02.21.06

Interview with Bruce Edwards, Part I

Posted in Interviews at 10:38 am by Roger Overton

Of all the people throughout history whose works and personality you could have studied, why have you spent so much time with C.S. Lewis? Clearly, because of the impact his work and life have had on me personally and professionally. I grew up in a very fundamentalist, sectarian environment, and attended a very conservative Bible college. . . Ironically, it was there I was introduced to Lewis’s work in an apologetics class. To paraphrase Lewis, “a young fundamentalist cannot be too careful of his reading. . .” He pulled me out of my “true church” sect, and led me to “mere Christianity”: a welcome rescue. After a period of local church ministry, then I went on to further graduate studies, and eventually the PhD, where Lewis was a natural topic for me, but not, at the time, especially his fiction or fantasy, but rather his “hermeneutics,” his literary critical principles. I wrote a dissertation on his principles for sound literary encounter, and in return got quite a salutary discipleship experience.

In Not a Tame Lion you claim that what makes Lewis effective for readers today “is not his formidable skill of philosophical argumentation, the considerable lucidity of his prose, or the legendary perspicacity of his reading and scholarship.” (190) In your opinion, what is it that makes him effective?

As I say in the book, it’s his identification with the lost, his understanding of what it means, in Walker Percy’s terms, to be a “wayfarer” in this world. His empathy and grace in dealing with the homelessness and homesickness attendant to living in a fallen world is what extends his audience into the 21^st century and beyond. Lewis’s narrative voice reveals a winsome memoirist who comforts, challenges, counsels, and cajoles readers who share his sense of “being made for another world.”

Most fans, including myself, were introduced to Lewis through the Chronicles of Narnia. Especially since the publisher rearranged them, there’s been some debate over which volumes should be read first. In your important preface to Further Up & Further In, you suggest that the order is something like the Old and New Testaments. What do you mean by that?

Well, I believe that the “original” order, the order of publication and the order, more or less, in which Lewis wrote them, is the appropriate one. As I say in FURTHER, how would you best introduce someone to Christ—start him reading in Genesis and hope he makes it to the New Testament, or give him a copy of the Gospels of John or Matthew straightaway? We need to meet Aslan as savior and protector before we meet him as creator; we need to go through the wardrobe first or the history and origins of Narnia make no sense—dramatically or eschatologically. Besides, there are too many spoilers in The Magician’s Nephew; to put that one first would always ruin the magic of LWW. Chronology be darned!

Further Up & Further In is certainly a different type of book than most readers are used to reading. Instead of telling the reader what to think about Narnia, you aim to offer a unique perspective. Can you tell us a little about your approach and why you chose it?

I tried to write a book about LWW that kept the reader inside Narnia and did not send her continually “outside” to check references, trace allusions, examine character traits, or create “lessons.” The story is the thing. I tried to follow principles Lewis himself enunciates in An Experiment in Criticism; It is, admittedly, a paradoxical effort, but one that I enjoyed immensely. What I have tried to accomplish—and, for many readers, seem to have done successfully—is to start a dialogue with the reader as if we were telling the story aloud and experiencing the adventure together with Lucy and her clan. Thus, the effect is to be “looking along” rather than “looking at” the story as it unfolds. We want to look through the eyes of the characters and to see what they see, rather than at each other and addressing our evolving questions. The questions get answered by experiencing the story, not by checking the encyclopedia. So my “companionship” to the reader is meant to be an “indigenous” rather than “intrusive” experience.

Do you think the recent movie successfully portrayed a helpful perspective of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?

As far as the movie goes—I can’t state succinctly all that is genuinely gratifying or disappointing in it, but I can certainly say that I am happy with 85% of it. It’s that 15% that keeps one up at night (or did): the skewered dialogue foreshadowing Aslan’s first appearance, the deployment of Aslan during his actual screen time, and his lamentably truncated explanation of how “deep magic” worked redemptively (since the “deeper magic” and the Emperor-beyond-sea never get referenced) are the key personal criticisms I would venture. But I think the broader achievement of the movie, and the unmistakable identification/recognition of an adoring worldwide audience, is to be celebrated; a window has opened on the world of the supernatural for many viewers (and new readers), and we can be grateful for this gift.

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