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Originally Posted by William Cloud Hickli
I rather think you skipped or skimmed Davem's post above: what's wrong with Susan was that fripperies were ALL she cared about. Which rather counters your "harmless pusuit of the trappings of adult womanhood." I'll grant that Lewis slipped into something of the 'typical man' thing: but it wasn't his *point.* Whether it was lipstick or jackboots or stamp collecting, the essential point is that Susan had allowed the unimportant to consume her entire existence.
Certainly Lewis by this time had no problem at all with Joy, who was always nicely turned out- but who was about much, much more than merely the latest issue of Vogue. As are you.
There is a secondary point in there about 'growing up' and its connection to sexual maturity (or at least the perception thereof): but Lewis' point here is that sexual activity and mental/emotional maturity are not remotely the same thing; and while maturity and Narnia apparently cannot coexist, there is nothing mutually exclusive between maturity and the *memory* of Narnia: a fallacy which Susan fell into when she chose to jettison it in favor of the false 'grown-uppishness' of the Spears sisters.
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Lewis makes a judgement which is entirely a value judgement based wholly on his own personal values. There is nothing inherently wrong or immoral with someone who chooses to focus on something which he might view as 'trivial' such as fashion. Why, there will be more than a handful of Downs members who focus their whole lives around Hobbits and Elves, and while it might not be entirely healthy to have a fixation on one thing, it isn't wrong in the slightest.
What's more, Lewis chose to pick on something peculiar to women, particularly to young women. It is in fact healthy for a young woman to have an interest in her social life and how she looks, it is part of her growing up. I think that had Lewis been in a proper relationship earlier he might have accepted such 'fripperies' as part and parcel of life and ignored them.
Child brings up the Four Loves which also contains some objectionable stuff - namely that women and men cannot be friends as they do not share the same types of interests. Well excuse me, but I have always had male friends, one since I was 13. He once said he liked nothing so much as the sound of 'adult male laughter', presumably women's laughter being too shrill and cackling?
I believe he also had a pop at women's magazines too, and said some things about how the man should be head of the household (yeah, riiight
) but someone more inclined to delve deep into Lewis will have to clarify, I'm afraid trying to read Narnia left me scarred for life. I might have a poke around at some time if I'm feeling girded...
So, it's not just 'the problem of Susan' that demonstrates he had 'issues', stemming from some dysfunctional (non-) relationships. And I'd be happy to leave it at that, but we keep getting the apologetics for him. A writer I do like and who was a sexist pig was Larkin, but nobody tries to deny that he had sexist (and racist) tendencies - why try to 'cover up' for Lewis? That is the point that sticks the most.
He was also well known around Oxford for being curmudgeonly on some issues, he certainly was not the saintly figure of Shadowlands (that is all the doing of the marvellous Hopkins). His spat with Betjeman and his 'effete' friends is exemplary of the personality of Lewis, and the story of the tea party with Louis MacNeice is hilarious as the young aesthetes forced Lewis (who was all manly and talked of giving people 'a smack') to discuss lace curtains and so forth. This whole hatred thing has amused me for some time - and the great irony is that the parents giving their children the regulation box set of Narnia to read will likely know more than a few Betjeman lines off by heart as he's Britain's best loved 'modern' poet.
Lewis in fact might be wholly improved by acknowledging his darker side and stepping for a moment outside the doors of what Betjeman dubbed "the church of St CS Lewis". I always think it doesn't do us any favours to be instantly dismissive of criticism of Tolkien and it ought to be taken onboard and examined honestly - time to do that with Lewis and it makes no intellectual sense to dismiss someone like Pullman out of hand just for daring to be critical.