The Narnian – Alan Jacobs

The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis
Alan Jacobs (Harper San Francisco, 2005)

368 pp. First reading.
Posted 13 February 2007.

The release of the cinematic version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in 2005 prompted publishing houses to issue stacks of new books on C.S. Lewis and Narnia. Among the many titles printed, the word on the literary grape-vine was that this biography by Alan Jacobs, a professor of English at Wheaton College and a talented essayist, was among the best. And so when I came across a remaindered copy at a local discount store, I couldn’t resist it.

It is a fine biography, tracing Lewis’ life from his boyhood in northern Ireland, through his schooling, to war, to Oxford, where he was first a student and later a don, and finally, late in his life, to a professorship at Cambridge. At each stage in the telling, Jacobs tries to relate the events or conditions of Lewis’ life to aspects of his many books and the themes thereof. Through the first few chapters this method is underwhelming — fair enough, the Professor in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe might be inspired by Lewis’ boyhood teacher — but as the book proceeds Jacobs seems to warm up, and several of the chapters turn into very rich reflections on Lewis’ mature works. The two books that I personally consider to be his best — The Abolition of Man and Till We Have Faces — both receive excellent treatments.

Lewis was an admirable man. Those who knew him almost invariably described him as kind and generous. His immense literary talent gave expression to the thoughts of a highly intelligent and thoughtful man. Perhaps what strikes me most forcefully when I think of him is his great inner poise; the impression that what he says is always deeply considered. His friend Owen Barfield pointed to his ‘presence of mind’, saying that ‘what he thought about everything was secretly present in what he said about anything’, and that gets quite close to what I mean. He was a man who, says Jacobs, was distinguished and formed by his ‘willingness to be enchanted’, who knew that a vision of the good life was more potent than a theory of it, and who tried to convey such a vision in all his work. He was sceptical of the merits of modernity, having his whole life a preference for ‘old books’ and the imaginative space they occupy, all of which made him an especially acute critic of the spirit of the age.

A central theme of Lewis’ life — both literary and personal — is what he called Joy, and which might more commonly be called Longing. It is not exactly a vision of goodness, but more of a hint of a vision, a vision as seen through the corner of the eye, which is never quite grasped but which beckons one onward in hope. Joy came to him in books, in poems, in landscapes, in friends. Throughout his life he sought to understand the significance of these experiences. In the end, he came to see them as ‘rumours of glory’, saying

“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things – the beauty, the memory of our own past – are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

[Lewis on science and magic]
“There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the ‘wisdom’ of earlier ages. For the wise man of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious.”

[A portrait of male friendship]
“In a perfect Friendship this Appreciative love is, I think, often so great and so firmly based that each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before all the rest. Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company. Especially when the whole group is together, each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funniest in all the others. Those are the golden sessions; when four of five of us after a hard day’s walking have come to our inn; when our slippers are on, our feet spread out towards the blaze and our drinks at our elbows; when the whole world, and something beyond the world, opens itself to our minds as we talk; and no one has any claim on or any responsibility for another, but all are freemen and equals as if we had first met an hour ago, while at the same time an Affection mellowed by the years enfolds us. Life – natural life – has no better gift to give. Who could have deserved it?”