The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia
by Laura Miller
List Price:
Our Price: $5.90
You Save: $20.09 (77%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.55 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Laura MillerEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-12-03
ISBN: 0316017639
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Book Reviews of The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia
Book Review: Narnia and Its Discontents
Summary: 5 Stars
Miller's book is a wonderful tour through childhood books I loved, love, and still read. It is a well-arranged synthesis of memoir of reading Narnia, literary criticism, and some biography of Lewis and his cohorts, particularly Tolkien. Given the nature of the title, Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia, one shouldn't be surprised, as some of the reviewers here are, of Miller's conflicted feelings toward Lewis. One hand, she reveres him for the intellectual, warm, and often spiritually and emotionally embattled man he was, and yet she has a profound discomfort for the "books' 'secret' significance" as someone who had in adolescence left the Church. Miller is unapologetic about her feelings. Citing a query of Tolkien's: "'What class of men ... would you expect to be most preoccupied with, and most hostile to, the idea of escape?' The response, also provided by Tolkien, was 'jailers.'" Miller responds, "I, too, longed for escape, but as I saw it, Christianity was one of the jailers" (101).
Magician's Book works to disentangle, shed light--and some darkness too--about what kind of writer could evoke the magic of Narnia that remains charming for a self-professed agnostic or atheist. Knowing that Aslan is a symbol for Christ, or that Eustace's conversion is representative of Saint Paul's, or even Susan's sad fate at the end of The Last Battle, how does a non-Christian still experience that magic? Miller also grapples with the unpleasant racism in The Horse and His Boy--Calormenes as Turks--without venturing near the pit of "political correctness"; she contends that Lewis was a man of his times and certainly not alone in fetishizing the "Orient."
So once again, if you are a Christian and don't feel conflicted as readers like Miller (and I) do of being non-Christian fans of Narnia, then this book may not seem worth your while. It is not a diatribe against Lewis, but it is not a rose-colored-lens one either. I don't mean to say Christians shouldn't read this book; by all means, all Narnia fans should read it! But be aware that Miller is an atheist/agnostic and is not interested in seeking some sort of spiritual epiphany.
As a child, I too was surprised to discover (thanks to my Pentecostal pastor) that LWW was a Christian allegory, but I wasn't dismayed until years later, I finally got around to reading The Last Battle. Like many other readers, I was shocked by the damnation of Susan. I was probably about her age, interested in things many girls are interested in--boys, looking pretty, etc., yet I didn't feel those were qualities enough to shut me out of Narnia. This didn't keep me from loving the Narnia books, but I never did read LB again. And it's a pity; I'm a total fan; I have two editions of the full series and even the wonderfully acted audiobooks (which I highly recommend), all for LB. Miller's book was a tremendous sigh of relief--to know someone else who felt the same way I did, and had the passion to research Lewis and the creation of these books. For me, Miller is the perfect person to write this book, a non-religious fan of Lewis who advocates children's literature as an entity unto itself, rather than simply "derivative writing."
Miller begins with absolute affection; the first part of three in Magician's Book is devoted to the child's reading experience. She dissects how a child's reading experience trumps the adult's, because children seek story rather than "an aesthetic experience." She devotes a chapter to why talking animals are such a delight for children: "Animals, like infants, belong to the vast nation of those who communicate without words, through gesture, expression, scent, sound, and touch. Children are immigrants from that nation, and, like most recent immigrants, still have a mental foothold on the abandoned shore" (28). Talking animals are then the closest companions a child can have--creatures, who unlike adults, can easily alternate between the verbal or physical.
In the second part, she tackles her philosophical problems with Lewis, raising the usual issues of sexism, racism, and what Lewis himself calls "bloodery"--the various abuses and bullying of boys to other boys. She invokes Freud, but acknowledges the crudeness of Freudian studies during Lewis's time--and its limitations overall. This and the third parts include Lewis's biography and the entrance of Tolkien, and here is the heat of Miller's critical work: What is a myth? What is language? How does the "patchwork" of Narnia, with its disparate myths all joyously brewed together reflect England? How is that patchwork in harmony with itself? What is an allegory really and what constitutes a (medieval) romance? She postulates that Narnia was for Lewis the "third road": a road that is neither the straight and narrow nor the broad but "a 'bonny road,' twisting through fern-covered hillsides. That is the road to 'fair Elfland'" (270). This quotation is from the Scottish ballad "Thomas the Rhymer," and Lewis spends a great deal of time in his own book, The Discarded Image, fascinated by the dangerous but rewarding road alongside faerie rather than the Christian pilgrim.
