Of course, in the past, stories were not only told for the entertainment and instruction of children; they performed that dual function for the adults as well. From the epics of Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Milton to the verse romances, tales, and dramas of Spenser, Chaucer, and Shakespeare, to the Bible itself, pre-modern literature walked hand-in-hand with the art of storytelling. No hard and fast distinction was made between children’s lit and adult literature, fairy tales and “serious” fiction; all drank from the same narrative well. The creating and telling of stories could be as much a vehicle of truth as science or math or philosophy.
This dual insight, that the split between fairy tales and serious fiction is a recent and artificial one and that stories can be powerful pointers to eternal truths, is not one that I came to on my own. I learned it from two of the 20^th century’s most avid defenders of the pre-modern (indeed, medieval) world: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. And I learned it not just from their critical essays, but from the great and timeless stories that they fashioned.
In imitation of these two modern knights, I attempt in this book to revive a more traditional (and more transcendent) understanding of virtue and vice and of human purpose and dignity by catapulting the reader into the great and timeless stories bequeathed to us by Lewis and Tolkien. My approach is simple. In each brief chapter (roughly 2800 words), I take up a single theme-message-moral that has been overlooked or dismissed by our age, and then illustrate and embody that theme-message-moral in at least one episode from The Lord of the Rings and at least one episode from the seven novels that make up The Chronicles of Narnia. In selecting these episodes, I carefully isolate areas that Lewis and Tolkien agreed on and (I believe) wished to convey to their modern readers.
As far as audience goes, the book is pitched to general but educated readers. Though it is written from a Christian worldview, it does not limit itself to a specifically Christian audience (in that sense, it imitates much of the work of Lewis and Tolkien). Readers may best approach the chapters as a step-by-step series of interlocking effusions; indeed, they may, if they wish, read them as they would a devotional: pausing to meditate on the “life-lesson” learned before moving on to the next. Though the message and diction of this book will be above the heads of children (though advanced teens should be able to follow the arguments), it is my hope that parents will read the chapters and then discuss the issues and episodes raised with their sons and daughters. Stories are meant to be shared, not read in isolation, and it is my hope that this book will initiate fruitful dialogue between parents and children and encourage them to enter as a family both into the adventures themselves and into the greater adventure of living, choosing, and yearning in a fallen world that is nevertheless filled with meaning, purpose, and beauty.
A final caveat. In this book, I treat the Chronicles and The Lord of the Rings not merely as great books, but as “inspired” sources of truth. That does not mean I consider Lewis or Tolkien to be prophets in the biblical sense, but I do mean to suggest that these deeply Christian authors allowed themselves to be conduits of the good, the true, and the beautiful. For both authors, stories were fun, but they were also serious business. In the same spirit, though I mean for this book to be a fun, breezy, and energetic read, I do hope it will be attended to in a matter befitting its high seriousness. Our modern (and now postmodern) age has cast off (sometimes deliberately, but most often unthinkingly) many of the beliefs and virtues and disciplines that are necessary to the continuation of civilized life and the preservation of individual dignity and purpose. As we travel the road with Aslan and Frodo, it is my hope (if not my prayer) that we can revive those virtues and reawaken those stock responses that Tolkien and Lewis felt in their bones but which we and our society have allowed to fall to the wayside.