37. ABSOLUTE VERY FIRST TIME...CHRONICLES OF NARNIA

The absolute very first time I began to read the Chronicles of Narnia, kicking off with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, was several years after I’d battled through the Peter & Jane Ladybird Book adventures (and I use that final word loosely) and once I’d put Olga da Polga and Paddington behind me. After guinea pigs who told tall stories and talking bears from darkest Peru, I was clearly ready for a messianic lion and an inter-dimensional portal at the back of someone’s closet.

It was also the absolute very first time I got a, you know, ‘tingling’ when I read about Edmund getting hypnotised by the white witch. To be honest, that was my sexual awakening, a time when the veil of naiveté dropped momentarily from my eyes and I snatched a brief glimpse of the man I was destined to become. I was 38 at the time and a late developer.

The titles of the books were magical and I have genuinely felt a thrill (no, not that sort this time) to run through them all again. Besides the opener, the set included Prince Caspian, the Silver Chair and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader (how can a story not be good with the word ‘voyage’ in the title? And the answer to that is if it’s called ‘Voyage to the Planet of the Prehistoric Women’ which was made into a film by an Oscar-nominee who married Bruce Willis’ partner in Moonlighting). Although they were written in the early 50s, I don’t remember them seeming dated or old-fashioned when we read them originally. Sadly, I don't think that means they weren't dated and old-fashioned...it just means we were too.

There’s been some scholarly debate about the actual order in which the books are meant to be read (what else have our greatest brains got to do? Oh yes, find a permanent cure for COVID or save the planet would help for starters). When I was younger, I’m sure I went the traditional route (ie the order they were written & published in) and so left the prequel - the Magician's Nephew – until later on. Despite the name of the Last Battle being a bit of a giveaway, I managed to leave the Horse and His Boy until the end for some reason though. I suspect it was on loan from my local library when I tried to read it in the correct order (and that’s probably the last time I ever visited a public library…which may well mean that at least one of the books in my own Narnia collection is more than a little overdue).

CS Lewis – he was Clive Staples Lewis which sounds like a description of the goings-on in my primary school classroom – was a Professor of English at Oxford University whilst JRR ‘Lord of the Rings’ Tolkien was in the same faculty. They were mates and members of the Inklings which sounds like a cool band but almost certainly wasn’t. How incredible is that? It just needed their equally-initialled (is that a requirement in the job description?) fantasy writer, JK Rowling, to come along a little earlier and join them in the Inklings for us to get the full set. That said, she wouldn’t have been allowed into a boys club back then because she was a biological female which, ironically, is the exact opposite of what she tends to get a ton of grief about nowadays. It’s a weird world isn’t it.

The books are banned in US schools on account of their ‘graphic violence, mysticism and gore’ (which is more than a little ironic coming from our transatlantic friends) as well as a religious undercurrent which is ‘likely to be offensive to non-Christians’. With that logic, the Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle ought to be banned because it's likely to offend non-hedgehogs. In fact, they ought to ban 95% of books since the social media vigilantes are bound to dig up someone who could find the content triggering. What was that? Oh, they already have.

There’s clearly plenty of Christian symbolism in the books – Clive was the son of a clergyman’s daughter from Ireland after all – but, even in the old days, there were mutterings about religious propaganda aimed at indoctrinating impressionable young minds. That didn't bother us in the slightest when we were reading them but then we never had the culture police to protect us back then (other than that busybody, Mary Whitehouse, and even she’d seem positively progressive compared to the witchfinders today).

Edmund betrays his family, not for 30 pieces of silver but for a few Turkish delight, but then so did half of Shakespeare’s characters too (Brutus, Iago, Macbeth) although, admittedly, not usually for a bag of sugar confectionery. Slightly more pointedly, Aslan (that’s the lion) allows himself to be sacrificed to save his people, only to rise again a little while later which, even to an atheist like me (yes, I read the Narnia books and yet somehow slipped through the net), seems a pretty clear reference to JC (and, no, I don't mean the Comic Messiah, John Cleese). That didn’t seem to stop old Clive from dismissing these theories as ‘pure moonshine’ which presumably encouraged his fellow intellectuals in the Inklings, at their weekly society meeting, to rub their jaws vigorously and add 'Jimmy Hill' and 'chinny reck-on' to the scholarly debate.

Regardless of the religious overtones, the epic tales of good vs evil made the books perfect candidates for screen adaptation. Spurred on by the success of Peter Jackson and his Lord of the Rings films, along with the impressive box office figures for Harry Potter, Disney were handed the licence to print money with the Narnia franchise in 2005. Ker-ching surely? All they had to do was follow the tried and tested formula of annual releases filmed in New Zealand with a cast of British acting royalty and unknown kids who would no doubt be catapulted to stardom before proving their loyalty to be a few notches lower than their bank balances by laying into their benefactor as a belated thank you (you know who are you are, Daniel, Emma & Rupert).

The franchise got off to a good start with Tilda Swinton, Liam Neeson & James McAvoy (tick) and their NZ locations (tick) propelling The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to become the 4th highest grossing film of that year (double tick). It all went a bit Pete Tong after that though, when they forgot the golden rules of sequels – bring them out once a year (the next 2 Narnia films trickled out 3 and 5 years later) and make them as good if not better than the first one. You just need to watch Prince Caspian to check how far they fell short on this one too – in fact, save yourself the torture and just take my word for it.

Hopefully, though, someone (Netflix probably) will harness the passion, vision and clout required to bring these stories to life on the screen and introduce Narnia to a new generation. Like our own generation many years before, it will encourage them to explore the back of their parents’ wardrobe in the hope of discovering something magical. Sadly, they're likely to get an unpleasant surprise when they end up discovering what sort of stuff their parents regard as magical enough to hide at the back of the wardrobe in the mistaken belief that it’s the last place their kids will look.

And, if Netflix passes on Narnia, a safe bet would be to pick up the rights to the Peter & Jane Ladybird books. They might not have talking lions and magical journeys but they’re full of misbehaving cats and trips to the greengrocers. And, as far as I remember at least, they pose little to no risk of religious radicalisation. Or did I just miss it again?

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