Google Alerts, Lucy Pevensie, And What It Means For Writers

Lucy reading the Magicians book

Several weeks ago I finished reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader to my children for the first time. There is a scene in the novel (it didn’t make the film) where Lucy  stumbles across a spell in the Magician’s book that lets you know what your friends think about you. My children found it very sad and I’ve pondered it a great deal since:

And all in a hurry, for fear her mind would change, she said the words (nothing will induce me to tell you what they were)…And all at once she saw the very last thing she expected – a picture of a third-class carrige in a train, with two schoolgirls sitting in it. She knew them at once. They were Margorie Preston and Anne Featherstone. Only now it was much more than a picture. It was alive…Then gradually (like when the radio is coming on) she could hear what they were saying.

“Shall I see anything of you this term?” said Anne, “or are you still going to be all taken up with Lucy Pevensie?”

“Don’t know what you mean by taken up,” said Marjorie.

“Oh yes, you do,” said Anne. “You were crazy about her last term.”

“No, I wasn’t,” said Margorie. “I’ve got more sense than that. Not a bad little kid in her way. But I was getting pretty tired of her before the term ended.”

“Well, you jolly well won’t have the chance any other term!” shouted Lucy. “Two-faced little beast.” But the sound of her own voice at once reminded her that she was talking to a picture and that the real Marjorie was far away in another world. “Well,” said Lucy to herself, “I did think better of her than that…I wonder, are all friends the same? There are lots of other pictures. No. I won’t look at any more. I won’t, I won’t,” – and with a great effort she turned over the page, but not before a large, angry tear had splashed on it.

 

Later Aslan finds Lucy in the library…

 

“Child,” he said, “I think you have been eavesdropping.”

“Eavesdropping?”

“You listened to what your two schoolfellows were saying about you.”

“Oh that?” I never thought that was eavesdropping, Aslan. Wasn’t it by magic?”

“Spying on people by magic is the same as spying on them in any other way. And you have misjudged your friend. She is weak, but she loves you. She was afraid of the older girl and said what she does not mean.”

“I don’t think I’d ever be able to forget what I heard her say.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Oh dear,” said Lucy. “Have I  spoiled everything? Do you mean we would have gone on being friends if it hadn’t been for this – and really great friends – all our lives perhaps – and now we never shall?”

“Child,” said Aslan, “did I not explain to you once before that no one is ever told what would have happened?”

Something about the knowledge granted by the Magician’s spell reminds me very much of Google Alerts. Shortly before my novel released, my publisher encouraged me to set up a Google Alert so I’d know when anyone was talking about me or my book online. The theory, I believe, is that when I received an alert, I could engage that person and build a relationship. But in reality, for me, it felt a bit like showing up at someone’s house unannounced. It was a nerve racking experience. I canceled it after six months.

Though I don’t care to know when my  name crops up in a cyber-discussion, I don’t think Google Alerts are all bad. A number of friends have made great professional connections as a result. But I do think it’s one of those services that comes with a price. And the ultimate question, I think, is whether or not it’s good for us to have that kind of knowledge?