The Silver Chair: Chapter 5 “Puddleglum”

C.S. Lewis Read-Along, Vol. 4, Issue 6

Background: Lewis said his best Narnian creations were Reepicheep and Puddleglum. The name “Puddleglum” came from a minor 16th century poet who described the River Styx as a “puddle glum.” Lewis applied that name to a character based on his gardener Fred Paxford. Walter Hooper, Lewis’ friend and secretary, described Paxford as “an inwardly optimistic, outwardly pessimistic, dear, frustrating, shrewd countryman of immense integrity.”

Quote: “Now a job like this—a journey up north just as winter’s beginning, looking for a prince that probably isn’t there, by way of a ruined city that no one has ever seen—will be just the thing. If that doesn’t steady a chap, I don’t know what will.”

Pauline Baynes illustration

Just as Aslan told Jill not to pay attention to appearances because the signs would look different down in Narnia, she’s now discovering that adventures aren’t always what you expect. When she was comfortable in Cair Paravel, the sunset over distant mountains “made her long for more adventures.” But at the start of this chapter, she’s “sick of adventures.”

Lewis sees this experience with adventures as an apt comparison to the spiritual life. Genia Goelz wrote to him about being confirmed in the Episcopal Church. He noted that she was right to feel excited but shouldn’t depend on her feelings. “Accept these sensations with thankfulness as birthday cards from God, but remember that they are only greetings, not the real gift.”

Lewis warned her that those feelings would fade, and she would be tempted to worry that “the real thing had gone too. But it won’t. It will be there when you can’t feel it. May even be most operative when you can feel it least. Don’t imagine it is all ‘going to be an exciting adventure from now on.’ It won’t.”

His point was not to diminish her joy but prepare Goelz for a life of walking in obedience to Christ. She was like Jill in the castle, but Lewis knew the adventure of the spiritual life would take her away from warm beds in comfortable castles and into sleepless nights in cold towers.