#space trilogy

In one of the other books -- I can't remember which it is -- there's a boy whose mother is dying -- got cancer or something -- and he goes to this other land -- the world is Narnia or somewhere else -- and he's told there's a magic apple tree there, where if you take an apple, one of these apples, and eat it, it cures you of any disease. But, he's a good boy, and he doesn't do it, because he's been told that stealing is wrong. So he doesn't do it. And he doesn't take the apple, and he goes home, but, wonder of wonders, there's a magic apple on his pillow, or something. Anyway, he gives it to his mother, and she's all right. What a lie. What a filthy lie, and I say filthy, because there are children who are reading that book, who themselves have a mother who is dying of cancer or something, and who he's trying to persuade, um, that their behavior will make a difference to their mother living or dying. If you're a bad boy, your mother's going to die. If your mother lives, it's because you're a good boy and said you said your p- [looks up and puts hands in prayer posture]... It's a filthy lie. I hate that. I despise it.

I stopped the video at that point and paced to the other side of the room, chuckling uncontrollably.

Pullman couldn't remember which book it was and clearly hadn't read it in decades, but he was referring to The Magician's Nephew, which was my favorite of the Narnia books both as a child and as an adult (I've reread it multiple times in my 30's alone) and I considered it my favorite work of fiction ever during a good part of my childhood -- it's amazing how, unlike with many works I loved or moderately disliked as a child, 8-year-old Liskantope's preferences aged well with regard to Narnia books, so that Nephew remains easily my favorite and The Horse and His Boy remains easily my least favorite. Pullman misremembers completely and utterly that whole aspect of Digory Kirke's arc in Nephew, and he in my opinion misinterpreted atrociously whatever he did remember sooner after reading it. He does remember correctly* that Digory didn't steal the apple when he saw it because it had been hammered into him that "stealing is wrong" and also because Aslan (our stand-in for God) had ordered him to pluck it only for Aslan to use to protect the new land of Narnia, not to use for his own personal reasons. But the "apple magically appeared on his pillow" thing didn't happen. I waited for O'Connor to politely correct Pullman, but no such luck: maybe O'Connor doesn't remember the book either.

*[EDIT: wait no, actually, Pullman even remembered that in a rather distorted way! Digory had been dispatched by Aslan to go to an apple tree far away in a gated yard and take an apple whose use would be to protect Narnia, but Digory felt tempted to steal another apple from the same tree for himself to eat (not to cure his mother) because the apples smelled so good, then noticed a bird watching him with a knowing eye and was shamed into not stealing it, but the narrator suggests that he probably wouldn't have stolen it anyway because "do not steal" was (supposedly) hammered into little boys' heads much more effectively in the late Victorian era than in the 1950's when Lewis was writing the book. This is the bit that Pullman is thinking of and has nothing to do with whether or not Digory took an apple to cure his mother.]

Here is the most relevant passage from near the end of Nephew which shows what did happen (seriously though, if you haven't read it, don't let me spoil it here -- you should consider reading it if you're not too turned off by Christian allegory, it's a fairly quick read and available here, although there's a lot to be said for first having read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the original Narnia book which I consider to be "entry-level" Narnia):

