BitterSweetLife

In the last several years, I've read my share of books that annotate and elucidate C.S. Lewis' work, and this cryptic title from previously-unknown Lewis scholar Michael Ward wins the "best of" trophy hands down.

Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis is fraught with overtones of medieval mystery and hidden meanings, and if you love the writing of Lewis, it reads like a page-turner. It's a testament to Michael Ward's audacity that he presents his findings in such a headlong way, and evidence of his persuasive scholarship that only a chapter or two in, you find yourself nodding in surprised agreement.

What has Ward done? I don't want to spoil Planet Narnia's air of mystery by spilling its secrets in a bullet list--but Ward effectively "cracks the code" of the Narnia books and gives high level insights into the entire corpus of C.S. Lewis' writing. This is an accomplishment, for Lewis-lovers, on par with a physicist unearthing the Unifying Theory of the universe.

We discover what made Lewis tick, at a deep imaginative level, and learn the rhyme and reason at work behind the scenes in Narnia. Lewis' stories--as have often been suggested--are enigmas on the level of authorial inspiration and over-arching theme (What holds the books together?), but Ward has pieced together the clues and discovered the "deep magic" of Lewis' creative ethos.

Michael Ward's gift for uncovering themes, tracing threads, and piecing together clues is unsurpassed. As a scholar, he's brilliant. But the brilliance extends to his writing as well, which contains a brightness, a lyrical buoyancy, and an incisive poeticism.

*** I award this one an enthusiastic three stars--don't miss it. Planet Narnia is a paradigm-shaping book and a high water mark in C.S. Lewis scholarship. I can't recommend it highly enough to the person looking for jaw-dropping insight into Lewis' writing.