Hello NarniaFans! Welcome to the first part of “Inside Narnia with Devin Brown” a NarniaFans exclusive interview series with the author of the Narnia commentary “Inside Narnia” and soon to be published “Inside Prince Caspian.”
I especially want to thank Devin Brown for his time and willingness to do this interview.
This week we talk with Devin Brown about his background with the Chronicles of Narnia and C.S. Lewis.
CR: When did you first read the Chronicles of Narnia?
DB: The college class I teach on Lewis gives me a window to witness how people discover the Narnia books at different times in life. Some of my students read them for the first time as nineteen or twenty-year-olds while others have known them since childhood. It is interesting to hear from the latter group how the books have grown and changed as they themselves have grown and developed.
In my own first encounter, I fall somewhere in between. I first heard of C. S. Lewis when I was 15. My older brother, in the way of older brothers everywhere I suppose, came home from college, tossed a book on my bed, and said I should read it. That book was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
CR: What interested you in the books?
DB: In one of his essays, Lewis asks us to suppose what it would be like for our everyday world to be “invaded by the marvelous.” That is what opening The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for the first time was like for me, and like most people raised in the modern world, I was hungry for the marvelous.
One of my favorite Lewis quotes states that reading about enchanted woods does not make us despise real woods, but instead should make “all real woods a little enchanted.” Gradually over time, the enchantment has been drained from our world. One of the things Lewis does through these stories is to put it back.
CR: How have the Chronicles of Narnia impacted you personally?
DB: Besides their ability to re-enchant our world, the Chronicles of Narnia also have a powerful capacity to inspire, a capacity few works can match. I suppose everyone has times of feeling isolated, insignificant, and ineffective. These stories remind us we are not alone and that together we can make a difference.
The Chronicles of Narnia and my study of Lewis have also connected me—to people, ideas, and places I would never have known otherwise. This sense of connectedness is a feeling that people who have read and reread the Chronicles will share.
CR: What is your background in C.S. Lewis (i.e. teaching etc.)?
DB: I teach an upper division class on Lewis’s fiction in the English department at Asbury College. Besides the Chronicles, the course also covers the Space Trilogy, The Screwtape Letters, and The Great Divorce. Asbury also offers a separate philosophy class focusing on Lewis’s apologetic writings such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain. So students at my school who want to can really come away with a great background in Lewis.
Before the release of the first film, I was part of a wonderful event put on at Asbury called Narnia Night. It was a unique setting for teaching that extended beyond the classroom. The auditorium was packed, and there was a real excitement. We are planning a similar event to celebrate Prince Caspian. Information about Narnia Night can be found at www.asbury.edu/cslewis.
For the past two summers, I have been one of the speakers at Ichthus Music Festival, and this is yet another setting for teaching. Each year I have been reminded of the broad appeal that Narnia has and the depth of interest it generates. Each year, we have had a huge tent filled to capacity. After both sessions we finally had to cut off the question and answer time, not because people were out of questions, but because the next group needed the tent.
This summer I will teach a week-long seminar on C. S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia at the Kilns, the house Lewis lived in near Oxford. Participants will get to eat, sleep, and take classes in Lewis’s home, making this the opportunity of a lifetime. Teaching sessions will be held in Lewis’s library and, on nice days, out in his garden. This summer seminar is a regular event offered by The C. S. Lewis Foundation. Those interested can find out more at their website: www.cslewis.org. This summer those who attend will have the option of receiving college credit through Asbury.
CR: How long have you been writing and teaching about C.S. Lewis?
DB: The first Lewis essay I wrote, “Pilgrimage to Oxford,” told my reflections on finally visiting places I had only dreamed about: Lewis’s college and his home, church, and gravesite. It was accepted for publication in the spring 1996 issue of The Lamp-Post, the journal of the Southern California C. S. Lewis Society. It was a very modest essay, but this was a huge deal for me because for the first time I realized that writing about Lewis was something that I might do.
For the past 10 years I have taught a class on Lewis at Asbury. My department originally offered it as a special topics class, but the course was so popular it quickly became a regular offering.
My first big presentation was in December 2000 at a conference in London called The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe—Fifty Years Later. I was one of three Americans who spoke, and it was my earliest exposure to the odd love-hate relationship that quite a few Brits have with the Chronicles. On one hand, they cherish these works as beloved classics from childhood. At the same time, as adults many have become resentful of what they—in my opinion, mistakenly—view as religious indoctrination.
CR: What inspired you to write Inside Narnia and Inside Prince Caspian?
DB: While the Narnia books can be read and enjoyed by everyone, I believe there is a further enjoyment in not just reading but studying them.
When I was a graduate student in English, I came across Master of Middle-Earth by Paul H. Kocher. Unlike the other books of literary criticism I was reading, the observations I found were full of a special wisdom and insight that changed the way I thought about scholarship. I have hopes that, every now and then, I might offer the kind of commentary about Lewis’s fiction that Kocher offered about Tolkien’s.
Next week NarniaFans talks with Devin Brown about his new book “Inside Prince Caspian.”