C.S. Lewis

Like many, I’ve been reading Lewis my entire life. The man has a lot to say, but he’s mostly known for his theological treatises and the classic Narnia series, with some hardcore fans picking up The Space Trilogy books. Moving from Narnia to books like The Space Trilogy was a shock to me when I first did it; I knew Lewis as a friendly figure, almost parental in nature: forgiving, kind, and gentle, with some lessons to impart in a fun way. To go from that cozy world of fauns and heroes to the demonic scheming and sci-fi horror of Perelandra and That Hideous Strength in particular threw me. It was like I had suddenly grown up and the friendly voice of Mr. Lewis was inducting me into the War.

However, reading through The Dark Tower, which is a small collection of unfinished and, in many cases, partially missing manuscripts of story ideas, I think that, perhaps, the War had always been going on for Mr. Lewis, and Narnia was a more gentle version of introducing folks to it. To put it plainly, The Dark Tower is unsettling. There were moments when I had genuine shivers crawling over my skin as I read through the disquieting descriptions of that other world that the beloved MacPhee and his associates observed. Having immersed myself in the writing styles of that time certainly made it more disturbing; the scientific inquiries and discussions are reminiscent of those found in works like Dracula and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and it made it all the more real as I watched these puffy Brits dive further beyond the pale and into something they were increasingly less likely to be able to pull back from.

There are several other stories (read: abandoned manuscripts) in the collection, and the nature of the medium and state they were found in means that there are large gaps and breaks in the storylines, and the narrative often ends in the middle of a sentence, as the page it would have been continued on was never found. This whole state of affairs makes each story seem almost like a ‘found footage’ film, and you’re never guaranteed of any happy ending; indeed, you very rarely get any ending at all. The rest is left to your imagination, and it’s hard to see how any good could come from it.