Finding Narnia

I discovered C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia by a happy accident. I plucked The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, the first book in the series of children’s stories about the magical land of Narnia, from a rack in my elementary school library. Then, almost as if that one drew the others, a family friend gave me all seven books in a boxed set for my next birthday.

- Jim Hinch, Contributing Editor

I fell in love with Narnia from the very first page, just as countless other children have done in the seven decades since the books were written. In that imaginary world I found talking animals, intoxicating adventures, sword fights, sea journeys, daring rescues. And of course Aslan, the talking lion who is the king of Narnia and the magnetic center of the whole series. I felt about Aslan exactly as the children in the story do: solemn, entranced, excited and a little bit afraid. After all, as everyone says of him, “he is not a tame lion.”

I returned to the Narnia books again and again, even as a grown-up, when I knew that Aslan is a Christ figure and that all of the books are rich with Christian themes and imagery. Indeed, it was my love of Narnia that led me to read more C. S. Lewis, which in turn helped to lead me to faith in God.

My sense of wonder about Narnia only increased when I learned the story of the books’ creation. It too was a happy accident—though it didn’t seem so happy to C. S. Lewis at the time.

The late 1940s were stressful years for Lewis. A surge of post-WorldWar-II students returning to the University of Oxford, where he taught medieval English literature at Magdalen College, had increased his teaching load almost beyond his capabilities. His brother Warnie, with whom he shared a house, was an alcoholic who sometimes disappeared on days-long benders. Jane Moore, an elderly woman with whom Lewis also lived and whom he took care of, was succumbing to dementia. Lewis crafted some of the Narnia stories in his head to relieve stress on his bike ride home after a long day of teaching.