Libby and I are reading the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. This is one of the best of the Chronicles of Narnia, but it is also one of the strangest. There is no crisis for which the children are drawn to Narnia, yet it is done without their willing. This is unique. If one is left to consider the theme of the book, natural questions come to mind that do not in any other work. Why are the children brought to Narnia? What happens that requires them? Or are they brought there for their own sake?

I am not sure yet, though I have begun to find some answers.

Today we read the chapter about the Island where Dreams Come True. As a child, this chapter was one of the most frightening of the book, not because I could relate to any experience like it, but because it suggested to my imagination a kind of experience worse than pretty much any other could ever be. It didn't really connect with me because I always thought Lewis was wrong. I do not have nightmares that often, and have had many pleasant dreams. This time through, I noticed he did not make an exhaustive claim regarding the nature of "real dreams." The idea is just that you have some dreams that are so bad that you would never want to have the good ones come if it meant the bad ones would come true, too.

Anyway, this aside, the chapter is likely one of the best in the book, and it is also one of the most self-consciously literate.

The premise of the chapter, of course, is that the Dawn Treader is confronting a strange new adventure. For several days in front of them, a blackness they took to be an island loomed closer and closer. As they got within a few feet, they stopped rowing and would not have entered it but for the insistance of Reepicheep. He blames their reluctance on cowardice (rightly so?) and urges them further in. Why? Not for the sake of any use, he answers Drinian, but to seek out adventures for their own sake. That is, Reepicheep is convinced that one must live in such a way that, facing all life's obstacles courageously, an intrinsic good will follow if one is faithful. This strikes me as a Christian sentiment, and the chapter comes off as a very Christian meditation on fear, human evil, and salvation.

When the boat has pressed on for about five minutes (or so says Drinian) into the darkness, they hear the voice of a man who has almost lost his humanity for terror. Upon saving him, he tells them the fear of the place, and the ship immediately begins to flee. Reepicheep protests, but Caspian silences him. Why? Because there are some fears that no man can face.

It occurs to me that the fear no man can face is the fear of himself. Since a dream is a manifestation of hidden internal beliefs or lies, or what-ever, facing one is facing one's worst parts. To this task, no one is able (save perhaps the noble Reepicheep). So, the men fly. They fly as fast as they can, but it is to no avail. They cannot escape. They row longer than it should have taken to escape, but the darkness leaves them no way of finding a way out.

Up to now, the literary parrallel is that of Dante in the Dark Wood. The enterprising pilgrim attemps to reach the peak of the mountain by himself, but it is manifestations of his own sin that chases him down it. He cannot reach Paradise by his own work: it is only through the aid of the love of God that he can be granted salvation. So far, this parrallel (I imagine it is intended) is clear.

What happens next is straight from Dante. Dante is met by Virgil, but why is Virgil there? Because St. Lucy prayed for him. Lucy is the patron saint of light (her day in the Church calendar is the shortest of the year), and Lewis has his character with that name pray for their salvation. The result? Light from heaven streams down onto the ship, and descending through it is a cross-shaped bird: the albatross.

The albatross is the most obvious literary allusion in the book. It's a play on Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, something every English school boy of his age would have read. In the Mariner story, the albatross saves the crew of an unlucky ship that stumbles into an antarctic fog and can't get out. So, the mariner kills it. Disastrous consequences soon follow. The albatross was an innocent and a savior, and it was killed. There is no punnishment sufficeint for it, except that the mariner must work to prevent such sins from happening again for the rest of his life (his freedom is completely taken away). Anyway, I take the albatross to be some kind of image of the saving power of nature. Left there, we'd wonder why Lewis chose the image. But he didn't leave the image as he found it.

The albatross is Aslan. He makes this very clear. So, here it is not nature saving us, but God saving us. There is no doubt left in your mind that this is a natural occurence at all. I imagine that the natural imagery works to his advantage because grace perfects nature. Aslan is a better albatross than Coleridge's; he's God after all.

So, why was this chapter written? Because Lewis wants to habituate our souls into finding the truth. In this case, the truth is that we have such hideous evil within us that we will never find salvation (or more broadly perhaps moral improvement of any kind) on our own. It requires the supernatural aid of our benevolent God, and his intercessory action flowing from the life giving prayers of our loved ones. Reading a story like this will make us more likely to look for such aid when confronting difficult problems in our life. This is the sort of book Eustace should have read his whole life.

It is the "right sort of book."