“The calling and conversion of a heathen.”
So many questions we have about The Horse and His Boy are answered in this short phrase. Why are the Calormene people presented as they are? If they are meant to be roughly Middle-Eastern, why are they polytheist instead of monotheist?
More questions may be answered by remembering Lewis’s audience: young, white, British children. We’ll talk in a moment about ethnocentrism, and the “center” in this case is clear and undeniable: it’s the Pevensie kids. They are both the stars and the target audience.
The Horse and His Boy is this fascinating litmus test of Narnia. There are many who read it as children and didn’t notice a thing that was upsetting or strange…it was just a wonderful adventure that had horses, a male and a female lead, just a touch of fun magic, and some funny bits where the horse can talk. For others, it’s the go-to book to say, “Hey, you want to prove C.S. Lewis was racist? Look no further than Calormen.”
Calormen, of course, being the exotic nation to the far south of Narnia, across the great desert. The people are, we’ve been told already in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, “wise, wealthy, courteous, cruel and ancient.”
We’d have some advantages in this conversation if we could also include what we learn in The Last Battle, but let’s stick to the books we’ve already read so far. It’s hard to avoid the thought that Lewis is more or less talking about people who are from the Middle East in his presentation of Calormen. They are desert-dwelling people who seem to have a culture that has been pulled from some funhouse mirror version of medieval travelogues and the One Thousand and One Nights. There are turbans and minarets and “tombs” outside the city. There are grand viziers and stories to be told, and strange marriages between young women and old men. And, of course, a pale young boy on the run from slavery, headed North for freedom.
Let’s talk for a moment about ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is using one’s own culture to judge other cultures, instead of using the culture’s own framework to gain understanding. A common issue with ethnocentrism can be the subtle shift from merely comparing a culture against one’s own to believing in the superiority of one’s own culture. Ethnocentricity can absolutely be linked to racism, xenophobia, colorism, and a variety of other social ills, but it needn’t necessarily become that…it can be a normal, even healthy tool for discovering differences between “my” culture and someone else’s and widening one’s worldview.
So, for instance, when Lewis describes the mysterious stranger who arrives at Shasta’s fishing hut, Lewis writes, “His face was dark, but this did not surprise Shasta because all the people of Calormen are like that.” That’s an ethnocentric description. Lewis is describing the man to his audience—white British kids—and using their own ethnic and cultural world as “center.” So the man’s face is “dark” in comparison to whom? To the white, British kids reading. He goes on to tell them that Shasta was not surprised, because in his culture everyone’s face is “dark.” In fact, the shade of this man’s skin is literally unremarkable for Shasta…he’s far more interested in the man’s crimson, oiled beard and notable wealth.
Now in this case (so far) the ethnocentrism is more or less the same as saying “Lewis is speaking to his target audience.” It moves toward becoming something biased as the Calormenes are compared to the Narnians. The rich trader points out that Shasta is “fair and white like the accursed but beautiful barbarians who inhabit the remote north.” Now we have a value judgment, which seems to be that fair or white skin is more beautiful than dark skin.
Now, maybe it was just that one character’s opinion…but no, it’s not a one-time thing. Later, Shasta meets the Narnian humans who are “fair as himself” and he notices —according to Lewis—that “all of them, both men and women, had nicer faces and voices than most Calormenes.”
Is this racist?
Well, listen, depending on your definition, yes. Absolutely. “White skin is better than dark skin.” Yes. At the very least it’s colorist (prejudice based on skin color).
Lewis, of course, would not have seen it that way. In fact, I’m reasonably convinced that Lewis didn’t believe in “race” as a concept. He didn’t love modernism or colonialism, two of the driving forces in the invention of race. He’d point out that the great villain of Narnia’s history had skin as white as snow and that beauty and evil and fair skin are not mutually exclusive of one another. No doubt he’d mention that Aravis must certainly have dark skin (though that’s never mentioned) and that she is likely beautiful (or at least Aravis says she is beautiful in the forged letter she sends to her father). Of course, on the other hand, Susan is “the most beautiful lady” Shasta has ever seen.
And, of course, the Calormenes are not presented as uniformly evil or even uniformly worse than the Narnians. Aravis is wonderful and is presented both sympathetically and as a hero. Shasta—though he is later revealed to be from Archenland—is culturally Calormene and likewise heroic and kind. Even Lasaraleen is, at heart, a kind person trying to do the right thing, and presented with affection and sympathy. Now, there aren’t any evil Narnians…but Corin is certainly a bit of a buffoon. Rabadash is certainly one of the worst people in the book, but he’s not presented as a “normal” Calormene…even his own father dislikes him and thinks poorly of him.
The ethnocentric reading of Calormen does find places where the Calormene culture is superior to “ours”…for instance, in storytelling: “For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you’re taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay-writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.” There are also plenty of moments where the glories of Calormen are pointed out. When Shasta and Bree enter the city, for instance, there’s a lengthy description of how beautiful it is, and the lovely smell from the flowers and fruit trees. On the other hand, once they get among the people it’s all “unwashed people, unwashed dogs, scent, garlic, onions, and the piles of refuse which lay everywhere” despite how famous Calormene baths are in the world.
