I very much like this post, John. It seems slightly odd to be discussing a fictional character as though she were real but there are certainly going to be parallels in real life so in that sense Susan is real. Her spiritual state certainly is. Perhaps because of her beauty she had the greatest temptation to go astray but, as you suggest, her suffering will transform and transmute her soul and she will come back to her true role as a Queen of Narnia, all the more beautiful for having suffered.
That's beautifully put William. Thank you. I didn't realise you were on Substack. Great to see you here. Yes, it's funny. All these characters - Susan, Tirian, Edmund, etc - they're 100% real to me. I've lived with these books for decades and have internslised then really deeply. All of Lewis's fiction is like this for me. Plus Alan Garner's early books and some poems by Eliot and Yeats. I was toying with suggesting in the piece that Susan in later life might have met Lewis and actually recited to him the Narnia stories which he then transcribed and presented to the world as children's fiction. Decided it'd be a bit 'outre' though and opted to keep things simple ✔️ Hope all's good with you. Very best wishes, John.
I am on Substack but I've hardly used it. My main thing is still my blog.
I do know what you mean about the characters becoming real. There is a possibility that they are real in the spiritual world and were 'suggested' to Lewis through his imagination. That's to say, there might be a spiritual reality behind the forms his characters took. After all, why not? It's all in Plato as the Professor said!
Thanks. I hope you are doing well too. All the best, William
Thank you Christie 👍 I appreciate that greatly. It's an inexhaustible well really is The Last Battle - as are so many of CSL's books. More to come in a couple of weeks. All the very best, JF
I very much like this post, John. It seems slightly odd to be discussing a fictional character as though she were real but there are certainly going to be parallels in real life so in that sense Susan is real. Her spiritual state certainly is. Perhaps because of her beauty she had the greatest temptation to go astray but, as you suggest, her suffering will transform and transmute her soul and she will come back to her true role as a Queen of Narnia, all the more beautiful for having suffered.
That's beautifully put William. Thank you. I didn't realise you were on Substack. Great to see you here. Yes, it's funny. All these characters - Susan, Tirian, Edmund, etc - they're 100% real to me. I've lived with these books for decades and have internslised then really deeply. All of Lewis's fiction is like this for me. Plus Alan Garner's early books and some poems by Eliot and Yeats. I was toying with suggesting in the piece that Susan in later life might have met Lewis and actually recited to him the Narnia stories which he then transcribed and presented to the world as children's fiction. Decided it'd be a bit 'outre' though and opted to keep things simple ✔️ Hope all's good with you. Very best wishes, John.
I am on Substack but I've hardly used it. My main thing is still my blog.
I do know what you mean about the characters becoming real. There is a possibility that they are real in the spiritual world and were 'suggested' to Lewis through his imagination. That's to say, there might be a spiritual reality behind the forms his characters took. After all, why not? It's all in Plato as the Professor said!
Thanks. I hope you are doing well too. All the best, William
Marvellous, John! Really, one of your best!
Thank you Christie 👍 I appreciate that greatly. It's an inexhaustible well really is The Last Battle - as are so many of CSL's books. More to come in a couple of weeks. All the very best, JF