The Lion, The (White) Witch, and The Wardrobe

I am finally back from the premiere of Narnia in New Z-land. I became distracted after the movie by a role-playing game invented by some fellow Narnia nerds and missed my flight back - that's why this post is so belated.

The good Bishop asked me what I thought of the movie, so I will do my best to capture my profound and abstruse response. If I had to describe the movie in a word I think that it would be: Ubiquitous.

That's right, the movie seemed to be everywhere at once, yet always where it needed to be.

Think of the fact that there is no perfect time corollary between the two worlds. Lucy is gone for hours visiting the stereotypical Faun Tumnus (a coarse and flat sketch of fauns that will damage their reputation for years to come), and when she returns from the wardrobe she finds no time has passed for her real-munity on earth. (There is another example of this but it is a bit of a spoiler, so I will refrain.)

What does this imply? It implies bifurcated time corridors and/or multiple time paths anti-integrated within our interpersonal carbon self-identity structure! Lucy's self and body transport into a separate time continuum retaining its essence and/or articles!

This is not the end of Lewis' profound insight. In the spoiler example, the interpersonal carbon self-identity structure (body) and articles (clothing) are changed! This implies a complex algorithmical cooridination within different times (and/or Time itself). Through this coordination C.S. Lewis is herein suggesting that time, earlier suggested as birfurcated, might be a complicated unity.

Besides his groundbreaking insights into physics (much like the character "Weston" from Lewis' Space Trilogy) Lewis offers insight into ancient tradition and history: through his love (may I say, obsession) of antique furniture.

The book is titled The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe which leads to many asking the question: "What the Hell is a wardrobe?" This is not merely a literary device meant to shake the reader from their comfortable and all-too predictable world of furniture, but also insight into the magic and/or science (magical science?) of antiques. Perhaps the most profound question the movie arouses is that of the wardrobe: its existence and definition.

Readers of the series might think that I am alluding to the history of this particular wardrobe; but this is in fact not of the least importance. Though the wardrobe possesses a dark and sinister background (History of Violence?) the point here is that Lewis is embarking upon a journey into the formation of all wardrobes. After all, there is a reason that a wardrobe is a wardrobe, and not a closet or dresser. There are many lions, but Aslan is the Lion; where is The Wardrobe? I suggest that it is neither in Narnia or England, but the wardrobe that Lewis wants you to discover and love is the one down the road in your neighborhood antique store; the one that you must learn to appreciate.

Lewis, as Christians will tell you, was an activist. What they won't tell you was that he was a furniture activist.

If you haven't discovered to land of Narnia, do. If you haven't journeyed there; you must, for it contains so much. There is a beaver, a witch, and an imaginative and profound land as solid and ancient as your grandmother's hutch.