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Worlds Beyond: How The Chronicles of Narnia Introduced Us to Other Authors We Love

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Worlds Beyond: How The Chronicles of Narnia Introduced Us to Other Authors We Love

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Worlds Beyond: How The Chronicles of Narnia Introduced Us to Other Authors We Love

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Published on May 26, 2021

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I had come to Narnia as a kid after spending an entire year working my way through the Fellowship of the Ring. When I said “more!” to my dad, he took me to the living room and showed me seven books in a box set. I sat down and immediately thought, “Well, these are easier to read” and devoured them over the course of that summer. It had been very much like discovering a magical wardrobe in the guest room. I kept thinking, those were sitting in the living room the whole time! When I finished Narnia, I demanded to know what would be next and set out to find more books about magic or space or talking animals or time travel.

I could write another ten articles about Narnia without much trouble, but “The Problem(s) of Susan” is a good capstone that gets to the heart of many things some of us hate or love about Narnia now that we’re adults.

As the community of the Great C.S. Lewis Reread has been growing, I’ve been so thankful for the insightful, generous, intelligent, and kind comments here. Before we move on to Lewis’ other works, I thought it would be fun to write two more articles while we’re still in Narnia to talk about the aftermath of that world and how it changed our reading and our writing (for those who are writers), and just get to know one another a little better.

So, for me, as I look at the way reading the Chronicles impacted my life as a reader, I see four different paths that branch out from the summer I read The Last Battle to today. They are, essentially: the search for “more books like that;” the raiding of my dad’s speculative fiction books; books with direct connections to Lewis; and the search for more religious or religiously motivated speculative fiction.

When I started looking for “more books like Narnia” I didn’t have the easiest time of it. This was the early ’80s, so we didn’t have the same embarrassment of riches that grade school kids have today. But my parents did manage to find two books that I immediately fell in love with: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster and The Once and Future King by T.H. White. The former taught me books can be weird and funny and delightful, and the latter taught me to love King Arthur and sent me on to Le Morte d’Arthur and later to Chrétien de Troyes and through the current day and my nearly irrational excitement about the upcoming The Green Knight movie!

I’m not sure how I missed Robin McKinley or the Redwall books, but I did. It seemed like it was hard to find fantasy books targeted at kids in those days, but maybe it was my geographic location, the bookstores available, and (probably at play here) going to Christian schools where the library books didn’t branch out into certain territories (but where I read The War for Mansoul, an adapted version of John Bunyan’s story about a city under siege that was called Mansoul and I will leave it to you to see if you can figure out the metaphor. It’s also where I read the strange apocalypse novel 666 by Salem Kirban which in addition to being incredibly dark and weird—there is some cannibalism in this book and also some ruby ring lasers—had the added advantage of a foreword where the author said it was “mostly fiction” but also was true because it was based in the Bible. If you haven’t been scared by earnest religious adherents who start by saying the story you’re about to read is true then you have really missed out on some deep terror.)

By far the most influential and beloved series of books to come to me through this “can I find more books like Narnia” portal was the Earthsea novels by Ursula K. Le Guin. I found A Wizard of Earthsea in sixth grade and I was so deeply entranced I was drawing pictures and re-reading the book during recess. (It’s also why Jay Hightower got busted and then “disciplined” because he copied my drawing of the Shadow thing chasing Ged. The teacher saw it and thought it was a demon, and Jay took the belt instead of ratting me out. Which, again, Christian school in the ’80s, and also sorry, Jay!) I still love those books!

Now, the “what’s on dad’s shelf” path from Narnia was considerably more fraught. Dad is one of the original science fiction nerds, so there was a lot of Golden Age science fiction, and a very large heap of all the best science fiction magazines. But, also, there were a lot of 1970s novels in there, which, uh, were not suited for nine-year-olds.

So I had some great adventures with Ray Bradbury (I especially loved The Martian Chronicles and any of the short stories set at Halloween) and Isaac Asimov (I, Robot!). There were even a few of Asimov’s juveniles buried in there so I read some Lucky Starr. I discovered a couple of Doctor Who and Star Trek novelizations. And a little later came across The Riftwar Saga books by Raymond A. Feist, which I absolutely adored.

I also came across—much too early in my life—the book Ariel by Stephen R. Boyett, about all technology stopping as magic returns, a young man who befriends a unicorn, and oh yeah something about a sexual awakening. I remember asking my dad as I read, “What’s an erection?” and he said, “Something you put up, like a building.” And I was like, hmmm, I’m not sure how to make sense of that in this context. I was pretty confused by the detailed sex scene that takes place toward the end. My dad, years later: “Yeah, well, obviously I didn’t remember that part or I wouldn’t have let you read it.”

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As for books with direct connections to Lewis, well, I eventually read everything the man had ever written, including his scholastic work, his poems, his letters. I had mixed feelings about The Space Trilogy, one of which I loved and one of which I hated (I’m looking forward to discussing that here with all of you in the future). My experience with That Hideous Strength put me off his novels long enough that when I came back around and read Till We Have Faces I was old enough to understand and enjoy it.

Lewis directly referred to many authors he loved or respected throughout his writing, and some of the ones I came to love and respect as well include Charles Williams (especially The Place of the Lion and All Hallow’s Eve), G. K. Chesterton (especially The Napoleon of Notting Hill and the Father Brown stories, as well as The Everlasting Man), Dorothy L. Sayers (I’ve only read a handful of her novels, so I still have plenty more to go!), and of course George MacDonald.

By the time I got to MacDonald I enjoyed his fairy tales for children fine (I actually bought some beautiful editions that were illustrated by Maurice Sendak), but I was also probably too young for the weirdness of Phantastes and Lilith. I was confused by him. Was he for kids or for old people? I discovered—much later in life—that what I most loved about MacDonald were his sermons. His Unspoken Sermons are beautiful, interesting, and describe God in a way that resonates with my own experience in a powerful way.

Then, lastly, the final category that Narnia opened to me was the search for more religious or religiously motivated speculative fiction. I don’t mean “Christian fiction” (i.e. “fiction written by Christians”) when I say that, though I have no issue with those who love that genre. What I mean is stories that seriously wrestle with faith, or at least are nuanced in their religious characters.

