#so the dust came from the wold by way of atlantis

[queenlucythevaliant]

So here’s something fun and not at all heartbreaking:

The Magician’s Nephew works so well in large part because Digory’s grief is deeply felt. From the way he writes Digory, you can tell that Lewis knows exactly what he’s going through, even without knowing anything about his life. There’s so much attention paid to Digory's psychology, his grief as he waits for the impending loss and all the different ways it affects him, especially compared to Narnia’s other child protagonists.

And then you read the first chapter of Surprised by Joy and get “For us boys, the real bereavement had happened before our mother died. We lost her gradually as she gradually withdrew from our life into the hands of nurses and delirium and morphia,” and you realize oh. Jack gave Digory his own story.

And then you flip back a few pages and re-read how the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Bastables series were some of young Jack’s favorite books and formative influences, and you think back to the opening lines of MN which sets the book when “Mr Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in Lewisham Road” and realize oh! Jack gave Digory his own childhood.

And as you read on, you see Jack’s description of how his father became after his mother’s death: “Adult misery has an effect on children which is merely paralyzing and alienating […] His temper became incalculable; he spoke wildly and acted unjustly.” And you see shades of young Digory’s alienation, and realize that young Jack longed for nothing more than that which he gave Digory: the tears of Aslan, who understood and grieved the loss alongside him, who was not frightening or unjust but understanding and endlessly kind.

And then you keep reading and get to “When nevertheless she died, I shifted myself into a belief that there was to be a miracle,” and you’re suddenly overwhelmed by the tenderness with which Jack, through Digory, treated the boy he once was. How he gave Digory the miracle he never got, that precious apple to make his mother well again.

And even the last line of the chapter: “It was sea and islands now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis.” Isn’t that where the dust that made the rings came from? you think.  

Just. Sometimes I think about how C.S. Lewis gave Digory his own childhood grief yet gave him the comfort and the happy ending that he never got and I can scarcely bear how lovely it all is.

#narnia #the magician's nephew #digory kirke #jack #i just #I love him so much #it's so tender I can hardly bear it #'oh darling; how lovely' #it still makes me cry #pontifications and creations #to be clear: yes the dust came from tje wood between the worlds #the box it was in came from atlantis #so the dust came from the wold by way of atlantis #the magician's nephew no longer #founded in song