The Passion, the Pride, and the Copyright Law

Promo still from Disney's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

I never heard of Francis Spufford, the British literary critic turned novelist, until this week, when he garnered stray headlines over a book which he’ll almost certainly never publish. Spufford wrote a book intended to close a gap I didn’t realize existed in CS Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, a piece which the few who have ever read it describe as unacknowledged genius. But he wrote this book without first getting clearance from the Lewis estate.

My opinions on today’s overly long copyright protections are already well-documented. In signatory countries to the Berne Convention (which is most of the world), most artistic works are protected for a minimum of fifty years after the creators’ death. But that’s a minimum; America and Britain offer additional protections, keeping works secured for seventy years. So Narnia won’t enter public domain, or support unauthorized derivative works, in the English-speaking world’s two largest markets until 2034.

Nearly seventy years after the first volume dropped, Narnia remains among those rare few books that actually continues making money for its author’s heirs. It remains a steady seller at Christian and mainstream bookstores, and as been adapted for mass media twice, by the BBC and Disney. (A Netflix adaptation has been reported.) Most authors make all royalties they’ll ever make on their books in the first year, but Narnia remains lucrative three generations later.

Meanwhile Professor Spufford, like most authors, needs a day job to subsidize his writing, in his case as a writing instructor. His works are well-regarded, by people whose job it is to regard such things, but not widely read. Not only will his work probably not remain in circulation in seventy years, I’ve had some difficulty tracking it down today; if I wanted his books, I’d need to pay and have them imported from Britain.

Which is where this becomes interesting.

Arguably, Spufford has committed a PR coup. I’d never heard of Professor Spufford before this story erupted this week, but investigating him to write this essay, I discovered that his criticism dovetails with a nonfiction book I’m writing; I have a title on order. Congrats, Professor, you made a sale. Even without publishing the controversial novel, Spufford has ridden Lewis’ coattails to relevance, selling some copy along the way.

Francis Spufford

Spufford claims to have written a novel that reconciles the gap between The Magician’s Nephew, Narnia’s creation myth, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the first-published Narnia book. I hadn’t realized there were any particular inconsistencies; like Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s Dune continuation novels (based on Frank Herbert’s notes), nobody knew there was a missing middle until somebody filled it. And the few critics who’ve seen it, apparently praise Spufford’s writing.

This isn’t without precedent. Novelist Gregory Maguire made his name rewriting popular children’s fantasies from the antagonists’ viewpoint. His breakout novel, Wicked, forced audiences to reëvaluate their preconceptions about The Wizard of Oz. But Maguire waited until the source material went out of copyright. Admittedly this was easier, before the Copyright Extension Act of 1996 extended protections until almost Doomsday.

And, just a brief reminder, that copyright extension was subsidized by lobbyists paid by Disney.

This bears mentioning because Disney made its reputation adapting works from the public domain. Their classic The Jungle Book (1967) hit theatres only one year after Rudyard Kipling’s copyright extension ended, which, given the long lead time in movie production, means the work began under technically unlawful terms. Nevertheless, both Disney and Maguire established their names repurposing society’s common cultural pool, and not by taking property that technically belongs to somebody else. Or their estate.

I’m not sure Spufford is wrong, though. Narnia has become so widespread in popular culture that it’s unmoored itself from its author. Considering just one example, American author Lev Grossman’s The Magicians clearly takes Narnia as its inspiration, changing proper nouns just enough to create plausible deniability. The result masterfully addresses Lewis’ deep moral omissions. Grossman, like Spufford, engages with Narnia’s widespread cultural influence. He just cooperates with established intellectual property law to do so.

In short, I find myself torn. Narnia has become widespread cultural mythology, a shared experience many readers recall fondly from childhood. But it also remains somebody’s livelihood, and Spufford’s decision to not collaborate with the Lewis estate bespeaks a certain intellectual arrogance. Which, as I struggle to establish my writing career, I almost admire, since modesty doesn’t launch an arts career. Maybe more writers should kick the beehive. Maybe Spufford is the hero we need.