There are few who are not aware of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia.
Many have read the delightful and charming seven missives a few times, others but once and many more, probably, have seen the first three books turned films: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader—the finale of the series is, of course, The Last Battle.
The Last Battle can be read at a variety of levels, but throughout many of the books in the series, the Narnians are often pitted against the dark skinned Calormenes. There are, of course, Narnians that are not to be trusted and seeming enemies of the Narnians that might be trusted-the ethos created by Lewis is not a simple and enchanted good versus evil realm and reality. But, there are tendencies to see the Narnians as, at their best, the nobler types and the Calormenes as the lesser breed.
Some have seen this as a form of English racism and a confirmation of Edward Said’s “Orientalist thesis”—the same trajectory can be found in Tolkien.
The Last Battle pits the Narnians against the Calormenes in a rather explicit and not to be denied way—Aslan (and the Nanians) stand for that which is good, beautiful and noble and the Calormenes (who heed the leadership of Shift the Ape and Puzzle the donkey) threaten the very existence of Aslan and the Narnians. The battle is waged with much ferocity and by war’s end, the Narnians emerge victorious. The problem, then, becomes what to do with the defeated Calormenes (and those who opposed Aslan). The ending of the book has a strange twist to it. A simpler ending would be to see the Calormenes as defeated evil people and in need of punishment. The more complex ending highlights the fact that there were many who opposed Aslan, but who did so thinking they were doing what was right and good—Emeth is one such character in the book.
Emeth is a Hebrew word that means true, truth, good of character and worthy of admiration. Emeth assumed in obeying Tash (the false god) he was being true and faithful to reality. Emeth had been taught many caricatures of Aslan and the Narnians, hence his distrust of them if true.
In short, Emeth was a faithful servant of the limited light offered him. When Aslan confronts Emeth (chapter 25) he says, “all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me”. Did Lewis have a model for Emeth in his life?
Mahmoud Manzalaoui (1924-2015) was a student at Oxford in the late 1940s and C.S. Lewis was his tutor. Manzalaoui was a Muslim from Egypt and came to study Literature at Oxford—he focussed on Medieval Literature (Lewis’ area of specialty) and, upon completing his PHD in 1954, eventually moved to British Columbia where he spent most of his teaching days in the English department at University of British Columbia. Manzalaoui was also active when at Oxford in the Socratic Club that Lewis guided and shaped until he left for Cambridge in 1954.
I was quite fortunate in December 2014 to spend a couple of hours with Mahmoud Manzalaoui at his flat in Vancouver. We talked about many things, but the focus of the discussion was on C.S. Lewis. Ross Labrie (who also taught at UBC with Manzalaoui), Mahmoud and I made for an animated and informed threesome. I had been informed, before meeting Mahmoud, that he had been the model for Emeth in The Last Battle. I asked Mahmoud about this, and he confirmed that this was probably the case. The dark skinned Mahmoud had made much the same journey as Emeth—for Lewis, of course, this had little or nothering to do with skin colour—Lewis was never so shallow or so silly—it had everything to do with being open to the overtures of reality as embodied in Aslan—many were the Narnians who lacked the attentiveness of Emeth. Lewis realized that the last battle, in the depths of the human soul and spirit, was more about an inner alertness and attentiveness to the Divine than whether someone was Narnian or Calormene—even the cynical dwarves and Puzzle the Donkey had a private audience with Aslan in a way few Narnians did.
Mahmoud Manzalaoui (Emeth) died January 21 2015. I was fortunate in December 2014 to have a couple of hours to hear his story, his read of The Chronicles of Narnia (of which he did a thoughtful review) and his time, when doing a BA, as a student of C.S. Lewis. I could easily understand why Lewis might see Mahmoud as a model for Emeth.
Ron Dart
While I have yet to fully agree on the argument here (the well-intentioned opponents of Aslan), again an excellent article from Ron Dart.
Posted by: Idrian | February 16, 2015 at 02:38 PM