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What would C. S. Lewis Say about Harry Potter? (#3)

It’s important to only criticize what we have a taste for—or at least to be very cautious about any other kind of criticism. In criticizing Harry Potter, therefore, we should first decide what genre Harry Potter represents. We need to know what we are dealing with.

C. S. Lewis tells us (although the Greek philosophers have told us so, too) that the “first qualification for judging any piece of workmanship from a corkscrew to a cathedral is to know WHAT it is—what it was intended to do and how it is meant to be used. After that has been discovered the temperance reformer may decide that the corkscrew was made for a bad purpose, and the atheist may think the same about the cathedral. But such questions come later. The first thing is to understand the object before us: as long as we think the corkscrew was meant for opening tins or the cathedral for entertaining tourists we can say nothing to the purpose about them.”

And the first thing the reader (and critic) needs to know about Harry Potter is what the books are meant to be.

Some people would say that the Harry Potter books are primarily meant to be “children’s literature,” but C. S. Lewis resisted this special classification of “juvenile tastes.” He believed that authors started to label their books “For Children” primarily because children became the only market recognized for the books they wanted to write. The genre “children’s literature” was therefore born more out of economic necessity than out of the recognition of an altogether different type of book.

Children are not a distinct literary species with a taste alien to adults.

But this statement requires some elucidation, which it will get in my next entry.

IS EASTER A LIE? Arguments for and against the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part 6)

I continue my journey through the case of  Christian apologists for the historical resurrection of Jesus Christ as well as the response of skeptics, attempting to present both sides fairly. In this video of the series, I start to critique C. S. Lewis’ “trilemma” argument, making references to Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins.

IS EASTER A LIE? Arguments for and against the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part 5)

IS EASTER A LIE? Arguments for and against the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part 4)

IS EASTER A LIE? Arguments for and against the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part 3)

IS EASTER A LIE? Arguments for and against the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part 2)

In this video, I continue to outline the case of Christian apologists for the historical resurrection of Jesus Christ as well as the response of skeptics, attempting to present both sides fairly:

IS EASTER A LIE? The Arguments for and against the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part 1)

The Crack Beneath the Worlds – Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4 – THE END OF THE WORLD AND BEYOND

The mermaid tied something like a string around Naomi’s waist. Was she going to tie Naomi up and leave her to drown?

Before Naomi could dwell on that thought, the creature pulled her up again, very fast, and she looked into bright sun beams coming at her, dancing in the water. She burst through the surface and was catapulted in the air, and then she felt something hard hit her head.

When she opened her eyes, she looked into the worried face of her brother. His face was red and sweaty.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “What happened?”

Good question. Naomi felt for her head. 

“Well, tell me later, okay? ’Cause we have sort of a situation here. There’s a white brim on the horizon, and beyond it only sky—I mean, except for the steam rising from behind the horizon. And the horizon is, like, coming closer all the time and there’s still only sky and steam beyond it. Looks as if we’re heading toward the brim of a gigantic waterfall or something like that. And … and,” Jerick shut his eyes for a second, “and we have trouble steering the ship around or stopping her. The current here’s tremendous and it sweeps the ship along like a … like a … stick on a river. And the anchor isn’t working either. The bottom of the ocean here’s all soft sand, like butter. The anchor just slides through it.”

It took Naomi a moment to realize what Jerick was talking about, but when she did she forgot all about the mermaid and the string around her waist, and jumped up. Jerick was right. Ahead of them stretched a white brim all along the horizon, and steam rose from beyond the water. Never had any horizon looked so close to her, and it came closer with every second. How fast they went, and how the current rushed, and how hot it was here! She felt sweat on her forehead mingle with the water from her wet hair. “What are we to do? And why is it so hot all of a sudden?”

“Don’t know. The heat seems to be coming from the … from the abyss or whatever you want to call it.”

“From the abyss.” Naomi recalled Onogog’s demonstration with the little ship and the plate. “Or maybe this world really is flat and we’re steering toward the end of the world right now.” Naomi only half believed it herself.

“Don’t start with that again!” Jerick grew even redder in the face. “No, I think it’s probably just a wa— But look at what the sailors are doing!”

Onogog and his eleven men were busy tying a long rope around themselves. Onogog tied it around his waist and between his legs like a mountain climber and passed it on to the next man, who did the same.

“I think I know what they’re doing,” Naomi said. “I think they’re trying to keep anyone from falling off the ship—you know, once we reach the brim of the ocean and goodness knows what happens. Either they’re all going to die or all going to live.”

Naomi knew they’d better join the men, although she felt very much like crying and running away. Tying herself to that rope was like tying herself to Death. But there was no other option; they had to do it.