When we start to dig into Lewis’s opinions about Islam and how that might have shaped the people of Calormen, we hit some strange and interesting things. First of all, Lewis considered Islam a heresy rather than a religion with a separate origin from Christianity. Which is to say, Lewis saw Islam as an offshoot of Christianity that wandered out of the orthodox faith. In his commentary on Charles Williams’s poetry about King Arthur (published in the short book Arthurian Torso) Lewis called Islam, “strong, noble, venerable; yet radically mistaken.” (Note the similarity to how the Calormenes are described). In that same book he says that Islam is a heresy because it denies the incarnation of God in Christ (which is, of course, definitional to Christianity. When we say “heretic” we mean that someone believes something that causes them to no longer be Christian, by definition.)
Now, if Lewis was wanting to stick with his understanding of Islam as he wrote the Calormenes, he would have created something like this: Both the Narnians and the Calormenes serve the Emperor Across the Sea. But the Calormenes do not agree that Aslan is his son…they deny his royalty, though they respect him as an important messenger of the Emperor.
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Instead he created a polytheistic religion (three gods are mentioned: Tash, Azaroth, and Zardeenah) and a Calormene culture that consistently opposes Aslan, calling him a demon (at least at the northern border closest to Archenland and Narnia…Shasta has heard little or nothing of Aslan in the deep South). The worship of Tash includes not only a temple but many statues of the gods, something that Islam would not allow.
Why is this?
I suspect it’s because of the word “heathen” rather than “heretic” in Lewis’s stated purpose in writing the book. He wanted to show the calling and conversion of a heathen, not a heretic. A heretic is someone who has come close, at some point, to the “true faith.” Maybe they used to believe it and were drawn away.
A heathen, on the other hand, is typically defined as someone who doesn’t believe in a “majority” faith…in fact, many definitions specifically will say either “polytheistic” or “not Jewish, Christian, or Muslim.” So Lewis wants his medieval Arabian culture, but he also wants it pre-Islamic. He doesn’t want someone who is merely “radically mistaken”—he wants someone in opposition to the religion of Narnia.
So it couldn’t be Allah; it had to be Tash. And not just Tash, but also Azaroth and Zardeenah. So in the world of Narnia, it’s clear that the people who appear to be inspired by the people of the Middle East are not intended to be stand-ins for Muslims (or, as Lewis would have said, “Mohammedan”).
Is it worse or better that Lewis threw out Islam when he created his Islamic-ish culture? I don’t honestly know. I do know that in Mere Christianity he said, “it is simple religions that are the made-up ones” (i.e. the ones that are not True). In another essay, Religion Without Dogma, he wrote that Islam was a “simplification of Jewish and Christian traditions.”
Perhaps that is why Allah, who is called “the beneficent, the merciful” is not truly reflected in the simplistic Tash, who is called “the irresistible, the inexorable.” Tash is, as we will see over time, a god of simple evil. Allah is, according to Lewis, a misunderstanding of the person of God.
Keep in mind, as well, that Lewis isn’t talking about Islam or Middle Eastern people in 1950. As always, his interest lies in the medieval period. He’s more interested in “Saracens” than in modern people. Saracens is what Christians would have called Muslims during the Crusades. (Notice, by the way, that the Calormenes are in a state of near constant war but not with Narnia... though Rabadash and his father would like an excuse to change that. Again, if Lewis had been trying to make more parallels with Christianity and Islam this would not be the case.) In Medieval Christian literature, Saracens are consistently referred to as “dark skinned” (ethnocentrism again, right?). There is still plenty of evidence of this in Western cultures today… look no further than the dish “Moros y Cristianos” (a reference to Muslim Moors and Christians), in which the white rice is the Christians, and the black beans are the Moors. If you wanted a simple way to describe the Calormenes you could absolutely say, “Non-Muslim Saracens.”
As a 21st century American adult, there are things about The Horse and His Boy that make me cringe. For instance, if I read it through my own ethnocentricity, it’s really distracting that the dark-skinned Calormenes are the guardians and beneficiaries of slavery…especially when it resonates so strongly with my own nation’s history (freedom for slaves is to be found toward “the North”). Was that Lewis’s intention? I suspect that didn’t even occur to Lewis…nuances of conversations about race are different between the UK and the US, and the North/South divide is deeply ingrained in the US conversation about racial justice. He wanted to show that slavery is bad (no doubt in a spiritual sense…he wants his hero to find freedom in Aslan) and didn’t think about the problematic racial side of the decision to make a pre-Islamic Arabia with slavery and a medieval Europe without it (and, as near as we can tell, without any sort of serfdom to replace it). Do note, of course, that Prince Caspian had abolished the last of slavery in Narnia when he came across it in Dawn Treader.
