ONE criticism commonly launched at C. S. Lewis’s Narnia books (as much as at J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter) is that they lack that hallmark of the best fantasy: proper world-building in depth. There is, so the criticism runs, a flimsiness in Lewis’s thinking which makes Narnia seem great from a certain angle, but, in wider view, no more three-dimensional than those old frontages that Western movies used back in the golden days of Hollywood. When this criticism is made, a reference to Tolkien’s master world-building cannot be far behind.

In this follow-up to his splendid book on The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Paths Through The Snow (Books, 24 November 2023), Jem Bloomfield addresses that “world-building” criticism with aplomb. The simple fact of the matter, Bloomfield insists, is that Lewis is about other kinds of literary and theological effects. He is a master of literary allusion, allegory, and sly suggestiveness which make Narnia every bit as (if not more) sophisticated than Tolkien’s classic approach. Bloomfield finds in Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader quite charming and striking traces of countless writings, including Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Mallory’s Morte D’Arthur, Homer’s Odyssey, and Miss Marple short stories.

It can make for a dizzying read. At the heart of Bloomfield’s digressive approach to Caspian and Voyage is a contention that Lewis is in conversation with familiar tropes and themes found not only in the literary classics, but in abiding children’s novels such as Tom Brown’s School Days or National Velvet. Lewis, Bloomfield contends, parodies stereotypes of mid-20th-century middle-class identity as powerfully as George Orwell or Agatha Christie.

What I think is genuinely delightful is Bloomfield’s analysis of Lewis’s engagement with the social mores and milieu of a Britain on the edge of radical change in its retreat from Empire. Narnia is revealed as a site of both ambition and anxiety. His analysis of Lucy Pevensie in Voyage through the lens of “New Elizabethan” thinking is most beguiling. There is theology in this book, too. I love how Bloomfield’s locates Voyage, with its echoes of Jason and the Argonauts, in the wider vision of the Lamb of God.

This book holds a thread of melancholy. Bloomfield suggests that Caspian is about history, time, erosion, and change; and I do wonder who will read Lewis in the future, despite the news of Greta Gerwig’s new Narnia series. The characters of Susan, Peter, et al. seem, to me, ever more at risk of being lost in mid-20th-century time capsules. None the less, Bloomfield is a genuinely accomplished critic. He finds in Lewis’s writings resonances that might have surprised even Lewis himself. Herein, the deep sediment of lost worlds and of a Kingdom both here and yet to come may be found.

The Ven. Dr Rachel Mann is the Archdeacon of Bolton and Salford, and a Visiting Fellow of Manchester Met University.

Jem Bloomfield is a speaker at the Festival of Faith and Literature on Saturday 1 March. Tickets, including livestream tickets, can be bought here

Gold on the Horizon: A literary journey through Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Jem Bloomfield
DLT £16.99
(978-1-915412-81-2)
Church Times Bookshop £13.59