The Magician’s Book is one of the most interesting books I have come across in quite a while. As a lifelong fan of all of C.S. Lewis works, I have often wondered, and sometimes debated with friends, whether or not Lewis had fans that loved his Chronicles of Narnia for the simple fact that they were wonderful, timeless stories, and couldn’t be bothered to absorb all the Christian imagery they represent. As it turns out, at least one such fan exists in Laura Miller, the author of the appropriately subtitled A Skeptics Adventures in Narnia.
Miller sets up the book fairly well by offering insight into her own life, and somewhat into her current belief system. One that does not include the Christianity that Lewis held tight to and most often wrote of. She also secures her connection to The Chronicles of Narnia, dating it back to her days in elementary school, much like those others of us who discovered these books at an early age. The Christian imagery was apparently lost on Ms. Miller as a child and as an adult she battled feelings of betrayal when she connected the pieces, which is, in and of itself, an interesting premise.
The initial, and most famous, book, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, was given to her as a recommendation from her classroom teacher and if I may go on a small tangent here, I was so excited to hear that this was the way Ms. Miller was introduced to such amazing literature. As a person in the education field, it is becoming painfully clear that many modern teachers are not well-versed enough in age appropriate literature to even attempt to do such life altering things for their students. A sad state indeed.
The Magicians Book follows Miller through Narnia both as an adult and a revisiting of her childhood, noting differences and commonalities along the way. After a brief introduction and a short explanation of the fact that the books are dealt with in their originally published order and not the current reordering and why she chose to approach them that way, Miller gets to the heart of her analysis of why those who don’t love the Christian faith still love, are still drawn to, and can still benefit from what the characters in the series teach us. It is divided into three main sections (Songs of Innocence, Trouble in Paradise, and Songs of Experience) and is fairly easy read. Miller’s style is a little dry and she tends to repeat a lot of the same things in different ways in each section but she is largely thorough and never so analytical that you want to tell her she needs to get a life.
Overall this is an intriguing book that offers a completely different view of Narnia than we are used to hearing about. Her observations of the role war played on The Chronicles, as well as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, is particularly interesting as she goes so far as to note that we know so little about what a life like that must be like that we have lost the ability to even fathom the meaning it holds to books such as these. If you are looking for something that will challenge your perceptions that’s not theologically dry and so dense that its borderline unreadable than this book is definitely for you.
Reviewed by Mark Fisher