They both dashed toward the sailors.

Naomi came first. Her sweaty hands slipped several times off the rope as she feverishly tried to tie it around her waist. It was then she noticed a strange belt around her waist and a little bottle attached to the belt. The string! The mermaid. But she would have to think about the mermaid later. That is, if she survived the next few minutes.

Hurry up! Hurry up! We don’t want to lose Jerick. What dreadful heat!

The steam from the edge drifted over to them and swallowed up the ship in a hell of tropical oppression. Naomi felt as if she couldn’t breathe. Her eyes started burning. Tears shot up and clouded her vision.

“C’MON, LET ME HELP YOU!” Jerick shouted.

Naomi had never seen him so red in the face, as if dipped in a bucket of paint. He seized the rope with shaking hands and tied it fast on Naomi.

Then everything happened at once. There was a big wave, screaming and shouting, the bow going slightly up in the air, and the next moment everything going down, steeply down. Before Naomi realized it, they were falling off the edge of the ocean, like stones: falling, wretchedly falling, their feet lifting up from the deck and the ship dropping underneath them.

Naomi screamed. She no longer knew whether she was right-side up or upside down. The sailors all tumbled over her and over each other while they fell faster and faster.

She caught a glimpse of Onogog. There he was, thank goodness, still holding on to a latch with his steely arms to some handle at the bow of the ship. Please, please let him hold on! We don’t want to lose contact with the ship.

Slowly the rope uncurled itself and began to look like a crooked mast attached to the bow of the ship. The ship fell with her bow pointing diagonally downward and the rope now stood straight up.

But where was Jerick? It was hard even to know where to look.

“Jerick!” Naomi cried. “JERICK!”

Nothing. Only men whose long hair and beards fluttered in the air stream. The hot air stream. It beat against her face like a hard whip and made it difficult for her to keep her eyes open. It was a wonder she could see anything at all.

Seconds, minutes passed. No impact yet.

The air cooled down and the steam disappeared, and Naomi recollected herself enough to observe that she was the last person on the rope. No Jerick, only the rope’s empty end fluttering like the sailors’ hair.

“Jerick! Oh Jerick!”

○ ○ ○

The ship sped over the edge of the ocean just when Jerick snatched the rope from Naomi. The deck dropped underneath his feet, and he clung to the rope, but his sweaty hands slipped, slid down the moist texture. He tightened his grip, tried to drag himself away from the end of the rope.

The end. He felt it slithering up his legs, beating its way to his waist, his stomach, his chest.

Before he lost hold of the rope completely, he brushed against a familiar object: the basket of the balloon. What with the wind, heat, and steam, he could see as little as Naomi, but he was close enough to the basket to feel for something to hold on to. Something less slippery than the rope. He let go of the rope and glued himself to the basket as to a signal of hope from his own dear world.

But now what? He could try to cut the tie between the mast and the balloon. He might be safe then, flying in the basket of the balloon. Or would he? The balloon was probably damaged. Balloon fabric begins to fall apart when the weather is too hot, which is why balloons usually launch early in the morning. This insufferable heat had likely ruined the balloon; Jerick was surprised it hadn’t yet completely deflated.

Even if the balloon was still all right, though, what about the others? He should at least get Naomi into the basket with him. But would he be able to save the sailors? It would be very risky to tie the end of the rope to the basket; he might be blown away and lose his own life in addition to having lost everyone else’s. What was he to do?

Blast it all, he had to risk it. He couldn’t let everyone die and save only himself.

He let go of the basket with one hand and tried to catch the end of the rope. If it were only a little closer, and if it only didn’t flutter so much! Jerick reached over as far as he could, but it wasn’t far enough. He had to let go with the other hand. He had to let go of the basket.

He hesitated.

Argh, to hell with it, I’ve got to do this! He screamed into the suffocating wind and let go of the basket’s cane. Paddling in the air like someone learning to swim, he tried to get closer to the rope. Yes! Yes! He was getting there. Just another inch. Stupid rope! It was still fluttering as much as ever. He desperately tried to catch it. C’mon! Come here, you little beast!

It seemed to take ages until he got a hold of it. Thank goodness the air had turned outright chilly by now, so the rope no longer slipped through his hand.

And now back to the basket.

The basket was farther away than expected, and he paddled and kicked and wiggled his body in the attempt to breach the distance. No use. His move away from the basket must have been due to the wind or something else, not due to his paddling. As much as he tried, the basket actually moved away from him. 

