As compared to the swarthy, slant-eyed hordes coming from the East in Sauron's support during the War of the Ring?
Now that I've finished
The Lord of the Rings, and have finally encountered those famous orc of whom I have heard so much about, I will observe that I did not find their depiction as offensive or upsetting as that of the Calormenians in
The Chronicles of Narnia. Because in his design and description of the orcic hordes he seems to merely be tapping into the collective European consciousness' memories and history-myths of an unstoppable destructive horde from the East – whether Hun or Turk or Saracen
– but C.S. Lewis on the other hand comes across as very deliberately caricaturing cultures and societies for which he harboured contempt and distrust drawn purely from bigotry – and in doing so evidently fails to even understand those cultures and societies he disparages with so uncharitable a pen. That part about Calormenian poetry being inferior to Narnian poetry, for example: when Lewis writes that the Calormen-raised protagonist Cor feels like a rocket had blasted up within him upon listening to Narnian poetry, a sensation he had never felt with Calormenian poetry, that part rankled with me even when I first read it as a child. Because I
have read the sort of poetry Lewis is stereotyping here, and I have read English poetry as well, and though I love the latter my appreciation tends to stop at its aesthetic virtues – I have not
felt poetry in the English language so truly and intensely as that former sort of poetry; in fact, if I were asked to describe how it made me feel I would say it was like if someone had lit a dynamite within me – very much like the way Lewis describes Narnian poetry.
And that is not the only jarring thing in
The Horse And His Boy. There is an episode – for example – where Lewis makes a contrast between the dark, scowling Calormenian guards and the smiling and laughing fair-haired noble Narnians and Archenlanders. Then there is the depiction of every Calormenian character in the story as being greedy, cruel and double-crossing (with the exception of the female protagonist).
But I still love the series, and I still love the book (
The Horse And His Boy is among my favourite childhood novels) but my memories of them are nonetheless implacably soured.
Currently reading the first chapter to see if I like the author's style enough to continue. So far, so good.
