Communist Calormen

We are now at the point where we can venture a hypothesis as to whom Calormen actually represents. A priori, one might think that Calormen represents Nazi Germany or the Axis powers. There are a number of reasons to support this hypothesis: 

1. The first story, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, takes place during WWII and specifically during the Nazi bombing of London

2. Some have suggested a resemblance between the Austrian eagle and Tash

3. The Nazi’s were clearly evil and Calormen is supposed to be evil

However, based on our analysis it is not simply evil that represents Calormen. It is evil that poses as good thus drawing men towards the worship of evil. Thus, it seems to me that Calormen actually represents the USSR. It was the USSR who posed as good, both in fighting the Nazis and in promoting Communism as a panacea to societal ills. However, at the same time, Stalin and his henchmen were killing hundreds of thousands of their “fellow” citizens and lowering the standard of living for ordinary Russians.

As we now list based on Lewis writings, Communism and its offshoots (such as progressivism) advance a number of ideas that lead towards the worship of evil: 

1. God as moral arbiter is replaced by something human, such as a human government or the human conscience. It is true that both governments and individuals who do not believe in God may be moral. However, without God there is no objective metric with which to measure morality nor is there an objective law requiring subservience. Unlike the Archenlandian king who is under a moral law, the Communist dictator and Calormen tisroc (who is descended from Tash) make the law. 

2. Communism insists that what they are operating with the goal of being “good” for “everyone.” In fact, Communism forces all except an elite downwards so that everything can be “fair.” This is true of the peasants in Calormen and the Narnian horses, dwarves, and dryads sacrificed to Calormen (and Tash) for the common good (which was defined by Shift). 

3. Communism redefines concepts for its own purposes. Shift redefined freedom to mean what I tell you to do.

4. The replacement of good with fair allows the common folk to act as self-righteous vigilantes calling out “unfair” results. Thus, in “Screwtape Proposes a Toast” Lewis foresees a time when enrichment at schools is done away with (as is currently planned for New York City) since other children (who may not try as hard or simply may not be as bright) will feel bad and it will be unfair. This transforms the sins of pride and jealousy into virtues of fighting for “equality.”  

We will provide some final thoughts on this in the next post.

The Last Battle: Context

At this point in our discussion some may be wondering what this all has to do with Torah or Judaism. We’ll get there (maybe), but for the moment we need to set the background for “The Last Battle.”

A typical reader opening The Last Battle may assume that all is peaceful in Narnia. We are not told of any active battles. The King, a young man between the ages of 20 and 25, is out at his little hunting lodge without much of a retinue, not something a King should do should there be a threat of danger. In fact, we are explicitly told that with respect to Narnia's arch-enemy, “there was peace between Narnia and Calormen in those days.”

However, there are a number of clues hinting that the seemingly idyllic portrait is not correct. The Narnian timeline tells us that 21 years before "towers are built to guard Lantern waste, where there has been an increase in outlaw activity." Furthermore, we see evidence of great battles in the recent past. In discussing the relationship between King Tirian and his best friend Jewel the Unicorn we are told, “Each had saved the other’s life in the wars?” What wars? Tirian is not old enough to have participated in wars decades before! Even more telling is the explicit statement later in the story that King Tirian’s father, King Erlian, had been severely wounded, and apparently killed, by the giant. What giant? 

As a first step, let us try to determine who the enemy was in the battles that Tirian fought. Here are some possibilities:

1. Calormen
2. Some other enemy from the islands to the east or the wilds of the west 
3. The just mentioned outlaws or a civil war
4. The Giants on Narnia’s northern border
5. The Giants of Harfang

Possibility 1 seems to fall away immediately due to the declaration that there was peace between the countries in those days. Should war have been fought five years earlier, such a statement would not have been made. Possibility 2 would require having a new enemy pop out of nowhere. Why do that? Possibilities 3, 4, and 5 or some combination of them seem to be most likely. We know that King Erlian was killed by the giant and thus it would make sense that these battles continued into the reign of Tirian.

Whoever it is, perhaps the wars, possibly instigated by the increase of outlaw activity in the region, give us further insight into the true situation of Narnia at that time. All is not comfortable and at peace. Not too long before a Narnian king was killed in battle. Further conflict almost cost the life of the new, young, king. Could this have led the citizens of Narnia to start doubting Aslan’s kindness? Could desperation with a shaky political situation make them willing to accept Aslan’s arrival despite all evidence to the contrary? And, no matter what enemy it may have been, we have still not explained King Tirian’s unwillingness to immediately investigate the arrival of Aslan. Could Tirian have become too self-confident?

