There is no problem with Susan.

The problem is with the people who criticise a writer for saying something that they don't like, or condemning a writer for what they assume he said (when he did not say it).

The problem is with people who failed to read the whole series, and to understand the links between our world and Narnia, or Christian faith and belief in Aslan.  Not all readers or lovers of Narnia have Christian faith, but if people have open minds they can see what was really said in the books. (Nowhere do the Seven Friends of Narnia accuse Susan of having a string of boyfriends, being nasty, or anything more than denying what she once believed, and acting like an empty-headed girl at her worst age !- perhaps to fit in with a different crowd?)

actually, I read somewhere that Lewis was going to write a book covering Susan's life but he ended up dying before he could.

@frederick one of my online friends has suggested that there is a similarity between Susan Pevensie and the young woman in That Hideous Strength (the third of Lewis's Space Trilogy). Her name is Jane Studdock  and she and her husband each look for meaning and purpose in their lives. 

Jane seems to be very much on her own, and has no faith. (I must reread this, and collect more information to put on here!)

Lewis wrote the Space Trilogy in the early 1940s. Susan had not yet been thought of, but what became of her might be very similar to Jane's situation (not actually being Jane!).

I didn't know that. Of Lewis's non-Narnia work, I've only read Out of the Silent Planet and that was a while ago. I need to re-read it, I remember the striking beauty of the language.

@cobalt-jade it's worth the effort to read all three. THS has links to the other two, but is somewhat different, and some people like it best. 

@coracle oh i didn't know that. i haven't checked out any of his non Narnia works. Thanks for the rec.

Posted by: @frederick

actually, I read somewhere that Lewis was going to write a book covering Susan's life but he ended up dying before he could.

Perhaps you were thinking of what Lewis wrote to a young reader who asked him if he would write a sequel about Susan, and he said he wasn't planning to for this reason:

Not because I have no hope of Susan ever getting to Aslan's country, but because I have a feeling that the story of her journey would be longer and more like a grown-up novel than I wanted to write. But I may be mistaken. Why not try it yourself?

(Unfortunately I can't find the source for that quote — I've just copied it from one of the first pages in this discussion — but I have definitely seen it quoted in other places as well.) 

I really do not understand the "problem with Susan". Regardless of how C.S. Lewis worded it, I just see it as that Susan pursued worldly things as opposed to Naria/Aslan. In my opinion, C.S. Lewis was writing from a biblical point of view more or less... I dont want to dive super deep into that angle, but it makes sense in my mind why that would be an issue with Naria/Aslan.

Plus, her fate is still open ended, and C.S. Lewis encouraged fan interpretations and fan-fiction on anything pertaining to his books. Susan will find her way to the new Narnia.

@deathsorcery exactly. There is no problem. 

[If they want one to discuss, I'd suggest The Problem of Evil, which is a huge theological question, not to be dealt with in a children's book series.

Alternatively, The Problem of Sin, which Susan has in common with all humans  has been dealt with in Real Life, and is well reported in The Bible]

@coracle The problem is with the people who criticise a writer for saying something that they don't like, or condemning a writer for what they assume he said (when he did not say it).

And that is about it. This controversy broke out anew when LWW's Walden version was released in 2004, and, I suspect, became more successful than people had hoped. Another author released a short story (amongst many others in a compilation called Fragile Things) at the same time. One prominent author called Philip Pullman, in particular, wanted nothing to do with C.S. Lewis, whom he said was bigoted and racist, and because he disliked the Church of England & the Roman Catholic Church, in particular. Mr Pullman's own similar fantasy (or was it?) was called His Dark Materials, and this first one of the trilogy was filmed as The Golden Compass. Along with a few literary boffins, J.K. Rowling got drawn in, when she wrote the highly successful Harry Potter series, as well as having them filmed, the first one coming out in 2001, along with the first volume of Peter Jackson's LOTR.

I can understand where JK Rowling was coming from when she (and others) agreed that C.S.Lewis didn't account for children growing up to adulthood, hence the stress on the quote made below.

@deathsorcery says: I just see it as that Susan pursued worldly things as opposed to Narnia/Aslan

I don't think I'd place much store on what JK Rowling has to say, when she was known to admit she read C.S.Lewis, herself, but not The Last Battle. And I've had some fun comparing how much she leant on her reading of the Narnia stories, one way or the other for some inspiration for her own series. As a matter of fact, one Book Week, (or was it Library Week?) in UK, she compared MN's Wood between the Worlds, to going to a library, a comparison which I treasure. 

Posted by: @deathsorcery

I really do not understand the "problem with Susan". Regardless of how C.S. Lewis worded it, I just see it as that Susan pursued worldly things as opposed to Naria/Aslan.

