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Thought: here is the setup for VDT. Father had got a job lecturing in America for sixteen weeks that summer, and Mother was to go with him because she hadn't had a real holiday for ten years. Peter was working very hard for an exam and he was to spend the holidays being coached by old Professor Kirke in whose house these four children had had wonderful adventures long ago in the war years.
This seems to place the book after the end of WWII, in which case half the Pevensie family haring off to America makes perfect sense. While Britain's major organized evacuations of children seem to have occurred in 1939 and 1940, there were others -- of varying degrees of spontaneity -- up through 1944, so it's not completely implausible for the Pevensies to have left London in June 1944 in response to the V-1 rocket attacks. Since PC is set one year after LWW, and VDT, according to Edmund, one year after PC, that would place VDT in 1946 -- after the "war years."
On the other hand, one could read the "long ago in the war years" line as relating not to the characters' experience of time but rather to the people reading the book, which was published in 1952. In support of that, Lewis's own (extracanonical) timeline says that LWW is set in 1940, which does make more sense in terms of organized evacuation efforts, and also perhaps in terms of characterization -- the Pevensies don't act like children who have been bombed for years on end. However, if LWW is set in 1940, VDT is consequently set in 1942... with the war still on and very much undecided. Whoops.
If we take Lewis's timeline over a statement in the book, what the devil was Mr. Pevensie doing in America?
I have read some wonderful fanfiction based on the premise that he was part of the British diplomatic effort to neutralize many Americans' continuing isolationist sentiments, but while I can believe that enough for reading, I can't quite believe in it enough for writing. (The first trick of selling a theory is to convince oneself, you see.) It also seems odd to assign that sort of job to a man who -- given the premise of a lecture tour or series -- sounds like an academic rather someone who has been fighting in the war and/or is part of the professional diplomatic corps.
Therefore, I propose a different theory.
Mr. Pevensie did not go to Washington. Dr. Pevensie went to Chicago.
He was working on what became the Manhattan Project. :-)
This seems to place the book after the end of WWII, in which case half the Pevensie family haring off to America makes perfect sense. While Britain's major organized evacuations of children seem to have occurred in 1939 and 1940, there were others -- of varying degrees of spontaneity -- up through 1944, so it's not completely implausible for the Pevensies to have left London in June 1944 in response to the V-1 rocket attacks. Since PC is set one year after LWW, and VDT, according to Edmund, one year after PC, that would place VDT in 1946 -- after the "war years."
On the other hand, one could read the "long ago in the war years" line as relating not to the characters' experience of time but rather to the people reading the book, which was published in 1952. In support of that, Lewis's own (extracanonical) timeline says that LWW is set in 1940, which does make more sense in terms of organized evacuation efforts, and also perhaps in terms of characterization -- the Pevensies don't act like children who have been bombed for years on end. However, if LWW is set in 1940, VDT is consequently set in 1942... with the war still on and very much undecided. Whoops.
If we take Lewis's timeline over a statement in the book, what the devil was Mr. Pevensie doing in America?
I have read some wonderful fanfiction based on the premise that he was part of the British diplomatic effort to neutralize many Americans' continuing isolationist sentiments, but while I can believe that enough for reading, I can't quite believe in it enough for writing. (The first trick of selling a theory is to convince oneself, you see.) It also seems odd to assign that sort of job to a man who -- given the premise of a lecture tour or series -- sounds like an academic rather someone who has been fighting in the war and/or is part of the professional diplomatic corps.
Therefore, I propose a different theory.
Mr. Pevensie did not go to Washington. Dr. Pevensie went to Chicago.
He was working on what became the Manhattan Project. :-)