To be continued…

Calormene Poetry: On War and Wisdom

The preeminent superpower in the world of Narnia is Calormen. Located across the Great Desert to the south of Archenland (which is south of Narnia), the dress, class hierarchy, and other aspects of Calormene society appear to reflect that of the Ottoman Empire. Indeed, if we are to cast Narnia as the Holy Land, ruled by Christian true believers, there is logic in casting their enemy as the foremost Islamic Empire of the Middle Ages. However, there is a fundamental religious divide between monotheistic Islam and the polytheistic Calormene religion whose chief god has a much greater resemblance a god of the Hindus (I personally think that Lewis inserts the Islamic features of Calormene as a smokescreen for the true enemy that Calormen represents, but that’s for another post). Whatever the mold used for Calormen, Lewis had a lot to say about their culture.

While clearly dismissive of certain aspects of Calormene society, such as its religion, Lewis endows Calormen with beauty and magnificence. Its people respect their elders and can display bravery and honor. Lewis appears to have an especially high-regard for Calormene storytelling. In The Horse and His Boy, Lewis remarks that, “in Calormen, story-telling is a thing you're taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay-writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.” This should not be dismissed as a minor point given the fundamental values Lewis himself is not attempting to transmit via stories.

However, Lewis does not appear to think much of Calormene poetry. Calormene poetry is, in the words of Ahoshta the Grand Vizier of Calormen, “full of choice apophthegms and useful maxims.” This is in contrast to Narnian poetry which is, “all of love and war.” Thus, Aravis and Cor, the main human characters in The Horse and His Boy, who were both raised in Calormen, “prepare to be bored” upon hearing they would be entertained by an Archenland poet.

Lewis’ dismissal of Calormene poetry is somewhat surprising. After all, fully two books of the Bible (what Lewis would have called the Old Testament), Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, are made up of those same apophthegms and maxims. In fact, some of the maxims found in Calormene poetry encompass ideas similar to those found in biblical poetry!

The book of the Chronicles of Narnia in which the most Calormene poetry is found is The Horse and His Boy. The story centers around Shasta, the lost prince of Archenland who was raised by a poor Calormene fisherman named Arsheesh. Arsheesh takes Shasta in as a foundling but treats him little better than a slave. One day, a Tarkaan (Calormene nobleman) takes lodging at the hut of Arsheesh. Apparently impressed with Shasta, he decides to buy him resulting in a long negotiation the recorded part of which includes quotations of a number of Calromene apophthegms and maxims. In the meantime, Shasta looks to the Tarkaan's horse as a source of information about life in the house of the Tarkaan. Of course, were the horse of the typical Calormene variety he could not tell him. However, it turns out that the horse is actually of Narnian descent and does actually talk! The horse, Bree, and Shasta decide to flee and attempt to reach Narnia. Thus begins their adventures. 

Turning back to the poetry, let us take a look at some of the quoted Calormene poetry from the exchange between Arsheesh and Tarkaan and see how it matches up with biblical poetry.

Swords can be kept off with shields but the Eye of Wisdom pierces through every defense. (The Horse and His Boy)

This line of Calormene poetry is quoted by Arsheesh to the Takaan who has just informed him of his intention to buy Shasta. Arsheesh initially attempts to pass Shasta off as his own son. The Tarkaan, of course, sees right through the attempt given the obvious difference in skin color between the two. Caught, Arsheesh quotes the above aphorism. There is no actual war taking place, nonetheless this maxim is used by Arsheesh to acknowledge the wisdom of the Tarkaan.

In the ninth chapter of Ecclesiastes the author (traditionally assumed to be King Solomon, the wisest of all men) sets out the following parable. A small city with few people is attacked by a great king. The king surrounds to the city which clearly does not have the strength and resources to withstand a siege. Surprisingly, the city is saved thanks to the wisdom of a poor man who, before this event, no one ever cared about (other commentaries say that the city could have been saved but was not because the people did not value the advice of the man since he was poor).

The lesson of this parable is clear; wisdom is, mistakenly, not valued when compared to externals such as wealth and beauty. As is their way, the Sages attempt to identify the historical circumstance on which this parable is modelled. Three are suggested: Jacob preparing to fight against his brother Esau, the wise woman who saves the city of Abel Beth-Ma’acha from the siege of Joab (King David’s general) during the revolt of Sheba ben Bichri, and Hezekiah who saves Jerusalem from the siege of the Assyrian King Sennacherib.

Returning to Ecclesiastes, in the next couple of verses the comparative value of wisdom is stated more explicitly, “Wisdom is better than strength,” and “Wisdom is better than weapons of war.” These verses are very much of the same mind as that quoted by Arsheesh. Why would Lewis look down on Calormene poetry if the biblical lesson is so similar?

Perhaps one point that may have been troublesome to Lewis with respect to this particular maxim is the context in which it is used. There is no real war. There is only a negotiation for a commodity (Shasta). Nonetheless, Calormene society treats the medium of bargaining as a war. Bargaining is a competition in which there is a winner and a loser. This is a sub-optimal way of commerce and bespeaks a troubled society. A better system would be one of fair exchange. The seller sets a price and the buyer chooses whether of not to buy it. In this way both parties would walk away happy. But the warlike Calormenes must make everything a competition and thus the appropriateness of a warlike maxims.