It's Not Vandalism

No.238: November 22, 2024

Welcome to The Square Inch, a Friday newsletter on Christianity, culture, and all of the many-varied “square inches” of God’s domain. This is a paid subscription feature with a preview before the paywall, so please consider subscribing to enjoy this weekly missive along with an occasional “Off The Shelf” feature about books, a frequent Pipe & Dram feature of little monologues/conversations in my study, and Wednesday’s “The Quarter Inch,” a quick(er) commentary on current events.

Dear Friends,

For some reason I have had an extremely difficult time clearing my head and arriving at a suitable topic for today’s newsletter. I am uninspired to write about our current political scene, other than to simply say that I am glad that, as I predicted, Matt Gaetz is not going to be the Attorney General of the United States. Also, a political journalist and insider named Mark Halperin charges thousands of dollars per month to read his journalism, and in this case his readers learned that he was convinced that Gaetz would be confirmed by the Senate. I don’t begrudge Mr. Halperin making truckloads of cash, but a subscription to The Square Inch Newsletter is pennies on the dollar and I didn’t need any inside dope to know that Mr. Gaetz was unlikely to pass muster with the Senate.

And after this week’s Antioch Declaration, I am done writing about Nazis and other maladjusted young white men who alternate moment to moment between macho chest-thumping and the most unsightly crybaby whining the world has ever seen.

So let’s talk about something more important and long-lasting: putting C.S. Lewis books in the proper order.

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My wife, our youngest, and I just finished listening to a wonderful audiobook performance of C.S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew. It was the first time through for our daughter, and the first time in something like forty years for us. Kenneth Branagh read this version and he was simply superb.

I’d forgotten pretty much everything about the book except that it involves a boy named Digory and a girl named Polly. They have an adventure brought about by Digory’s Uncle Andrew, an amateur “magician” who dabbles in the occult. He learned his “magic” from his godmother, “Mrs. LeFay,” who, he informs the children, was part fairy and was locked up in a mental institution. Learned readers will note that “LeFay” was the last name of Merlin’s nemesis, Morgana LeFay. It’s a hint right off the bat that Uncle Andrew is up to no good!

Long story short, the children are sent off by Uncle Andrew to another world, the desolate wasteland of Charn, where they accidentally (well, for Digory it was pretty purposeful, if ignorant) awaken an ancient witch, Jadis. They try to escape but Jadis clings to them and they bring her back to London. There is great mischief and eventually Digory, Polly, Uncle Andrew, a cabbie named Frank, and his horse named Strawberry, along with Jadis herself end up in another world being newly formed. By a Lion, of course.

Now, this book contains unspeakable delights for children. Over the last forty years I had forgotten nearly everything about the book, but I hadn’t forgotten one very distinct sensation: the moment of revelation. The most amazing and thrilling “Aha!” You see, during the tussle on the London street right before vanishing into this new world, Jadis had torn off a metal bar from the lamp post and carried it with her. When the Lion approaches her, she throws the metal bar at his head, and it glances off and falls to the earth. A little while later Digory and Polly notice something strange: there is a miniature little lamp post growing out of the ground! How curious! The lamp post quickly becomes a full-grown lamp post right in front of their eyes. And that is pure literary…

MAGIC. Aha! I get it! I get it! Those were the exclamations that burst from my own mouth as a boy, and the same look of wild-eyed delight filled my daughter’s eyes in just the same way. There’s no feeling quite like it. It must be what Archimedes felt when he yelled his “Eureka!”