I’ve seen Hillsdale College advertisements on Facebook over the years (along with mention of it by a few online friends), but since it seemed that mostly their offerings were about American history and political related issues of American government, I had not tried it out. A new offering from them, though, caught my eye: C.S. Lewis on Christianity. The format is simple and straightforward — listen to several video lectures (this course has seven), and answer some multiple choice questions after each lecture. Since I’m already familiar with C.S. Lewis, though it’s been many years since I last read his non-fiction, the lectures are a good overview of the major ideas in his non-fiction, such as Lewis’ Abolition of Man and Mere Christianity, and include some things that I had either forgotten or not come across before.
The third lecture talks about C.S. Lewis’ conversion to Christianity, and Lewis’ view of conversion as V-shaped: we must first go down, then further down, hit bottom and experience initial conversion, then gradually come back up, in the new life. We can observe this pattern in much of Lewis’ fiction writing. The lecturer mentions the number of steps into and out of the wardrobe, though I’m not sure if that is a really clear example; nothing in the text says that Lucy or the others stepped down and then stepped up, just that there were a certain number of steps.
However, other examples certainly do make the point. The Silver Chair‘s overall structure is certainly that of a V: starting at the school Eustace and Jill attended, then to a very high cliff place above Narnia, then down to Narnia itself. Then falling down into the giant-made letters of “Under Me” then down to Underland. Puddleglum, Eustace and Jill finally accomplish the mission from Aslan while in Underland. Then the return trip, back to Narnia, then back to Aslan, and then returning to the where it all started, at Jill and Eustace’s school. The other Narnia travels from our world — The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian and following — certainly have the beginning and end same, since that was in the nature of the travel itself — a point really noted in the first two stories, not so much in Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Yet The Silver Chair especially makes the V-shaped story in a very literal, geographical way.
Voyage of the Dawn Treader especially gives a picture of Christian conversion. Eustace started out a real twit, then quickly worsened as he was put into difficult situations that revealed his bad character. The downhill slide continued, until he ended up down in a valley, then became a dragon. Upon finally becoming a dragon, the rock-bottom point of the V, in a great narrative account Eustace finally came to his senses:
his first feeling was one of relief. There was nothing to be afraid of any more. He was a terror himself now and nothing in the world but a knight (and not all of those) would dare to attack him. …
But the moment he thought this he realised that he didn’t want to. He wanted to be friends. He wanted to get back among humans and talk and laugh and share things. He realised that he was a monster cut off from the human race. An appalling loneliness came over him. He began to see the others had not really been fiends at all. He began to wonder if he himself had been such a nice person as he had always supposed. He longed for their voices. He would have been grateful for a kind word even from Reepicheep.
But then it was still a long way back up the “V”: he first became nicer and more helpful as a dragon. After some time, then he met Aslan, and even then he first tried removing his own dragon skin, which still revealed more dragon skin under; then Aslan removed all the dragon and restored him back to a human boy. Afterwards, as Lewis notes, Eustace began to be a different boy. He had relapses. There were still many days when he could be very tiresome. But most of those I shall not notice. The cure had begun. The upward climb of that V had begun and would continue for the rest of his life — the “further up and further in.” What a great picture of salvation is provided here: not merely a one-time event back in the past. That was the cure that began. Salvation then continues in the present life, and to the future glorification and perfection.
Then of course comes the glorious ending to the Chronicles of Narnia, with the idea of “further up and further in” in its fullness with the ushering in of the New Narnia, leading to the real, new England and New Earth.
The Hillsdale College lecture mentions a few other examples of a V-shaped experience, such as in Lewis’ last novel, Till We Have Faces: the heroine goes down into a green valley, a picture of the conversion experience — descent and loss, but such descent into greenness and fertility — which signifies gain and new life. The bottom of the V is the “turn” — the “cure begun” in Eustace, also what J.R.R. Tolkien referred to as the eucatastrophe (see previous post link: ). Other examples of this bitter-sweet conversion, where the turn occurs, can be found in The Great Divorce (a character with a lizard on the shoulder), and also in the third volume of the Space Trilogy, That Hideous Strength, with the conversion of Jane: It was a person (not the person she had thought), yet also a thing, a made thing, made to please Another and in Him to please all others, a thing made at this very moment… And the making went on amidst a kind of splendour or sorrow or both.
I’ll continue through this set of C.S. Lewis lectures, and then on to more lecture series from Hillsdale, for further insights into particulars of Lewis’ writing and then other topics such as classic literature. Hillsdale also offers an introductory course on C.S. Lewis with another nine lectures.
Our Blessed Hope: Thoughts on Imaginative Christian Writing 
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