Miriam Drennan

C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series has entertained and educated readers for over 45 years. HarperCollins recently issued The Complete Chronicles of Narnia, commemorating the 100th anniversary of Lewis' birth. The Complete Chronicles of Narnia binds all seven books into a singular, gorgeous volume.

BookPage spoke with Douglas Gresham, Lewis' stepson, about the new edition, the world of Narnia and the Irish author himself, whom Gresham and others affectionately called "Jack."

Gresham was introduced to Lewis in late 1953. "As an 8-year-old boy from upstate New York, I was expecting a man who was on speaking terms with Peter, High King of Narnia, perhaps dressed in silver armor and carrying a sword . . . and of course, he was nothing like that at all. He was a stooped, balding, professional gentleman in very shabby clothes. But of course, the vibrancy in his personality very soon expunged any visible discrepancies in his appearance. I grew to like him very much, very quickly."

Lewis was a member of the Inklings, a group of writers who met regularly to read and critique one another's work. Gresham attended a couple of Inklings meetings as a child, listening in a quiet corner while they had these great, raucous debates, and he emphasizes that these now-legendary meetings also included a great deal of laughter. "These men were full of fun . . . one of the saddest things that has happened in the academic world over the past 30 years is the belief that if someone disagrees with you, you have to dislike them. In true academic studies, this was never the case. . . . If everyone agreed with you, that was utterly boring. People in today's academic world seem to resent being disagreed with, and that's a terrible shame. It will be the stultification of learning."

Lewis reportedly once said that since people didn't write the kinds of books he wanted, he had to do it himself. According to Gresham, "I think he was addressing children's books with that remark. One of the saddest things in children's literature today is books for children which deal with 'issues.' They write books about . . . all the usual horrors of a bad childhood. But they never seem to put a happy ending on the end of this, the result being that nothing is achieved, nothing is affirmed, there is no hope presented to the children who read these books. I think Jack looked at the children's literature from his day and found that there were quite reasonable forms of it, but none of them taught anything. The writers of today's 'issues' stories are trying to teach what children need to know, but unfortunately, they have taken too grim an outlook."

The Christian influence on The Chronicles is rather obvious, but Lewis also drew from mythology, medieval literature, and folklore. Was Lewis's specific message, then, one of hope? "I wouldn't go as far as to use the term 'specific,' but yes, certainly one of the messages was that there is always hope," Gresham replies.

He describes a recent article that posits that Lewis's Narnian chronicles presented a situation where death was better than life. "The writer totally misunderstood everything Jack said," Gresham muses, "for Jack is pointing out that death is rather irrelevant to life. It is a glorious thing to go on, no matter how bad things get there is a glorious result waiting at the end of it. There is a definite message of hope, but also a message of responsibility."

Why, then, do The Chronicles endure? Several reasons, Gresham replies. "One is simply the genre of literature has a very wide appeal. We all have to be kids at some stage of our lives, whether we like it or not. Also, it's important to realize that the Narnian chronicles are books of great hope. They leave you with a delightful sense of looking forward to what's coming. There is also the eternal truth about battles between good and evil, between God and the enemy. "

When asked about parallels between The Chronicles and life at Lewis' home, The Kilns, Gresham chuckles and says, "Many of the characters were drawn from people living in and around The Kilns. The classic example of this is Puddleglum the Marshwiggle, a direct modeling of our gardener, Fred Paxford."

Where did he find these unusual names for characters and faraway lands? You have to remember that Jack himself started out as Clive Staples Lewis, "which he didn't like," Gresham says, reciting the opening line in Voyage of the Dawn Treader: "There was once a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb and he almost deserved it." Gresham maintains that the names are "more often descriptive of the characters themselves." But what about Narnia? "There are various theories about Narnia. There is a town in northern Italy, the name of which was Narni. Whether Jack adapted this name, I have no idea. I think probably Jack operated on the 'Cellar Door Principle,' where you alter an English phrase, change its spelling, change its value, to mean something totally different."

We return to the actual book itself, particularly the original illustrations of Pauline Baynes, with whom, surprisingly enough, Lewis had very little contact. The Complete Chronicles of Narnia offers Baynes's illustrations in color for the first time, and although Lewis had little interaction with Baynes, she always felt that Jack disliked her drawings. "Actually, Jack loved her work very much."

Lewis dedicated six of the seven Chronicles to specific children. When asked if each book's contents were intended as specific messages to each respective child, Gresham agrees that there was a definite message, but not to the children to whom they were addressed. According to Gresham, Lewis simply selected various children with whom he interacted. The Last Battle, the final installment and Lewis' interpretation of the world's final days (and Narnia's) wasn't dedicated to anyone. Why?

"Good question," Gresham replies. "But if you think about it, would you want to have The Last Battle dedicated?"

The issue of reading order has been debated for decades, as the chronology of Narnia is inconsistent with the order in which the books were written. Gresham had actually posed this question to Lewis himself. "He personally preferred that they be read in the order in which he designed them . . . not necessarily the order in which he wrote them or published them. Which is why, as a consultant, I suggested that they number the books in the order in which Jack wanted them read, Narnian chronology. That has created an enormous furor, lots of arguments and discussions . . . which I think is utterly pathetic," he laughs.

