c.s. lewis - the last battle

also the narnians seem to follow the false aslan much too readily, why?

I think that The Last Battle is supposed to be analagous to the Book of Revelations. The false Aslan = the Anti-Christ (which is why the Narnians are so easily misled, as the Anti-Christ misleads). I don't think that Puzzle (he's the donkey, right?) is really the anti-Christ, since he is admitted into the Narnian "paradise" at the end. Kind of at a loss re Shift: maybe there's a direct Revelations analogy, but I think C.S. Lewis might also be taking a swipe at advertising in his depiction of Shift (the way Lewis takes swipes at various things in the modern world he doesn't like throughout the Narnia series).

I'm working off memory now, 'cause I haven't read The Last Battle in 20 years or so. There's lots of stuff going on in that book (a kids book!) that I can now see but to which I was oblivious as a kid. Like Tumnus's Platonic/idealist excursis at the end of the book (where he compares the "real Narnia" to the "shadow Narnia" [which gets destroyed], borrowing from Plato's notion of Forms).

Cripes, I never thought of it that way (the forms deal) -- but you're onto something. My favorite image is Father Time squeezing the sun out like an orange -- and then all is darkness, cold and ice.

I think that the Narnia books, the Bible, Aesop's Fables and a number of other "moral" works all are telling us that although immediate gratification is nice in the short term, in the long term only hard work pays off with true contentment.

Pretty irrelevant in today's society. Nobody's strong enough to not give in to the seductiveness of instant gratification/short term gain else they wouldn't be driving too fast; driving at all; eating too much sugar, fat, starch, salt and preserved food; chopping down trees; bombing the fuck out of countries in other continents etc.

message of last battle = girls who use lipstick are EVIL!!

puzzle = ordinary honest dumm bloke-in- street who is idiot but we wuv him
shift = mr wised-up hip-to-be-cynical in for a drubbing
dwarves = the militant working classes
ginger the cat = er naomi campbell
tashlan = me!! (cf radio free narnia obv)

and THAT'S IT!

Lewis wants to be an orothdox platonist Xtan but his imagination constantly betrays him hurrah!! I love this book even tho Plato is a nightmare and the Golden Age is In Us...

The dwarves are for the dwarves.

He's not a TAME lion you know.

Have you ever heard Chariot's seven album set "The Chronicles of Narnia"?

I remember when the bear died after the last battle -- his last words were "I don't understand." I always found that very touching, for whatever reason.

Am I right in thinking c.s. lewis wrote christian propaganda, or way off the mark? I could never really get into the books, so I've always been curious

I remember when the bear died after the last battle -- his last words were "I don't understand." I always found that very touching, for whatever reason.

As did I -- very much so. I don't think I'll ever forget that moment, and I'm glad to hear that someone else found it as moving as I did.

Haven't read any of those books in close to 10 years, but I took a class on C.S. Lewis in college (the prof was pretty hardcore about Lewis). One thing I do remember discussing for The Last Battle was that in the story there is a foreign prince (?) who worships "Tash" (in the book, a birdlike, alternative god to Aslan). Although the prince is an 'outsider' to the other main characters who are well- known from the previous books, he makes it in to Aslan's paradise with the others at the end. The prof said that what Lewis meant to convey was that Tash was basically Satan, and the prince a Satan- worshipper, but that even a person who spent his life worshipping a false god could enter Heaven because as Aslan later tells the prince, the deeds that he performed ostensibly in the name of Tash, he was really doing in the name of Aslan (I've always likened it akin to the Bible's "whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me"; the Good Samaritan parable).

As for Shift and Puzzle, I would assume (again, from what little I remember of the plot) that they represent two types of people who will be judged at the End of the World--basically, "the wheat and the chaff" kind of imagery. Shift (the monkey, right?) would represent the person who goes down the wrong path (his arrogance, materialism, etc.) and leads others towards the same. Puzzle (again, if I recall correctly), represents a more sympathetic figure; though he is still sinful in that he participated in Shift's schemes, I think he later has a basic humility and sense of remorse for the role he played, which redeems him.

I remember the imagery about dwarves (?) really being at a banquet, but thinking they were in a dirty stable. It always reminded me of Albert Einstein's quote about life and miracles.

Isn't Tash Allah?

Islam doesn't approve of representations of people let alone God: but in Tashbaan there is a huge likeness of Tash with glittering jewels for eyes. So no, Tash isn't Allah. However Calormen gives CsL the chance to do a dodgy blackface Ottoman Empire turn, as backdrop mainly to The Horse and His Boy. Not racist precisely — there are clever Calormens and good Calormens — but definitely culturally sneery.

As for me, I will serve Tash.

C.S. Lewis Rules! Hail Satan!

Gaol

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This may seem pedantic, but
it is worth noting that Lewis emphatically denied that the
Narnia books were written to moralize.
He was simply trying to write a good story.
He did NOT intend Aslan to be a Christ allegory, but a
messiah and savior to the animals. He also pointed out
that despite the Christian elements, there was an equal amount
of non-Christian, amoral elements in the texts.

> Pretty irrelevant in today's society. Nobody's strong enough...

I agree that we all face intimidating problems, but since
"today's society" does not objectively exist, your cynicism is
unjustified. The human condition is the same from decade
from decade, century to century.

Dan: C.S Lewis was a respected Christian thinker. The
term propaganda is probably not fair to him.

Understood.

actually i reread tLB about a week ago and the bit that REALLY puzzled me is when everyone good is standing at the stable door (yes yes DO YOU SEE) and gazing out at a dying narnia, and all the giant lizards rush out and devour the greenery then lie down and die on the naked rocks, and then old father ethan squeezes out the sun, and the narnia space is all wiped clean ready for installation of narnia 2.1

it's the lizard bit: is this a secret ref to those xtians who used to argue that the fossil record could be squared w.earth = 40000 yrs old by arguing that the rocks were created COMPLETE WITH FOSSILS

also: once you get further up and further in, is there also a better deeper susan-wearing-lipstick?

40000 = 4000 (ie bishop ussher hebrew-lineage arithmetic)

You mean 6000 anyway

(the 4000 is from Ussher's date - 4004 BC)

oops yes 40000 = 4000 = 6000!! maths as i know and use it

"pi is exactly three-glaven!"

I must dig out the Narnia books and reread them some time. I should have reread them when I was at university really, because the library had class sets of the whole series.

The main things I remember about The Last Battle are a) the Platonism b) it was scary, especially Tash and the grass dying under him as he walked c) the harsh dismissal of Susan.

(and I still remember where I was when I first read it, too)

i hate cs lewis and i hate the narnia books.