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Nesbit, Jack London, Charles Dickens, Ernest Thompson Seton, George MacDonald, Roger Lancelyn Green, John Galsworthy, and many others. The books that Mother, Jack, and Warnie recommended always fascinated, and nothing was forbidden, nothing censored. I read the complete works of William Shakespeare before I was fourteen (not without some considerable effort, I confess). I discovered that the wisdom of the world, and a great deal of its folly also, is to be found in the pages of books. And throughout it all, I kept returning to old favorites again and again: The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings and later Till We Have Faces. The more I read of other writers, the more I discovered how good the tales of Narnia really are.
7. Do you know what books Jack may have read as a child?
Many of those same authors I have enumerated above. He recommended to me those books that he had loved as a child, as did Mother and Warnie.
8. Do you have a favorite title in the Narnia series? Did Jack? If so, which and what makes it stand out for either of you?
For me, it is always whichever of them I am reading at the time that question is asked. But Jack most liked The Last Battle, and for very simple reasons. Contrary to some theories that have recently been bandied about, Jack never intended, nor set out, to write a series of books about Narnia. When he wrote The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and sent it off to Geoffrey Bles (its first publisher), he thought he had written a one-off novel for children and that would be the end of it. But quite soon Prince Caspian demanded his attention and he wrote that one too, then The Dawn Treader climbed up over the horizon of the Narnia Eastern Sea and Jack had to write that adventure too, and so it went on. At last, Jack, determinedly and with celestial permission from his Muse, wrote The Last Battle, in which the heaven of Narnia at last became Heaven, and he sent it off to Spencer Curtis Brown, his then literary agent, with a sigh of relief. This work, which had grown of itself and which he had never intended, was rounded off and finished. Jack liked The Last Battle the best because its culmination was his vision of True Heaven imposed on a Narnian context, Narnia itself being a shadow of his childhood vision of heaven. In other words, true Narnia became to Narnia what Jack imagined Heaven will be to Earth. And also he liked it because it was his last Narnian battle.
9. Who were some of your favorite Narnians growing up?
Apart from Aslan, whom everyone has to love—but from a safe distance in most cases—Puddleglum is one of my favorites because he brings back to me a man whom I loved a great deal and who had helped me through so many childish dilemmas and sorrows. Reepicheep is another for his valor and purity. Among the Knights of King Arthur’s Court, while my schoolmates all wanted to be Launcelot, I always wanted to be Galahad (still do, I suppose), and Reepicheep is that pure Knight of Narnia, much like Galahad was the pure Knight of King Arthur’s court. Shasta/Cor, Prince of Archenland, appeals to me greatly, too.
10. You’ve mentioned Frederick Calcutt Paxford twice now, the man after whom Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle is modeled, and his impact on you. Can you tell us more about him? Was he like Puddleglum? What was his relationship with Jack? With you?
Fred was exactly like Puddleglum in character, the outwardly ever- pessimistic covert optimist, although the two have no physical resemblance at all. Fred was heavyset and stout and of average height; Puddleglum very tall, very thin. He was a veteran of the horror of the trenches of the First World War and had suffered from a poison gas attack. He and Jack were in some ways kindred spirits, both possessing in great measure the virtues of honesty and kindness. Fred was a great friend to me at a time in my life when I most needed one. We became friends out in the “gyaarden,” as Fred pronounced the word, of The Kilns and soon discovered that we shared common interests. He taught me things that would perhaps be good-naturedly frowned upon by Jack and Warnie, like how to set snares for rabbits, how to maze a hare, how to shoot straight with a 12-bore shotgun, how to plough a straight furrow with a horse-drawn plough, and innumerable other things of more value than almost anything I ever learned at any school. I was weeping softly beneath the old weeping willow tree out by The Kilns themselves the day my mother died when Fred joined me, laid his massive arm gently across my shoulders, and held me to him. “Doant cry, son,” he said softly; but the effect was spoiled somewhat by the tears I saw running down his face. Fred was a good friend.
11. Were there other characters based on people you and Jack knew? Did those people know they inspired these great books? How are the characters similar to the people who inspired them?
Jack had an almost uncanny talent for writing unpleasant characters who turned out to be the living images of people he was about to meet [or his readers are about to meet]. He always said that his villains were modeled on himself. There were other characters that he drew from friends and acquaintances, but he was always very careful not to let it become obvious, so he would mix and match his characters’ personalities and appearances to avoid anyone ever being able to recognize them. He couldn’t fool Warnie, however; and sometimes Warnie would tell me that “so and so was modeled on an old fool at Merton” or wherever. But Jack never gave a character taken from someone he knew an appearance in any way similar to that person, nor even a similar profession. Jack protected his models.
12. What made C. S. Lewis decide to write The Magician’s Nephew well after writing and publishing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe ? Why was the series reordered to put The Magician’s Nephew first?
Jack listened to his Muse and also to his audience. People were asking how it all came to be, why and how Narnia had come into existence in the first place. But also I think that he knew that he would not be allowed or able to end Narnia until he had first begun it. As for the “reordering” of Narnia, the putting of numbers on the spines of books was an American idea and one which I felt was superfluous, feeling that we should all be allowed to read the books in any order we like (and I do), but the first American publisher set the precedent. I asked Jack what order the books should be read in when The Magician’s Nephew had appeared and The Last Battle finally came out. He told me that his preference was for them to be read in order of Narnian chronology but that it didn’t really matter. I agreed completely, and many years later when HarperCollins took over the worldwide English language publication of the books, they decided to retain numbers on the spines and asked me what order they should be in. I told them to go with what Jack himself preferred. And they did!
13. How do you think the perception of Narnia has changed since C. S. Lewis first wrote The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?
Not a lot really, at least not among those very wise folk who read the books. Of course we have made movies of several of the books, and that has spread the knowledge of Narnia even farther than the worldwide publication of the books in many languages had already achieved. But Narnia is Narnia and appeals to young men and women, to children, and to white-bearded ancients alike, no matter where they live or what language they speak, and it always will.
14. November 22, 2013, marks the fiftieth anniversary of C. S. Lewis’s passing. What do you remember about this event?
Very little, actually. That whole time is a faded haze in my mind. I remember his funeral at which I stood as the leading mourner, and I remember the single candle that stood upon his coffin, first in the church and then under the tree at the graveside. There was a strange and perhaps holy stillness about the air that day, not a breath of wind stirred; and the candle flame stood straight and tall, never so much as even wavering, only to be extinguished as it was taken from the coffin (by whom I did not see) as it was lowered into the grave. We buried more than a man that day; we buried a light as well. Had Jack not written so much so well, the world would today be a much darker place for so many people. That was a hard, bitter time for me. There were many condolence letters, but I didn’t read them nor even open the envelopes. Loneliness is really the only thing I remember. Once again, all that I loved, all that I valued had been swept away, and I was alone.
15. Do you recall how fans reacted to the news of C. S. Lewis’s death?
Hardly at all; his death passed at first almost unnoticed, as President Kennedy was assassinated the same day.
16. C. S. Lewis is being honored with a memorial stone in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner on the anniversary of his death. How do you feel about this? How do you think Jack would have responded to this tribute?