So, in conclusion I would say this: ethnocentrism in literature is largely invisible when it’s your own ethnos being centered. The big complaint from my kids in reading Narnia was “Why are all the kids British? Don’t Americans get into Narnia?” As Narnia has spread into audiences Lewis never imagined—other ethnicities, nationalities, a new century, people from other religious traditions than Lewis’s own—it’s only natural that Lewis’s ethnocentricities become increasingly problematic or upsetting. I’ve written before about dealing with the problematic aspects of literature we love. For me, it’s even worse with literature for kids. Sometimes because when I was a kid I didn’t notice those things and as an adult I do. And sometimes because as an adult, I want to make sure that what my kids read doesn’t shape them in a direction I think will be harmful to them or others.
One of the wonderful things about the current state of science fiction and fantasy is that we don’t have to settle for one ethnocentric view. There are amazing new works being put out from a variety of different worldviews, religious belief systems, ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Two weeks ago I read Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger…an astonishingly wonderful YA book with an ace Native American protagonist. The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart was just released last week, and it features newly invented cultures that sidestep the pitfalls of the ethnocentric fantasy (it’s super fun…if you enjoy fantasy you will love it). And there are, of course, many excellent authors who are writing compelling fantastic worlds that are based in Middle Eastern-ish worlds, like Saladin Ahmed, G. Willow Wilson, Sabaa Tahir, Nafiza Azad, and many others (feel free to share additional suggestions in the comments!).
I hope that if C.S. Lewis were writing the Narnia books today—70 years later—that the shift in his own culture would produce a more nuanced and less ethnocentric presentation of Calormen. And there are still a lot of wonderful things about Calormen…the storytelling, the architecture, the dinner of “whipped cream and jelly and fruit and ice,” the famous baths, the wisdom poems, and the loyal and brave people like Aravis. And (I know I said I wouldn’t do this) in The Last Battle we see that Calormen continues to exist in the remade world after the judgment. In this book as well as in The Last Battle, we see that Aslan cares about the Calormene people.
Matt Mikalatos is the author of the YA fantasy The Crescent Stone. You can follow him on Twitter or connect on Facebook.
It was, of course, not unheard of for medieval European writers to portray the Saracens as polytheistic- see, for example, the Song of Roland, where they bring idols of Mohammed, as well as, apparently more or less invented deities called Apolin and Tervagant.
With regards to Jadis, it’s true that she’s both (very) white and (very) evil, but it’s also true that a lot of attention is paid to the question of her racial background as a qualifier for rule. (Admittedly this is largely by Mr. Beaver, who I have to conclude was intended to be an uninformed racist within the context of the world- see his comments about dwarves and giants).
Some randomish thoughts while waiting on the compiler to finish…
“unwashed people, unwashed dogs, scent, garlic, onions, and the piles of refuse which lay everywhere” Sounds like any American city I’ve been to in August, honestly. OK, the main streets may not have piles of refuse about, but the side streets and alleys do. Or at least dumpsters and trash cans.
Dark skinned Calormenes. Well, they are, as was pointed out, Arab analogues. At the end of a summer my very European skin is darker than that of some of my Arabic acquaintances who haven’t spent as much time outdoors. But in mid-winter I am definitely paler. One would hope that a modern writer would have the Calormenes (and Archenlanders, are there humans in Narnia other than the Pevensies?) being more pan-ethnic. They’re a day’s ride across the desert from each other, you’d think there’d be some intermarriage.
As far as pre-Islamic Arabs having slaves. Post-Islamic Arabs practiced slavery and (arguably) practice forms of it to this day. (As does the US, of course, with the prison systems. Circa 5,000 word rant on that deleted.)
The Muslims I know (not all Muslims are Arabs! And vice-versa!) have told me that Islam is an offshoot of Christianity (which itself is an offshoot of Judaism). Islam is a later, more correct, Revelation than Christianity, as Christianity is to Judaism. There seem to be as many flavors of Islam as of Christianity.
@1/CuttlefishBenjamin. Great point that Jadis is very clearly and carefully qualified as not actually *human* in TLWW!
Fascinated by what you point out about the North here and its resonances and dissonances with the north as a place of freedom from enslavement in American history. Some maybe-useful trivia: Lewis’s characterization of northern-ness overlaps a lot with Ruskin’s in The Nature of Gothic, which Lewis would probably have known directly but if not at least through its influence on William Morris. The north in Ruskin is opposed to a (supposedly) lethargic, less vital southern Europe.
As someone who’s English, I agree there are we have very different historical perspectives on slavery; to me this brings to mind the slavery of the Ottoman empire, and Lewis might have thought similarly.
When you ask “Is it worse or better that Lewis threw out Islam when he created his Islamic-ish culture?“, I’m not sure. The “many gods” in Calormen implying the faith was polytheistic rather than a parallel to Islam isn’t something I’d thought of before. I think it’s probably just offending a different (smaller) group of people (modern polytheist pagans rather than Muslims).