Of course there are a variety of amazing books that fall in this category, many of which are well-loved by people of differing faiths: A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. Fred Saberhagen falls in this category for me, though he’s much less overt about it. Also Clifford Simak. Susan Palwick’s amazing work, both short stories and novels, often has transformative, healing properties that I find refreshing.

Connie Willis—winner of eleven Hugo awards and seven Nebulas—has written numerous novels that are deeply important to me, most notably Doomsday Book. I can’t tell you how often I think about that book, and the stunning emotional picture it paints of someone who does the right thing even knowing that they can’t change what’s about to happen.

I’ve also deeply loved Gene Wolfe’s work. I was astonished when I started reading The Shadow of the Torturer and thought, “Uh, is this a book about Jesus?” and as I continued reading the series got to the place where I wondering if, well, maybe Severian was literally meant to be Jesus? Many of Wolfe’s short stories are beautiful, complicated explorations of faith in intergalactic settings, or the future, or just, you know, a quiet tale about staying in a bed and breakfast just outside of Hell.

I also love religious and spiritual stories that aren’t coming from a Christian point of view, like Ursula K. Le Guin’s work (The Tombs of Atuan might have the most creepy, accurate picture of corrupt, evil spiritual work that I’ve ever read…I was so relieved when Ged finally appeared!) or recent books like S.B. Divya’s Machinehood, which has atheists and Christians and neo-Buddhists and Muslims all inhabiting the same future with all the complexities and misunderstandings and generosities that you might expect having lived in the real world, today.

There are many, many more…and I can trace my introduction to a good number of them back through to Lewis and Narnia. I’m sure I would have come across some of them regardless, through some other path, some other portal, some other wardrobe. But I’m thankful that once upon a time my dad took me into the living room and handed me a box of those seven books.

Now, I’d love to hear about your journey. Where and when did you first read the Chronicles? What doors did those stories open for you, and what books did you discover as a result?

In two weeks we’ll return to talk about Narnia’s effect on us as writers and creators. Yes, I’m going to be inviting you in the comments to talk about your own projects! Looking forward to it. In the meantime, my friends, remember that Aslan is on the move!

Matt Mikalatos is the author of the YA fantasy The Crescent Stone. You can follow him on Twitter or connect on Facebook.

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Matt Mikalatos

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Matt Mikalatos is the author of the YA fantasy The Crescent Stone. You can follow him on Twitter or connect on Facebook.
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Daniel
3 years ago

I never comment (though I follow you on Twitter and sometimes comment there) but this got me thinking. 

First, I have loved your Narnia essays and shared them often with my wife and with my extremely tiny Twitter followers. 

I didn’t go to a Christian school but definitely grew up in a Southern California Non-denominational/Evangelical world – born in 1982, graduated high school in 2001 to give you the era. I consumed both Tolkien (Hobbit & LOTR) and Narnia when I was in early elementary school, and loved Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Tanglewood Tales and A Wonder Book for Boys and Girls that were his tellings of classical mythology and fairy tales – also Men of Iron by Howard Pyle led to me getting interesting in the Arthurian legends. 

Inspired by my love for Narnia, for fantasy I got into Piers Anthony’s Xanth series at the local library, and the Hardy Boys and the Three Investigators in terms of young people romping around having adventures. I started reading a few collections of Arthurian and Robin Hood legends and tales, and got into some science fiction too. Read all of Asimov’s works, and all of Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom and Venus novels (read the first couple Tarzan but I always preferred the Barsoom books). 

Loved Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain, especially Taran Wanderer – I still love that series and I still think that book is the greatest of them. Enjoyed some of his others, especially Westmark/Beggar Queen/Kestrel

For Arthurian retellings, I didn’t really get into the MZB stuff but I really enjoyed Stephen R Lawhead’s retelling of the Arthurian legends in his Pendragon Cycle – if you haven’t read them, I recommend checking them out starting with Taliesin – it’s been a while but I have really fond memories – starts the Arthurian cycle in Atlantis but also roots it strongly in Wales. 

I was also a huge fan of Fred Saberhagen’s Swords books as a youth. 

I did read Lewis’ Space Trilogy, which I agree with you I think – mixed feelings but there was some very interesting ideas in it. I’m sure I’m leaving off a lot, but I did read Feist and Eddings and I’m currently very much enjoying Brandon Sanderson’s works. 

I know this was a roundabout comment but it was so fun to think about all the books that were really opened up to me through love of Narnia and Middle-Earth (they always came so close together for me it’s hard to pinpoint which inspired me more at the time). 

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JonathanB
3 years ago

Sticking to just the works that C.S. Lewis led me to read, the list is quite short… probably because I’m a bit of a latecomer to the Chronicles.

The Place of the Lion was one of those books I’ve started, mean to finish, but have not yet done so.  It’s use of Platonic archetypes is of particular interest to me (I’m using Platonic forms in my WIP), and I look forward to returning to reading the book.

The Divine Comedy, likewise, is another work that I’m struggling to complete, although I place this one in a different category.  In my reading of Dante, I flip back and forth between different translations (Longfellow and a more ‘modern’ translation) so it becomes more akin to ‘study’ than ‘reading.’  Someday, I hope to be more proficient in Italian to read the original translation to appreciate the full beauty of Dante’s terza rima meter, which is completely lost in English.

The last series that C.S. Lewis’s works introduced me to… will probably come off as a bit pandering.  But it’s true:  as a fan of this column, C.S. Lewis introduced me to Matt Mikalatos’s own Sunlit Lands trilogy, which itself acknowledges C.S. Lewis’s influence on its creation.  I thought the first two were quite a fun read, and the third one is coming out soon.

Thanks for the hard work, Matt!

Matt Mikalatos
3 years ago

@1/Daniel. Oooo I forgot about Howard Pyle. I had his Robin Hood and his Knights of the Round Table. I have to be honest, though, I mostly flipped through over and over for the amazing illustrations in whatever edition I had! 

@2/JonathanB. Aw man, I feel so honored that you would say that. I met some kids who had read The Sunlit Lands yesterday and it was so fun to interact with them about it. Also, I think The Place of the Lion is the first time I really sort of understood Platonic archetypes, and it’s interesting it’s played almost as horror. Of course this book had a huge impact on Lewis… and we’ll likely explore that a bit when we get to The Great Divorce!

wiredog
3 years ago

First read the Chronicles in, second grade?  Third?  Followed immediately by The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.  Got The Silmarillion as a Christmas present when it was first published.  Still have the hardcover though the jacket was lost long ago.  My parents not being into SF I relied on the library. Which got me into Wells and Verne.  And whatever was in the kids section in the early to mid 70’s. Animal Farm was in that section…  School libraries had various short story collections.

