Astrologer and Narnia fan? Have I got a book for you

Jovial yet secretive, C.S. Lewis hid his best literary prank within the pages of his best-known stories. The seven books of the Chronicles of Narnia – The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe and all its siblings – each feature one of the seven traditional planets as both background element and overarching theme. Oh, seven books from a scholar of medieval literature – we all should have known!

In Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis, Michael Ward does not limit himself to a study of the Narniad. He also finds clues along Lewis’s planetary path in the Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength), and more blatant cosmic correlations expressed in other works such as The Discarded Image and a poem, “The Planets.” But since the Chronicles of Narnia are the works I’m most familiar with, I enjoyed best those sections in which Ward lifts the veil from one book after another, exposing the Venusian elements in The Magician’s Nephew, the lunar cast to The Silver Chair, and so on, sharing a relentless joy and pleasure with every discovery.

There is not a stretch or a forced connection to find here. Ward has researched his writer and his topic thoroughly, and, as if presented with a magic-eye puzzle, we’re taught how to focus anew on what we thought we’d seen before, until the new meanings and connections leap forward from the pages. There is much here to explain the lasting appeal of the Narniad, plus a fascinating look at the character of their author and why he might keep his cosmic structure from being discovered – how, even, he diverted colleagues from stumbling upon it.

If you’ve read Planet Narnia, how did you like it? If not, have you figured out which traditional planet goes with which book?