As my time with Gresham draws to a close, I have to ask the question: Where is the wardrobe? Gresham pauses, almost teasingly, as if about to reveal a secret. Lowering his voice, he whispers: "There isn't one."  WHAT?!

Once his laughter subsides, Gresham mentions several claimants who insist they possess the actual wardrobe, "but the fact of the matter is that [none of these] stimulated the book; it was merely a convenient ploy to transport Lucy into Narnia. The house was full of wardrobes—every bedroom in The Kilns had a wardrobe." In case I didn't get it the first time around, Gresham confirms, there isn't a wardrobe, or the wardrobe. Remember, folks, you read it here first.

This month, Simon & Schuster releases Lori Aurelia Williams's debut novel, When Kambia Elaine Flew in from Neptune. In this book, Williams writes about difficult issues, such as poverty and abuse, delicately balancing compassion and sensitivity with realism. BookPage had the opportunity to ask Williams about the world of Kambia Elaine, and why this particular piece was her chosen path for her debut as a novelist.

What prompted you to write When Kambia Elaine Flew in from Neptune?

My siblings and I didn't know what child abuse was, but we experienced it. We lived in constant fear of my father's rages and of the beatings that he gave my mother and us. . . . As I grew older I learned that there were other children in my community who lived every day with either physical or mental abuse, abused by the people who were supposed to love and protect them. Like my siblings and I, they never gave voice to their pain. I wrote Kambia Elaine to give those children a voice.

Is Shayla modeled after a specific person in your life?

I suppose that a small part of Shayla is modeled after me. Like Shayla I was a little fat girl. I was shunned by my peers. But Shayla has something that I never had at her age; she has vision and drive. She wants to be a successful writer, and she's already laying the foundation for it. I could never have done that at her age. I was also never as innocent as Shayla. My mother talked about sex freely with my two sisters and me. To answer the question, I would have to say that Shayla is modeled after the child that I would liked to have been at her age.

Tia is obviously very aware of appearances. Why did you chose to have her fall in love with someone like Doo-witty?

Tia is greatly aware of appearances, but she is also aware of her life, and her mother's life. She is aware that her mother has made mistake after mistake looking for love in the Anderson Foxes of the world, the handsome slick-talking players, who steal your grocery money along with your heart. [Tia] chooses a man that wants nothing from her but her love, and that is exactly what she gives him in return.

Grandma Augustine is one complex lady. Did you find it difficult to successfully mingle her superstition with religion?  If not Grandma Augustine, which character was the most difficult to develop?

Mingling Grandma's Christianity and superstition was easy. I grew up in a household where religion and superstition sat at the same dining room table. My mother was a deeply religious woman, but she was also very superstitious. She was the kind of woman that saw spirits, believed that there were potions that could cast or remove spells, and thought that some folks were literally full of the Devil and so did my father. He believed in voodoo, and slept with knife and fork crossed underneath his pillow each night because it was supposed to keep nightmares away. The character of Mr. Anderson Fox was the hardest for me to write. I usually leave the father figure out of my stories because I didn't have a good role model for a father growing up and didn't know anyone who did. I didn't want him to be the father from hell; I just wanted him to be a guy you couldn't depend on. It was hard for me to come up with a way to make him into a character that you could hate and love at the same time.

You never resolve the matter of whether Kambia's mother is truly her mother. Is this intentional? Does it make a difference?

It's true. I never really resolve the matter of whether or not Kambia's mother is actually her mother. I left the question open because I didn't think that it mattered all that much. I wanted Kambia to be anybody's and everybody's child. I wanted the abuse itself to be important, not the abusers. It really doesn't matter who hurt Kambia. All that matters is that she was hurt, and that the abuse took place in a very close community where all of the people knew what her mother was, and yet not one person bothered to see if what was going on in her house was affecting her in any way.

Is Shayla's innocence lost?

I don't think that Shayla's innocence is completely lost. Through her experience with Kambia she has had to make some very mature decisions, and has been forced to learn something about sex that she didn't want to know. I don't think that Shayla really fully knows or wants to understand what those words mean. The only thing that Shayla wants is to keep Kambia safe. I think that by the end of the book, a part of Shayla still remains innocent either by choice or necessity. She's not yet ready for the reality of Kambia's world.

Considering Kambia's age, her stories are very childish, almost fantastic. Why would she not adapt her stories as she grew older? Is this typical of abuse victims?

I can't tell you what is typical of abuse victims because I think most abuse victims deal with the trauma in their life in their own unique way. I can only tell you that yes, Kambia's stories are childish. She hasn't grown or matured like the rest of the girls her age. In order to break out and become like the other girls her age she would have to let go of the fantasies and accept the horrible things that are happening in her life. She's too afraid to do that. Her stories can't adapt because she can't adapt.

What's next for you?

I just finished the first draft of a second Shayla and Kambia book. It will introduce the reader to some new characters and fill in some of the blanks left empty in the first book. After that, who knows what God will grant me the wisdom to write.