A few years later, when I was 11 or so, a librarian recommended Grendel (fortunately the problematic parts went right over my head) and The Forgotten Beasts of Eld. 

 

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Richard Hall
3 years ago

Are you going to cover the other fiction “The Pilgrim’s Regress” and “Till we have faces”?

Matt Mikalatos
3 years ago

@4/wiredog. Awesome! Thanks for sharing. I remember reading Animal Farm and thinking, “I’m getting this as homework? I would have read this for fun!”

@5/RichardHall. 100% yes on ‘Till We Have Faces. Right now I’m thinking we’ll do a standalone next… maybe The Great Divorce. Then the Space Trilogy. We’ll probably at least do one post on Screwtape. And I’ve debated on The Pilgrim’s Regress. What do you think? Worth us digging into?

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3 years ago

I came to Narnia via horse and dog books. I asked my mom to buy A Horse and his Boy at an airport store when we were flying somewhere on vacation in the ’70s. It opened my eyes up to the whole world of sf/f. From there, Andre Norton, John Bellairs, a few Heinlein juveniles.

Matt Mikalatos
3 years ago

@7/melita. I love that story!

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Louise
3 years ago

To this day I can’t remember a time in my life when I hadn’t read the Narnia books. I’d ask my parents when I first read them, but I was such a voracious reader as a kid I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t remember either. I do know it was right around the same time as I discovered the Oz books, which I also still love. From there I was definitely hooked on fantasy. I found the Lloyd Alexander shelf in the library and devoured those (interestingly enough, the Prydain Chronicles were some of the last of his that I read, because the covers creeped me out so much). Friends introduced me to the Redwall books, and I collected every single one, and cried when Brian Jacques died, even though I was an adult by then. My dad handed me Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising, and said, “It gets pretty scary in parts, but I know you can handle it,” and I did, just barely, mostly to live up to Dad’s high opinion. (Fun fact: I went to a Susan Cooper book signing a few years back and not only did I get a hardcover of TDIR signed for myself, I got her newest book signed for my dad, because she is still one of his favorite authors.) My mom discovered Edward Eager’s books and happily passed them along to my sister and me when she finished with them, and those books led me to E. Nesbit as well as to Ivanhoe and Robin Hood and The Scottish Chiefs.

And of course, there was that one day in the library when, despairing over the fact that I had read all my favorite fantasies over and over again, and desperately searching for something new, I pulled out an interesting-looking book with a green-and-blue cover and opened it to read, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” I sat down right there on the floor in front of the shelf and was swept away. I was delighted, years later, to find that Tolkien and Lewis had been friends. (I was similarly delighted when, after discovering Dorothy L. Sayers’ books as an adult and loving them as I hadn’t loved a story since childhood, I learned that she and Lewis had also been friends.)

Lewis opened so many worlds to me, but Narnia is still the closest to my heart.

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Dung Beetle
3 years ago

I could probably draw a line directly from the Narnia books to my picking up The Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper.

I also went to a private Christian school in the 70s and 80s.  My grandmother was upset when she found me reading The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, believing it to be a book about witchcraft.

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EMF
3 years ago

Hey Matt. You mentioned you weren’t specifically discussing books by Christian authors in the post, so I’m curious if you ever read any of Frank Peretti’s Cooper Kids series. I have no idea if they hold up but I really enjoyed them as a kid. In middle school I also really enjoyed Peretti’s books ‘This Present Darkness’ and ‘Piercing the Darkness'”. Again, not sure if they hold up, but as a fan of the fantasy genre the idea of angels and demons invisibly fighting each other alongside human activities was intriguing to me.

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Melissa Mead
3 years ago

 The Chronicles of Narnia were some of my formative books, probably at least partly responsible for the phase where I seriously considered becoming a minister. I read every piece of fiction by Lewis that I could find. Nowadays i no longer believe in One Right Way, but I’m glad to have read all these books, and for the introduction to George MacDonald.

(I’m afraid that “Jack” would consider me to be dangerously misguided nowadays.)

Kinda relieved that I’m not the only one put off by That Hideous Strength. I remembered liking the first 2, then finding THS confusing and boring. I’m not even sure I finished it.

I’ve been re-reading the Space Trilogy in case we read it next. Still enjoyed the first 2. Finding THS.less confusing, still tedious, and sometimes annoying. Lewis wrote some great books and some meaningful essays. To me, THS reads like it’s not sure which it wants to be.

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3 years ago

@1 @3

Howard Pyle FTW

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Tehanu
3 years ago

I was reading fantasy and science fiction from about age 7.  When I discovered CSL I was 11 and he immediately became my favorite author — and he still is, to some degree, although of course I went on to discover Tolkien, LeGuin, E.R. Eddison, and so many others, right up to Daniel Abraham, Lois McMaster Bujold, and N.K. Jemisin.  But a casual reference that Lewis makes in That Hideous Strength to John Buchan turned me on to a whole world of adventure / spy books.  Buchan isn’t much read today — he’s not very “woke” and I generally hesitate to recommend him to young people — but every spy novelist after him is in his debt, from Eric Ambler and Ian Fleming to Tom Clancy and Barry Eisler. 

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3 years ago

I first heard of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe in grade 5 or 6, fairly early after I immgrated to Canada from China. My class at the time was split into two groups, one was reading LWW, the other was reading Number the Stars, a historical fiction set in WWII. I was not in the group reading LWW. I don’t actually remember when I first tried to read it, but I’m pretty sure I only went as far as the middle of The Silver Chair (reading chronologically). I only completed the series when the Disney movies came out in the early ’00’s, by that time I was in my teens and I was aware of the Christian metaphors, of which I was rather wary and didn’t try to reread it at any point after that.