I've mentioned this somewhere before, but I wonder how different the critics' responses would be if one of the main male characters had rejected Narnia by the end of the last book. Very unlikely to be Edmund or Eustace or indeed Digory, who each go through a significant sin-and-redemption arc in their respective stories that none of them would easily forget. That just leaves one candidate. Imagine if this was the scene when Tirian meets the Seven Friends of Narnia in Aslan's country...

"Ma'am," said Tirian, when he had greeted all these. "If I have read the chronicles aright, there should be another. Has not your Majesty two brothers? Where is King Peter?"

"My brother Peter," answered Susan shortly and gravely, "is no longer a friend of Narnia."...

"Oh Peter!" said Eustace, "he's interested in nothing now-a-days except his high-paying new job and fast cars and trying to impress girls. He always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up...."

I would guess that if Lewis had done it like that, there'd be some sad and disappointed fans who always liked Peter (just as there are sad and disappointed fans who always liked Susan). But I suspect there probably wouldn't be even half the vitriol that gets directed at Lewis for "excluding" Susan. Because Susan is female, and the things Jill (in LB) lists as Susan's sole interests are very feminine-sounding — "nylons and lipstick and invitations". And that really is where the whole C.S. Lewis was a Sexist So-and-so who Hated Women (or was Terrified of Them) and who Couldn't Bear to Let an Adult Woman Enter Heaven shtick comes from. Seriously. 

Whereas if it had been Peter who'd forsaken Narnia for stereotypically masculine worldly interests, Lewis would most likely have been off the hook, because he was male himself and therefore would be allowed to write about male foibles, and because men aren't the ones who've historically faced serious discrimination and had much less power in society. But as it is, for those who are looking for something to criticise in him and/or Narnia, the "Susan" thing is so easy to pounce on as supposed evidence that Lewis had a "problem" with women, and so it all goes on...  

Plus, her fate is still open ended, and C.S. Lewis encouraged fan interpretations and fan-fiction on anything pertaining to his books. Susan will find her way to the new Narnia.

Yes, spot on — and Lewis himself knew exactly what it was like to be a young, conceited, rather arrogant person who's grown up enough to have rejected God and Christ and religion and so on as nothing but a load of silly fairy tales. He went through a "Susan" phase himself, in his own way, as a young man. There is NO WAY he would think of Susan as beyond redemption, let alone as not deserving redemption. Even when I first read the books as a 7-year-old, I was sorry about what happened to her — though not really surprised, as there are foreshadowings in the earlier books — but I understood at once that this didn't mean she would never get to the new Narnia as well, just that she would have to find her way there somewhat differently. And it turns out that's just what Lewis himself said when fans asked him the same thing.

@courtenay   But as it is, for those who are looking for something to criticise in him and/or Narnia, the "Susan" thing is so easy to pounce on as supposed evidence that Lewis had a "problem" with women, and so it all goes on...

Well put, Courtenay in showing what it might be like if Peter was the one who was left living instead of Susan! Besides, the basis of the original criticism, here, in Australia, in the 1970's put forward by the then Library Association of Australia, was against Enid Blyton, in particular, when the likes of Lilith Norman, the Children's Librarian, when I was working at Sydney City Library in QVB, complained that children weren't being portrayed realistically. The Famous Five, for instance, would go off camping for days on end, got into trouble in castle ruins, or underground railway tunnels for hours on end, & much more, but never once had to visit the loo as we say down here.

But such mundane human and animal needs as a rule never appeared in pre-1900 children's books previously, either. Including many teenage action stories, like Robert Louis Stephenson's Treasure Island.  C.S. Lewis was criticised for that sort of thing, also. But when time can be very relative, depending on what the characters were doing in Narnia, there were more urgent conflicts in C.S. Lewis' children's shared Narnia time, to consider for the story, I think. From there, C.S. Lewis was criticised for avoiding having to deal with teenage angst, which didn't exist for the first half of the 20th century, I suspect.  Until us Baby Boomers flooded the market with our sheer numbers, by 1964. 

Lilith Norman, herself, wrote a story called "Climb a lonely hill", about how two children have to think about survival after an outback car accident, where such considerations were relevant to the story, only to be howled down by all and sundry. But thirty years later, during the horrific 3-day 2004 Beslan massacre, at the hands of Chechen Islamic terrorists, which involved the imprisonment of more than 1,100 people as hostages, including 777 children, in North Ossetia, similar problems also happened. Sometimes children's literature can be too realistic to digest, easily in my opinion, and perhaps it would be better to leave Susan's story to her own privacy..