Through the Wardrobe by Brennan Herbie

Author:Brennan, Herbie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Perseus
Published: 2010-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

What makes a proper girl? When C. S. Lewis wrote his books, society said she should be “obedient, demure, and in perpetual need of protection.” So how come his heroines were anything but? Kelly McClymer tells all in a striking analysis of a woman’s place in Narnia.

Serious Action Figures

Girl Power in the Chronicles of Narnia

KELLY MCCLYMER

When I was a child, I never thought much about who wrote the books I loved. I read for the characters, the story, the settings so different from my suburban life. Because most of my books came from library shelves, I considered the librarians as the keepers of the hallowed books. If I’d cared to think about it, I might have assumed those librarians performed magic during the hours between dark and dawn when the library was closed and dark—a special kind of magic that filled the shelves with books of different shapes, colors, sizes, and smells. After all, those books took me, magically, to faraway lands and worlds I’d never dreamed of.

I learned early that, magic or no, I might accidentally take home a book I didn’t like. While I used to be, and still am, a forgiving reader, I prefer books where the characters act like real people. Give me characters that are sensible (if misdirected) and flawed (rather than impossibly good) and I’m happy; give me the opposite, and I’m likely to roll my eyes. Fortunately, eye-rollers were rare. I didn’t mind the occasional dud when I so often found myself in the world of the likes of Anne from Anne of Green Gables and Meg from A Wrinkle in Time.

Eventually I realized the magic of books was connected directly to the author listed on the spine; to my further delight, books next to each other with the same author often meant series. A series meant that I got to spend more time with the characters I liked. I still didn’t think too much about the author who had created that series magic for me, but I fell under the spell of those who promised long hours in a world unlike my own. Boy on the cover, girl on the cover, historical setting, fantasy world, it didn’t matter to me.

And thus, I came to the Chronicles of Narnia lined up neatly on the library shelf, C. S. Lewis on the spines. Having learned my lesson on previous series, I quickly flipped to the inside page to discover the full number and order of the series. Seven—all there on the shelf. I grabbed them greedily, and began to read the first in the car ride home. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe . What a funny title, I thought. But who could resist a Lion and a Witch, even if the book did seem to focus on what they were going to be wearing? Not me.

The magic I’d come to expect from reading happened almost instantly when I met the Pevensies. And I was relieved to discover a few pages in that a wardrobe is an old-fashioned name for a big wooden dresser/closet combination.

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