Polly Toynbee, in the Guardian, has written a fairly bitter piece of polemic about The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, entitled "Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion".
There will be no spoilers, because I have not yet seen the film. I might get that treat tonight. To many my age and older, this is our Harry Potter: a well-loved series of fantastical childrens' books, still enjoyed by adults, finally reaching the big screen. But, despite the denials from the apologists, Lewis was actively doing something more than Rowling, who is telling good stories.
I am vaguely disappointed that I cannot find anywhere in Toynbee's piece where she decries the film as neo-Platonist propaganda. She doesn't, at any point, abhor its syncretist undertones. Despite her protestations, she has no trouble with an underlying theme in a movie or a book. Otherwise, she would be reduced to summer action blockbusters, and that would never do for a Guardian writer. She just has trouble with themes that she disagrees with. Swap the references to Christianity in that piece out, and put in another term, and the piece would never be published. Nor would the ever-so-PC Toynbee have written it. Islam? She knows which targets not to poke too sharply. Judaism? Uh-uh. People of colour? Hindus? Atheists? On the other hand, if an author's proselytizing agrees with her own, it's wagons roll! So we get "Philip Pullman - he of the marvellously secular trilogy His Dark Materials". How very value-neutral. But then this is from the woman (link via Shuggy) who wants me to be taxed more than women because of my propensity towards "crime, violence, car crashes and non-payment of maintenance...regardless of individual qualities". Liquidate the Kulaks as a Class!
I don't mind that people attack my religious beliefs. I really don't. And anyone who does mind, and who gets angry or retaliates doesn't get it. But I really, really feel sorry for Toynbee. That's not a debating point.. She reminds me of someone I know who had a terrible relationship with his father, and now goes around picking fights with anyone, no matter how undeserving of his anger - who bears the vaguest resemblance.
In Narnian terms, Toynbee reminds me of one of the dwarves. Their fate used to concern me more than any other part of The Last Battle. To a pre-teenager, it seemed that the dwarves, and their refusal to see what was around them, was Lewis attacking the Jews. I can now see how contrary to Lewis that was. I cannot help but worry that Ms Toynbee is in that dark stable.
If you want to know how the film, the books or even the author come to that - rate on the fundamentalism scale, take a look at what the fundamentalist end of the spectrum think about it. They hate it. Lewis' Christianity is complex, subtle, doubting and creative. And beautiful. The Bible itself offers no view of heaven, nor of the triviality of death, to rival that of The Last Battle: the literal ecstasis of being allowed to travel further up and further in.
Anyway, I'll almost certainly, for good or ill, write about the film once I've seen it. I fear Disney and all their works. But for now, I'm spending my morning pitying Polly. It's not nearly so much fun, but probably good for the soul.