@2/wiredog. I think on the slavery topic what’s interesting/problematic is that in our world the Islamic slave trade was to some degree wrapped up together with the European culture, not separate from it. When Lewis creates a separate slave economy *and also* doesn’t show the serf/lord model in his European model it becomes a pretty simplistic “they are bad, because slavery is bad, but Narnia is good and therefore no slaves.” Which, I mean, I understand this is a children’s book of course, but there is a lot of symbolic weight on the evils of the Calormenes because the Narnians are largely *always good in all ways.* How does High King Peter get the crops in? I don’t know, some happy beavers or something probably takes care of it.
As to the “offshoot of Christianity” understanding of Islam, that was the majority understanding in the Christian world until relatively recently in our history. Nowadays books like Miroslav Volf’s “Allah: A Christian Response” (which argues that the Christian God the Father and Allah are the same person, but that Islam badly misunderstands him) is seen as pretty controversial in Christian circles… even though it has a long historical tradition in the Christian church.
@5/juliek. I haven’t read this! I’ll have to look into it. Thanks for the rec. I know Lewis and Tolkien both were pretty enamored with “the North” from some of their obsession with the Nordic mythologies, too. It is, of course, ethnocentric for me to read it as North/South in the American sense. ON the other hand, one of our Christian denominations that started because they wanted to *keep* slavery (the Southern Baptists) just changed their name this week to the “Great Commission Baptists” to distance themselves from that history and because they are an international denomination now and “Southern” is a bit provincial in an international context.
@6/crystalline-entity. Great point. I’m sure that he was thinking of it in that sense, but by not putting Narnia in roughly the same set of issues that medieval Europe faced in those days and instead putting it in a “Golden Age” it just amplifies that feeling that the Calormenes are worse in every way.
Thanks for writing this Matt, really enjoyed reading it! Another note on Lewis and the North is his love and fascination with all things Nordic (mythology, geography, literature). From my readings, it seemed to be a mental and emotional place of freedom in his earlier days.
On perhaps a more anthropocentric than ethnocentric note, it’s a bit disconcerting that between the overthrow of Jadis and The Horse and His Boy, the Pevensies seem to have imported quite a few human courtiers into Narnia.
@9/James. Absolutely. Great point. And probably another place where we see Lewis’s personal world being put at the center even more so than his readers’ world!
@10/CuttlefishBenjamin. Yikes. That’s a really great point that I didn’t even think about, especially given that we’re told in Prince Caspian that the Telmarines came in and basically took over from all the talking beasts.
Realistically, I just don’t think that consistent worldbuilding was ever a primary concern of Lewis’s, and once “The Pevensies are the only humans in Narnia,” was no longer a salient plot point, he sort of forgot about it, especially after writing two books in which Narnia is largely inhabited by humans.
Treating it as phenomenon in-universe, though… well, one can cobble together a theory of migrations from Archenland (perhaps folks whose grandparents were displaced by Jadis’s anti-human pogroms as she consolidated her rule), but we still come back to the fact that apparently after taking the thrones of Narnia, the Pevensies were not backwards in establishing a ruling elite that, by and large, looked a lot more like them than like the majority of their subjects. (And a lot more like Lewis and his assumed reader, of course).
Which is now making me wonder how the comments about Narnians being fairer and kinder and sounding nicer than Calmorenes would play if almost all the Narnians Shasta and Aravis met were bears and dwarves and centaurs.
I always thought the Calormenes’ polytheistic religion was based on Ancient Egypt.
@13/PamAdams. Could be! We do learn in the Last Battle that Tash has a vulture head/human-ish body. And the tombs outside the city are never really described, but it would be normal to assume they’re connected to the pyramids.
Of course, Pauline Baynes’s illustrations of Tash also included multiple arms, which made him look a little more Hindu than Egyptian.
I appreciate your take on this – while there is still some stuff that just doesn’t age well (whether its colorism or full blown racism; I doubt any little brown child wants to read the implication, intended or not, that their skin is just less attractive) there is definitely some added historic context with the point he was trying to make and I don’t think he would consciously view any peoples as deserving of contempt/objectification or inherently worse/less dignified.
I sometimes wonder what people like Tolkien or Lewis would make of today; to be honest I kind of fear they would double down and be completely at odds with a lot of the other social change swirling about. I’ve seen it happen to far too many people I know (knew?) to generally be caring, warm, good people.
@15: Put me firmly in the camp of “Glad that Lewis and Tolkien are not sharing hot takes on Twitter.”
Lewis’s brother was obsessed with India as a child and India was always a part of the imaginary world that the brothers made up (Lewis’s portion having talking animals naturally). So I always picture Calormene as the Mideast with an Indian flare. It would explain the polytheism at any rate. It fits into Calormene being part of Aslan’s Country in the seventh book as well. India would seem pretty ancient and exotic to a pair of Irish boys in 1900 or so.
