A Review of The Narnia Code

by Charlie W. Starr 
Scholars are required to write lengthy, heavily footnoted tomes, carefully and logically presented, with not even the slightest minutiae left uncovered. In the case of Michael Ward’s first book, Planet Narnia, the task was made more difficult by his need to prove a radical and controversial claim: that there is a secret third level of meaning in the Narnia books which Lewis intended and which no one has seen until now. Ward argued logically and with encyclopedic detail that he had indeed made such a discovery. This first book did the hard work, the work of a scholar. Now Michael Ward is back with The Narnia Code: C. S. Lewis and the Secret of the Seven Heavens to take us on the adventure of his amazing discovery, to show us Lewis’s secret third level of meaning, and to explain why it matters to the Narnia books and to Christian lives.

When I first learned from Michael that he was writing a popular version of his scholarly book, I wondered how he was going to pull it off. What I have found in The Narnia Code is a readable, refreshing summary, application, and crystallization of his key ideas (with a few new arguments and evidences thrown in as well). I was immediately impressed by Ward’s ability to shift from an academic style (his is quite readable even then) to an engaging, almost narrative style. I found myself drawn in on the first page of the book and felt like I was reading a story rather than a non-fiction discussion about stories. I was next impressed by the pace of the book—having read Planet Narnia, I could see Ward whizzing through what were pages of material (in the first book) in a matter of paragraphs in The Narnia Code.

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