losing innocence.

Innocence is not desirable in our culture.

In fact, we even harp upon those things that glorify the lack of innocence and seek to turn the innocent into the perverse. This has been demonstrated by the media most recently in an article in the NY Times that Karen and I were discussing, re: C.S. Lewis. The article seeks to point out the potentially scandalous items of interest about Lewis and his apparently shady past, while also analyzing him utilizing Freudian psychology, and blatantly seeking out that which can be arguably risqué about an often highly-regarded children’s work, the Chronicles of Narnia. The NY Times article shows how the simple or plain reading of C.S. Lewis’ children’s books is not the desirable reading; rather, it compels a nit-picky reading, searching for inferences that could lead to conspiracy theories about Lewis and his past. Why? Why why why? Because it’s juicy? The guy is dead, what is juicy about digging up a shady past of a dead guy? Don’t we care more about juicy information on the latest celebrity or star? (So we think, but this thinking, too, is flawed.) Or maybe they just want to ruffle some evangelical feathers. They ruffled mine, but not in the way they perhaps intended… (in other words: I am not bothered. I am not going to burn Lewis’ books.) (They could have done this to someone like Tolkien or Lloyd Alexander or Susan Cooper or E.B. White, and it would still be frustrating.)

No, Lucy and the rest of her siblings climbing through a wardrobe can’t simply be about an adventure, can it? Surely the children reading this book will see the Freudian sexual implications and Lewis’ psychosis! This can’t be merely a story, merely an adventure, merely a fantasy… it has to be perverse in some way, apparently. Why wasn’t this obvious to me as a sixth grader reading this? Why wasn’t this obvious to me after reading it in college? Why wasn’t the Freudian connection apparent after I read Freud’s Case Histories and Interpretation of Dreams? Maybe the reason is because this essentially is like drawing a nonexistent needle out of a haystack, a needle of danger out of a haystack of fun, playfulness, and innocence. Sigh. This makes me sad.

This sort of digging up of someone’s life and putting it under a microscope, is done in such a way that all of our lives would likewise seem corrupted, perverse, and risqué if scrutinized in similar manner. Frankly, none of us are innocent. But isn’t innocence something we should seek to preserve, encourage, and prize? What gain is there in losing innocence? I am thinking there is very little gain. I am not speaking of outright ignorance. I recognize great benefit to gaining knowledge and understanding. But here I am speaking more of the purity of innocence that is to be prized. Clearly we can be both innocent and shrewd, but this is very hard in our culture, and frankly, in our world at large.

On another note! Thanks for all the book recommendations. I ended up buying
Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn. These two should keep me busy for all the flights and travels. These two and my trusty journal, that is.

I definitely want to read, someday soon, The Idiot, Demons, and works by Chekhov. Never heard of Gogol, but on your recommendation Nick, I'll be sure to check him out.

Leaving for Belarus in 30 hours and 58 minutes...