While the Calormenes call the northerners fair and beautiful, there is nothing to suggest that northerners don’t find the southerners dark and fair in return. Rabadash was handsome enough to tempt Susan, and the young Calormene officer we meet in the seventh book is I believe described as beautiful in Jill’s eyes. Aravis is certainly meant to be beautiful. Sure to Shasta’s eyes Queen Susan is the stuff, but a beautiful twenty-something-year-old queen will outshine most beautiful 13 or 14 year old girls who have been on the run for the last few weeks without a wash.
We see Calormene with all of it’s faults in contrast to Narnia and Archenland which seem to have none. Calormene seems like a real place in contrast to the fairly tale kingdoms of the north. Neither Narnia or Archenland seem to have anything like a large city that we ever see, and the workings of their economies are a mystery. The closest we get to it is that the Tisroc has far greater wealth than the northern kingdoms, and the acknowledgement by King Lune that they have the occasional lean year. Calormene feels like it could have been part of our world, Narnia is an idealized fantasy kingdom with good rulers and happy subjects. That pretty much doesn’t happen in our world.
@15 Lisamarie seeing as Lewis and Tolkien had very strong feelings about the social change of modern world of their time, it’s fair to say they would not be a fan of ours. Lewis described himself as a dinosaur.
It’s not an Islamic-ish culture. It may be a middle Eastern culture, but is a completely pagan and unIslamic one. Aravis claims to be a descendent of a God. Hard to imagine anything less Islamic than that. I imagine Lewis wanted a religion unlike Islam to avoid readers thinking it was an attack on Islam when he was trying to make another point entirely. So his Calormenes are polytheists who believe their rulers to be descendents of the Gods and perform sacrifices to said Gods. Generic non-Islamic pagans.
@13 Almost every religion is polytheistic. Greek, Roman, Mesopotamian, Scandinavian, Celtic, Mesoamerican, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, everyone. And reading about Ancient Egypt makes me think that if the ruler claimed to be a descendent of the Gods, the Gods were expected to be flattered.
@15/Lisamarie. Yes, agreed. It’s impossible to say which things Lewis would have embraced and grown in, and which he would have hunkered down in. He was notoriously abrasive in a fight, so I’m sure he wouldn’t have been great fun on Twitter. :)
@17/templar. Certainly Rabadash has caught Susan’s eye. But he’s an exception… and Aravis is only described as attractive in a letter she herself wrote. (fwiw Lewis would absolutely have objected to calling the Calormenes “fair” because he uses that word in the sense of “light complected.” Attractive, beautiful, maybe. But not “fair.” Lewis makes it pretty clear that Narnians *in general* are more attractive than Calormenes *in general.* Your point about India is well taken, though, for sure.
@18/ad. I’m sure it’s because Calormen is a lightly modified western fantasy of the Arabia from 1,001 Nights, but there are absolutely Islamic-ish things to Calormen. Their coins are “crescents,” when the Tisroc is spoken of one has to say “may he live forever” much as in Islam people would show respect to the name of the Prophet. Tash has a similar oral formula as Allah, as mentioned in the article. Definitely there’s a whole bunch of stuff that doesn’t fit also, that’s pre-Islamic, Indian, Persian, etc. But even that is almost certainly coming from the mish-mash collection of stories from 1,001 Nights, also. Anyway, that’s why I would say “ish.” There’s no question that it’s inaccurate, and I think it’s fair to say that it’s even offensively inaccurate.
I think there is a bit of Assyria or Babylon in the mix for Calormen as well – the great empires that border the small kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and frequently put them in mortal peril that only God can deliver them from. Even the description of Tash as bird-headed and multi-armed seems evocative of some Assyrian art. (See https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/322614 for an example.)
I say this as somebody who honestly loves them and gets a lot of wisdom from both.
One of the stories that makes me chuckle a bit is that after the Vatican II reforms (which, among other things, introduced Mass in the vernacular language instead of Latin, but also involved a lot of other changes to liturgy, various documents put out as well as many changes both intentional and unintentional. According to some circles, it is the cause of the downfall of society…) Tolkien stubbornly insisted on repeating the prayers in Latin.
And I mean, this makes me chuckle because it is absolutely what I would expect of a stodgy, linguist-scholar (and to be fair the English translation lost some of its grandeur and was in fact revised several years ago). And I love the Latin Mass as well, I’ve gone to a few, I can understand the appeal of it, and also why people who took comfort in those rituals would have been upset at seeing them go away. But nowadays we call people like that ‘radtrads’ in Catholic Internet world. I used to feel some kinship with them…but over the years I’ve watched them almost wholesale jump onto the Trump train and suddenly my appreciation for certain styles of liturgy has come with a whole lot of baggage I don’t want.
I mean, I would love to think that Lewis and Tolkien would see the error of running to the alt-right and the stuff Trump pulls (several C.S. Lewis quotes honestly remind me quite a bit about of it) and the gnashing and wailing and racist dogwhistles and all that. Maybe CS Lewis woud eschew FB and Twitter entirely and say it’s one of Screwtape’s best tools (I honestly can’t imagine Tolkien using a computer, lol). I don’t know. I’m sure neither would be on board with some of the other widespread changes in terms of our sexual mores, sex as recreation, etc (I mean, I’m probably more conservative than 90% of the commentariat here, which is funny because I’m way too liberal for others I used to be friends with) so…yeah. Who knows.
