Impact is the word of the week: “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” turns 75

“The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” acronymed to “LWW” by popular scholars, turned 75 this week.

Can you believe that C. S. Lewis once told a friend he would be forgotten within one to three years of his death? Hard to believe he said such. He left us in 1963 and we are still celebrating his works over half a century later.

What a book. What an impact. What a gorgeous postmodern fairy tale.

I’m not here to debate any of its finer points of world-building, writing syntax, symbolism, or such. The fact that critics still take potshots at it 75 years later is proof enough that it matters. I’m here to celebrate it (forgive me while I channel my inward “Julius Caesar,” soliloquy.)

It’s a story that we need to hear again. 

And again. 

And again.

A story of good overcoming evil, of hope of a golden spring even in a bleak winter, of new friends and adventures. 

Like his friend and fellow literary light J. R. R. Tolkien, and later even George Lucas, Lewis believed in forsaking cuteness or subversiveness for good storytelling. I’ve always enjoyed this quote from, “Mere Christianity”, which I think speaks to the always-curious case of the arts in contemporary culture:

“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original; whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before), you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”

Like most who have read LWW, it affected me profoundly. Through that book, and later, pleasantly and unexpectedly, I became a Lewisian and relish his prolific contributions of nearly 40 works.

I could wax on about Lewis for a 3,000-word longform piece, yet I will forsake that urge and instead use the moment to celebrate a great story in Western culture. I hope we find more storytellers who remind us of the beauty of truth, redemption, escape, and adventure and, above all, the importance of imagination.