I was more into the Arthurian myths when I was younger, mostly because of the Merlin series by T.A. Barron, and then Tolkien when it came along, when I was ready for it. Between them two Inklings, I much prefer Tolkien, but what Chronicles of Narnia introduced me to is actually His Dark Materials, and through that, Milton’s Paradise Lost (at least theoretically, since I still haven’t read Paradise Lost yet, it’s just kind of been on my list). Pullman I had heard was the opposite of Lewis and that His Dark Materials reflected that, the strange thing is though I responded to His Dark Materials much as I responded to Narnia, which is to say, with a shrug. I more willingly revisited His Dark Materials when the tv show first came out, but like the first time, it was still a kind of “Meh” reaction from me. I find it interesting that I had similar reactions to the strongly pro- and the strongly anti-religion books. I’m not really religious, I have a set of beliefs, they don’t involve God, certainly not as an entity, I’d say I’m an atheist but I’m not an anti-theist, and to me Narnia and His Dark Materials were doing the same thing just from different directions.

The books that I really connected with that had strong spiritual/religious themes is actually The Stormlight Archive, and to a somewhat lesser degree the Mistborn series. They’re books where I really noticed the discussions around religion, faith, and beliefs, and I have to say it suits me much better than Narnia. Sanderson’s books are much more focused on the divine within each person as opposed to in relation to a deity who is outside of yourself. I much prefer the providential Gods from Tolkien’s Middle-Earth or Sanderson’s Era 2 Scadrial than Aslan, who interferes more directly.

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longviewer
3 years ago

I’m a relative latecomer to Lewis, at least in regard to Narnia.

My fantasy journey began in earnest with Tolkien in 6th grade, and soon after I visited Lewis’ Space Trilogy. Like many others I read THS too young, it was like reading a brick wall; it makes its points far more clearly twenty years later. From there I moved on to Asimov and LeGuin, both of whom moved me greatly with their works. The Ekumen books and Earthsea were really impressive, and I followed her into essays and random shorts as well.

My wife’s family introduced me to Narnia, I knew of it but didn’t enter the wardrobe until my forties. That also led to his other essays, and my bride handed me the Dark is Rising books for bonus reading in my elder days. Oh yes, she also led me to the Wheel of Time – which then led to B.Sanderson and now Michael J. Sullivan. Michael’s last three books in the First Empyre series in particular go nicely with Narnia, and I look forward with hope to someone writing those up for a chat on tor.com! Sadly I can say no more.

 

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Nik_the_heratik
3 years ago

I think I read the Narnia books before I got to read LoTR, but maybe after the Hobbit. I remember reading so many different things that it’s hard to say whether the series shaped my early reading habits, but I definitely liked them and they led to an interest in both fantasy and medieval settings. The Door in the Wall by by Marguerite de Angeli was definitely something that I ended up reading because of the setting, and oddly enough it was published around the same time. The Dark is Rising books came later as well as the Wrinkle in Time books.

I didn’t read his Space Trilogy books until later and I didn’t really take to them very much. They weren’t as much fun as books like The Mushroom Planet books or the Phantom Tollbooth and they were less interesting as the Star Wars tie-in novels or some of the other “classic” sci-fi I started reading so I kind of lost interest in his writing at that point. So I’d say Narnia helped shape my interest in fantasy and medieval history, but Lewis didn’t do much for my taste in science fiction.

 

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Philippa Chapman
3 years ago

After Narnia had been devoured and re-devoured by me, I was lucky enough to discover Alan Garner:

‘The Weirdstone of Brisingamen’ and ‘The Moon of Gomrath’ = strange things happening around Alderly Edge, near Manchester, UK involving two siblings, Colin and Susan. I fell in love with the character of Atlendor, amongst many others.

(Why this has never been realised for television astounds me. Please, can someone option this PDQ?)

‘Elidor’ = Four youngsters find a portal to a wounded land and the Four Hallows….

‘The Owl Service’ = One of the Welsh Mabinogion stories comes to life again in recent Wales, plus a set of dinner china which has…properties.

(Both of these were dramatised for TV)

*

Then there’s Susan Cooper and her ‘Dark is Rising’ set of novels. And ‘The Snow Spider’.

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ericshanower
3 years ago

In elementary school we watched Cover to Cover every week on tv, a show that featured a different children’s book each episode. When I was in third grade, Cover to Cover had an episode about The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Despite loving children’s fantasy series (the Oz books, the Freddy the Pig books, the Doctor Dolittle books, the Mushroom Planet books, the Mary Poppins books, and more) I thought The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe sounded boring. The chapter that was featured was the one with the beavers. I don’t think the program mentioned that the book was the first of a series. When I was in fourth grade I found some paperback books in the library that featured what I thought was very adult-looking artwork–very late ’60s-early ’70s stuff looking a little like it belonged on a Beatles album cover. They were volumes in what was called “The Chronicles of Narnia.” The first one wasn’t there, so I checked out the second, Prince Caspian. At home I began to read it and soon–like on page 1–saw that the first volume in the series was The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which I remembered as that boring-sounding book from Cover to Cover the year before. I stopped reading Prince Caspian immediately. If I wanted to try this series, I decided I needed to try the first book first. So next time I was at the library I broke down and located the hardcover of LWW and checked it out (no paperback with the Peter Max-ish artwork at the library). I read it. I loved it. Not boring at all. Devoured all the rest of the series. Obsessed. Checked out two copies of Magician’s Nephew so I could have one upstairs in my bedroom to read and one downstairs in the living room to read. Shortly after I finished LWW, my mom told me that it was a Christian allegory and Aslan’s death and resurrection were like Christ’s. I hadn’t recognized that before. I didn’t really like thinking it was parallel. Narnia was great and church was boring. Since then, I’ve read the series maybe five or six times–don’t know–lost track. Still love it. When I read the stories, I still reject the idea that anything about them has anything to do with Christianity. To me it’s all just the Narnian fantasy religion. Of course, I realize that outside the stories–in the writing itself–that wasn’t Lewis’s intention, and this blog post series has been genuinely fascinating. I’ve read most of Lewis’s other fiction more than once. My favorite outside Narnia is his unfinished novel The Dark Tower. I haven’t read most of his non-fiction, but I found his analysis of Chaucer’s Cressida a really helpful, spot-on view of the character, which solidified my view of her in an ongoing retelling of the Trojan War I write and draw.

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Lesley Arrowsmith
3 years ago

There wasn’t a lot of choice of books to go on to from Narnia in the 1960s, but like several others here I found the Susan Cooper books (thanks, also, to Jackanory, the BBC children’s programme that read a story a week, every afternoon after school).  Alan Garner was another favourite – the setting helped here, because I grew up in Manchester, and I remember the terraced houses being knocked down as at the beginning of Elidor.

