Planet Narnia by Michael Ward: Book Review

A most remarkable and very fine book by any standard! Michael Ward, chaplain of theological imagination at Oxford University makes a good argument for a "heavenly" pattern within C.S. Lewis's Narniad. Each book corresponds to a different planet--in a classic medieval sense. Ward goes so far as to create a new term to describe Lewis's technique of hiding these things: He calls the form of a hidden Enjoyment, "Donegality." (Drawn from the actual seaside town of Donegal, Ireland where Lewis visited as a child). Ward is no conspiracy theorist either! It is evident he has done his homework when compiling this work and his scholarship and love of Lewis comes through. Ward follows a repeated pattern with each chapter by exploring planetary themes of all 7 books. Early in each chapter, he shows how Lewis interacted with a particular Planet in his work outside the Narniad; drawing largely from Lewis' early poem The Planets, The Discarded Image, and the Space Trilogy. He then shows how the planetary themes play themselves out in each of the Narnia Chronicles. At the end of each chapter, Ward examines the poiema (things made) and logos (things taught) in all 7 stories as it relates to the each respective planet and shows how a pagan concept such as astrology can fit within the framework of a Christian world view. This book should be read after one is WELL acquainted with the Narnia stories but if you do love them (as I do) you'll be blown out of your seat and into blue heaven! By Jove!

C.S. Lewis Phenomenon: Donegality

Michael Ward, in his book Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis invents a a new phrase in order to describe Lewis's way of drawing the reader into something unaware; a phenomenon Ward calls "Donegality." Ward derives the name from Donegal, Ireland, a favorite place of Lewis's to visit as a young boy. The concept means something like getting caught in the trap of an artist. Sometimes a writer will have a secret agenda within his art and the reader will get caught up into it unexpectedly but simultaneously, the reader will delight in that "trap." Lewis's short essay Meditation in a Tool Shed on getting caught in a sunbeam is a fine introduction to what Ward means by Donegality. Lewis was a master at this sort of thing as evidenced here by this quote from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Take notice of how the narrator draws the reader in by asking the question at the end.

Next day they began marching eastward down the side of the great river. And the next day after that, at about teatime, they reached the mouth. The castle of Cair Paravel on its little hill towered up above them; before them were the sands, with rocks and little pools of salt water, and seaweed, and the smell of the sea and long miles of blueish-green waves breaking forever and ever on the beach. And oh, the cry of the seagulls! Have you heard it? Can you remember?

And then contrast the above quote with Lewis's words from his autobiography Surprised by Joy on visiting Donegal, as a child. Concerning the waves on the beach he said...

"...the wave, the monstrous, emerald, deafening waves, are always the winner, and it is at once a joke, a terror and a joy to look over your shoulder and see (too late) one breaker of such subline proportions that you would have avoided him had you known he was coming. But they gather themselves up, pre-eminent above their fellows, as suddenly and unpredictably as a revolution."

Of course the whole thought of all these things is being "caught up" in something much bigger than ourselves and relishing in the Enjoyment of it! It's all jolly good, Jovial, even!