Can I forgive C. S. Lewis?

When did I know I wanted to be a fantasy writer? The first time I laid hands on The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. I must have been only five at the time - too young to read it anway - when I found an old copy in my grandmother's laundry room amid an assortment of library books and textbooks that uncles had taken from school and never returned. I remember turning the pages, making up stories to fit the illustrations. (There was an anatomy book in the mix that was quite cool too, but that's a story for a different day).

When I was old enough to read, TLTWTW had the distinction of being the book I re-read the most. It probably still is. Most of my early work had the same plot - kids find magic doorway into alternate universe.

But I distinctly remember the day when I was in the fifth grade when I friend of mine from a religious family told me what TLTWTW was really all about. I had no idea; we seldom went to church. Now in the fifth grade I had no idea what an allegory was, but as my friend explained how Aslan was really Jesus, etc., etc. I felt deeply betrayed. It was like this writer whom I had trusted so completely had been tricking me all along. It was like I accepted an invitation to dinner, looking forward to good food and conversation, and arrived to find my host had really invited me over to pitch his Amway products. Well, shortly after that I discovered the Hobbit, and then LOTR, and then Dragonlance. And I never went back to Narnia.

Now my own son is approaching the age where he could read these books. And I still have them all, mass market paperbacks with all the illustrations from the hardcovers. And the upcoming movie has definitely peaked his interest. I've tried reading them again, to catch some of that old magic again, but I just can't get into it like I did. I can easily see where he is demonizing Muslims and aetheists.

I've been doing compare and contrast in my head. How is Lewis intolerable to me when other books are not? The fact that Tolkein was a staunch Catholic permeates all of LOTR, yet there is no overt religion in it. More interestingly (for me anyway) is how LeGuin's taoist beliefs permeate the Earthsea books, and yet nothing is overt there either. I think it's just the allegorical style that I can't stand. I like to think of reading a book as having a sort of dialogue with the writer, we both bring something to the transaction. But an allegory is more like a school lecture.

Well anyway, there are my half-formed ideas. I have to go make dinner. But there's an interesting article about C. S. Lewis here that's definitely worth a read.