The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy

With the rather twee subtitle, The Lion, The Witch and the Worldview, The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy (2005) is part of a series that also contains titles about Seinfeld, baseball, The Matrix, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and many more pop culture products (the Woody Allen volume might not have aged too well). It's a collection of essays on various philosophical topics, for example, 'Trusting Lucy: Believing the Incredible,' 'No Longer a Friend: Gender in Narnia' (this came out at about the same time as Neil Gaiman's famous essay, The Problem of Susan), and 'Worthy of a Better God: Religious Diversity and Salvation in The Chronicles of Narnia.' You get the gist.

As with any collection, some of the essays are better than others, and there are quite a few from an openly Christian evangelical standpoint, which is not surprising. It was interesting to see how often the same moments in the Chronicles kept coming up, examined from different angles: when Lucy, but no one else, sees Aslan trying to lead them a particular way, and struggles to convince the others to follow him; similarly, Peter and Susan worrying about Lucy's sanity when she first returns from inside the wardrobe; the dwarfs in The Last Battle who refuse to see that they have entered Paradise; the Lady in The Silver Chair who tries to convince Puddleglum and the others that the underworld is the only reality, and that Narnia above ground is just a dream (it's all in Plato!)

It was interesting to note that there were relatively few references to my favourite of the books, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and many quotes from my least favourite, The Last Battle, which is the most obviously didactic and religious. I have always loved these books, they are part of the fabric of my imagination, and despite their many problematic aspects, I suspect I always will.