@@@@@ 19, from the perspective of Judaism, Islam and Arian Christianity, it is Athanasian (or Trinitarian) Christianity that is the form of Abrahamism most tainted by polytheism. I think they have a point. The motif of the triple God–three aspects of the same supreme being–was found in Hinduism, among other paganisms, long before the time of Christ. And the notion of God having a human son appears in no other Abrahamism, while it’s a common occurrence in pagan mythologies such as the Greek
I seem to recall that C.S. Lewis makes a sneaky argument somewhere to rationalize this. The similarities between the Christian myth (the “True myth,” from his perspective) and myths that preceded it resulted from God “leaking a preview,” so to speak, of His revealed truth to various world cultures. The point was to help them recognize and accept the Good News when it finally got to them. I thought this argument had a formal name, but I haven’t been able to rediscover it. If anyone out there knows it, or could direct me to where in Lewis’s writings he makes this argument, I’d be much obliged.
@19/ ad. We in the modern Christian faith community frequently gloss over the glaring dichotomy through which those from other faiths see our Trinity (Father/Yahweh, Son-of-God-but-also-God/Christ, and Holy Spirit) as anything BUT monotheistic…
@21/kaiphranos. Nice! I wouldn’t be surprised. Lewis is always eclectic with what he puts in the stew.
Thanks for the very interesting post :) and series!
I actually read the ‘nicer faces’ passage more in the sense of the Narnians having more pleasant expressions/faces that suggested a kinder/less harsh culture, more so than about their actual good looks. Lewis uses the same kind of phrase to describe the Cabby and/or his wife in TMN if I recall (can’t check, my books are packed) and was using that as a comment on their underlying selves. Not saying he doesn’t comment on physical beauty per se as well, but I think for that particular phrase that might not have been what exactly he meant to convey.
@19/ According to Abrahamic mythology even the early Israelites were polytheist (becoming henotheist then monotheist as time went on), with the exhortations against worshipping other gods, with Yahweh being just one of many Canaanite gods, gradually merging with the other gods like El.
It’s a very long time since I read the Last Battle, but I don’t remember the other gods Azaroth and Zardeenah being mentioned, so maybe similar syncretistic merging is what happened to the other gods mentioned so they all became part of Tash by then?
It is interesting to note that most of the Narnians/Northern folks whom Shasta observes in Calormen are either Royalty or their Courtiers – a caste noteworthy for its entrenched interest in beautification and therefore likely to be consistently above average in looks (especially on a Diplomatic Mission to a foreign land with somewhat aesthetic tendencies).
It also seems useful to point out that this is a Diplomatic Mission from Narnia to a land that kidnaps Talking Beasts and prefers to treat them no differently from their mute, non-Sapient cousins: it’s perhaps unsurprising that the Pevansies were reluctant to risk their nonhuman subjects in the streets of a city that might very well mistreat them (or worse yet, persecute them) and that their nonhuman subjects might be highly reluctant to visit Calormen.
As for the Kings & Queens of Narnia accumulating human courtiers in the first place – the cynical might suggest that any winning combination is likely to attract those looking to make themselves part of the team, the mischievous might suggest that the grown-up Pevansies might not be unhappy to enjoy a little flirtation in their lives now and again! (-;
The theme of ‘slave in a foreign land, crossing the water, escaping through the desert to the promised land’, should certainly raise allusions to the Biblical story of the Exodus as well, at least among informed readers. Calormen is Saracen, and Egyptian, and Babylonian, and Indian, and a whole mishmash of other things as well, probably.
(I’m sure that Twain’s story of the Prince and the Pauper comes into the tale as well, with the Cor-and-Shasta exchange duet).
@23/24 – yes. Not to derail the conversation too much but I’ve been watching The Chosen (internet miniseries about Jesus gathering his disciples which is actually good unlike a huge majority of Christian-centric media) and one of the sub plots is how the Jewish scholars are grappling with this idea (and why some ultimately reject it).
@25 It occurs to me that Lewis his depiction of Calormen and its people could also fit into the tradition of “Orientalism” in European thought and culture going back to the 1700’s. There’s the same kind of judgement of the “exotic” culture as being paradoxically both “looked down on as “inferior” and “barbaric” in politics and social structure but at the same time there’s a strong admiration and appreciation for its aesthetics–the plastic arts, music, poetry, food, etc.
@@@@@ 26/Psychae I agree I think a lot of the beauty that Shasta sees in the Narnians is an inner beauty/goodness that the Calormenes are lacking in. Most of the grown up Calormenes are jerks, apparently and it shows. Even not -so-good looking people like King Lune (dream casting Dick Van Patten in his prime!) look great simply because their goodness is ever-apparent.