Then I discovered Ursula le Guin’s Earthsea trilogy, which blew my mind.

Another thread led to Arthurian books – I think I read everything by Geoffrey Ashe on the non-fiction shelves, and that led me to archaeology, and Leslie Alcock’s book about Cadbury Castle (which may have been Camelot).

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Glenn Harden
3 years ago

Another work in the category of “religiously-motivated speculative fiction” which deserves a reading is Michael Flynn’s Eifelheim, a story about an alien encounter in medieval Europe before the Black Death.

I also very much appreciated the Christian themes present in the Harry Potter series.

Philip Reeve’s Predator Cities stories includes some Christian themes and characters which I found welcome.

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CharlieE
3 years ago

Unlike most here, I didn’t read Lewis till I was in college.  I was in the theater group at a small Southern Baptist University and the student production one year was LWW.  I auditioned for Edmond, but everyone unanimously said I was Tumnus!  While prepping for the role, I read the entire series.  It took me a couple of days to do so. 

Side note: There was a single play version of the book available, and it was terrible.  After the initial Tumnus meeting, it condensed the rest of the book into a single act.  The director spent the first few weeks of rehearsal writing his own stage version of the book.  I wish I still had a copy of the final script, which we received a chapter at a time in rehearsals…

It was also a student production, which meant that it had a negative budget.  We scavenged all the props, sets and costumes from the storeroom!

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Lee Dalzell
3 years ago

I have no memory when I first read Narnia series….But they became my favorites and my “nightmare” books to re-read. You know, when you wake up from a nightmare and just KNOW that you will continue it if you do not get mind off that track…so read a favorite for a while, since around 1960–For about 60 years! Somewhere along there I found the Catseye by Andre Norton, then discovered the space ship on the back of books in the library and did A-Z through the books. Reading blurbs, I also read non-SF…historical fiction, horses, American Native, Animals, Anything, I READ! I also read the “classics” listed on the bookmarks from ALA. Thus I read Howard Pyle, Sir Walter Scott (helped by older brother’s Classics Illustrated comics), and all the others. A friend said once that if you are the kind of person who reads the cereal box because it has words, you a Wordaholic. Yes, that is me. But Narnia, Pern, Valdemar continue to be my favorite re-reads. I once horrified my (very Christian) friend by saying when he asked (in college) if I Believed–“I believe in Aslan!” Still do, sort of. And I am a Preacher’s Kid, so I knew what HE meant. Anyway, Almost any SF/Fantasy, and other fiction…but Not true Horror fiction. I have been enjoying your essays on C.S. Lewis and saved them in word so I could re-read in a coherent form on my computer.

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Andi
3 years ago

I adore Katherine Kurtz and Deborah Turner Harris’ Adept series, for an interesting take on religion (mostly Christian-related although they delve into some other faiths). It’s VERY alternative spirituality, and not always the best-written, but something about the faith system and ways of believing that the characters have in those books really captivated me.

I also really love Bujold’s World of the 5 Gods books/novellas for a really interesting look at what faith might look like in a world where the Gods are definitively real and some people can interact directly with them. 

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3 years ago

Goodness, I absolutely love this blog post. My reading carreer did not start with Nania, but with Mere Christianity when I was about 18. I often feel as if Lewis somehow opened up my reading chakra. I, too, read MacDonald, I even translated some of his fairy tales into my native Dutch, I became a universalist. When I learned that Lewis had written scifi, I stopped reading literature at once (which had bored me out of my skull, anyway) and started reading scifi. Neal Stephenson, first and foremost. I also read the Arthur literature and recently started on Talliessin through Logres, aided by a blog that sheds some light on his rich symbolism. Eventually, I did read Narnia – during a long wait at O’Hare and the flight from Chicago to Amsterdam. This is truly a lovely and utterly relatable post. I simply would not be the same person today, if I had not read Lewis at 18. He saved me from a lifetime of boring literature and lead me on an adventure.

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Mark Dominus
3 years ago

You said:

> the [New Sun] series got to the place where I wondering if, well, maybe Severian was literally meant to be Jesus…

Do you remember what place that was, exactly?

For me it was the detailed re-enactment of Matthew 4 in Sword of the Lictor, when Severian meets Typhon.  I’m not always the most careful reader, but that was so blunt even I saw it.

 

 

 

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pecooper
3 years ago

I grew up in the 60s and the Narnia books weren’t really available to me. I didn’t read them until I was in my forties, so I can’t say they influenced my reading, that much. The first C.S. Lewis book I read was Out Of The Silent Planet, which a absolutely adored. It lead me on to the other two books, as well as The Screwtape Letters.

I came to a lot of the books, recommended in other posts, though the back door. As a teenager, I was a fan Howard’s Conan books and subscribed to Amra magazine. That was where I discovered the Alan Garner books and Lloyd Alexander’s Prydian stories, as well as some of the others.

I’m pleased to see Clifford D. Simak on your list. You might also want to check out the People stories of Zena Henderson. She is largely forgotten, today, but he stories repay reading. They are the ones that remind me most of Simak.

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3 years ago

My mother,  a fairly soft Unitarian*, started reading the Chronicles to me when I was six.  She just thought they were wonderfully written and she was right. They quickly became my favorite series and by the time I was eight I owned my own set which I read over many, many times. While I knew there was a vague connection to Christianity, as a boy I didn’t care, I just wanted to go to Narnia. The Last Battle was my personal favorite of the series, but I was saddened that there was no Narnia for me to ever go to. 

I read plenty of other fantasy books growing up -Tolkien of course, T.H. White, Piers Anthony and David Eddings. Probably the most similar to Narnia were the books by Edward Eager–Knight’s Castle and such. But none of them ever worked on me the way the Narnia books did. There was a lion-shaped hole in me. 

And then as a young man I became a Christian, and I recalled that C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books were Christian. What joy to rediscover those books again, but what further joy to learn that Narnia was real, Aslan was real!  

*So you know, pretty soft then.

