Blue-Footed Musings

The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia
by Laura Miller
Grade: B

Are you one of those people who loved Narnia as a child but came to dislike it later when you realized it was all about Christianity?

Not me. I loved Narnia then and I love it now. I dislike the idea that C.S. Lewis might have deliberately tried to turn me into a Christian. However, I realized from a young age that the books were about religion. I didn’t know enough about Christian symbolism to understand that Aslan was Jesus, but I always knew that he was God.

Personally, I prefer to think that Lewis was offering a way, not to proselytize children of nonbelievers, but to help those children already being taught religion by their parents. Narnia provides a child-friendly version of religion, a comfortable approach to the idea of God. There’s no harm in that, unless you consider religion inherently harmful.

The Narnia books provided me with a positive view of religion, and they made me want to be a good person (i.e., the kind of person of whom Aslan would approve), but they never made me want to be a Christian. I don’t remember Lewis telling me to engage in the traditional activities of religion (baptism, going to church, etc.). I do remember him instructing me in good behavior, teaching me to follow directions, and delineating the difference between right and wrong. If more people took his lessons to heart, our society might just be a little nicer. So, whatever Lewis’s real intent, the religious symbolism in Narnia is, for me, simply a case of “no harm, no foul.”

Though I don’t harbor any feelings of resentment over the Christian symbolism in Narnia, I thought a book written by someone who did might be enlightening. I approached the book with this question: non-Christian to non-Christian, why do you still love Narnia so much? But by the end, her answer seemed to be that maybe she does still like Narnia a bit, but she doesn’t like Lewis. Or Lewis’s friend, J.R.R. Tolkien. Or Christians.

Not that she doesn’t have anything interesting to say. She starts with thoughts on how reading is different for adults.

The books we happen to latch onto as children help to furnish our imagination and, to a certain degree, our identity. But if we return to them as adults, we sometimes find . . . that the decor is garish or uncomfortable. It’s not a place to which we’d care to invite our friends.

As a matter of fact I often share my childhood books with my friend. We’re both big fans of children’s books. But I get Miller’s point. She now finds the decor in Narnia to be uncomfortable. I don’t, but there are some other books I’m almost ashamed to admit that I own.

Browsing through some of the individual essays in the book, it’s hard to imagine how I got such a negative vibe from the author. The essays span a range of topics, from literary criticism to biography, with a great deal of attention devoted to the friendship between Lewis and Tolkien. Much of what she writes is interesting, well-researched, and well thought through. But I remember her picking on both Lewis and Tolkien, for their writing as well as their personalities. It rubbed me the wrong way, as did a few of her comments on Christianity. Not that I am any kind of fan of organized religion, but I do believe in respecting the individual person’s faith.

So I give The Magician’s Book an A for content and a D for attitude, which averages out somewhere around B.

Third Girl by Agatha Christie
Grade: B+

Poirot was sitting at the breakfast table with a cup of hot chocolate, feeling quite proud of himself for a recent literary accomplishment, when his butler informed him that a young lady was there to consult him. Poirot agreed to see her. She was an unattractive girl with a peculiar problem: she thought she had committed a murder but couldn’t be sure. Before Poirot could coax an explanation from her, she changed her mind about hiring him, saying, “You’re too old. Nobody told me you were so old. I really don’t want to be rude, but—there it is. You’re too old. I’m really very sorry.”

Then she left. That might have been the end of it, but her pronouncement wounded Poirot to the core, and he also worried about her. He said to his friend, Mrs. Oliver, “She is one of whom others will look round and say, ‘We want a victim. That one will do.'” So Poirot decided to find that nameless girl and, he hoped, to help her before it was too late.

While not a particularly memorable mystery, Third Girl was an engaging read, particularly because of the inclusion of Mrs. Oliver, one of my favorite recurring characters. Admittedly, there were some moments when I was dismayed by Christie’s prose. There was a scene in which one of the characters “turned into a building,” and then on the next page Mrs. Oliver “turned into a local cafe.” That phrase, “turned into,” was certainly uninspired. In modern American English, at least, it also has a sort of comic potential, as one might at first understand it to mean “transformed into.” On the same page as Mrs. Oliver turned into a cafe, she “gave a gasp.” Whenever I see that phrase, I think “Gave a gasp to whom?” Keep your gasps to yourself. That’s what I always say.

I don’t mean to be a nitpicker. I typically don’t mind Christie’s prose, which I would describe as utilitarian. The words she used for that particular scene just happened to grab my attention. I don’t think I’d recommend Third Girl to your everyday reader, but for fans of Christie, I would say it’s worthwhile.