Lament for Susan Pevensie

[inked]

Well, GM, the "if" of the next life will be answered since mortality is 100%. There will either be one or there will not be one. If there is not one, no one will care. If there is one, one will care very much. (You are familiar, are you not, with Pascal's Wager, aka Pascal's Gambit? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager if the details have escaped you.)

I would have been 14 in 1969. I did not, however, discover Lewis or Tolkien until college via a friend at the theatre I worked at in Clemson, SC. She loaned me a copy of LWW and I was off. I have not read all the ones in your list yet, but via the recommendations of Lewis I have read a surprising number of them. Not any Lovecraft yet at all. One of these days.........

Your political interpretation of the dwarfs I find highly amusing as well the amusing Marxist ditty. Though you might want to cross reference Lewis' traveler in THE GREAT DIVORCE who more amply enunciates your claims in complaints about not being taken in by them. And the lack of scullery help as the cause for dons' dissatisfaction literally caused me to laugh! Never has so much been attributed to so little a cause!

This is nearly as entertaining as Freudian interpretations.....................

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by inked

Well, GM, the "if" of the next life will be answered since mortality is 100%. There will either be one or there will not be one. If there is not one, no one will care. If there is one, one will care very much. (You are familiar, are you not, with Pascal's Wager, aka Pascal's Gambit? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager if the details have escaped you.)

I would have been 14 in 1969. I did not, however, discover Lewis or Tolkien until college via a friend at the theatre I worked at in Clemson, SC. She loaned me a copy of LWW and I was off. I have not read all the ones in your list yet, but via the recommendations of Lewis I have read a surprising number of them. Not any Lovecraft yet at all. One of these days.........

Your political interpretation of the dwarfs I find highly amusing as well the amusing Marxist ditty. Though you might want to cross reference Lewis' traveler in THE GREAT DIVORCE who more amply enunciates your claims in complaints about not being taken in by them. And the lack of scullery help as the cause for dons' dissatisfaction literally caused me to laugh! Never has so much been attributed to so little a cause!

This is nearly as entertaining as Freudian interpretations.....................

Ooooh, that's below the belt. i've recently attempted to read Peter Gay's biography of Freud, and found that freudianism is far sillier than I ever imagined.

I must admit I was quite surprised, on doing an intensive Internet search, that nobody appears to have developed what seemed such an obvious connection to me- especially when the "Scouring of the Shire" is discussed on this level by such respected critics as Tom Shippey.

Gee, if I was younger I could probably parlay this into a Master's; maybe even a PhD and tenure at some suitably left-wing bastion of politically-correct academia.

As for Pascal, if I had to make the wager, I'd go for the Muslims and 72 virgins- though I notice some modern revisionist skeptic has claimed this refers to 72 white raisins- could be some awfully disappointed suicide bombers.

For Lovecraft, "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" is his main Fantasy work, and is obviously the product of a young mind, very derivative of Dunsany- though I loved it at the time.

The rest of his writings tend to be heavy on ichor, blasphemy beyond description, and horrible transcendent Elder Gods who look like octopuses

http://www.hello-cthulhu.com/?date=2003-11-30

[GrayMouser]

On a more serious level, I stand by my interpretation.

On being exposed to the false Aslan (Puzzle the Donkey):

We've been taken in once, and now you expect us to be taken in again. We've no more use for stories about Aslan, see."

And then:

You keep a civil tongue in your head, Mister," replied the Dwarf. "I don't think we want any more Kings- if you are Trinian, which you don't look much like him-no more than we want any more Aslans. We're going to look after ourselves from now on and touch our cap to nobody. See."

"That's right, "said the other Dwarfs."We're on our own now. No more Aslans, no more Kings, no more silly stories about Other Worlds. The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs."

No Kings, no Gods, the (people who labour underground) are for the people (who labour underground).

Arthur Scargill, anyone?

We know that Lewis was very upset about the Labour Gov't and its taxation policies at the time he was writing "The Last Battle". His gardener, an outright socialist cheerfully depicted as Puddleglum in "The Silver Chair", found his pronouncements less and less welcome.

Again, in "That Hideous Strength", Lewis over and over again expresses his disdain for Socialism and the working class dupes who accept it.

The labourers who are brought in to disrupt the College are Northerners, Irish and Scots, not the loyal Southern yeoman who touch their cap to their betters.

While pretending to express his revulsion at propaganda practices of Left and Right, quite surprisingly, every example he draws on is from the Left. Even the poverty-stricken sufferer dying of hunger is specifically presented as a middle-class governess horribly forced down into the ranks of the lower classes.

The fact that that this was exceptional compared to what millions of working-class people were suffering at that time was apparently invisible to Lewis.

And, back in Narnia, King Frank became better and better as he lost his Cockney accent and became more and more a country peasant.

Far more acceptable to Lewis than some sharp-tongued city-dweller who might not show the appropriate respect

So, no, it's not some fantasy that Lewis was equating the Dwarfs with the nasty working class. They were grotty little insubordinates who failed to show the proper respect to their betters, and they'd rot in Hell for their inappropriate demand to be treated as equals..

I read from Tolkien's Letters -alas, I still don't have it- a quote where he says that "touching your cap to the squire may be bad for him, but it's good for you."

No. The grovelling resect to social rank shown in both Lewis and Tolkien- " Sorry, Mr. Frodo, I'll just lay down here while you walk on top of me"- should obviously be rejected by any citizen of a free republic. (If you feel you are inferior because of your birth, by all means grovel along).

Long live Lyra!

[Midge]

This has nothing to do with Susan and the Lament for her. Y'all are jumping into other books!

[inked]

Midge, actually it has a lot to do with Susan. It may be a bit difficult to see that until you have read the other books and discovered how the ideas are related but shown in different ways.

For instance, GM is proposing are sheerly materialist world view which would say that Susan had it right to be concerned about lipsticks and stockings, and contending that she was right because this life is all there is and "you should grab all the gusto you can" whilst here. After here there is nothing.

Lewis' depiction of the dwarfs shows the end result in the next world: you get what you imagined, self-determination, and he shows what that results in for those "who will not be taken in".

So, do you think that Susan will side with the dwarfs or not?

Of course, she was a Queen in Narnia and nothing can take that away, but it remains entirely probable that she will release it and deny her knowledge just for a materialist world view. That is the edge of the knife on which all our journeying takes place! (Unless of course you want to be a materialist and say it is the very best knife money could buy and isn't it wonderful to be killed by so gloriously expensive a knife since we all die anyway and are gone!)

[Jonathan]

This has been a very interesting thread, thank you. I've read it from top till bottom.

Having just finished The Last Battle today, my first thoughts as I lay down the (audio)book, were thoughts concerning Susan. Her absence at the very end gave a bitter-sweet taste to the whole series. I'm still not sure whether I liked it or not, story-wise. In any case, it provides a good ground for further contemplation.

[hectorberlioz]

I found this very well argued article on Narnia controversies. It's kinda hard to get more definitive than this: http://www.narniaweb.com/resources-l...st-and-racist/