Aslan’s Breath: Seeing the Holy Spirit in Narnia by Matthew Dickerson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I grew up on The Chronicles of Narnia; they were my gateway to fantasy literature. Growing in a Christian community where there was some stigma about fantasy, but Narnia passed muster with its over themes of love and good vs. evil. As I grew up, I moved on to more “adult” fantasy such as Lord of the Rings, but still was interested in literary criticism about Narnia. That is what caught my eye about Aslan’s Breath in the bookstore.
There has been a lot written about the Christ-like figure of Aslan, and it is hard not to read the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea as God the Father, but little has been written about where the Holy Spirit fits into the chronicles. The author’s thesis is that the references to breath and wind in the novels symbolizes the Spirit, just as it is described in the New Testament.
What stood out to me about this book is the way in which it was created. One of the chapters was presented at a conference and from that presentation, the other chapters covering all of the Narnia novels were written to complete the book. The author’s thesis was also intriguing particularly as I had never stopped to think about how the Holy Spirit would fit into the books if we read Aslan as a Christ-figure.
I think the ideas in the book were interesting, but I struggled with the organization and editing. Since parts of this book were written as speeches or papers and later adapted to fit into the book, there are places where the book as a whole does not flow. There were also several editing errors that were distracting. If you did not read the Narnia books through a faith lens, I don’t think this book would be interesting. While it is not dogmatic, at its core there’s the conceit that Aslan IS a Christ-figure; this is not a book for general Narnia fans.