I was tricked by children's literature!

I’ve been thinking about the “Problem of Susan” for awhile now, ever since reading Neil Gaiman’s short story of the same name in the collection Fragile Things. I loved, loved, loved the Narnia Chronicles series when I was a kid. There were talking animals and secret passageways and witches….what else could a 10 year old fantasy enthusiast ask for?

I was in for a shock then, when the professor of my first literature course in college wondered aloud whether he should allow his child to read the books even though they contained a heavy-handed Christian ethic. WTF was he talking about? I didn’t remember any Jesus stuff in there! I resolved to reread the series. I only got through the first book. The symbolism leapt off the page and slapped me in the face. It was cloying, overly simplistic, and it made me angry. I felt tricked. Thinking critically back, I suddenly remembered the end of the series. Didn’t everyone but Susan end up in Narnia? Why was that again? I went to the library, found the C.S. Lewis shelf, and pulled down the Last Battle, and flipped through it. Apparently, everyone in Susan’s family…no seriously, everyone….dies in a train wreck and they all go to Narnia, but she can’t go because she was interested “in nylons, lipstick, and invitations,” and this made her “no friend of Narnia.” Susan’s adult femininity had made her unfit to be in paradise, or apparently, her own family’s presence. I was furious. Apparently, I’m not alone. The author of my favorite books, Philip Pullman also finds Lewis’s treatment of Susan to be noxious:

You're not alone in attacking Lewis but you are really vehement in your criticism. You've called his books 'detestable'. Why do you feel so strongly about them? Because the things he's being cruel to are things I value very highly. The crux of it all comes, as many people have found, with the point near the end of the Last Battle (in the Narnia books) when Susan is excluded from the stable.

The stable obviously represents salvation. They're going to heaven, they're going to be saved. But Susan isn't allowed into the stable, and the reason given is that she's growing up. She's become far too interested in lipstick, nylons and invitations. One character says rather primly: 'She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown up.' This seems to me on the part of Lewis to reveal very weird unconscious feelings about sexuality. Here's a child whose body is changing and who's naturally responding as everyone has ever done since the history of the world to the changes that are taking place in one's body and one's feelings. She's doing what everyone has to do in order to grow up.Maybe one day she'll grow past the invitations and the lipstick and the nylons. But my point is that it's an inevitable, important, valuable and cherishable stage that we go through. This what I'm getting at in my story. To welcome and celebrate this passage, rather than to turn from it in fear and loathing.
Taken from an interview with Pullman at http://www.surefish.co.uk/culture/features/pullman_interview.htm

Writer J.K. Rowling has been quoted as saying “There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex," Rowling says. "I have a big problem with that.” So do I. Given the choice between these amazing writers’ takes on Susan, and on the pro-Lewis articles (which I find are largely written by Christian-themed sites), I’ll stick with the former. If you haven’t already, I recommend listening to the audio book of Fragile Things, giving particular attention to The Problem of Susan. Why the audio book? ‘Cause Gaiman reads it, and he is awesome.

In a related story, my husband convinced me to see the new Narnia movie this weekend. Interestingly, the movie producers have decided to spice things up by having Susan plant a big sloppy kiss on Prince Caspian at the end. It was about the only part of the movie I enjoyed, and that was only because I’m sure it would make Lewis roll over in his frackin grave. Hee!