was no place for them to hide…except the wardrobe.

Chapter 6, “Into the Forest” has one of my favorite realizations from Susan. “I’m sitting against a tree!” At long last, all four children have finally made it into Narnia together.