I re-read the Narnia books a couple of years ago in order to see what all the allegations of religious allegory were about, since I'd been too young to notice that sort of thing the previous time I'd read it. (I did this at around the time the LWW film was being trailered, in fact; I wasn't aware of that when I made the decision, and was surprised by the coincidence, though with hindsight it's possible that there was some chain of causation such as the upcoming film leading people to talk about Narnia in general, leading me to remember about it and decide to reread the books).
The thing I most noticed was that in almost all the series there was a clear divide between religious allegory and interesting plot: nearly all the most obviously and objectionably Christian bits (most notably, the apple tree in TMN) were bits that had fallen completely out of my memory since my last re-read, and conversely nearly all the memorable plot was not particularly Christian. I seemed to have mentally tuned out the propaganda in the same way as I mentally tune out the adverts in a TV programme, and just skipped lightly over until I found good bits again. Not because I realised I was being advertised at at the time, but simply because the advertising bits weren't fun.
The one exception was Aslan's self-sacrifice and resurrection in LWW, of course, which is really so central to the plot of the entire book that it's impossible to forget it. Though even then, I wasn't usefully able to remember before the reread what he did it for and what good it did.
Another odd thing about the propaganda was that by overstating the case I felt it had negative effect. For example, Aslan's self-sacrifice (I recalled after rereading) had the immediate effect of granting Edmund a very palpable continued existence in this life rather than a nebulously specified bonus in the hypothetical next life; this could easily have led me to be less convinced by Jesus's version in this world (if, that is, I hadn't already been thoroughly unconvinced by it). "So, if a God sacrifices himself for someone, they know beyond any doubt that it benefited them. Since I don't know beyond any doubt that Jesus's sacrifice has benefited me or anyone else, that's clearly not the same sort of thing."
So my general conclusion from the reread was that yes, there was clearly religious allegory in there and some of it was quite irritating, but on the other hand if the intention was to actually proselytise to any great extent then (at least for me and people like me) it failed by being heavy-handed and somewhat self-defeating.
On a slight tangent
Date: 2008-02-07 12:19 pm (UTC)The thing I most noticed was that in almost all the series there was a clear divide between religious allegory and interesting plot: nearly all the most obviously and objectionably Christian bits (most notably, the apple tree in TMN) were bits that had fallen completely out of my memory since my last re-read, and conversely nearly all the memorable plot was not particularly Christian. I seemed to have mentally tuned out the propaganda in the same way as I mentally tune out the adverts in a TV programme, and just skipped lightly over until I found good bits again. Not because I realised I was being advertised at at the time, but simply because the advertising bits weren't fun.
The one exception was Aslan's self-sacrifice and resurrection in LWW, of course, which is really so central to the plot of the entire book that it's impossible to forget it. Though even then, I wasn't usefully able to remember before the reread what he did it for and what good it did.
Another odd thing about the propaganda was that by overstating the case I felt it had negative effect. For example, Aslan's self-sacrifice (I recalled after rereading) had the immediate effect of granting Edmund a very palpable continued existence in this life rather than a nebulously specified bonus in the hypothetical next life; this could easily have led me to be less convinced by Jesus's version in this world (if, that is, I hadn't already been thoroughly unconvinced by it). "So, if a God sacrifices himself for someone, they know beyond any doubt that it benefited them. Since I don't know beyond any doubt that Jesus's sacrifice has benefited me or anyone else, that's clearly not the same sort of thing."
So my general conclusion from the reread was that yes, there was clearly religious allegory in there and some of it was quite irritating, but on the other hand if the intention was to actually proselytise to any great extent then (at least for me and people like me) it failed by being heavy-handed and somewhat self-defeating.