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A review by xanthe
The Magician's Nephew / The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe / The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis
3.0
The latest readaloud with my kid and the next in the Narnia series for us (I am a traditionalist! No chronological reading order for us!) The Horse and His Boy was notable for several reasons: it’s the only book in the series that there is no travel between Narnia and our world; the characters are all Narnians (Archenlanders? Calormenes? The demographic make-up of this made-up world was greatly expanded in this book. Also confusingly. It seems that Narnia is the name of only one of the countries, so what do we call the whole world?) Also, notably, this is the perhaps the most racist of all the Narnia books, being a not-very-subtly conflict between the good (white, fair) Northern countries and the evil, dishonorable, (dark skinned, not very subtly disguised Arab-analogue) desert country. But what about Aravis, you say. I don’t think that giving us one beautiful, brave, good Calormene woman who is trying to escape from a forced marriage at all softens the rigid depiction, in fact it makes it much worse.
Of course, the problem with the above is that my kid probably barely noticed the racism. He was paying attention to the admittedly gripping story of Shasta and Bree’s escape, their meeting with Aravis and Hwin, and their adventures across the desert. Lewis again shines when depicting the dirty, uncomfortable side of adventuring, and how he lets his child characters show weakness and collapse from exhaustion and despair, be terrible fighters because after all, they’re just kids, and be petty and selfish before turning around to save each other from lions. And so that's the problem right there: either I point out the racism or I allow it to be unchallenged and let it become just another layer that builds up over time, unconscious and paper thin, to be added to over time until quite before we realize it, there’s a thick crust of prejudice, hard to dislodge and even harder to excavate to determine its sources. So I tried to gently draw attention to how Lewis described all the Calormenes versus the Narnians, the terms he chose. I don’t think I was entirely successful in making him see what I wanted him to see and probably killed some of his happy buzz about the book, but I hope in the end I put down another different layer of awareness and critical thinking, which is definitely compatible with reading about talking lions.
Of course, the problem with the above is that my kid probably barely noticed the racism. He was paying attention to the admittedly gripping story of Shasta and Bree’s escape, their meeting with Aravis and Hwin, and their adventures across the desert. Lewis again shines when depicting the dirty, uncomfortable side of adventuring, and how he lets his child characters show weakness and collapse from exhaustion and despair, be terrible fighters because after all, they’re just kids, and be petty and selfish before turning around to save each other from lions. And so that's the problem right there: either I point out the racism or I allow it to be unchallenged and let it become just another layer that builds up over time, unconscious and paper thin, to be added to over time until quite before we realize it, there’s a thick crust of prejudice, hard to dislodge and even harder to excavate to determine its sources. So I tried to gently draw attention to how Lewis described all the Calormenes versus the Narnians, the terms he chose. I don’t think I was entirely successful in making him see what I wanted him to see and probably killed some of his happy buzz about the book, but I hope in the end I put down another different layer of awareness and critical thinking, which is definitely compatible with reading about talking lions.