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The Key to Narnia
Apr. 18th, 2008 11:54 pmI went to a really interesting lecture today! Dr. Michael Ward, author of Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis, came to speak at my school. I'm a fan of The Chronicles of Narnia and Lewis, and so I'd been looking forward to the lecture for a couple of weeks. It did not disappoint!
For many people, The Chronicles of Narnia contains a mish-mash of characters and plots. (Tolkien criticized the books for this very reason.) The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, for example, contains characters ranging from English schoolchildren to classical mythical creatures to Father Christmas. And the seven books don't seem to have any sort of coherence between them. Lewis says that they are all centered, on Christ, but only three of the four books seem to focus heavily on an aspect of Christ (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has Aslan as savior, The Magician's Nephew has Aslan as creator, and The Last Battle has Aslan as judge). The other three books have theological elements, yes, but those elements don't seem to be the point of the book as a whole. Lewis' works usually have a high degree of coherence. Where is the coherence in The Chronicles of Narnia?
For many people, The Chronicles of Narnia contains a mish-mash of characters and plots. (Tolkien criticized the books for this very reason.) The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, for example, contains characters ranging from English schoolchildren to classical mythical creatures to Father Christmas. And the seven books don't seem to have any sort of coherence between them. Lewis says that they are all centered, on Christ, but only three of the four books seem to focus heavily on an aspect of Christ (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has Aslan as savior, The Magician's Nephew has Aslan as creator, and The Last Battle has Aslan as judge). The other three books have theological elements, yes, but those elements don't seem to be the point of the book as a whole. Lewis' works usually have a high degree of coherence. Where is the coherence in The Chronicles of Narnia?
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by Megan Whalen Turner, as I hope to complete one of my chapters for the 
