Customer Reviews

The Lion of Judah in Never-Never Land: The Theology of C. S. Lewis Expressed in His Fantasies for Children

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I am a very big CS Lewis fan, particularly of his non-fiction. I finally read the Narnia series and enjoyed it as everyone said that I would. The Lion of Judah in Never-Never Land gets to the heart of why I liked Narnia. Lindskoog shows the connection between the Narnia series and the rest of Lewis' theology as set forth in his non-fiction and other fictional works. The great thing to me was that she did not stop at the most obvious and transparent religious parallels that are found in Narnia. She digs into Narnia and brings out many insightful and important religious points where you probably missed them when you read Narnia last. After you read this, you'll want to sit down and read Narnia all over again.

I appreciated everything that Lindskoog said in this book. I agreed with it all. But unfortunately, she doesn't really say anything that deep or interesting. This book was originally a college thesis that she sent to Lewis for his review, and it reads like that- an undergraduate thesis. She looks at all the Narnian books as a whole, comes up with some analysis and thoughts, and compares it to some select books and other authors. It was nothing that most well-read readers of Lewis would not have seen before. Her analysis is true, but fairly shallow. It doesn't really grapple with Lewis' issues, and is certainly not a critical analysis- it accepts wholesale what Lewis says, and in some ways is very much like a book report. It reminded me of the invisible one-footed dwarfs of The Dawn Treader, saying, "Yup, that water is powerful wet stuff." It is wet, that's true. But that didn't tell me anything new about water that I didn't already know.

It's interesting that the forward to this book is by Hooper, the self-appointed posthumous editor and collector and rewriter of many of Lewis' works, whom Lindskoog successfully debunks as a fraud in her later work, Light in the Shadowlands. It would seem that their relationship evolved over time.

This is not a great work to give an overarching Narnian theology. I'm still searching for such for myself. This may be helpful for a teen-ager to read as they explore the theology of Narnia, but not for a higher level.

this is a powerful book, and for Narnia lovers every where! I urge you to read this Book! it explains alot of the stuff That i didn't understand,like About Aslan creating earth not god. And helped me to basically understand! Thank you!