The Ramshackle Vampire: Sorry, Ladies, C.S. Lewis Finds You Tedious and Icky

The Ramshackle Vampire: Sorry, Ladies, C.S. Lewis Finds You Tedious and Icky:

An episode in the final book that Lewis's readers call “the problem of Susan” thus becomes multiply alarming: it brings sexuality (teenage romance) into the series and then condemns it, and the women who express it. In The Last Battle (1956), Susan Pevensie was denied re-admission into Narnia – and thus allegorically into Heaven – because she dared develop an interest in “makeup” and “boys,” neither of which left her time for Narnia or Aslan. Several authors have subsequently addressed Lewis's callous dismissal of Susan in their own stories. Ana Mardoll last month drew her followers' attention to a recent and curiously moving addition to this Susan Pevensie subgenre, “Elegant and Fine” by T. Kingfisher (alias Ursula Vernon).