“Searching for Narnia” by Natalie Feisthauer

I love Narnia. Or rather, like millions of others, I loved reading about the places and characters and the entire enchanting world created by C.S. Lewis in his Chronicles of Narnia.

It wasn’t just because heroic adventures were played out on the backdrop of archetypal stories of good versus evil. Or the fact that the pre-adolescent heroes and heroines were quite ordinary children, and being so were exceptional because they were so relatable to child readers like me. Or even the fact that there were just about as many heroines as there were heroes and that the girls could ride and shoot and fight as well as any boy in the stories.

No, it was the fact that everything in Narnia is alive.  The animals speak and the trees dance.  The water rises up to break its chains and the stars sing silvery songs to the rising sun. Creatures that never lived in our world still live in theirs, like unicorns and dragons who could be enemies or friends or both.

In Narnia, animals and people walk together as friends, hand in hand, or rather hand in paw or hoof or wing. Both look out for each other and for their shared world. And the especial magic was that to be a part of this wonderful place called Narnia all we humans had to do was to listen quietly and follow our hearts.

My entry into the world of Narnia was a bit backwards.  The first book I read was The Silver Chair which I had received as a gift when I was about nine years old.  As this was the sixth chronicle in a seven-book series, I was thrown headlong into Narnia without any warning.  No The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe to start me off, never mind The Magician’s Nephew where it all began.

I met Jill and Eustace as two reluctant heroes and had to wrap my head around Puddleglum the Marshwiggle and why he was part of the story at all.  But after reading The Silver Chair I was irrevocably changed. My heart swelled with the thought that a place like Narnia could even be thought of. I wanted to know oh so much more about this place.

Once I realized that there were six other books in the series, I rushed to our small school library in our overseas community and devoured each in turn. I couldn’t believe that so few fellow students had checked the books out. Didn’t they know that the gateway to another, more wonderful world was right there for them, within the pages of these small books?

When the library closed as our expatriate community returned to Canada, students and parents alike were welcome to take any books we wanted. I was then grateful there had been so little interest in the Narnia books since I had no competition to own them. I gathered them all up, library card-filled pockets and all, to be permanent members of my childhood treasure trove.

Back in Canada, my new world was noticeably lacking in magic. During many long and sometimes lonely wanderings through the forest I would follow ephemeral deer paths and pretend to lose my way. I would try to convince myself that when the trails disappeared and I was standing alone in the middle of the woods Mr. Tumnus would appear, the birds singing above me would greet me by name, and the boughs of the spruce trees moving in the breeze would take my hand and we would dance, just like Lucy did.

Other times sitting on my favourite rock on the shore of Lake Huron, I would stare hard into the light dancing on the water, willing a magic portal to appear on the deep blue horizon that I could walk through to greet old friends in Narnia.

I was a few years older by then and of course I didn’t actually believe Narnia existed. But oh! the tiniest voice in my heart would whisper, wouldn’t it be wonderful if maybe, just maybe, the magic was real and there was a chance, if I tried hard enough, that I could really get to Narnia?  To a place where the animals speak and the trees dance, and the water and stars are friends?  Where everything is not quite as it seems but turns out to be even better?

I have been an adult for many years now, long enough that another generation or two of children have been introduced to the Chronicles of Narnia. And long enough to have a mature, intellectual understanding of the stories’ narratives and their context. Despite this adult perspective, the magic of C.S. Lewis’ world still warms the deepest parts of my heart, which now swells for that child standing alone in the woods or sitting by the sweet sea, searching for Narnia.

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Natalie Feisthauer has spent much of her career writing scientifically, where flights of fancy are certainly not encouraged. She lets the other side of her brain loose in her spare time searching for magic writing prose and poetry. Natalie’s creativity is inspired by nature in all its forms, large and small, gentle and fierce. She loves being outdoors during all seasons, even allergy season. She is also an avid backyard birder and apprentice wildlife gardener at her home in Flamborough, Ontario. 

Note: Quick Brown Fox welcomes essays about a favourite book or about your experience of reading or writing. To get a taste of what other writers have done, see here and scroll down).

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For information about our in-Person Writing for Children and for Young Adults, with Kids Can Press senior editor Patricia Ocampo, on Saturday, July 16, see here.

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