How to write like C. S. Lewis (part 3)
I think C. S. Lewis would have agreed with at least some of George Orwell’s writing tips from ‘Politics and the English Language’ (though the two men certainly wouldn’t have seen eye to eye on politics):
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
These are good rules for anyone wanting to write clearly, as Lewis always did. However, there were times when he used long words, even in the Narnia books, and it’s worth considering why.
Let’s start with this fascinating passage from an essay on Curious Words from the Chronicles of Narnia by the lexicographer Jeremy Marshall:
The names of creatures contribute an obvious element to the Narnian tales, but another feature of Lewis’s writing emerges throughout the series: his use of surprisingly obscure words. Many readers must simply pass over these without fully understanding them, unless they have a dictionary to hand. But Lewis was, after all, a professor of English literature, and having a rather bracingly old-fashioned approach to education, he thought nothing of throwing a word such as malapert, victualed, or frowsty into a children’s book. The nautical setting of The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’ allows him to make play with such terms as poop, forecastle, jury-mast (a mast which is jury-rigged), and dromond.
In The Horse and His Boy we find a whole treasury of words in the flowery speech of many characters: loquacity, indigence, maleficence, scapegrace, sapient, and prognostics. I am sure I didn’t know these when I first read the book. Some of them would need a pretty large dictionary to decode, and Lewis was surely delighted to revive the Shakespearean insult pajock (a vain or conceited person) and the medieval word gentilesse (the quality of courtesy displayed by a true gentleman). As Michael Ward notes in Planet Narnia (Oxford University Press, 2008), language itself becomes a theme of the book.
Now what’s going on here? Surely there’s more to it than “a rather bracingly old-fashioned approach to education”?
Part of the answer can be seen in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Have a look at this great passage in which Eustace chooses the wrong creature to bully. As Eustace swings Reepicheep round by his tail, the Mouse draws his sword and stabs him in the hand:
“Stop it,” spluttered Eustace, “go away. Put that thing away. It’s not safe. Stop it, I say. I’ll tell Caspian. I’ll have you muzzled and tied up.”
“Why do you not draw your own sword, poltroon!” cheeped the Mouse. “Draw and fight or I’ll beat you black and blue with the flat.”
“I haven’t got one,” said Eustace. “I’m a pacifist. I don’t believe in fighting.”
“Do I understand,” said Reepicheep, withdrawing his sword for a moment and speaking very sternly, “that you do not intend to give me satisfaction?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Eustace, nursing his hand.
Of course, he doesn’t. He hasn’t read the right books. The narrator makes that very clear.
But we can see that in this passage there isn’t just a clash of value systems but a linguistic clash too. Or, to be more precise, the clash of values is expressed through the clash of language. Eustace speaks of muzzling and pacifism: Reepicheep uses words like “poltroon” and “satisfaction”. Lewis isn’t using old-fashioned words because he is “bracingly old-fashioned” but because these are the right words for the situation.
Let’s have a look at a quite different example, this time from The Silver Chair. There’s a wonderful moment towards the end of the book when the Narnians eat together and one of the fauns has to explain to Eustace why the Centaurs eat a very big breakfast:
“Why, Son of Adam, don’t you understand? A Centaur has a man-stomach and a horse-stomach. And of course both want breakfast. So first of all he has porridge and pavenders and kidneys and bacon and omelette and cold ham and toast and marmalade and coffee and beer. And after that he attends to the horse part of himself by grazing for an hour or so and finishing up with a hot mash, some oats, and a bag of sugar. That’s why it’s such a serious thing to ask a Centaur to stay for the week-end. A very serious thing indeed.”
It’s a great joke, partly because of the clash of styles. Putting “week-end” and “Centaur” in the same sentence is almost bound to raise a smile.
Another point worth noting about this passage is the presence of “pavenders,” a Narnian fish in the list of otherwise familiar foods. We are back in comfortable, homely territory but we are never allowed to forget that this is Narnia, not England.
So what does this mean for us? It means we should read widely. Really widely. Not just modern books but old books too. And then we should use the full resources of the language. Sometimes short is beautiful, but sometimes long words are needed. Sometimes modern words and concepts are important, but sometimes they just won’t do, especially in places like Narnia. All words are equal, as Orwell might have said, but some words are more equal than others.