INTERVIEW: Katherine Langrish.

Katherine Langrish discusses C.S.Lewis, all things Narnia, and her acclaimed new book From Spare Oom War Drobe …  

Like so many of us, I grew up with Narnia, and fell in love with the many worlds it conjures up – but I wasn’t aware that it was a world made of words.  It was made of sensations, as far as I was concerned.  Was it the same for you, at 9, or were you savouring the words?

Such an interesting question! But although I agree the world of Narnia is vividly and sensuously presented, I was very much aware of the words that created those sensations. Feel the rushing cadences of the passage where Lucy and Susan ride on Aslan’s back as he races through springtime Narnia towards the Witch’s castle – 

‘… right across Narnia, in spring, down solemn avenues of beech and across sunny glades of oak, through wild orchards of snow-white cherry trees, past roaring waterfalls and mossy rocks and echoing caverns, up windy slopes alight with gorse bushes, and across the shoulders of heathery mountains and along giddy ridges and down, down, down again into wild valleys and out into acres of blue flowers.’

That’s a very long sentence (and not even all of it) and because it doesn’t stop – ‘and across the shoulders of heathery mountains and along giddy ridges and down, down, down’ – it carries the reader with it at headlong speed. I could see that. And if you want a small example to show that I knew what he was doing, here’s a bit of my own writing from when I was thirteen, about some imaginary horses of the dawn: 

‘And out of the mist come horses galloping, borne of the wind with wings like to it, dancing and running, plunging through the cool air, out of the golden, out of the glory, straight from the sun as it shines through the mist, dazzling, glorious, horses of the morning, horses of the sunrise, horses of the dawning, shining horses of the steel-blue sky.’

It might not be great prose, but the rhythm carries you along, and I remember a school friend was reading it, and she looked up and said, ‘You can’t read it slowly, can you?’ – so I certainly wasn’t the only child who sensed the power of words to almost literally sweep you away. 

How important were Pauline Baynes’s illustrations to your youthful reading?

Oh, tremendously important. She makes the very English magic of the Narnian countryside visible – as if through an enchanted glass. Her lines are quite stylised, yet relaxed at the same time: you can tell she’s having such fun. I would have loved to have owned the boxed set of the Puffin editions of Seven Chronicles – there was extra artwork by Pauline Baynes on the box – but alas, I never did. 

Was there ever a time, growing up, when you became disenchanted with Narnia?

No, but by the time I was thirteen or fourteen I fell in love with ‘The Lord of the Rings’, and I think the Narnia books took a back seat after that. I’m sure I still went back to ‘The Silver Chair’ though, and it’s probably still my favourite. (That, or the ‘Dawn Treader’.) 

There seem to be racist undertones in the way the Calormen are written about. How should we contextualise C.S.Lewis’s portrayal of them today?

I agree, and I’ve been told how some people of Asian or Caribbean heritage who read the books as children felt dismayed and excluded when they came across the brown-skinned, turban-wearing, slave-trading Calormenes whose culture Lewis depicts as corrupt, and whose god is a demon. While it may be true that Lewis was ‘of his time’ and didn’t mean to hurt any child’s feelings, we don’t have that excuse – if it is one. Parents and teachers will have to make their own judgements, but rather than censor the books I’d do what I’ve heard some parents do: use the difficult passages as grounds for an open discussion about racism, and perhaps to point out that even nice people don’t always get everything right. 

What does the character of the White Witch suggest about C.S. Lewis’s attitude to women?

Some have suggested that her character shows that he found adult women terrifying. With her sugar-white skin and scarlet mouth she’s certainly a dangerous vamp, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Lewis was channelling some deep inner phobia. She’s an icy Snow Queen like Hans Andersen’s – and a baddy, sure – and so is the wily, sweet-spoken Green Lady of ‘The Silver Chair’ who is modelled on the fairy queens of the Border Ballads. If women were the only villains in the Seven Chronicles, you might read more into it, but let’s not forget the male ones: King Miraz of ‘Prince Caspian’ who murdered his brother, Caspian’s father, and wants to stamp out all Narnia’s magic; venal, cowardly, cruel Uncle Andrew of ‘The Magician’s Nephew’; and greedy, power-hungry Shift the Ape, perhaps the worst of the lot, who sets up the false Aslan in ‘The Last Battle’. What do these characters tell us about Lewis’s attitude to adult males? In fact of course all of these villains are adults because Narnia is a child’s world: the children (the girls almost more than the boys) are the heroes. 

When the allegorical aspects of the stories were revealed to you, did it detract from your reading experience or enrich it?

It upset me in The Last Battle; I didn’t like it when Aslan ‘ceases to look like a lion’. I loved Aslan as he was – this glorious, comforting, golden Animal. So I didn’t go back to that book very much; but other than that I still loved the books and pretty much ignored the religious symbolism. 

Where did your reading go after Narnia?

To Tolkien and ‘The Lord of the Rings’, as I’ve said; but also to Alan Garner’s books, Rosemary Sutcliff’s novels about Roman and Saxon Britain, Leon Garfield’s Dickensian London, Elizabeth Goudge, Henry Treece, Ursula le Guin, T.H.White, Mary Renault … the list is endless. 

If you were able to ask C.S. Lewis a question directly – about his books or his life – what would you ask?

I should like to ask him to write me another Narnia book – about Moonwood the Hare – or Swan-White the Queen – or the Seven Brothers of Shuddering Wood – or some other tale from the long history of Narnia!

 

From Spare Oom to War Drobe: Travels in Narnia with my nine-year old self by Katherine Langrish is out now in hardback and eBook.

Katherine Langrish is a successful author of fantasy for children and young adults (including the Troll Trilogy, Harper Collins), and also a writer of critical essays on fairy tales, folklore, and authors such as Mervyn Peake and Alan Garner.