@@@@@20/Matt Mikalatos I think Aravis was meant to be a beautiful girl, but Lewis wasn’t going to describe her as such himself. To his credit, the children of the Narnia books are rarely described in appearance. When they are–such as Susan being described as the beauty of the family–it’s obvious that Lewis thinks little of such designations. Aravis may have been old enough to wed in Calormene, but she’s just a kid in Lewis’s eyes for some time to come. But I agree that Lewis wouldn’t consider the Calormenes fair, as that wouldn’t make sense linguistically.
@23, @24 Arguing that Islam has fewer polytheistic features than Christianity, while persuasive in itself, does not do much to convince me that a polytheistic fictional religion, one of the followers of which explicitly claims to be descended from a God, was intended to resemble Islam. Hinduism possibly. But not Islam.
I think it worth pointing out that Calormen lacks a number of the the more problematic features of the medieval Islamic/ Arabic/ Turkish world. There is no evidence of polygyny, concubinage, white sex slaves captured on slave raids on Christian lands, a policy of giving all the best jobs for slaves to the white ones and leaving the blacks ones at the bottom of the heap, or the ruler depending on an army of (usually white) slaves.
And that last characteristic was both a key feature of the political economy of the Islamic world, and an extremely distinctive one.
The problem is not that Lewis has added features to that world to make it less attractive, or even that he failed to remove some unattractive features. The problem is that he failed to remove them all. But if he had removed them all, Aravis and Friends would have had nothing to flee from and the plot about a flight from Heathendom to Christianity would have disappeared.
There is no way of making that plot unproblamatic. You cannot even have an unproblamatic plot about a flight from a non-Christian religion to atheism, let alone about a flight to Christianity.
From the perspective of Judaism, Islam and Arian Christianity, Athanasian (or Trinitarian) Christianity is the form of Abrahamism most tainted by paganism. I think they have a point. The motif of a tripartite supreme being existed in Hinduism and other polytheistic traditions long before the time of Christ. And in no other form of Abrahamism does the idea of God having human offspring exist, whereas it occurs frequently in pagan mythologies such as the Greek.
I believe C.S. Lewis makes a sneaky argument somewhere to rationalize this. The similarities between the Christian myth (from his perspective, the True myth) and those myths that preceded it owe their existence to God “leaking a preview,” so to speak, of His true revelation to various cultures throughout the world. God did in order to help them recognize and appreciate the Good News when it finally got to them. I believe this line of argument has a formal name. If anyone out there know what it is, or where in his writings that Lewis makes the argument, I’d be obliged if you’d let me know.
I wonder if there are echoes of the defeat of Spain and the Armada in Lewis’ cry of “Narnia and the North”. While Calormen is certainly an orientalist fantasy version of ‘the East’, there are enough echoes of a small Northern country defending its liberty from a vast ‘idol-worshipping’ southern empire to arouse suspicions.
Tolkien was very supportive of the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, because of their support from the Catholic Church; Lewis regarded them a much more jaundiced eye-
@35
“God sent the human race what I call good dreams: I mean those queer stories scattered all throughout heathen religions about a god who dies and comes to life again, and by his death has somehow given new life to men.”
Mere Christianity, bk 2, ch. 3
(but he says this sort of thing quite a bit)
@@@@@ 35, Skallagrimsen:
From the perspective of Judaism, Islam and Arian Christianity, Athanasian (or Trinitarian) Christianity is the form of Abrahamism most tainted by paganism. I think they have a point. The motif of a tripartite supreme being existed in Hinduism and other polytheistic traditions long before the time of Christ. And in no other form of Abrahamism does the idea of God having human offspring exist, whereas it occurs frequently in pagan mythologies such as the Greek.
Mohammed offered his revelation to the Byzantine Christians. They wanted no part of it. It was too close to Monophysitism. Which asserted a single divine nature to Christ. The Levant and Egypt had large Monophysite populations. So Byzantium was persecuting them as heretics.
When Mohammed gave up on being Christian, he started his own religion. Which launched a jihad, conquering territory for their faith. For some reason Islam was welcomed in the Levant and Egypt. The Monophysite thought Islam was better than being second class citizens of Rome.
I believe C.S. Lewis makes a sneaky argument somewhere to rationalize this. The similarities between the Christian myth (from his perspective, the True myth) and those myths that preceded it owe their existence to God “leaking a preview,” so to speak, of His true revelation to various cultures throughout the world. God did in order to help them recognize and appreciate the Good News when it finally got to them. I believe this line of argument has a formal name. If anyone out there know what it is, or where in his writings that Lewis makes the argument, I’d be obliged if you’d let me know.
Missionaries to the Americas kept finding dying and reborn soter deities among the native tribes. They concluded that Satan set things up that way to mock good Christian missionaries.
@26,32
the text might define “nicer faces” as portraying individual characteristics if it weren’t being used as a generalization. Many individuals, however, think the people In their own group look “nicer“ than other groups do.
