'Narnia' author's world revealed

PETOSKEY, Mich. — He may have the image of a dour, cloistered Oxford don with little knowledge of ordinary struggles. But C.S. Lewis, who wrote of epic struggles between good and evil in the imaginary land of Narnia, actually had a humorous side, his stepson says.

Douglas Gresham, 60, is co-producer of the film adaptation of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," which opens Dec. 9. His biography of Lewis, "Jack's Life," was published last month. (Friends knew Clive Staples Lewis by his nickname, Jack.)

He also helps oversee the Lewis estate and is unofficial guardian of his legacy, believing the man and his works are often misunderstood.

"He was a very funny man, very joyous," says Gresham, who spent "the most formative decade of my life" — ages 8 to 18 — in Lewis' company.

Gresham recently spoke at the third annual C.S. Lewis Festival in this northern Michigan town, where schools, churches and community groups paid tribute to the beloved British author, scholar of medieval literature and Christian apologist.

He said Lewis experienced war, career ups and downs, family troubles, love and heartbreak.

A bachelor most of his life, he married Joy Gresham in his late 50s but lost her to cancer four years later. Grief-stricken, he cared for her two sons, Douglas and David, until his death in 1963. Their brief romance is portrayed — touchingly but somewhat inaccurately, Gresham says — in the film "Shadowlands," starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger.

As "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" movie was developed, Gresham watched closely to make certain it faithfully represented the book and its underlying values. He's satisfied that director Andrew Adamson, who also directed the "Shrek" films, met the challenge.

"My job, I suppose, was as resident Narnia guru, to make sure everything Narnian was Narnian in the film, to make sure there weren't anachronisms and incongruities," Gresham says. "But to be honest with you, the team that we have had on this film has been so good that there's been very little that I've had to complain about."

For the uninitiated, Narnia is a magical world populated by talking animals and mythical creatures such as centaurs, dwarves and fauns.

The story, published in 1950, tells of four English siblings — Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy — sent to live in an old country house to escape the London bombings during World War II. They stumble into Narnia through a walk-in wardrobe and help overthrow a tyrannical white witch, whose spells have turned innocent victims to stone and frozen the landscape in perpetual winter.

The seven-part Narnia series has enthralled generations of young readers; nearly 100 million books have been sold.