“NO! NO! NO!” He yelled as though he could command the basket to come back. Please don’t let me lose it, don’t let me lose us all! And at the same time he wondered whether anything he did would even matter. Would there be a bottom at all into which the ship would smash? They had already fallen for several minutes, which meant they were already a few miles below the edge of the ocean. No waterfall was this big. Had Naomi been right? Was this the end of the world? Would they keep falling until they had all died of thirst and starvation, provided there was still air to breathe? And after they had died, would their corpses keep plunging downward into a bottomless pit? Would their flesh start to rot and their clothes turn into rags and their bones appear from underneath their skin, all while falling down, ever down? Jerick had a morbid picture of fourteen skeletons endlessly falling, falling, falling—

Unexpectedly the basket did move closer. In fact, it happened so quickly that Jerick almost flew past it. He reached out his hand just in time to catch one of the strings between the basket and the balloon.

After some precarious maneuvering, he set about tying the rope to one of the poles inside the basket. This was not as easy as it sounds, seeing that he always had to hold on to something with at least one hand. Finally, though, it was done.

And now let’s undo the other one. He moved over to where the balloon was tied to the mast and tried to undo the knot, but he couldn’t. Of course! He should have thought of that. There was way too much tension on it. Even Onogog wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

The name Onogog rang a bell in Jerick’s head. It made him think of weapons, and that reminded him that he had taken a Swiss Army Knife with him to the balloon festival. Yes, there it was, in his right-hand pocket. Thank goodness it hadn’t fallen out. He took it—very carefully, because he did not want it to slide out of his hand—and began hacking at the rope. It was hard work, because the rope was thick. And all the while Jerick was astonished that they still had not reached any bottom. He glanced downward beyond the ship, and then he saw it. There was a surface all right, and they were approaching it fast.

Immediately he hacked and cut away at the rope again. Stupid thing! C’mon, c’mon! Argh!

More and more frantically he chopped and slashed and cut at the rope, and he screamed and yelled and cried, and tears flew out of his eyes like raindrops falling upward, and then, all of a sudden—crash!—he was thrust into the bottom of the balloon and felt a sharp pain pierce his left shoulder.

Buy the The Crack Beneath the Worlds at Amazon.com.

The Crack Beneath the Worlds – Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3 – HEIMSKRING

Naomi hated always having to look up at people, and in the case of this man she had to crane her head back even farther than usual. His colossal frame was clothed in brown leather, layered like a suit of armor and adorned with two pieces of chain mail on his upper arms. The plaits of his blond hair mingled with the plaits of his beard, making it hard to see whether a particular plait grew out of his face or the top of his head. Naomi was frightened to look at him for too long.

“Dis struger, egnildeme!” (“Greetings, strangers!”) the man said and lifted his right hand in greeting. “Fard ki nehrafer ref ri dis?” (“May I know who you are?”)

Jerick cleared his throat and also lifted his right hand, but then moved it to scratch the back of his head. “Uh … you probably can’t understand us, just like we can’t understand a word of your gibberish, but maybe you could, I don’t know, communicate to us somehow who you are and where the heck we are?”

The man looked at them calmly, his blue eyes exuding dignity, despite the fact that his bearded face lacked any sort of comprehension. “Un, nef sad rier emana raf, nada si red rees ganal.” (“Well, if that was your name, then it’s very long.”)

“Well, as I said, we don’t seem to understand each other.” Jerick laughed uncomfortably.

“Rif nenisha nus tichin u nehesterfe.” (“We don’t seem to understand each other.”)

“Yeah, right, whatever.”

Before Jerick could think of what else to say, Naomi had the sensible idea of pointing to herself and saying “Naomi” several times.

“Ah! Nar-omi.”

“Yes, yes, I’m Naomi.”

“And I’m Jerick.”

“Jar-rick. Jar-rick. Ah!” The man pointed to himself. “O-no-gog. O-no-gog.”

“Onogog,” the children said.

“Aye, ki ni Onogog.” (“Yes, I am Onogog.”) He nodded again. Then he lifted his long, muscular arms and pointed all around him, saying repeatedly, “Heimskring. Heimskring.”

“Heimskring?” Naomi and Jerick glanced at each other.

“Maybe that’s the name of this ocean or country here,” Jerick said.

“Or this world,” Naomi suggested.

Jerick first sneered, then grunted. “I think you’ve been reading too many fantasy novels, Nomers.”

“Well, where else can we be? We don’t have any people like him at home. At least not anymore.”

Naomi felt as though she had stepped into a dream or a movie—or yes, into one of her fantasy novels she liked so much. Was this really happening? Had they drifted into a different world? Had it been a magic cloud that had wrapped them up like a blanket and carried them to an unknown place? Or had they landed in another time, like they did in stories with time machines?

She would have to wait to find out.

