Lantern Waste

Everyday I pass this rather beautiful lamppost at the top of new walk, an old victorian thoroughfare in Leicester. Every time I pass, it reminds me of ‘Lantern Waste’ in C.S Lewis’s Narnia Series. They were my favourite books growing up as a child [read:Adult]. I find his imagination absolutely exemplary; nothing for me even comes close to his idea of fantasy and ‘Lantern Waste’ is an interesting and key piece to his fantasy worlds. Most people would recognise ‘lantern waste’ as the scene - from the film or the book - where Lucy climbs through the Wardrobe and finds a Lamppost in the midst of a snowy forest along with a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels.  It was this imagery that Lewis says spurred the whole series; the image hovered in his mind since he was 16 but didn’t write The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe until he was 40. My favourite book by Lewis though is the first in the series, ‘The Magicians Nephew’, although it was actually written after  The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe; Lewis was inspired to write The Magicians Nephew to express the origins of this bizarre concept of a single lamppost in a forest. 

If you haven’t read the book and don’t want it spoiled, I’d stop reading this blog post now.  The Magician’s Nephew, being a prequel, involves two different protagonists to the other stories; Digory and Polly, who travel to Narnia not through the wardrobe but by rings that allow travel through a series of multiverses. I find the imagination for the travel between these multiverses amazing enough in itself. Lewis imagines “A Wood Between Worlds” with an infinite amount of magical pools that you can swim between, if you are wearing the rings, which transport you to another multiverse. These multiverses, or worlds, are both created and destroyed and as Digory and Polly travel between them, some are in a state of decay and others are in a state growth. When they enter Narnia, the world is only just being created. Yet on their travels in between worlds, items are cross contaminated, such as a metal pole from a destroyed Lamppost in Victorian London. As the world of Narnia grows, this cross contaminated piece of metals grows with it into a fully grown lamppost. Back in our own world, a bit of bark from Narnia is thrown across worlds and grows into a full grown tree, later to be turned into a very significant Wardrobe.  


It amazes me that that one bit of imagery could go on to form a series of seven fantastical books which were so popular, and that that imagery most probably stemmed from something as simple as a Lamppost. Inspiration really is all around us, so make sure you soak it up and don’t let it go to waste.