Return to Narnia: part VI – The Silver Chair
A marsh, a city and a river of fire.
Following his adventures in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair brings Eustace Scrubb back into Narnia. This time he is accompanied by a school mate, Jill Pole. They find themselves on a quest to find King Caspian’s missing son, Prince Rilian. Aslan gives Jill a list of four signs to memorise to help them on their way but these are misunderstood, forgotten or ‘muffed’ along the way until the final sign when they free the prince from the enslavement of the Witch, the Lady of the Green Kirtle. Rilian returns to Narnia but his elderly father dies shortly after they are reunited, so the celebrations are subdued.
Despite Lewis rehashing several plots here, and a deeply unsubtle piece of allegory at the end, there’s much to enjoy in this volume, although I will admit that I find his habit of having Jill burst into tears every five minutes rather tiresome. (This is probably at least part of the reason why I always preferred Polly and The Magician’s Nephew to Jill and The Silver Chair.) Puddleglum the Marsh-Wiggle, despite being one of life’s natural pessimists, is much more fun and it’s his character that really lifts the book.
I was struck once again at how good Lewis is on place and landscape. There’s an excellent sequence describing a miserable winter journey but three particular places stood out.
Puddleglum’s marshes
Unsurprisingly for a character who is a Marsh-wiggle, Puddleglum lives in a watery landscape.
They were on a great flat plain which was cut into countless little islands by countless channels of water. The islands were covered with coarse grass and bordered with reeds and rushes.
As well as describing the landscape, Lewis hints at its changing moods
It would have been a depressing place on a wet evening. Seen under a morning sun, with a fresh wind blowing, and the air filled with the crying of birds, there was something fine and fresh and clean about its loneliness.
Anyone who has spent any time in the Fens or near salt-marshes will recognise this description. On a cold clear day, bleakness becomes beautiful.
The birder in me likes the way Lewis is specific about the wetland birds that the children see. His list – duck, snipe, bitterns, herons – is a set of birds that belong in this place. As well as the sound of the birds, Lewis gives the reader a scent of salt and the feeling of a biting wind.
Eastward the flat marsh stretched to low sand-hills on the horizon, and you could tell by the salt tang in the wind which blew from that direction that the sea lay over there.
Despite this clearly being a fictional landscape, home to the well spaced out Marsh-wiggle wigwams, it feels grounded in something real and recognisable. This, I think, means we trust Lewis’ imagery when he describes the more fantastical places that the characters encounter.
The Silent City
The Silent City is an underground city that the travellers approach by boat. Lewis carefully uses the lack of noise and light to signify its strange otherworldliness.
Then, staring till their eyes hurt, they saw that some of the lights ahead were shining on what looked like wharfs, walls, towers and moving crowds. But still there was hardly any noise.
Lewis reinforces his point by comparing a great city to a scattering of houses in a rural setting.
The lights were so few and far apart they they would hardly have done for scattered cottages in our world. But the little bits of the place that you could see by the lights were like glimpses of a great sea port.
Ships are loading and unloading their cargoes, there are warehouses and bales, walls and pillars suggest temples and palaces. The seemingly endless crowds are ever present and Lewis uses them to show something of the appearance of the city.
Hundreds of Earthmen, jostling one another as they padded softly about their business in narrow streets, broad squares or up get flights of steps.
The near silence is in sharp contrast with the noises we’d expect to hear in a city, especially a busy port.
Their continued movement made a sort of soft, murmuring noise as the ship drew nearer and nearer; but there was not a song or a shout or a bell or the rattle of a wheel anywhere.
Lewis repeatedly uses the word ‘pad’ to give the reader an impression of muffled sound.
Endless moving, shoving, hurrying and the soft pad-pad-pad went on.
As first impressions of a place go, this one is decidedly unsettling.
Golg and the lands further down
The land of Bism is even deeper underground than the Silent City and is inhabited by gnomes like Golg.
In this way they came to the edge of the chasm. It was about a thousand feet long and perhaps two hundred wide.
From the chasm
A strong heat smote up into their faces, mixed with a smell… rich, sharp, exciting, and made you sneeze.
They eventually make out a river of fire and on the banks
...fields and groves of an unbearable, hot brilliance – although they were dim compared to the river. There were blues, reds, greens and whites all jumbled together: a very good stained glass window with the tropical sun staring straight through it at midday might have something the same effect.
The reader’s senses are being engaged again here – smell, sight, the feel of heat on the face. Lewis reaches for a relatable image to help readers make sense of what the characters are seeing, and then has Golg tell the visitors that only salamanders, which are ‘most like small dragons’ live in the fire. Golg’s description of gems, gold and silver as living things has Rilian and Eustace keen to visit. However, Jill is much less keen and Puddleglum reminds Rilian that his duty is to return home before his father dies. You can see why they were tempted though:
There I’ll pick you bunches of rubies that you can eat and squeeze you a cup full of diamond-juice. You won’t care much about fingering the cold, dead treasures of your shallow ones after you have tasted the live ones of Bism.
One of the things all three places have in common is a sense of scale, whether it’s the wide openness of the marsh, the crowded city, or the depth and richness of Bism. Lewis is working on a wide canvas but always gives the reader enough to make each place specific. He likes to keep the plots moving, so each is given relatively few words but those words tend to be used to good effect. On balance though, I think I prefer Puddleglum’s open marshes to the underground worlds of Bism and the Silent City.
Next month – Return to Narnia: part VII – The Last Battle – and some reflections on revisiting Narnia.
This is possibly my favourite Narnia, but I'd not paid much attention to the landscape, so thank you. I'd not put two and two together and realised the marshes were the Fens, and you are right, it feels very authentic and that surely does ground the more fantastical elements. I don't remember Jill crying that much though!
Thank you for another immersion in Narnia, Shelley. I'd almost forgotten this book until I read your comment about Jill bursting into tears every five minutes. The landscape descriptions are very evocative, but that map looks positively Tolkien-esque. A nod to the Inklings, perhaps?