I once heard that being sick is your body's way of forcing you to take a break (obviously from someone who has never heard of germ theory, just kidding!, stress makes you far more susceptible to illness by weakening your immune system), but it sure is a lousy vacation. We've had the plague at our house for the last couple weeks, besides the necessities of life, I really didn't feel like accomplishing anything, leaving me time to actually read. It has been a very long time since I visited either Middle Earth or Narnia, and it was a very enjoyable trip. What amazes me is that every time I reread a favorite book, I come away with something new every time, exactly like spending time with an old and dear friend. For some reason, I'm really fascinated by the idea of family, childhood, and character development of late (probably because I'm dealing with just those issues myself). My attention was specifically drawn to Eustace Scrubb, probably the least loved character in all of fiction, introduced in C.S. Lewis's 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader,' and actually the most recent movie version of that book does an excellent job with that specific character, though I'd avoid the cinematic version of 'Prince Caspian' if you have any regard for the book.
In Lewis's words:
'There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it…they [his parents] were very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotalers…he [Eustace] liked books if they were books of information and had pictures of grain elevators…but as I said before, Eustace had only read the wrong kind of books. They had a lot to say about exports and imports and governments and drains, but they were weak on dragons.'
As the story unfolds, poor Eustace finds himself in the middle of a fairytale and an adventure, neither of which he wants, but desperately needs. He began the tale as an abominable sort of creature and by the end of the book, he is actually a person, and one you don't mind taking on an adventure or two.
Now Eustace is one extreme and Peter Pan is another. I read 'Peter Pan' once and it rather disturbed me. The idea is a nice one, at least in a story, and has captivated generations, but I'm not sure how many people would actually like to live in Neverland, the Neverland of the book, not the one romanticized in countless movies and spin-off stories. Eustace has a life deprived of parental love and affection, lacking any magic or mystery or fun. Peter Pan is a little boy without parents at all, left to an eternal childhood of freedom, but he's alone in a dangerous world with no chance of growing or changing or becoming anything better or even different. There must be something in-between having no childhood and an unending, meaningless immaturity. To quote Lewis once more, 'even in this world of course, it is the stupidest children who are most childish and the stupidest grown-ups who are most grown-up.' I think that pretty much sums up both Peter Pan and Eustace's parents respectively. But what then is the answer?
There are very few cases where I recommend a movie over a book, but in this case, 'Hook,' is a beautiful exception. The tale follows a grown-up Peter Pan, now an uptight lawyer with a family he doesn't have time for, played to perfection by Robin Williams, whose journey and transformation is not unlike that of Eustace. It manages to capture all the magic of childhood without losing sight of the fact that the magic doesn't have to die as you age, rather it only gets deeper and more mysterious and wonderful as you do, unless you lose it or kill it by trying to keep it or yourself from changing or you never believed in it in the first place.
Now you may consider all this bosh, for we also hear that 'it takes a village to raise a child,' and what is so important about parents and family and fun and mystery and magic and wonder after all? It is all highly impractical! That is just the sort of thing Eustace's parents might say and the sort of people that make suggestions to certain government agencies that perhaps parents should not be allowed to read bedtime stories to their children because there are children who don't have parents to read them bedtime stories, which puts those unfortunate children at a disadvantage, therefore no child should have a bedtime story and thus all are equally wretched! I then ask, where then is 'the village' that is supposed to be raising these children, why is 'the village' not reading bedtime stories to 'their' children? 'The village' doesn't care, but parents do (or should) and that's why parents raise children and not a government agency.
Or you might say, what is so wrong with loving childhood and wanting to pursue its ideals your entire life? It depends what you mean by the ideals of childhood, if you mean an undying sense of wonder, an open and loving spirit, an eagerness to see what the day might hold, a happiness in small things, by all means pursue these ideals, but if you mean a selfish focus on what you want and enjoy and like completely indifferent to the needs and wants of everyone else around you, then certainly not, has that idea not already consumed an entire generation that has now entered its third decade of life and stills lives with their parents? Let our hearts grow wiser rather than just older! Only then can we inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.
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