Miller's language is clear and crisp. She has a tendency to recant for a sentence or two, making tiny footnotes as she speaks, such as: "You can die in the wilderness where I come from [Sierra Nevada]; hikers do all the time. In Britain, you might catch a cold. But the wildness of Lewis's Britain is no less vivid for being notional and poetic. It is an idea of about the natural world..." (217). Nevertheless, she synthesizes some exciting arguments about Lewis the man and his books. I highly recommend, especially to lovers of Narnia seeking a thoughtful, unabashedly critical discussion.
Summary of The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia
THE MAGICIAN'S BOOK is the story of one reader's long, tumultuous relationship with C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. Enchanted by its fantastic world as a child, prominent critic Laura Miller returns to the series as an adult to uncover the source of these small books' mysterious power by looking at their creator, Clive Staples Lewis. What she discovers is not the familiar, idealized image of the author, but a more interesting and ambiguous truth: Lewis's tragic and troubled childhood, his unconventional love life, and his intense but ultimately doomed friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien.Finally reclaiming Narnia "for the rest of us," Miller casts the Chronicles as a profoundly literary creation, and the portal to a life-long adventure in books, art, and the imagination.
Biographies & Memoirs Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Biographies & Memoirs Books
I Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Storyby Hank Aaron, Lonnie Wheeler
Harpercollins; Published: 1991-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.91
Price in other shops:
Cracked: Putting Broken Lives Together Againby Drew Pinsky
William Morrow; Published: 2003-08-19; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.43
Price in other shops:
The Last Season (P.S.)by Eric Blehm
Harper Perennial; Published: 2007-01-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.54
Price in other shops:
The Last Seasonby Eric Blehm
Harper; Published: 2006-04-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.82
Price in other shops:
Truck: A Love Story (P.S.)by Michael Perry
Harper Perennial; Published: 2007-07-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.04
Price in other shops:
My Grandfather's Son: A Memoirby Clarence Thomas
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-10-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.49
Price in other shops:
American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritansby Eve LaPlante
HarperOne; Published: 2004-03-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.99
Price in other shops:
100 Missions North/ a Fighter Pilot's Story of the Vietnam Warby Kenneth H. Bell
Brassey's Inc; Published: 1993-04; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops:
Macmillan Profiles: Villains & Outlawsby Et Al
MacMillan Reference Books; Published: 1998-10-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.93
Price in other shops:
Hawk : Occupation Skateboarderby Tony; Mortimer, Sean Hawk
Regan Books; Published: 2000; Hardcover; Book
Similar Books and other products
Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formationby John Guillory
University Of Chicago Press; Published: 1995-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $22.88
Price in other shops:
The Economy of Prestige: Prizes, Awards, and the Circulation of Cultural Valueby James F. English
Harvard University Press; Published: 2008-12-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $18.56
Price in other shops:
Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genreby Jack Zipes
Routledge; Published: 2006-08-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $31.45
Price in other shops:
How to Talk About Books You Haven't Readby Pierre Bayard
Bloomsbury USA; Published: 2009-09-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.75
Price in other shops:
Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for Literary Historyby Franco Moretti
Verso; Published: 2007-09-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.61
Price in other shops:
Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brainby Maryanne Wolf
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-08-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.98
Price in other shops:
The Use and Abuse of Literatureby Marjorie Garber
Pantheon; Published: 2011-03-29; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.50
Price in other shops:
Bring on the Books for Everybody: How Literary Culture Became Popular Cultureby Jim Collins
Duke University Press Books; Published: 2010-06-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.00
Price in other shops:
Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhoodby Maria Tatar
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 2009-04-20; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops:
Rereadings: Seventeen writers revisit books they loveFarrar, Straus and Giroux; Published: 2006-09-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.06
Price in other shops: