From Boy to Man and Back Again PDF
Preview From Boy to Man and Back Again
From Boy to Man and Back Again Bruce T. Forbes Published: 2010 Tag(s): book novel Narnia fantasy From BOY to MAN and BACK AGAIN A 'Chronicle of Narnia' Fan-Fiction Novel Book One of the Hundred-Year Winter Series by Bruce T. Forbes, 2006 ————————— “In innocence there is no strength against evil … but there is strength … for good.” Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Farthest Shore” ————————— Dedication As a young boy I caught the reading bug from such great writers as H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Andre Norton, and I wanted to be just like them. Then I discovered that the Gospel could be written about by such means as I discovered the writings of John Milton, John Bunyan, and Dante Alighieri, and then I wanted to be just like them. Finally, I discovered C.S. Lewis and I knew I had found the Master. Thank you, Jack. I hope I've done you proud. ——- And Ricardo Montalban - what a wise old Centaur you would have made! Read the Preface! It's Important! Dear Children and Grandchildren: I know I wrote this just for you, but I've decided to share. I hope you don't mind. I've included footnotes of an historical and literary nature just in case you need the extra information. Hopefully you're smart enough not to need them, but they’re there just in case public school isn't everything it used to be. According to Mr. Lewis' own chronology, this novel takes place nine-hundred Narnian years after 'The Magician’s Nephew' and one-hundred Narnian years before 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe'. Like Mr, Lewis, I've confined myself to the common ground of Christianity Mr. Lewis called 'Mere Christianity' and have not gone down any denominational paths while writing this novel. My trusted proof readers have found evidence of various denominations, but to me this only proves we have more common ground than we think. Mr. Lewis did not write similes - he wrote closer to metaphors. He also didn't write allegory, which shows us what is true - he wrote fairy stories, which show us what is desirable. And, he said that the purpose of literature is not to teach doctrine and concepts, but values and feelings. I pray I've been an attentive student in all of this. C. S. Lewis was a professor of Medieval History and represented Narnia as a medieval culture; hence many gender roles were represented within that context which some do not like today. While conforming to Mr. Lewis' vision, the history student inside me knows there were many exceptions, and I hope to bring out some of those exceptions. Additionally, any historian can tell you there are many, tiny, unguarded steps which cause a civilization to collapse from within. (Most of them made by men, by the way.) They can also tell you that one of the last, final, fatal blows to the health of any given civilization is usually when women en masse abandon their families for their own pleasures and purposes. This is not to say it’s the women's fault a civilization collapses; it’s merely reporting the final, fatal blow. Being true to history doesn’t make me a sexist - it just makes me socially and politically incorrect to the times in which I live. But I think Aslan would rather I be accurate than popular. With Love, Grandpa Bruce 1 Chapter The Saddest Chapter in the Book Those of you who've read more than just the single adventure about the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe know more about Narnia than those who’ve watched the movies and think they know everything. Those who've read all the way to the story about the Magician’s Nephew know, for instance, the identity of the Professor who owned the wardrobe and who he was as a young man, and you know about the tree grown from the Narnian seeds and fertilized by the magic rings from which the wardrobe was constructed. You know about young Polly Plummer and the adventures she and the Professor had at the creation of Narnia - that was when the Professor was simply a young boy named Digory Kirke. You know how Aslan created Narnia and how Evil came into that world quite innocently and accidentally at the hands of Digory and Polly. You know about centaurs and fauns and satyrs and flying horses and talking animals and how the great Tree of Protection was planted whose mere presence kept the Witch away from Narnia and that it was her own fault because she couldn’t follow extremely simple directions. You also know that the first king and queen of Narnia was Frank the London cabby and his wife Helen, who was far prettier with her hair down instead of fixed up and all fancy. You probably even remember how the proper London lamp post and the gold, silver, and toffee trees first came to grow in Narnia. But even those who’ve read all the books about the Sons of Adam and the Daughters of Eve visiting Narnia don’t know everything. You don't know what happened to Polly after she visited Narnia, or what happened to Polly’s son years later. You don’t know what was else built with the wood left over when the wardrobe was constructed from the old apple tree. Oh, and you still don’t know the Deplorable Word with which the White Witch destroyed her own world rather than let its rightful heir rule. I’ve recently discovered answers to some of these questions, and I'm eager to share them. If you’ve read about the Magician’s Nephew then you know the Professor and Polly were both quite young and had visited Narnia when Sherlock Holmes was alive and outsmarting criminals and mystifying the police. They lived to see the calendar change from 1899 to 1900, an event marked with great celebrations. They lived to see buildings grow so tall that one needed elevators to go from the top to the bottom. They lived to see great engine-powered ships carry passengers from Liverpool or South Hampton to New York in a matter of days. But they also lived to see what was called the ‘Great War’.* No, there isn’t much that's very great about war, but ‘great’ also means ‘big’ and ‘huge’, and it was in fact the biggest, hugest war up to it’s time, so it was called the ‘Great War’ instead of the ‘Biggest, Hugest War Up To This Time’ as editors would have refused to print that phrase due to its length. It's because of the Great War that this is the saddest chapter in this book, so let’s hurry through it so we can get to the happy parts. * As your parents will be able to tell you, this was World War I. Polly and Digory remained lifelong friends. He went to school and became a professor and a lecturer and a world traveler, sending Polly souvenirs from all the places he traveled. Polly fell in love with a handsome young man from Scotland, married, and was content to build a world for her family. When Digory’s spinster aunt passed away, Polly and her husband moved in to her old row house at Digory’s invitation, turning the old magician’s attic room into a library and playroom for the children they hoped would come into their family. Before the Great War began, however, Polly and her husband only had one son, and Polly raised her son in that attic room, supplying him with books and games and a daily story time in which mother and father and son were required not to read but to make up stories to tell to the others, often acting out various characters as the story progressed. A healthy imagination was cultivated by Polly not just through this daily story time but also by many of the books on the boy's book shelves. By this time England’s own Herbert George Wells had taken readers to the Moon and back and his Martians had attacked London but had not lived to tell the tale. The Frenchman Jules Verne had also taken his readers to the Moon and then around the world in a mere eighty days and then under the oceans for some twenty- thousand leagues. The Scotsman Stevenson’s readers had been kidnapped and trekked across the Scottish Highlands and then sailed for Treasure Island with real, actual, throat-cutting pirates. An upstart American named Burroughs was chronicling the story of an orphaned British lord who was being raised by a she- gorilla in darkest Africa, swinging through the jungle clad only in a loincloth and muscles while rescuing the same beautiful woman time after time. And, London's own Mr. Barrie had taken theater-goers to Neverland and back. Everyday in the attic Polly and her boy relived these thrilling adventures and dreams. The paper and wooden swords and guns from story time were abruptly replaced with the real thing one life-shattering day when Polly’s husband marched off to fight in the Great War. The playroom attic became Polly’s refuge from Reality when fear and anger and hopelessness overcame her, not knowing where her man was or if he was even safe. Often that was where young Joseph would find her, and he discovered that reading poetry to her would make her smile. Young boys with good mothers quickly learn to love anything that makes their mother smile, so Joseph learned to love poetry in very short order, and he even discovered that the hymns he sung at church every Sunday were poems set to music, and he was very proud of his discovery. I shall not describe the day the telegram arrived at Polly’s door as parents would never read this book to their children if I did. You see, it used to be that when someone was killed or captured in war their family would receive a telegram from the war office notifying them of the event, and the recipient was then left to cope with the news on their own. If you've had a family member go off to war, then you know the fear of receiving such a telegram. I myself have spent much time in prayer on behalf of a son who marched off to war, but for me it was a son and for Polly it was a husband, so even I cannot imagine the extra worry and ache in her heart. And if someone has come to your door with such a telegram, know that my entire heart and all my prayers are with you. Before the sun came up the next morning, Joseph was still sitting on the bench in the entry, where he'd been all night, still holding the telegram firmly with both hands - Polly hadn't even opened the telegram before fleeing upstairs and the screaming had begun. Joseph, afraid of what was happening, had sat on the bench by the front door when his mother fled upstairs and had waited and waited for her to come back down. The birds were barely singing and the milkman was just getting to their house - actually it was the milkman’s wife as her husband had also gone off to war and she'd taken over his job to feed her family. So the world was still very sleepy and quiet when Joseph recognized the sound of a man whistling as he came down the sidewalk from the direction of the train station. He threw the door open and saw Uncle Digory strolling along with his usual happy jaunt. Uncle Digory smiled from the bottom of the front steps. “Happy Birthday, Jake,” Uncle Digory called from the bottom step. ‘Jake’ was Joseph’s secret nickname that he thought was a far more adventurous name than Joseph, but Uncle Digory was the only grown-up who ever used it. Anyone peeking out their windows would not have been able to tell who hugged who first as both met on the middle step and grabbed and hugged the other fiercely. Even though he was an extremely brave eight-year-old, Joseph was crying in his uncle’s arms. “What’s all this?” Digory asked worriedly, for he knew the boy would never let another man see his tears. Joseph slowly handed Uncle Digory the telegram he’d not let go of since its delivery the evening before. “Oh, no!” Digory whispered slowly as he knelt, feeling all the life being punched out of him. “Not this! Not for my Polly and Joseph!” His heart told him he didn’t have to see what was inside to know - sometimes the human heart just knows. But Joseph didn’t notice his uncle's emotions - he’d been brave all night, but now Uncle Digory was here and he could just be a little boy who needed very badly to have a good cry and still didn’t know why. “Is Polly in the attic?” Digory asked as he still held the boy as fiercely as any loving father would. He always referred to Polly by name, but Joseph knew he meant Mother, so he nodded. Digory patted the boy’s shoulder. “Let me go talk to her and I’ll be back down.” He took the telegram from the boy and started up the stairs. Even Joseph could see that the usual bounce and energy had left his uncle - he was climbing the stairs as if he’d suddenly turned from an uncle into a tired, crippled old grandfather; the sort that even a stranger would kindly help up and down steps in the park or at the chapel. In a moment the screaming started again, and Joseph pulled his knees up to his face and clasped his hands to his ears to block it out and then he too screamed and cried again, alone and very, very afraid. Sometime later Uncle Digory came back down the stairs, the telegram in his hand having been opened and read. He pulled Joseph up on his lap and let the boy read it for himself while he explained that Joseph and his mother would never be alone in the world because they would always have him. “I’m not your real uncle,” Digory explained, “as your mother and I are just very good friends and not brother and sister. But I promise you shall have me for as long as you wish.”
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