The Political Spectrum

Ever since the dawn of the attacks on "MSM," I have thought they were over-stated. I still consider the NY Times to be the newspaper of record. On the other side, I have often cringed at the inanity spewing forth from the mouths of people on Fox News, and at their utter lack of intellectual honesty. But today's NY Times Magazine, of all things, has finally pushed me over the edge, with a hack job that cannot possibly be issued to the world in good faith.

In what purports to be the Magazine's annual movie issue, the article ("The Narnia Skirmishes", by Charles McGrath) purports to be about how the people who made the Narnia film have had to walk a fine line between marketing the film to Christians who are fans of the books, while still attracting ticket-buying moviegoers of all and no faiths. That is what the title indicates, and it is what the first six paragraphs seem to be leading towards.

And this would not be a surprising article. The fine line in question is a phenomenon that has been discussed ever since Mel Gibson's little movie was released; the Narnia movie creates an opportunity to see how Disney -- that most "family friendly" and yet most insidiously secular of companies -- has handled the situation. Moreover, the movie creates a good opportunity to discuss a phenomenon that plagued Narnia even pre-Passion, dating the day when CS Lewis' loser heirs licensed the first Narnia stuffed animals. If anything, then, the article is so expected that one begins to read it expecting that McGrath had better come up with something good or else be condemned as trite.

(An aside on the author, Charles McGrath. I have considered him to be a fairly good reviewer, attuned to some of my favorite dead English authors. He has been particularly attentive to the legacy of the great Evelyn Waugh (e.g., he reviewed the recent film version of Vile Bodies) and the legacy of the great P.G. Wodehouse (e.g., he reviewed the McCrum bio of PGW). I have not previously been given any reason to doubt his judgment.)

So, time for some details. The article, as I said, has probably six paragraphs in one, reasonable-if-predictable direction. It then turns to discuss Lewis himself. This is understandable. Readers will have different levels of familiarity with Lewis, and no article could be criticized for briefly bringing everyone up to speed. One could quibble with whether this "up to speed" status required McGrath to write that Lewis was famous "for conducting conversations from the next room while noisily using his chamber pot," but whatever.

But by the time of the 10th paragraph -- which begins the second part of the article, conventiently demarcated by a large initial capital -- one can't help but notice that the author is still talking about Lewis and not talking about the Disney company's problems with marketing Narnia. At this point the article might just be a bad article, as might be written by anyone. (By "bad article" I mean an unsuccessful one, one that does a poor job of addressing its subject because it has lost sight of the story.) I'm sure there are quite a few Lewis fans who would try to disguise yet another article about Lewis as an article about the Narnia movie. But then it suddenly becomes very clear that this is not a Lewis FAN who has written a bad article; it is someone who is out to DEFAME Lewis, someone who has masked his vitriol by trying to sneak it in as an article about Disney's marketing Narnia. (Remember that? That was supposed to be what the NYTimes article was about.) This becomes clear with the sentence: "But for decades before that, Lewis also had a secret life, another marriage of sorts, that was both mysterious and a little weird."

Huh?! Where did that come from? McGrath continues, explaining that Lewis had made a pact with a friend during World War I -- if either failed to return home, the survivor would take care of the family of the deceased. And, as McGrath continues, Lewis' friend was killed and Lewis arranged to take care of the family. Well, that makes Lewis sound like a hero -- but why would McGrath have referred to it as a "marriage of sorts"? Because -- and pay attention here -- for no reason proferred other than "there's no reason at all to think they didn't" -- McGrath asserts that Lewis was sleeping with the mother of his dead friend for the next 30 years. (I want to use the "f"-word, but won't.) McGrath makes this assertion and sums up the image he has created: "the baffling and disquieting psychological picture of C.S. Lewis, the great scholar and writer and Christian apologist-to-be, pedaling off on his bicycle, his academic gown flapping in the wind, to have a nooner with Mum."

WTF? Where the hell is this going? Isn't this article about the post-Passion Hollywood outreach to Christian audiences?

Apart from the the way in which the article hides its true intent, and apart from the lack of evidence proferred in support (I know nothing of the relationship, and while I suspect McGrath is wrong, I would be willing to retreat if shown to be incorrect), McGrath can be condemned for his despicable use of amateur psychology. Either pscyhology is a lot of malarkey, or it is a depiction of the human condition that should be seriously grappled with to see what it can reveal. My own take is that psychology must be taken seriosuly. But it can't be seriously performed on a dead guy you never met. McGrath's gesturing at the "baffling" Lewis psychology he has constructed would be malpractice in a practitioner (and unlicensed quackery in a non-practitioner).

