Say It Ain't So!
Jul 11 '01
The Bottom Line Memo to HarpersCollins: Leave Narnia alone! Sequels to classics almost never work.
First off, let me apologize for going off topic a bit. I chose this category because I'm sure C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia will be on most people's Best Sci-F/Fantasy Series Lists. It would certainly be on mine, if I ever compiled such a list.
According to Slate, the publishing house HarpersCollins plans plans to "supplement" the beloved children's series with a batch of sequels. They also plan to make the series wholly secular. You can read about this on http://slate.msn.com/culturebox/entries/01-06-18_110460.asp.
This is a horrible idea.
It's horrible, because such sequels are almost always putrid. Remember Alexander Ripley's Scarlett from a few years back? I rest my case. I also once made the horrible mistake of reading a sequel to Wuthering Heights that was supposed to be about the mysterious three years of Heathcliff's life. Again, it was awful.
These sequels usually have just about every problem you care to name: lame plots, poor characterization, historical boners, the works.
Any sequels to the Narnia books start out with a very serious problem: at the end of the final book, practically everybody is dead and in a heavenly version of Narnia. Granted there are a few ways around this problem. The first and worst way would be to somehow bring specific characters back to life. Among fanfic writers, this would be called "retconning" or "retroactive continuity", wherein a writer alters the outcome of earlier stories for their own purposes. Bringing back dead characters simply so you can write about them falls into this category.
The second possibility would be to simply set the sequels during the reign of the four Pevensies, Peter, Susan, Edward, and Lucy. Lewis himself wrote that they enjoyed long reigns, so this idea could work. But the adult kings and queens are more formal and less entertaining than their younger selves, so the sequels would probably concentrate on the early years of the Pevensies' reign, with Aslan the Lion probably acting as a surrogate father. This could get pretty icky in a hurry.
The third possibility would be to introduce wholly new characters. The new children will likely be of a "politically correct" mix of races and ethnicities--and of minimal personality.
The secularization of the sequels is another problem. On the one hand, I can understand why HarpersCollins would want to make the sequels secular; it makes them easier to write. It is very hard to integrate religion into a story; too often, the result is pretentious, preachy, or heavy-handed, or a combination thereof.
On the other hand, it is an insult to Lewis' memory to write secular Narnia books, when he intended them to be allegories of Biblical tales. Thus, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a retelling of the Christ story, while The Magician's Nephew includes a retelling of the Creation.
Also, the Christian underpinnings are integral to the Narnia books, rather than incidental. One of the most important and memorable characters in the books is Aslan the Lion, who is a stand-in for Jesus Christ, and like Christ is both powerful and self-sacrificing. His character would no doubt be altered in the sequels, which would be a shame, as the original Aslan is quite impressive and likeable.
All in all, these "supplements" to C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia will likely be dreadful.
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a_r_egerton
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Member: Ann Egerton
Location: Baltimore, MD
Reviews written: 61
Trusted by: 21 members
About Me:
Graduate student of biology at Towson University. I'll write about practically anything.
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