nairiporter | The Chronicles of Narnia on screen

Directed by
Andrew Adamson

Writing credits
C.S. Lewis (novel)
Ann Peacock (screenplay) ...

'Narnia' film revives interest in author C.S. Lewis

Film adaptation prompts study of writer's life and faith.

This tired old world needs a little enchantment now and then, and for many, when a little girl steps into a mysterious wardrobe and enters a magical, wintry land of fauns, talking animals, a wicked white witch and a powerful lion, enchantment takes hold completely.

"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," the new film directed by Andrew Adamson and based on one of C.S. Lewis' beloved tales in the Narnia series, is bound to captivate audiences of all ages with its special effects-enhanced fantasy this holiday season.

"There is so much grim stuff going on in the world, the idea of breaking out of that, that's what fairy tales and these stories do. They enchant us," says Lewis archivist Christopher W. Mitchell.

Yet for Lewis, fantasy stories were not an escape. They were -- tired old world, take note -- helpful in facing reality and embracing the real world.

"He created a fantasy world that invites readers to consider the moral and psychological realities of our world," says Lewis scholar David Downing.

Moral ambiguity and cultural relativism had no place in that world. Written with Lewis' unusual blend of intellect, imagination and faith, the seven Narnia books, published from 1950 to 1956, have sold more than 100 million copies, and as bookstore displays testify, the film is introducing and reintroducing many readers to some of Lewis' more than 40 works of fiction and nonfiction.

He has his detractors. But interest and enthusiasm are running high about the man who left the Anglican faith of his childhood only to be reconciled and become an eloquent theological writer.

The "hoopla," as Mitchell calls it, includes not only Lewis' writings and books about him but lectures and discussions, including a national program called Narnia on Tour.

Then there are the Lewis and Narnia Web sites and film-inspired paraphernalia for sale.

Certainly, Mitchell expects increased awareness of the Marion E. Wade Center that he directs at Wheaton College in Illinois. The center houses an internationally recognized collection of works by and about Lewis, who died Nov. 22, 1963 -- the same day President Kennedy was assassinated -- and six other British authors, including Dorothy L. Sayers and Lewis' friend J.R.R. Tolkien.

Of course, the movie can be enjoyed on several levels. Children love the colorful characters and adventure in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and maybe learn some lessons about right and wrong in the bargain. Adults find it engaging on a deeper level of religious symbols of sacrifice and resurrection and good and evil.

On the secular side, there are the moral precepts of right and wrong and betrayal and redemption. Actually, some kids do get the meaning of the sacrificial death and resurrection of Aslan, the lion god of Narnia, says Downing, author of "Into the Wardrobe: C.S. Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles," (Jossey-Bass, $19.95).

The genesis of the story lay in the images Lewis had in mind for years of a faun in the snow carrying an umbrella, a beautiful woman in a sledge and a magnificent lion. Only gradually did the lion become associated with Christ.

Also, he knew of children evacuated to Oxford from London during World War II to escape German bombing and saw that story potential. In "The Lion," young Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter Pevensie are evacuated to a professor's country house where they discover a magical wardrobe that leads them into Narnia, a land held in the icy control of a wicked if beautiful queen, the white witch Jadis.

They are drawn to the great Aslan, and in a dramatic conclusion they battle and defeat the queen's evil forces, including the head of her secret police, Maugrim, the wolf, and free Narnia.

One persistent theme in the Narnia stories is that of children without parents. That comes out of the author's own unhappy experience. Clive Staples Lewis -- he preferred to be called Jack -- was born in 1898 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the son of lawyer Albert Lewis and Flora Hamilton, a well-educated descendant of Anglican Church officials.

His idyllic childhood ended painfully when Lewis' mother died of cancer in 1908. In World War I, Lewis was wounded at the front by an English shell that fell short.

An atheist during his adolescence and a searcher for meaning in his 20s, Lewis became a theist in 1929, believing in a personal God. In 1931, he "reconverted" to Christianity, influenced in part, Downing says, by Tolkien.

In a multifaceted career, Lewis was a medieval scholar, a hugely popular lecturer at Oxford and a major literary figure. His fiction includes his acclaimed Space Trilogy. The children's writings were relaxation, Downing says, and a natural outlet for the creative artist who once wrote that when he was 12, part of him was 50, and when he was 50, part of him was 12.

In the early 1930s, Tolkien and Lewis began meeting with other writers to read and discuss works in progress, and they called their literary circle the Inklings. The two authors decided to write the kind of imaginative children's literature that was lacking in popular school stories of the day.

In "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," Downing says, "Lewis wanted to revive our sense of wonder."

It's significant that Lewis' fictional children are never patronized, says Daniel Ritchie, professor of English at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minn.

"They're put in situations where they must choose to develop morally and personally or regress."

Edmund sadly learns that he made the wrong choice and is morally rehabilitated. In later Narnia stories, he is a good character. For many years, Lewis and Tolkien were close friends, but Mitchell points out that while Lewis was a "cheerleader" for "The Lord of the Rings," Tolkien was critical of the pastiche of mythological, fairy tale, classical and Christian figures in the Narnia stories.

"It was a fascinating relationship, but they had their differences and fell out at the end."

Lewis also drew criticism for his belief in truth with a capital T. "Like Tolkien, Lewis had a very clear moral vision," Ritchie says, and that's part of his popularity now. More specifically, "Lewis was very concerned about rising political and social controls -- the temptation toward totalitarian controls that comes from the most charitable impulses. He believed (moral) relativism was creeping into the West and would destroy it. It would destroy the idea of humanity, and human beings would be willing to do anything to each other. That comes out in the Chronicles' 'The Last Battle,' the apocalyptic end of Narnia."