Back to the article. The amateur drivel continues, with further backhanded treatment of Lewis. Speaking about how the children in the book arrive at Narnia through the back of a wardrobe (Disney? marketing?), McGrath writes: "Inevitably, there have been a number of Freudian interpretations of 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,' theories making a great deal of the observation, for example, that you get to Narnia through what amounts to a closet-size vagina." For goodness' sake, someone please take away McGrath's writing privileges! Because it's a friggin' passageway, we might as well bring up vaginas. You might say, "But, unconfirmable, McGrath doesn't say he buys those theories." Fine, he doesn't say it. But -- assuming that McGrath has read many more theories about Lewis than I have -- why does he bring up this one in this article?! A sensible person would have read the vagina theory, declared it to be B.S., and moved on. Not so McGrath. (And the paragraph containing the quoted sentence ends with more malpractice psychology: "Lewis was at the time so despondent and worn down, so weary of the world of grown-ups, with their bedpans and whiskey bottles, that he must have longed for a holiday in a land of make-believe.")

Then come two paragraphs in which McGrath decides to list some of the sources on which Lewis drew. He doesn't accuse Lewis of plaigiarism, but his point is clear. At this point, the reader is ready to believe anything about Lewis, who -- if one has been paying attention and believing it -- was sleeping with an adopted mother thirty years his senior, writing books about children passing through genitals, etc.

From Lewis' sources, McGrath turns (generously, one might think; one would be wrong) to later authors who were themselves inspired by Lewis. And here, as we approach the end, I think McGrath signals his real point. (After all, I am a Straussian.) McGrath cites JK Rowling as one who is indebted to Lewis, and then turns to discuss -- in much greater length -- one Philip Pullman (who?). I have to quote at length:

Lewis's greatest influence, though, is on the British fantasy writer Philip Pullman, whose "His Dark Materials" trilogy is both a homage of sorts (it begins with a girl in a wardrobe) and also a kind of anti-Narnia, a negation of everything Lewis stood for. God in these books turns out to be a senile impostor and Christianity merely a "very powerful and convincing mistake." Pullman is an atheist and, not coincidentally, one of Lewis's fiercest critics. He has said of the Narnia cycle that "it is one of the most ugly and poisonous things I've ever read" and has called Lewis a bigot and his fans "unhinged." The books do have their faults, certainly. They're not nearly as well written as either the "Potter" or the "Dark Materials" books.

(Me again.) The climax of this article is an unflattering comparison of Lewis, the popular Christian author, with this Pullman fellow, in near proximity to the phrases "God ... turns out to be a senile impostor" and "Christiainty [is] a very powerful and convincing mistake." Christian readers of Narnia are "unhinged." Did the NY Times have ANYONE read this article before putting it in their special MOVIES issue?

Post-climax, the article's denouement brings up some PC B.S. criticisms of Narnia in McGrath's own voice. "They're preachy, they're sometimes gratuitously violent and they patronize girls." Whatever. Then some toss-off about how Lewis did not sufficiently appreciate Muslim culture. The most offensive criticism is McGrath's refusal to take seriously the damnation of Susan, "the second-oldest of the [children], who near the end of the last volume is denied salvation merely because of her fondness for nylons and lipstick -- because she has reached puberty, in other words, and has become sexualized." Forgive my repeating: WTF?! Instead of a discussion of the principle of Christian moral theology that vanity is a grave sin, to be shunned by man and woman alike, we get this garbage. NYTimes, I'm so offended I won't even consider getting that TimesSelect thing now! (And, by the way, the paragraph I am currently offended by does not end without an offensive mention of the Christ-figure in the Narnia books "perform[ing] earth-shaking oral sex on the witch.")

I am just stunned by the inanity of this whole article. (And there are still two paragraphs to go, containing such gems as "Lewis was a progressive in nothing except his choice of women to sleep with".) Lest I be unfair, the last two paragraphs gesture at SOME purpose of this garabge, something other than an opportunity to express disdain for Christianity and to defame one of its members. McGrath gestures that it is ironic that the restlessness of fantasy stories such as Narnia should be picked up by Christians to teach values to the young. But the thesis hardly seems compelling or likely, and it is hardly developed in any event.

Conclusion: This was a hatchet job performed in bad faith in an attempt to discredit (probably)good people. Bite me, NYTimes.