“Between [Lewis and Tolkien’s] shared fondness for medieval literature, for romance, for England, lay some important differences. Lewis had long understood the Middle Ages to be a period not of pristine simplicity but of rampant cultural admixture and amalgamation. Christianity and pagan mythology, science and theology, history and poetry, were all wrestled by those great medieval codifiers into a single, overarching system. Everything went into the pot; everything had to, to validate God’s plan. It never seems to have occurred to Lewis to regard the result as polluted.” (Miller, The Magician’s Book, p. 248)
I have no idea what originally possessed me to read Laura Miller’s Magician’s Book some years ago, but it made an impression. For much of the book, it’s a perfectly fine read, with interesting autobiographical bits, and discussions about Lewis with prominent authors. (Susanna Clarke! Neil, uh, Gaiman…)
But at some point in the final section of the book, “Songs of Experience,” the damn thing kind of takes flight. The quote comparing Tolkien’s arid medievalism to Lewis’ wild, syncretic version is, to me, the peroration of the book, even though it comes 50 pages from the end. It is, to me, the best possible defense you could make of Lewis as a medievalist; and to me, I find it utterly damning of Tolkien; because so much of the best medieval literature is the kind of “rampant cultural admixture and amalgamation” that Lewis and Narnia celebrated. There are traces of Tolkien’s atavistic purism in the medieval historical record, but those traces are themselves mediated by medieval scribes and writers who themselves swam in the waters of cultural admixture.
Her book is the reason that I undertook a re-read (or, in some cases, a first read) of the Narnia books. I am, on balance, not quite as enamored of the literary qualities of Lewis’ books as she is; even as I wish she were a bit more alive to the intermittent theological vivacity of Narnia, in books like The Last Battle (in contrast to the deadening didacticism and dishonesty of his avowedly apologetic works). Either way, Miller’s book itself is a joy to read.