Into the Wardrobe

I started reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for the first time in I don't even know how long. Part of me was kind of afraid to reread it; so often books that mean a lot during childhood don't stand up to time. But I have been enjoying Lion so far though. It feels extremely comfortable. I could probably quote large passages verbatim. It is also comforting.

I first read it during fifth grade, in Texas. It was a horrible time. We had just moved from North Carolina (and it was a hard move because it was final. After Texas we were going to move abroad to an as yet unknown country indefinitely) and I was in public school for the first time since kindergarten. I'd been home-schooled for a few years also and I was frankly so terrified I couldn't even eat in the mornings before school. (I remember sitting with my parents and them coaxing me to eat just a few bites of frozen pancakes). My English teacher, Mrs. Alexander, was a wonderful woman, and very kind to me. And she assigned us to read Lion.

To say that it changed my life would not be an overstatement. I immediately fell in love with the land beyond the Wardrobe. I wanted to have adventures that meant something. And I wanted to be able to go home again afterwards. But we were in a huge, huge transition. So the Narnia books became my portable home. I read and reread them obsessively. They comforted me throughout our year in Texas and our months in the Philippines and were stabilizers during the first bewildering months in Chiang Mai.

So in some ways it seems bittersweet and fitting to reread them again now, during this last transition from Chiang Mai as home. Today we are going to see The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as (most of) the family, and this is bittersweet and fitting too. I think this is the one where Aslan tells Lucy and Edmond they can't come to Narnia anymore. (I almost typed "home" instead of Narnia and that shows you how I feel about this.)

I believe he tells them something along the lines of, "You must grow close to your own world now." And even still those are some of the saddest words I have ever read in my whole life. Now I know that underneath that grief (but what claim does that world have on me? What makes it more mine than this one?) there is also a streak of anger: why did you pull us out of that world to begin with, if it was only ever temporary? And why us? Why not some other children?

I must confess: I hate The Last Battle. Narnia isn't something that can just be ended. I want to think of it continuing, even though I can't ever go there. Something should be permanent. But even though I don't read that one I still know it happened. Jack Lewis, I have a bone to pick with you. Subtlety is a literary virtue. Your version of heaven falls a little flat. No wonder can ever match what I felt the first time I saw the lamppost with Lucy in the snow.

"Come further in," said Mr. Beaver.

I think I'll always wish I could.