The great and the ingrate: Or, C.S. Lewis and me (again)

[steepholm]

 And my C. S. Lewis fannishness is well documented in these pages, but in at No. 11? I do love the Narnia books, and I'm in awe at the quality of the man's mind, but he would have scoffed at the idea that he was a great writer, and so do I. *scoffs*  [ETA: That sounds a bit ungenerous. I do think him a very great man of letters.]

A certain party – we’ll call her Dame Splinter to preserve her anonymity – has taken me to task over these remarks in my last post. That scoff showed a ‘brutal’* and ‘vicious’* side of my character she’d not previously suspected. In vain did I protest that I was scoffing with, not at Lewis, and that in fact my Scoffing With C. S. Lewis (Baton Rouge Evangelical Press, 2007) is selling like hot cakes in the States. Apparently that's not how it came across.

*Words quoted may vary from those actually spoken.

Okay, so why do I hesitate to call CSL a great writer? After all, as Dame S points out, his books have been loved by generations of children, including me, and I certainly rate him as highly as many of the other people in that list of the 50 Best.

I suppose the main problem is that I sense a limitation in Lewis's stylistic range – and I don’t know whether one can be a great writer without also being a great stylist. This isn’t a matter of his reining himself in because he was writing for children: it’s evident throughout his work (and his generic range was wide).  Lewis’s style happens to be one I like a lot, but I suspect I like it partly because I like him so much – the way you might forgive (or even enjoy) a favourite uncle even as he launches into a familiar story for the fifth time. But then, how did he manage to become a favourite uncle in the first place, Dame Splinter might object – and indeed, to that I have no answer.

There are some other negatives, of course. Lewis’s characterization is often vivid, but equally it can be insipid, not least with his protagonists. There are some rather embarrassing plot holes, too (what was Lucy thinking of to visit Mr Tumnus a second time when he'd already told her it would put him in great danger? Obviously CSL just wanted her out of the way while the White Witch seduced Edmund). I can think of other writers who are subtler or more exuberant, and even more truly inventive - though few can match Lewis as an imaginative bricoleur. There are also passages where I have to hum loudly as I'm reading so as not to notice that certain beliefs about modernity, women and the vital importance of the blood royal are being served up in a rather unappetising way.

And yet, and yet... even if all that's true, what writer doesn't have faults and limitations? Ben Jonson was always carping about Shakespeare, but even he admitted that he "had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions” – and those things are certainly true of CSL too. It’s a poor show if I can’t be as generous spirited as Ben Jonson, now isn’t it? In fact, it would be easy to make a case for Shakespeare’s being a bad writer, if one really wanted. Isn’t he sometimes a bit prolix? Isn’t his plotting occasionally sloppy? Aren’t a lot of his jokes a bit groan-making? Didn’t he borrow plots and even plagiarize whole passages  from Thomas North and John Florio? And as for his children! He really doesn’t know how to do them, does he? In fact, he mostly kills them off as quickly as possible: the Princes in the Tower, Macduff Junior, Mamilius, the Boy in Henry V (okay, I think that was Adrian Noble, but working from a hint in the text). When it comes to slaughtering innocents, Shakespeare out-Herods Herod.

But I shall say no more against Shakespeare, in case I get Dame Splinter on my back again. Besides, I’m one of his biggest fans! And I do think with him (and CSL) that Ben got it right: “He redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.” Who can ask for more, this side idolatry?

Comments

[hafren.livejournal.com]

The thing that put me off Narnia as a child was that I could tell I was being preached at. I still don't understand how anyone could miss it - that blatant crucifixion scene in TLTLW&TW - please! I've heard people say "I never realised Aslan was meant to be God" and thought, well you must have been reading with your eyes shut, then. I think it's a grave fault in any book, but particularly one for kids, to have an obvious agenda.

I did read the rest and enjoyed them, esp. Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Silver Chair - might have enjoyed The Horse and his Boy more if the racism hadn't been a bit uncomfortably evident. But it was of course nothing on The Last Battle, in which even the racism pales beside the enormity of suggesting to children that a train crash constitutes a happy ending and that the best thing they can do is get killed and go to heaven before they grow up and start fancying lipstick, nylons and the opposite sex. That was an immoral book and I'll never fathom why it won the Carnegie.

His adult books would be fine if only he would foreground his inventive fantasies rather than his preaching and his prejudices. Swinburne's couplet about Wilkie Collins (What brought good Wilkie's genius near perdition?/Some demon whispered, "Wilkie! have a mission!") was unfair about Wilkie, but would apply very well to CSL.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I agree that VDT and The Silver Chair are the best of the bunch. What I find off-putting about The Last Battle though isn't the fact that the children die (I remember finding that rather exhilirating, oddly), but the long degradation of Narnia that precedes it. I think it won the Carnegie as a tribute to the series as a whole, really - same as The Amber Spyglass did for Philip Pullman.

I'm going to have to think some more about preachiness, because while I dislike it in theory, on reflection a lot of my favourite books have a very definite mission - from Pilgrim's Progress to 1984. *Goes off to think.*

[hafren.livejournal.com]

I think if you pick up The Pilgrim's Progress, you have pretty much agreed to be preached at; it's clearly stated in the contract. With 1984, well, it sneaks up behind you with a rapier rather than charging from in front with a club.

[gair.livejournal.com]

Ooh. Lovely post. I absolutely agree that Lewis is just not a great writer, but - like you - I'm not sure I can quite say why...

[risasbee.livejournal.com]

Do I enjoy reading Lewis? Yes. We did read him to the children, and we share perceptions through allusions to Reepicheep and such. I even like films about him. I thoroughly enjoyed The Mars book, even, though its sequels, less so.

Do I think him good for me in the long run -- no. He talks down to me about who I am, what I should be thinking and feeling. He is too sure of a universe I really cannot share.

risa b

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Thanks for dropping by - and for Renascence editions!

[risasbee.livejournal.com]

Any time! ;-)

[intertext.livejournal.com]

I agree with you that Lewis is not a "great" writer, and, like you, I'm not absolutely sure why. There are moments of greatness in some of his work - Till We Have Faces is, I think, his best. But, yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head when you talk about a deficiency or limitation of style. His voice is the same, whatever he's writing, and there's an element of pedantry, of the avuncular, that I find tiresome. Tolkien is a far greater stylist - though I know he's criticised sometimes for his outdatedness. I think there's a deficiency in Lewis' vision, too - lack of originality.

I've been meaning to write something myself about that list, but haven't had the time for a good thoughtful post...