Everyone was staring solemnly at the Tree when Aslan suddenly swung round his head (scattering golden gleams of light from his mane as he did so) and fixed his large eyes on the children. "What is it, children?" he said, for he caught them in the very act of whispering and nudging one another. "Oh—Aslan, sir," said Digory, turning red, "I forgot to tell you. The Witch has already eaten one of those apples, one of the same kind that Tree grew from." He hadn't really said all he was thinking, but Polly at once said it for him. (Digory was always much more afraid than she of looking a fool.) "So we thought, Aslan," she said, "that there must be some mistake, and she can't really mind the smell of those apples." "Why do you think that, Daughter of Eve?" asked the Lion. "Well, she ate one." "Child," he replied, "that is why all the rest are now a horror to her. That is what happens to those who pluck and eat fruits at the wrong time and in the wrong way. The fruit is good, but they loathe it ever after." "Oh I see," said Polly. "And I suppose because she took it in the wrong way it won't work with her. I mean it won't make her always young and all that?" "Alas," said Aslan, shaking his head. "It will. Things always work according to their nature. She has won her heart's desire; she has unwearying strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want: they do not always like it." "I—I nearly ate one myself, Aslan," said Digory. "Would I——" "You would, child," said Aslan. "For the fruit always works—it must work—but it does not work happily for any who pluck it at their own will. If any Narnian, unbidden, had stolen an apple and planted it here to protect Narnia, it would have protected Narnia. But it would have done so by making Narnia into another strong and cruel empire like Charn, not the kindly land I mean it to be. And the Witch tempted you to do another thing, my son, did she not?" "Yes, Aslan. She wanted me to take an apple home to Mother." "Understand, then, that it would have healed her; but not to your joy or hers. The day would have come when both you and she would have looked back and said it would have been better to die in that illness." And Digory could say nothing, for tears choked him and he gave up all hopes of saving his Mother's life; but at the same time he knew that the Lion knew what would have happened, and that there might be things more terrible even than losing someone you love by death. But now Aslan was speaking again: "That is what would have happened, child, with a stolen apple. It is not what will happen now. What I give you now will bring joy. It will not, in your world, give endless life, but it will heal. Go. Pluck her an apple from the Tree." For a second Digory could hardly understand. It was as if the whole world had turned inside out and upside down. And then, like someone in a dream, he was walking across to the Tree, and the King and Queen were cheering him and all the creatures were cheering too. He plucked the apple and put it in his pocket.

This is the most philosophically deep discussion in The Magician's Nephew and perhaps in all the Narnia books, and one which was formative for me around the age of 8.

Now don't get me wrong, the moral view that Lewis is putting forth here is one closely adjacent to, or perhaps a variation on, the notion that God, the source of all Goodness, orders certain things to be done, and that makes those things Good and disobeying the order equivalent to doing Bad, even if the thing itself appears arbitrary or its Goodness is not apparent -- in fact, especially in that case, because doing the thing anyway proves that you are subservient to God and no other source or concept of morality! -- which is the main lesson he preaches in his adult novel Perelandra and is one that I find fascinatingly revolting.

But the lesson that Pullman finds so revolting, that "if you're a bad boy, your mother's going to die, and if you're a good boy, your mother's going to live", is not in the text of Nephew at all. I was a little boy myself when I first read it and never for a moment took anything like that away from it! Granted, I wasn't dealing with a dying parent (and thirty years later thankfully still haven't), but I think if my own mother had been dying at the time, my reaction to the book would have been a hugely magnified version of the reaction I actually had, which was that of being enthralled by what was clearly a fairy tale that I wished desperately could be real. I used to play fantasy games, inspired by Nephew, of traveling to other worlds. Surely, if my mother had been dying, I would be driven to fantasizing -- perhaps obsessively or unhealthily but never with the idea that it was real or my mother's actual fate was influenced by "how good/boy of a boy" I was -- about a magical fruit that could cure her that could be granted to me because of how earnest I was in wishing my mother could live -- if only, if only!

Lewis's moral take as explained by Aslan in the passage of Nephew quoted above, is that material things obtained in a fundamentally wrong way, or in a way that damages the soul and distorts the person obtaining them, still provide precisely the results they are built to bring about, but do not provide the expected fulfillment to those who get them. This is a powerful claim but one which I began to find, not long after being the age I was on first reading Nephew, holds a powerful truth. If, in the nitty-gritty real world, someone's loved one was dying, and they manage to obtain life-saving medication for that loved one but only through some kind of deeply corrupting/soul-shattering means -- having to murder a different person in cold blood, say -- then their loved one may be saved but the relationship and what each person has to live with will be deeply complicated and affected, possibly to the point of being emotionally broken forever afterwards to the point of regretting that the loved one had been saved from the illness. The concept of someone looking back and wishing that they had died of a natural illness instead of living out a deeply troubled existence afterwards because of the means through which they survived, or that "there might be things more terrible even than losing someone you love by death" (an idea explicitly echoed later both in the Star Wars prequel trilogy and in Harry Potter), was very heavy for me at the age of 8 -- I remember being haunted by it at the time -- but I'm afraid it's true of the real grown-up world on a certain level.

Also, looking only on the material level, deciding on terrible means to obtain something that does some bit of good in one way often has unforeseen material consequences that amount to lots of harm being done in other ways that make the decision not worth it. This is the moral lesson of, for instance, Breaking Bad.

Meme that came to me partway through reading Perelandra.