Monika B. Hilder, The Feminine Ethos in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia (Peter Lang, 2012).
Monika B. Hilder, The Gender Dance: Ironic Subversion in C.S. Lewis’s Cosmic Trilogy (Peter Lang, 2013).
Monika B. Hilder, Surprised by the Feminine: A Rereading of C.S. Lewis and Gender (Peter Lang, 2013).
Carolyn Curtis and Mary Pomroy Key (eds.), Women and C.S. Lewis: What his life and literature reveal for today’s culture (Lion Hudson, 2015).
There are a variety of ways of approaching and understanding the attitude of C.S. Lewis towards women both in his complex life and multilayered writings. There are those who see Lewis as reinforcing a rather dated and antiquated notion of gender, hence more of a fossil and dinosaur in our age of progressive liberalism. There are others who, in suggestive and probing ways, note that Lewis cannot be viewed in so limited and one dimensional a way---it would be too easy to dismiss him if this was the case. There are those who, gender aside, argue that Lewis realized the deeper issues of character and the virtues were neither a male nor female preserve. Both men and women, in their all too human journey, inevitably must face, again and again, situations and experiences, both within and without, that call forth the best, worst and most mediocre. The sexist and gender issue, if approached in too narrow a manner, might just miss the deeper, more significant and demanding nature of Lewis’ mythic vision for what it means, in an ultimate and penultimate way, to be human.
The brilliance and beauty of the trilogy by Monika Hilder on C.S. Lewis is the way she delves deeper and probes further than most the grander and more epic vision of Lewis---this is done by doing a meticulous and detailed read of both the Chronicles of Narnia (Volume I) and the Space Trilogy (Volume II). The final Volume (III), in an insightful and incisive way, delightfully surprises the attentive reader with a four part ending: 1) The Old Western Enfant Terrible, 2) Old Wives, Virgins, and Temptresses; Their Husbands, Lovers and Tempter, 3) Recovering ‘Femininity’ in C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces and 4) Eve’s Last, Best Word. The underlying thesis that Monika returns to, again and again, by a close and closer read of Lewis’s varied literary genres is a way of defining the feminine (and the masculine) that has an uncanny way of transcending the tribalism of a rather sterile clash of genders. Lewis was too substantive a thinker to be merely a thoughtless product of his time and ethos---he was much too grounded in a more complex historic understanding of the cardinal and theological virtues-vices (and what such a vision means for a more significant view of being human) to be preoccupied with limited views of gender.
Monika Hilder, to her timely and trenchant credit, has walked the extra mile to carefully unpack, initially, in each of the seven Chronicles of Narnia missives, how Lewis wove together deeper notions of the feminine (and masculine) that cut to the core of character transformation when confronted by challenging odds and opposition. The same theme is held close, like a golden string, in a clinging close to a responsible reading of the Space Trilogy. It is quite fitting and appropriate, by way of bringing to a close the study of Lewis and the feminine, to linger at Till We Have Faces (a favourite of Lewis’s). Again, in this well wrought myth, the theme of the meaning and significance of the feminine takes front stage and Monika Hilder does her interpretive deed well and wisely.
There can be little doubt that any discussion in the future about Lewis and the feminine will need to pass through the portal of Monika Hilder’s trilogy---those who ignore this obvious interpretive classic will, simply put, be ignoring some of the best evidence about Lewis and the gender-feminine issues as worked out in some of his major works of fiction.
The charmed fact that Monika Hilder has raised the bar of meaningful dialogue about Lewis, sexism, feminism and gender has meant that a fuller terrain is now being examined and explored in this area—the time is past for reactionary clichés and platitudes on the topic. The publication of Women and C.S. Lewis: What his life and literature reveal for today’s culture is, in many ways, yet a fuller and more comprehensive approach to the Lewis-feminist issue than Monika Hilder unpacked. But, there is a burrowing depth to Monika’s work lacking in Women and C.S. Lewis---it’s a simple case of Isaiah Berlin’s hedgehog and the fox.
Women and C.S Lewis is divided into six sections: 1) Lewis, the man—and the women in his life, 2) Lewis, the fiction author—how girls and women are portrayed in his novels, 3) Lewis, the poet—surprises from his poetry, 4) Lewis, the influencer-how his life and literature impact the twenty-first century discussion about women, 5) Lewis, the mentor—how his views on women impact mine and 6) What do Lewis’ life and literature reveal for today’s culture?
Each of these sections, fox-like, covers a great deal of terrain when dealing with Lewis and the gender issue. The exquisite combination of Monika Hilder’s trilogy that hedgehog-like burrows deeply into the issue through an analysis of some of Lewis’s more significant works of fiction and the more comprehensive approach of Woman and C.S. Lewis (in which Monika has an article) makes for two approaches to C.S. Lewis and women that fits hand and glove--- all four books are must read keepers for those truly keen to know more about the topic in a more informed and mature manner.
Ron Dart
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