Here's an extract from the intro...
Talking with Trees
"Oh, Trees, Trees, Trees," said Lucy... "Oh, Trees, wake, wake, wake. Don’t you remember it? Don’t you remember me? Dryads and Hamadryads, come to me."
Though there was not a breath of wind they all stirred about her. The rustling noise of the leaves was almost like words. The nightingale stopped singing as if to listen to it. Lucy felt that at any moment she would begin to understand what the trees were trying to say.
(Prince Caspian: What Lucy Saw)
Trees are symbolically important in Narnia
Trees and woods are symbolically important in Narnia as they are in the Bible. In The Magician’s Nephew, Digory has to pick an apple from the special tree in the walled garden and bring it to Aslan, and from it grows the great tree of protection for Narnia, as well as the apple which will heal his mother. From that second apple comes the tree whose wood will be made into the wardrobe by which Lucy enters Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – emerging straight into a Narnian wood. Trees play a central role in Prince Caspian (as hinted in the passage quoted above), culminating in their reawakening to rout Miraz’s army (and a doorway of three wooden stakes forms the portal back into our world). In The Last Battle, the cruel felling of the talking trees is the portent of the great evil to come in the last days of Narnia. At the start of The Silver Chair, Jill and Eustace come into a forest of great trees on Aslan’s mountain. In the other books, trees and woods are present and important, albeit in subtler ways: trees, after all, are what Narnian ships are made out of (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader).Trees are also of course what books are made of, and pages are sometimes called leaves. Awakening the trees, trying to catch what they are saying, could be a metaphor for finding new life and meaning in books, especially books that may seem dead or dry, or to have already given up all their meaning – such as the Bible, or of course the Narnia Chronicles themselves.
Take the passage from Prince Caspian quoted above: there is far more going on in it than we might take in at first glance – or even after repeated readings. The sheer depth and potential for meaning in Lewis’s Narnian writing is one of the reasons why I have written these notes – seeking to unearth some of the hidden treasures and depths of meaning in the Narnia Chronicles; to ‘awaken the trees’ and hear what else they may be saying to us, what wisdom they can teach us. Just as Lucy feels she has missed something when she cannot get the trees to wake and speak, we too may have read these books countless times and yet missed much of what they are whispering to us.
The Wood between the Worlds
Woods - and books - can be doorways to new worlds
The other great wood in Narnia is the 'Wood between the Worlds' in The Magician’s Nephew. Through the pools in this timeless wood, it is possible to enter any one of countless worlds. The wood may represent many things, one of which is our imagination by which we too can enter Lewis’s mythic world of Narnia and live in its landscape. So woods and trees – and books – can be doorways to new worlds, new experiences and new understandings.Finally, the Narnian woods can be a symbol for our own souls and imaginations, which need to be stirred, awakened and heard. I can think of few better ways of beginning this process than immersing oneself in the rich depths of Lewis’s tales.
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Was C.S. Lewis really a rampant racist /sexist / arch-conservative monarchist? Lots of people think so, but his writings have long been a favourite of mine so I've decided to defend him against some of the many charges that have been levelled at his writings over the years. Have a