Pullman rips on LOTR, others

[William Cloud Hicklin]

But the point Lewis makes is odious. There is nothing wrong in women (let's stick to it) being interested in these things, in fact it's perfectly ordinary and always has been - and I find it quite insulting that because I'm overly fond of handbags and enjoy reading about fashion in Grazia, some old professor in his dusty tweed suit thinks I'm at best 'silly' and at worst 'immoral'.

Had Lewis said that Susan had grown interested in little else than jackboots, knives and guns then he may have had a moral point to make, but there is nothing wrong in the harmless pursuit of the trappings of adult womanhood

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.