 

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3 years ago

Like you, Matt, I searched out the books that Lewis listed among his influences, and read and enjoyed Voyage to Arcturus, E.R. Eddison, G.K. Chesterton, Morris’s Well at the World’s End, and George MacDonald as a result. A friend at university lent me some of the Charles Williams novels, too; I remember how powerful I found Descent into Hell‘s depiction of a man making a choice that leads him to inner death, and the wonderful words about friendship in Place of the Lion

It was largely through the influence of Lewis and Tolkien that I chose what to study, too. I ended up reading the predecessors of the above books, which I think of as a tradition, and which I refer to as the British Weird. So Beowulf (in the original Old English, though I wouldn’t be able to read it today), Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer, Spenser’s Faerie Queene, and all the way up to Bunyan and Paradise Lost. I never ventured beyond the seventeenth century in my university studies – Blake didn’t appeal to me, with his clunky verse and his odd heretical ideas – so there’s a gap in my reading from Milton to MacDonald. 

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Mike
3 years ago

@28  I also re-read Narnia after becoming a Christian, and it was truly a moving experience. Loved them as a kid but my family was not religious, and I don’t remember them bringing tears to my eyes back then..

I can’t really recall the connection from Narnia to other books. I read most of the classic fantasies as an adult (ie Earthsea, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, never read LoTR though which may get me shunned here).

I grew up in the 90s and sci fi has always been more my thing- and that I can trace directly to the Animorphs books, ha! LOVED them. From Animorphs I just exploded into all the sci fi series available, and I found Wolfe, Herbert, Gaiman’s Sandman, and others through that exploration.

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3 years ago

I was already well into classic Asimov-Clarke-Heinlein science fiction in the 1960s when I encountered Lewis; and I believe I read the space trilogy first — my uncle/godfather/English professor gave me a paperback set.

That was the genesis of a curious experience.  The first time I read the trilogy (probably in sixth or seventh grade), I wasn’t impressed.  I was looking for space adventure, and the books seemed to get more boring as they went along; I barely got through That Hideous Strength.  A few years later (late high school or college?) I went back to them — this time they were increasingly fascinating, and I could hardly put down the last book.  Evidently I had done some maturing in the meantime . . .

I’m pretty sure I read the Narnian books after that — when I was already in high school.  I liked them — thought of the series as a sort of junior companion to The Lord of the Rings.  Somehow I didn’t catch on to the fact that Aslan actually was Jesus until I got to the fish-on-the-seashore scene at the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  But by that time I was grown up enough to distinguish between allegory and Incarnation in another world, and I enjoyed the Christian aspects as much as the sheer fantasy.

Rick

 

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Aelfrida
3 years ago

I didn’t search out Sydney Carter because of CSL but when I heard his Every Star it immediately resonated Narnia:

Who can count how many crosses, still to come or long ago, crucify the King of heaven? Holy is the name I know

Who can tell what other body he will hallow for his own?I will praise the Son of Mary, brother of my blood and bone

I also always assumed that Susan had grown out of Narnia and into the journey of recognising Aslan in her own world.

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Michael
3 years ago

I want to emphasize the genius of _The Sparrow_ by Maria Doria Russell. She jokingly refers to it as ‘Jesuits in space’ but don’t think it’s a Catholic book as she draws from many traditions. The ending will almost certainly leave you unnerved but the sequel _The Children Of God_ provided to me some sense of redemption.

I asked her once if she’d read Lewis’ space trilogy and she said she never got past the first paragraph of _Out Of The Silent Planet_ which makes her protagonist Sandoz even more interesting: a linguist who travels to a distant planet. The weirdest coincidence is that the letter H is also problematic for the residents of her imaginary planet… go figure.

Anyway,  two brilliant books well worth your time.

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Msb
3 years ago

Mistaking the identity of Ged’s Shadow seems like a good metaphor for Christian school. 
“I actually bought some beautiful editions that were illustrated by Maurice Sendak”. I have two editions of The Light Princess because one is illustrated by Sendak. 
I bounced so hard off the last two Narnia books (received the set as a Christmas gift when I was 8 and read them all) that they didn’t lead me far, except to The Screwtape Letters. I had loved fairy tales since I learned to read, and they led to SFF: Andre Norton, Madeleine L’Engle, Anne McCaffrey, Zenna Henderson and Heinlein juveniles when I was young and LeGuin, Cherryh, Russ, Beagle and others as I grew up. A bunch of Lin Carter editions, and LeGuin essays, led me to classics such as Lud in the Mists, Macdonald and Islandia (still a favorite). It took me 20 years to discover that A Wrinkle in Time had sequels but I was thrilled to catch up. 
A couple of people have mentioned Pullman. I adore the ideas of His Dark Materials, particularly the reversal of the concept of the Fall (Lyra and Will fall up, into knowledge and maturity), Lyra harrowing Hell and the reclamation of Eve. But I also love the quality of the writing and characterization. Pullman isn’t anti-God, so much as anti-religion and particularly anti-theocracy. Like another commenter, I got a lot out of Bujold’s Five Gods series. She’s brilliant at portraying both the longing for contact with the divine and its indescribability when it happens.
I fear I got to Tolkien too late. By the time I finally read him, I had read so many of the giants standing on his shoulders that I was not much moved, except to keep saying, “Where are all the women?”

I’m also an enthusiastic reader of Arthurian literature, which led me, thank God, to Jo Walton. Her King’s Peace/King’s Name duology is a meditation on religious change and peace-making in Arthurian clothing, and I strongly recommend her recent book Lent. 

and what’s going on with comment 34? 

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MikeBSG
3 years ago

I read the Narnia books when I was in Lutheran elementary school, maybe 7-8th grade.

I remember I didn’t like “Lion/Witch/Wardrobe” because I found the Christian allegory too thick.  I don’t think I finished that one.  However, the covers of Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader appealed to me, so I gave Prince Caspian a try and loved it.  Caspian/Treader/Silver Chair are the peak of Narnia for me.  I also liked Last Battle.

Around that time, I read Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain, which I discovered thanks to the covers.  Loved those.  I also enjoyed the fairy tale books of Barbara Leonie Picard.  She also wrote some retellings of legends and folklore that I gobbled up too.

I read Lord of the Rings but wasn’t too taken with it, or if I was, that was ruined in high school by a girl in high school who was OBSESSED with those books.  I haven’t been back to Middle Earth since.

I liked “The Once and Future King” a lot.  Funny, but back then (Seventies), it and LOTR were seen as the two great fantasy novels.  Since then, it seems to me that LOTR is THE fantasy novel for people and Once and Future King is only remembered as the source for “Camelot.”

