“If Lucy had really met a faun, that is, a satyr, the result would have been a rape, not a tea party” — Christopher Tolkien on his father’s view of Narnia.

WITH “Barbie/Mumblecore” director/actor Greta Gerwig prepping Netflix’s no doubt eye-wateringly high-budgeted adaptation of CS Lewis’s Narnia novels, now is surely an appropriate time to discuss “the problem with CS Lewis.”

Pop singer Charli XCX is reportedly in line to play White Witch Jadis in Gerwig’s take on the Narnia-verse, which appears to be the first front in the war against the traditional version of CS Lewis’s Christian-proselytising, misogynistic and generally toffee-nosed fantasy legendarium.

Not to knock Ms XCX, but the character of Jadis has been played by thespians in the league of Tilda Swinton, Sheila Hancock, and Barbara Kellerman, so it might prove a stretch for the 32-year-old novice actor to convince as the evil witch, although I could of course be mistaken.

Even when the White Witch has been caricatured, by Jennifer (White Lotus) Coolidge in Epic Movie (2007) and Justine Lord in The Young Ones (1982), the character has a mature menace and commanding aura that may be lacking in her new incarnation.

Even when she’s confronted by Ade Edmonson’s vexing Vyvyan in the Young Ones: “Would you like some Turkish Delight, my child?” (White Witch)

“Not particularly, you got any kebabs?” (Vyvan)

Lewis v Tolkien: punch-up in the quad

Aside from these casting niggles, the main problem, for many, is the content and lacklustre prose of CS Lewis’s creation, which apparently incensed fellow friend, fellow Oxford academic/fantasy writer/Christian JRR Tolkien. In The Birth of Narnia and Why Tolkien Hated It (2022), Harry Lee Poe states: “Tolkien hated the story. His criticism went beyond evaluation and suggestion to the level of insult. The idea of mixing Father Christmas with fauns repelled him, because these two figures come from different traditions separated by time and space. Tolkien was a purist on such matters.

“The Norsemen would never have included Father Christmas or fauns in their stories. When he heard that Lewis had shown the story to Roger Lancelyn Green, Tolkien turned on him with vehemence and declared: ‘It really won’t do, you know! I mean to say: Nymphs and their Ways, The Love-Life of a Faun’.”

Tolkien, who, despite his Catholicism, was a man of more taste, erudition and imagination, also disliked Lewis’s heavy-handed Christian allegory: “Since you ask if I like them [the Narnia stories] I am afraid the answer is no. I do not like ‘allegory,’ and least of all religious allegory of this kind.

I suspect he was irked by his friend attempting to ape the success of his own work The Hobbit, which, for all its flaws, didn’t attempt to bludgeon its young readers into slavishly following the teachings of the Nazarene.

Tolkien also characterised Lewis’s writing style as, “creaking,” and “stiff-jointed,” “carelessly and superficially written,” thrown together by, “assembling figures from various mythologies.” Meow.

‘Not at all likeable either as a person or a thinker’

Others simply disliked Lewis as a person. Gwydion Madawc Williams, in her 1994 piece “CS Lewis as hypocrite” for the Labour and Trade Union Review, doesn’t hold back.

“I’ve always found him a very interesting writer, but also not at all likeable either as a person or a thinker. In him there was very little humanity, and not much humility either. He knew that these were Christian virtues that he was supposed to have, but they remained alien to him. In works like The Screwtape Letters, he shows much too much enthusiasm over the impending damnation of all of the people he disapproved of.”

Personally speaking, Lewis’s nauseating Christian propaganda rendered the seven Narnia books tiresome even when I was a child, and time has not made his ham-fisted religiosity any more bearable. But when you add to this his idolisation of the white, private school-educated children who feature as the stuck-up stars of Lewis’s novels, it’s difficult not to be repulsed.

Even Tolkien had time for manual workers such as Sam Gamgee (the real hero of LOTR) — the nearest Lewis got was talking hardscrabble beavers and abused working animals, such as the poor donkey Puzzle, in the final, truly miserable (and rather nasty), 1956’s The Last Battle.

And don’t get me started on CS Lewis’s barely concealed misogyny, revealed for all to see in The Last Battle, when Susan Pevensie gets it in the neck, “Where is Queen Susan?” “My sister Susan,” answered Peter shortly and gravely, “is no longer a friend of Narnia.” “Yes,” said Eustace, “and whenever you’ve tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says, ‘What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children’” “Oh Susan!” said Jill. “She’s interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up.”

Susan notably does not board the train which crashes and sends all the other now-deceased teens to Narnia heaven; presumably condemned to some hideous purgatory of Lewis’s imagination for her lack of belief in fauns, centaurs and Santa.

‘We face it with our hearts even bigger than our feet’

Returning to Netflix’s planned Narnia movies, what the company must be hoping for is a film series that avoids the billion-dollar fiasco that is rival Amazon’s Rings of Power, a LOTR prequel so lousy that even AI couldn’t have (or could?) written the dreck that purports to be the script.

Gormless proto-hobbits, superhero-style “elven commanders,” moustache-twirling (metaphorically) baddies, epically thick Faeries smiths, decent actors adrift/slumming it (Rory Kinnear, Ciaran Hinds, Peter Mullan etc) and some of the worst ever dialogue to committed to the small screen, resulting in a staggeringly lousy piece of TV.

Gerwig’s Narnia picture will face stiff competition in the screenplay stakes to match some of the “classic” lines we suffered in the first two seasons of Rings of Power:

“Enough with the quail sauce! Give me the meat and give it to me raw!”

“Are you just going to stand there, breathing like an Orc?”

“Do you know why a ship floats and a stone cannot? Because the stone sees only downward.”

“There Can Be No Trust Between Hammer and Rock.”

“Judge the work and leave judgment concerning those who wrought it to the judge who sees all things.”

“Hope is never mere, even when it is meagre.”

“There Is No Secret Worth Concealing with Deception.”

“We leave soon enough. The order is given. We march at first light.”

“Elanor Brandyfoot, with your father’s nose, and always poking it into trouble, you are far too curious and meddlesome to have been born a Harfoot. Are you quite certain you’re not part squirrel?”