I’m re-reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to my children at the moment. At 13 and 11, some would say they are too old to be read to, but we can deal with the raised eyebrows straight away.
Firstly, my children want to be read to. And secondly, many adults like to be read too as well. Look at the rise and rise of Audible.
At the moment, on Audible, I’m enjoying Hugh Grant read A Christmas Carol. It’s free to listen if you subscribe. Give it a go. The story is much adapted, but the original is often unread. But the adaptations inevitably change things.
Think of Bill Murray in the 1988 Hollywood movie, Scrooged. It sounds like A Christmas Carol, but is it? The protagonist is not a money-grubbing banker called Ebeneezer Scrooge, but a TV executive called Frank Cross.
Then there’s the Albert Finney version of 1972, which has added songs that are obviously not there in the original. A surprisingly faithful adaptation is A Muppet Christmas Carol with Michael Caine twenty years later. (For more discussion of family Christmas movies, listen to the Popcorn Parenting podcast.) But all these versions differ from the original in subtle – and unsubtle – ways.
I mention this because of a few thoughts I’ve had since I dumped on Pilgrim’s Progress in my last post. On social media, I’ve had a number of people point out Christian’s attempts to form community and interactions at the house of Interpreter, and his stay at the Palace Beautiful with Prudence, Piety and Charity.
But it is mostly the adaptations of Pilgrim’s Progress that are read, re-read, and remembered. Legacy and memory then becomes the reality. Originally written in the 17th century, Bunyan’s archaic language needs updating. But modern adaptations also remove all kinds of characters, references and nuances.
Moreover, current expectations of stories mean that one can’t help but push the story even more towards what Joseph Campbell would call ‘The Hero’s Journey’. All of this makes Christian even more of a hero, resisting trials and temptations on his own, rather than as part of a church, which was the point I was making.
Incidentally, there’s a whole chapter on A Christmas Carol in The Gospel According to a Sitcom Writer, in which an Angel appears to Charles Dickens. There’s an extract at the bottom go this post.
Apologies, this post is a little fragmentary, so I’m just leaning into that. But here’s the main thing.
Getting Back to Narnia
I wanted to share the bit of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe that I found most exhilarating on the latest reading. It’s not actually in Narnia. It’s the bit where Peter and Susan go to the Professor to ask what they should do about their little sister, Lucy, who is convinced she has found some snowy mythical world through the back of a wardrobe.
So they went and knocked at the study door, and the Professor said "Come in," and got up and found chairs for them and said he was quite at their disposal. Then he sat listening to them with the tips of his fingers pressed together and never interrupting, till they had finished the whole story. After that he said nothing for quite a long time. Then he cleared his throat and said the last thing either of them expected.
"How do you know?" he asked, "that your sister's story is not true?"
"Oh, but—" began Susan, and then stopped. Anyone could see from the old man's face that he was perfectly serious…. She had never dreamed that a grown-up would talk like the Professor and didn't know what to think….
"But do you really mean, Sir," said Peter, "that there could be other worlds—all over the place, just round the corner—like that?"
"Nothing is more probable," said the Professor, taking off his spectacles and beginning to polish them, while he muttered to himself, "I wonder what they do teach them at these schools."
Much later, in The Magician’s Nephew, we discover the Professor had himself been to Narnia. In fact, this crops up in our latest episode of Cooper & Cary Have Words in which we spoke to fine artist, Alastair Gordon. We also talked about what on earth Father Christmas is doing in Narnia, which initially seems odd and out of place. And I’ll write about that next time.
The Sense of Wonder
For now, let’s just note the thrilling sense of wonder in that moment when the children discover that there may be worlds beyond the ones that we see. And it’s an adult – and a professor – who tells them this.
One of the true joys of Christmas is that it cuts against the explain-all scientism and the grindingly aggressive secularism of our age. At Christmas, there is more than a sense of the miraculous. It is an expectation.
Don’t believe me?
Sitcoms, as is so often the way, contain the condensed answer. In the Christmas special of any sitcom you like, you are permitted one miracle. In fact, you almost expect one moment of transcendent impossibility. When it looks like all is lost, and the characters are at the end of their tether and the day is ruined, Christmas itself rides to the rescue – in a way that would be unsatisfactory, overly convenient or contrived in a non-Christmas episode.
Christmas is the time when we dare to believe in the possibility of peace on earth – and that this is something not from ourselves, but must come down from above. We can at least give thanks that we cannot shake off our desire for Christmas miracles.
Here, as promised, is the opening of the chapter on a Christmas Carol in which Dickens is visited by the Archangel Gabriel.
1843. London. The bedroom of Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens lay in bed, fast asleep. Although he was in debt and his latest novel had sold poorly, he was sleeping deeply, for he had just finished a new work that he felt could reverse his fortunes. The book was called A Christmas Carol and concerned a miserly figure called Ebenezer Scrooge.
As the clock struck one, the curtain rustled. The dog, sleeping by the glowing embers of the fire downstairs, woke up and then quickly dozed off again, unaware that in his master’s bedroom, a shining white figure had appeared at the foot of the bed.
‘Charles Dickens,’ said the Angel Gabriel.
Dickens did not respond.
‘Charles Dickens,’ repeated the Angel Gabriel, a little louder but not loud enough to wake Mrs Dickens. But then again, it probably wasn’t loud enough to wake Mr Dickens. He sighed to himself and said, ‘This is Acts 12 all over again. I hope he doesn’t sleep as deeply as the Apostle Peter.’
So he walked over to Charles’s side of the bed and gave his side a shove. Charles Dickens opened his eyes and was afraid. He sat up in bed and stared in wonder at the archangel. ‘Are you a spirit come to torment me?’ said Charles Dickens.
‘Do I look like a spirit?’ said Gabriel.
‘You mean, you’re an angel?’ said Dickens.
‘An archangel, actually,’ said Gabriel. ‘You’d think that would mean I don’t have to run errands like this, but apparently not. Anyway, I’ve just come to kick the tyres on this book you’ve written because it feels like it is going to define Christmas for the English-speaking world for decades to come.’
‘You mean A Christmas Carol is going to be a bestseller?’ said Dickens with great excitement. ‘Not that I wrote it in order to make money.’
The angel looked at the author, who looked away.
‘Okay, I was hoping to clear a few bills,’ said Dickens…
Read the rest in The Gospel According to a Sitcom Writer. Order your signed copy and a copy of The Sacred Art of Joking here.