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3 years ago

@35, T.H. White’s racism makes him more than a little problematic these days. The once and Future King was a favorite of mine growing up. It has a few sketchy lines, but it’s a great book and led me on to a love of Arthurian lit. The Green Knight movie looks fantastic! Then I read The Elephant and the Kangaroo, and it was such a train wreck of racism that I couldn’t look away. 

Sort of this thread reversed–I have never read His Dark Materials because of the Chronicles of Narnia. I read an interview of Pullman disparaging C.S. Lewis, kind of nastily, and that purged any desire in me to crack open one of his books. They are probably superb, but out of loyalty to Clive, I’m not touching them.

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Kate
3 years ago

A teacher read the first book to us in grade school as our after lunch book. She read many great childrens’ books to us and I’ll always remember her fondly for that.  I was already reading fantasy so it didn’t make me want to read anything else except the rest of the books. When I was older I read the Space Trilogy once at the urging of a nun I had for English, and while I found it interesting I never wanted to read it again. But I’ve revisited the Narnia series many times, though it didn’t really have any influence on me outside of the pleasures of reading it.

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Margaret
3 years ago

@19 I’ve never talked to anyone else who watched those shows in grade school! This is also where I discovered LWW but the description didn’t sound boring to me. I immediately hunted them down and LOVED them (except for The Last Battle.) If I had a rainy Saturday and nothing else to do, I would sit down and reread them, I must have read the six books several dozen times by the time I was a teenager.

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mary
3 years ago

Neat thread! I haven’t commented often, but I’ve truly enjoyed this essays, Matt–your addition to The Last Battle made me cry.

I’m a good deal older than most of you, I’d guess, and my dad introduced all of us to the Chronicles by reading them to us when my sister and I were six He and our mom read them chapter by chapter, and then again, and then again. Then he started on The Hobbit, and then The Lord of the Rings. We were ten by then, and joyously read it by ourselves after hearing it–and then reread it over and over again.

In the meantime, one of my sister’s teachers had introduced her to the excellent Green Knowe series by L.M. Boston–some of the loveliest writing I have ever encountered. My fourth grade teacher introduced me to A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, and I was an instant fan. This was the first book I’d read where I identified strongly with the protagonist.I also liked Alexander Key–The Forgotten Door–and , as a young teenager, Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain series.

I was thirteen when I picked up Till We Have Faces, and put it down again. I managed to get through it a bit later, and loved it deeply. I think I was seventeen when I first read A Wizard of Earthsea and fell hard for Ursula Le Guin. I’m still a huge fan! My mom introduced me to The Left Hand of Darkness when I was in my late teens. We also discovered and loved G.K. Chesterton, George MacDonald, Dorothy Sayers, and Charles Williams. I highly recommend Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday if you’re looking for something mind-bending.

As a librarian working with teens, I bought Philip Pullman’s books when they first came out–and read them. I’m not really a fan, but he certainly writes well. I also discovered Catherine Fisher as an adult, and particularly love Corbenic and Darkhenge, though her best-known work, Incarceron, also impressed me. Other authors who were writing when I was adult, and whom I love, are Elizabeth Wein (Arthurian fans ought to read The Winter Prince and the other Aksum novels), Megan Whalen Turner, and Michelle Paver. Of these, Paver is not especially Christian, but she is quite humane and her research is incredible.

Oh, and I just bought for the library and read Zenna Henderson’s stories of the People. And, of course, I read Ender’s Game as a young adult. Mixed feelings on Card; loved Henderson–those stories are haunting, in much the same way as Key’s. I wonder if she influenced him?

I could go on, but I’ll stop now! Oh–a push for a writing acquaintance from the Harry Potter fandom; R.J. Anderson is a devout evangelical, and she’s quite good.

 

Matt Mikalatos
3 years ago

I’m in the midst of a pretty busy week with work, so I’m not commenting much but I LOVE hearing all your stories and I’m reading each comment and adding to my to-be-read pile!

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Michael Newsham
3 years ago

I first read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when I was eight. I shared all my library books with my adored ten-year-old sister, so I was crushed when she scornfully  returned it to me, commenting “this is a kid’s book- it’s got witches and talking animals.” This was in the early 1960s; I read the rest secretly, not wishing to get pounded on the playground. To this day I pronounce it “Nar-NYE-a”, not having had anybody to talk about the books with.

There weren’t many other fantasy books, so I read science fiction and ancient history novels. I discovered The Hobbit at age 12, and then Lord of the Rings the next year. I remember reading my first Conan that year and, realizing it was set in a made-up world, thinking “are you allowed to do that?”

Then came the flood of Ballantine’s Adult Fantasy- The Wood Beyond the World, The King of Elfland’s Daughter, the Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath- and others: The Worm Ouroborous, the Gray Mouser and Fafhrd.

 

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Mary
3 years ago

Oh, here’s Catherine Fisher talking about Corbenic. It’s awesome! Not fantasy, but if you’re interested in the Welsh borderland, I’d also highly recommend Ellis Peters. And I haven’t mentioned any of the excellent Australian and New Zealand fantasy authors—Sherryl Jordan, Emily Rodda, Margaret Mahy. I really will stop now!

Here’s the link:

https://www.catherine-fisher.com/corbenic/

 

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MurdockCader
3 years ago

Fun fact: I attended Narnia-themed Episcopalian church camp for 5th and 6th graders. Even though I was Catholic and technically in 6th and 7th grades. Though I had read The Chronicles of Narnia numerous times (can’t remember the first time I read them), and The Screwtape Letters, I somehow ignored all of the Christian themes in the Narnia books until that church camp. I loved it as a portal fantasy. Reading it as allegory was just too … easy … basic … boring. But I was so excited to hang out with other people and talk about Narnia! 

I did twig into the Christian and spiritual themes in A Wrinkle in Time trilogy when I read them in 3rd grade. And the allegories (turned into puns) in the Oz books. Yet I willfully ignored the obvious Christianity in Narnia until that camp.

Also grew up with the Hobbit. It took me so many tried to get through The Two Towers. I loved reading the Silmarillion because it was a book of fairy tales. I didn’t find out that Tolkien and Lewis were friends until much, much later. 

The Screwtape Letters may be the only book I read specifically because of CS Lewis. Everything else was already in the ecosystem or serendipity – LeGuin, Tolkien, Alexander, Cooper, L’Engle, MCaffrey.

