What We're Reading Wednesday

The Magician’s Book by Laura Miller
December 2008, Little, Brown

Like many other bookish kids, I imprinted deeply on the Chronicles of Narnia at a young age. Laura Miller had a similar experience, perhaps even stronger; for many years, the Chronicles of Narnia were the books by which she judged all others (and found those others lacking). But when, as an adolescent rebelling against her Catholic upbringing, she discovered the Christian symbolism in the books, she felt betrayed, and it was years before she could begin to understand how to love Narnia again.

The Magician’s Book, which details Miller’s reconciliation with Narnia, is a thoughtful and heartfelt book, and her exploration of the Chronicles resonates with me as much as the books themselves once did. She discovers that Narnia is big enough to contain not just the adventures she loved as a child, and not just the Christian themes that now appear obvious, but a whole world full of stories and wildness, bravery and treachery, ancient myths and Santa Claus; that loving Narnia allowed her to love all the stories it contained, referenced or built upon, and thus opened up untold worlds.

To me, the best children’s books gave their child characters (and by extension, myself) the chance to be taken seriously. In Narnia, the boundary between childhood and adulthood—a vast tundra of tedious years—could be elided. The Pevensies not only get to topple the White Witch, fight in battles, participate in an earthshaking mystical event, and be crowned kings and queens; they do it all without having to grow up. Yet they become more than children, too. Above all, their decisions have moral gravity. In contrast to how most children experience their role in an adult world, what the child characters in these stories do, for better or for worse, really matters, and nowhere more so than in Edmund’s betrayal.

. . . To the adult skeptic, the evident Christianity of the Chronicles makes their morality seem pat, the all-too-familiar stuff of tiresome, didactic tales. . . . But that’s an illusion, fostered by an adult’s resistance to what appears to be religious proselytizing. True, Lewis does populate Narnia with semiallegorical figures who represent eternal aspects of human nature in addition to more realistic characters like the Pevensies. The White Witch is bad through and through, almost as uncomplicated as a fairy-tale villain. But she’s not the moral ground on which the story’s moral battle is fought. Edmund is.

Related in BookPage: Read a review of The Magician’s Book.

What are you reading today?