They proceeded to climb down the mast with Onogog, leaving the dragon balloon tied on top. Down on deck they met the sailors, who still threw fearful glances at the dragon hovering above them. They were twelve in all, including Onogog, but none of them was as imposing as he. Their hair and beards were not as long, their foreheads not as square, their shoulders not as broad, and their statures not as giant-like. Like Onogog, however, they were all blond and wore brown leather outfits.

Naomi scooted close to Jerick. She had never stood amongst a whole group of warriors, all equipped with real weapons. By the looks of them, they’d all killed people at one time or another. She felt like she’d much rather be at home reading about other worlds or times than actually being there.

Naomi’s fears turned out to be groundless. The sailors gave them as warm a welcome as possible on such a rustic ship, serving the hungry children plenty of cold meat, bread, and fruit, as well as some beer. It was the first time Naomi had beer, and it tasted very bitter. She had a hard time not spitting it back out. Although it seemed the right sort of drink in this setting.

During the meal, Onogog took one of the wooden plates and turned it upside down. With a few sticks and a piece of leather, he built a little model of a ship and put it on the plate. He gestured to the children that the ship was the one they were sailing on right now, and, pointing to the plate, he said, “Heimskring.” After that he slowly moved the ship toward the edge of the plate, even imitating the wind by bending down and blowing into the leathery sail. “Aye?”

“I think he’s trying to tell us about the purpose of their voyage,” Naomi said.

“Yeah, seems like they’ve got the fantastic notion that they could travel to the end of the world. As if the world were flat. Seem to be a little behind the times, these guys. Stuck in the Middle Ages or something.”

“A lot of people in the Middle Ages didn’t think that the earth was flat. You read the wrong kind of books, Jerick. You should read some older ones for a change. The other day Dad read to me a—”

“Okay, okay, know-it-all, I’m a balloon specialist, that’s all. I don’t have time to read all that old stuff.”

Onogog raised his thick eyebrows. He did not have to understand English to perceive their irritated tone of voice.

Naomi saw his face and smiled at him. “It’s all right, Onogog. We just still aren’t sure where we are and if your world might really be flat.”

“What?” said Jerick. “You think that the earth here actually might be flat?”

“Well, you never know.” Naomi forced herself to keep smiling and glanced at Onogog. “We might be in another world, and other worlds might be different from ours.”

“Yeah, and are being carried on the back of some giant ant or something.” He grunted again. “I guess we’ll see. At least it’s pretty obvious that that’s what they think. I mean the part about the world being flat, not the ant. Which isn’t very comforting. Either we’re headed toward the brim of the world and might fall off any minute or we’re traveling with a bunch of blockheads.”

○ ○ ○

After they had been on the ship for two hours, Naomi leaned over the starboard railing to take in the scenery. The railing was very low, even for her, and she wondered how the tall men managed not to trip over it by accident and fall into the sea. Naomi peered down at the moving water. It looked alive, as if it were a creature of its own: the waves, the gushing power with which it hit the ship, the white foam dancing over the dark azure.

She was glad to be on the ship and no longer in the balloon where she would still have to be afraid of landing in the ocean and drowning. She always had been especially afraid that she might die of drowning. Sometimes at night, when she could not fall asleep, she had horrible pictures in her head of being on a sinking ship and not getting on a lifeboat. She imagined herself struggling in the water, panic-stricken, being pulled under, her lungs bursting—

She shook her head as if to wake up. Stupid girl, to think of that now! Being on a ship was the worst possible time to remember her waking nightmares. So she looked down on the water and tried to simply appreciate its beauty. How quickly the ship was moving. Much more quickly, it seemed, than when they had first arrived. The water also looked much clearer. Naomi almost thought she could see the bottom of the ocean. But that must be an optical illusion, she figured. And what was that? A dolphin?

Naomi leaned farther over the railing. In the water, a slender creature swam parallel to the ship. It grew larger and larger, and suddenly it surged out of the water, and for an infinitesimal moment Naomi thought she saw a mermaid, though much more beautiful and terrifying than any she had ever seen in a picture.

The creature shot directly at her. A strong hand gripped her left upper arm and tore her over the railing, pulled her down headfirst into the water. The sounds of the wind and the voices of the sailors abruptly died away, and wet coldness engulfed her instead of the warm rays of the sun. 

For a moment the strong hand let Naomi go, but then a whole arm slung around her from behind and wedged her in while she was being pulled down, down into her nightmares.

The light from the sun became fainter. The coldness grew.

The body of the creature pressed against her spine, swung back and forth, back and forth. Like a fish. The motion distracted Naomi for a few seconds, until she remembered her fears. Her lungs felt strangely tight. A rush of panic surged through her body. She struggled to free herself, but the arm held her as if it were made of steel.

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