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3 years ago

Matt, before I even read further (belatedly) I’d like to point out what I think might be a mistake. You wrote: “where I read The War for Mansoul, an adapted version of John Bunyan’s story…” BUT I believe you are referring to a book titled Chronicles of Mansoul, which is an adapted version of John Bunyan’s original book The Holy War. I noticed the slight error because I too loved Ethel Barrett’s version years ago, although I’m sorry to say it never did send me looking for Bunyan’s original.

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3 years ago

To respond about Narnia:

I was thrilled to find Narnia when I was an adult. I had read The Hobbit and LOTR as a teenager many years before, but had left them behind. I loved the Narnia series, which shot flaming arrows into my heart that illuminated many things that I already “knew” from the Bible. After Narnia, I returned to The Space Trilogy, which I had read many years before but disliked. Although THS was not a favorite, three things became clear to me there: 1) the image of a “shell” company, 2) the false search to be “recognized” and accepted by the “in group,” and 3) the gradual wearing away of personal agency through petty, repetitive choices—these have been instrumental in giving me an understanding of human nature that nothing else I had ever read or my own observations had provided.

It was because of Narnia that I went searching for other wholesome children’s books. I rediscovered MacDonald (Princess and the Goblin had been a favorite as a child) and I found Prydain! Not outright fantasy, but I also loved Swallows and Amazons (the other Susan) and its sequels. I was especially delighted to finally track down an old favorite, the Frances Hodgson Burnett book Two Little Pilgrms’ Progress: A Story of the City Beautiful, in this case represented by the World’s Columbian Exhibition in 1893.

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mary
3 years ago

I did say I’d stop! And I will, I promise! Love everyone’s comments; Aelfrida, what a beautiful poem! And I’m glad someone else mentioned Zenna Henderson.

But I forgot Diane Duane! Her Young Wizards series is a lot of fun and also has a strong spiritual component–if a young person discovers they have talent and wishes to become a wizard, they quite literally have to face down the devil, who comes at them in very subtle ways. This is another series I came to as an adult, and she’s still going strong.

 

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M J Grace
3 years ago

Responding to srEDIT’s comment:

>>Although THS was not a favorite, three things became clear to me there: 1) the image of a “shell” company, 2) the false search to be “recognized” and accepted by the “in group,” and 3) the gradual wearing away of personal agency through petty, repetitive choices—these have been instrumental in giving me an understanding of human nature that nothing else I had ever read or my own observations had provided.<<

My big takeaway from THS which has served me well through all these subsequent decades is when Fairy Hardcastle explains to Mark how things REALLY work:

“Isn’t it absolutely essential to keep a fierce Left and fierce Right, both on their toes and each terrified of the other? That’s how we get things done.”
 
 

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Wine Guy
3 years ago

My father started reading LWW to me when I was 7.  I was in the hospital to get my tonsils and adenoids removed. There were complications and I spent a week in the hospital…. And we got through Prince Caspian.  After that, I read the next 5 over the next 2 months.  I went from an indifferent reader to reading everything I could get my hands on….  

Fast forward 5 years and the series was ASSIGNED as reading by my Lutheran pastor during my Confirmation classes.  Edmund as Saul with his conversion to Paul is what still sticks most in my mind, with the imagery of the scales being torn off Edmund.

CSL lead straight to JRRT though I had to get written permission from my parents to check it out from the library.

After that, all the usual names previously mentioned… Though I will add a name and book title:_Master of the Five Magics_ by Lyndon Hardy with it’s systematic, almost scientific, treatment of magic opened my eyes and prepped me for my favorite author L E Modesitt and his Recluse and Imager series.

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3 years ago

Coming into this late, but I suppose that is apropos as I also came into Narnia late.

I didn’t actually read the Narnia books until I was in college – but what I DID have as a child was this glorious animated version of the movie, that I used to watch quite frequently (the witch was fantastic and the wolf chase genuinely terrified me).  My love of fantasy and sci fi actually came through Tolkien and Star Wars, and I didn’t even realize Tolkien was Catholic until I was in college either. 

At any rate, I do find profound spiritual truths in both.  As for other influences I’ve enjoyed things like Wheel of Time, Pullman’s His Dark Materials (I do appreciate his take/critique), The Sparrow/Children of God, Harry Potter and a lot of the other typical ‘staples’ (Earthsea, Pern, etc).  

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3 years ago

Coming back again, because I had forgotten to respond to this particular tidbit our OP included: what I most loved about MacDonald were his sermons.

I bought the books, but have yet to read more than a few snippets from the book 3000 Quotations from the books by George MacDonald. But besides his books for children, I think I have read every one of his romance novels, albeit in most cases I could only find the versions edited/rewritten by Phillips.

I think it’s appropriate, in this series about the Narnia books to mention (again? at last?) that Lewis stated that he acknowledged MacDonald as his master. However, Lewis also explained in a letter to Arthur Greeves, that even though MacDonald always writes symbolical fantasy, “for financial reasons, he sometimes has to disguise it as ordinary Victorian fiction. Hence what you get is a certain amount of the real MacDonald linked..onto a mass of quite worthless ‘plot.'”

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3 years ago

Cordwainer Smith’s science fiction, especially the latter years, has a Christian underpinning, though people aren’t always aware of it. It’s set in a far future in which our world is hardly remembered. Humanity has bred “Underpeople” out of animals to serve them, and it seems only they have knowledge of the “Old Strong Religion”. His world is seen only from the corner of the eye.

I see a lot of people don’t like That Hideous Strength. I do.  I suppose the Christian content is less satisfactory but there are interesting ideas e.g. Professor Frost and the behaviourism of the time. These days he would be the sort of neuroscientist who explains away consciousness. If you’ve ever worked in bureaucratic institutions the Deputy Director is hilarious.  Apparently he was based on a specific person.

If you like Ursula Le Guin I recommend The Lathe of Heaven, which seems to be less well known than some.

E.Nesbit was very popular in the early 20th century (and is still in print) and CS Lewis pays tribute to her somewhere. Especially The Story of the Amulet, which is magical time travel. The scene with Queen Jadis in London (Magicians Nephew) has been seen as a sort of homage to the Queen of Babylon in London in The Amulet, though I think the feel of the two is very different.  Nesbit was a Fabian socialist: her characters are often fairly elite children because it gave them scope to do interesting things, not because she was ignoring the rest.