C. S. Lewis' Sophisticated Imagination

The Chronicles, then, are indeed “about Christ,” but they are about Christ in a much more imaginatively sophisticated way than people have hitherto realized. The Narniad looks planless, but all is planned.

–Michael Ward, talking about the literary influence of the "planets" in C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia in "Narnia's Secret: The Seven Heavens of the Chronicles Revealed," in Touchstone.

In my opinion, Ward's work on the Chronicles is instructive and compelling. The Chronicles are not a "Chicken soup for the Soul" straightforward Christian allegory. It's there, just woven a little further into the story than that.