Calormen has “strange marriages between young women and old men”; that was a pretty common feature of medieval Europe, too.
And one can’t be a heretic without having first been a believer. The conquistadors, for example, declared indigenous people Catholic, en masse and sometimes without their knowledge, before killing them for heresy.
Lewis thought Islam was heretical? What would he have said to a Jewish person saying the same of Christianity?
@39 A.P. Morse Thank you!
@40 Fernhunter, Thank you, I believe that’s all correct. I seem to recall in the earliest stages of the Musliim invasion of Europe (Iberia and the Mediterranean), Christians evinced little curiosity as to Arab beliefs, but tended to equate them with Arian heretics.
Lewis must have read “Lepanto”, the 1911 poem by the Christian writer G. K. Chesterton.
“White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;”
Great poetry but somewhat problematic when it comes to “ethnocentrism”: Mohammed is referred to as ‘Mahound’, a derogatory term from medieval times used by Christians as a slur, who commands the demons of Hell- “Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon” and assorted genies and giants- to attack the Christian fleet at the Battle of Lepanto.
My favorite “Orientalist” poem from that time is “War Song of the Saracens” by James Flecker:
@41/MSB.
Lewis would, of course, say that Christians have received a new revelation:
“I think to myself that the shocking reply to the Syrophoenician woman (it came alright in the end) is to remind all us Gentile Christians—who forget it easily enough or flirt with anti-Semitism—that the Hebrews are spiritually senior to us, that God did entrust the descendants of Abraham with the first revelation of Himself.”
(That’s what the Prophet would say to Christians, too, I’m sure.)
Another interesting quote more or less on topic (from his intro to Joy Davidman’s book):
“In a sense the converted Jew is the only normal human being in the world. To him, in the first instance, the promises were made, and he has availed himself of them. He calls Abraham his father by hereditary right as well as by divine courtesy. He has taken the whole syllabus in order, as it was set; eaten the dinner according to the menu. Everyone else is, from one point of view, a special case, dealt with under emergency regulations … we christened gentiles, are after all the graft, the wild vine, possessing “joys not promised to our birth”; though perhaps we do not think of this so often as we might.”
@Matt
”Lewis would, of course, say that Christians have received a new revelation:.”
Just as Muslims would, no doubt to Lewis’ incomprehension. Ethnocentrism indeed.
The long history of Ottoman aggression against southern Europe understandably colored European perceptions.
Doubtless the Crusades had a similar effect, once the Crusaders stopped sacking and killing in Europe and transferred their attention to the a Middle East.
There’s also a long tradition in Europe of respect for the Islamic warrior (especially the mounted one) as a worthy foe. Saladin epitomizes this in the Crusades. It is present in Lewis’ description of the Calormenes instantly mounting and wheeling to face the Narnian charge: “There’s no doubt those Calormenes are wonderfully trained”. Also, in Tolkien the Southron King killed by Theoden at the Battle of Pelennor Fields is shown as an honourable enemy, unlike the orcs and trolls.
Feverishly devouring all of the posts and comments. I am very much outclassed, but want to express my appreciation anyway.
@30 LisaMarie why had I never heard of The Chosen? Thank you!
Lewis was a medievalist and I think the most obvious explanation of Calormen is that it’s based on medieval ideas of the non-Christian world. If you look at traditional religious art the non-Europeans wear turbans, for example. Later medieval people understood Islam to some extent but in the earlier period less so: in The Song of Roland there’s a line about “they pray to Muhammad and worship Apollo” or vice versa!
“May you/he live for ever” is ancient Persian etc emperors – it’s in the Book of Daniel. The ancient Greeks regarded the Persians as the oppressive, exotic enemy, and this was passed down to Europe. It’s debatable how fair that was, of course.
The Horse and His Boy has been criticized as “orientalist” meaning the western tradition of imposing its understanding on an “exoticized” middle east (not a good summary, sorry). Much as I love the story it’s hard to deny these aspects, and the offensive racial commentary. I have seen Lewis accused of white supremacism, though, and there we have to consider his clear hostility to colonialism. We see this in Out of the Silent Planet (remember that’s the 1930s when colonialism seemed natural to most Europeans) but also in non fiction where he used strong language about how bad European colonialism had been for the rest of the world and that white people should consider there might be reasons some others hated them. He condemned apartheid as evil. In all this he was unusual for his time and class. In Hideous Strength he mentions Cecil Rhodes as an example of the worst of England – I don’t think he would have shed any tears for that statue! So my overall feeling is, Lewis was opposed to white supremacism and colonialism, and but didn’t recognize that he nevertheless had a lot of racist baggage.
One other comment: I always felt there was a point in the fact that the big empire, spouting imperialist rhetoric, is alien, whereas “our lot” are the ones at risk of colonial conquest. A sort of “how would you like it…” But if so this doesn’t work for most readers and for non European readers turns into “now you’re telling a story where we are the colonizers!?”
Simply put: Mughal India, circa the time of Tisroc Akbar.