I think this is the best of the Narnia series. All of the books are great, but this one combines an involving story, great characters, great settings, great writing, and tons of symbolism into a wonderful whole. C. S. Lewis is absolutely my favorite fantasy writer.

I agree-- I love all of these books.

Just in case everyone didn't know, the order that the Chronicles of Narnia series was put into on this site is not the original order of the series. It ran like this:

1. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
2. Prince Caspian
3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
4. The Silver Chair
5. The Horse and His Boy
6. The Magician's Nephew
7. The Last Battle

It seems that a few years ago some publisher decided to put the books into chronological order. I think it helps more to understand the order in which the books were written. I've seen the ending of "The Magician's Nephew" (in which the making of the wardrobe is foreshadowed) described as a "bad segue to the next book" when it was really meant to be a clever reference to the first book.

Oh--the book-a-minute site? I enjoy it, but they do seem to have gotten more cutting lately.

I've never been able to decide on a favorite book in the Narnia series.

Ever notice how the dryads change character/type as the books go on? Here they _are_ the trees, by The Last Battle, one is seen walking away from her tree.

It's definitely better to read the Narnia books in the order Lewis wrote them; they're all great stand-alone stories, but many more references and events make sense when they're read as Nathan lists them.
I think, according to ancient mythology, that the depiction of dryads is more accurate in The Last Battle. They weren't regarded as actually being the trees, but as wood nymphs which could become/live in/control them. Anyone with a reference book handy to check my memory? Anyway, I think that would solve the discrepancy.

The other main "nit" in the series also comes from this one. Mr. Beaver says at one point that there had never been humans in Narnia before, but "The Magician's Nephew" features several. Tirian knew about them in "The Last Battle" so the events hadn't been forgotten.

Probably access to the old records was somewhat more difficult under the White Witch. And for that matter kings probably had a better education than random beavers.

I haven't read these books since I was a kid but wasn't Narnia only just created in The Magician's Nephew - the children jump into a nothing and the world is then created - the bit of lamp grows into a living lightpole, Aslan appears and so on. If Narnia didn't exist before this book, how can any of the other books come before it.
Or have I totally gotten it wrong?

"The Magician's Nephew" happens before all of the others chronologically, but it was written next to last. I think that the series reads a lot better in the order that Lewis wrote it-- for instance, "The Magician's Nephew" gives away a lot of things that you wouldn't know when reading "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", such as who the professor is. It's more of a prequel.

Unfortunately the new paperback publications of the Chronicles of Narnia are numbered chronologically. How many fifth graders would know that before reading a series?

Being someone who likes to read in chronological
order I perfer reading them starting with
THE MAGICIAN'S NEPHEW and on down the line to
THE LAST BATTLE.
But that is my personal preference.

I always thought the bit with the lion and Aslan
where the lion keeps going:"Did you hear?He said
'Us Lions'.."and Aslan keeps piling people of all
sorts on top of him to keep him still and quiet
was one of the great comic scenes in the entire
series.:)

The newer boxed set releases renumber them so that Magician's Nephew is #1, LWW is #2, The horse and his boy(?) is #3, Prince Caspian is #4, etc...

One interesting nit is what is powering the lamppost in The Lion The Witch & The Wardrobe? (OK it might not be electric.), who built it & why? apart from to show were the connection with the wardrobe is.

The origin of the lamppost is seen in book #6 "The Magician's Nephew". It seems a piece of a London lamppost was planted in Narnia and grew into a full-size lamppost. The post got planted by the White Witch (before she was the White Witch) after she threw it at Aslan's head, and it simply bounced off, no harm done. I don't know what significance the lamppost has, if any.

It's interesting that the Professor seems to know about Narnia (At least in the BBC 1988 adaptation), & entry to the Wardrobe will only be usable when needed. Did he ever have an adventure there?

Duke, thanks for the info on the Lampost.

Richard-

Your questions about the Professor, like those about the lamppost, are thoughtful, but I would not be able to answer them without posting big "SPOILER" warnings. I suggest you read The Magician's Nephew.

It seems the White Witch makes it always winter and never Christmas, but I think the fact that Narnia has Christmas at all is a little strange. They don't have Christ in Narnia, and although Aslan kind of is Christ, if the holiday is celebrating Him, then wouldn't it have a different name? Aslanmas or something? I guess Narnian Christmas has its origins with the first king of Narnia, King Frank the Cockney, who probably said one day to his animal pals, "Al'right blokes, i's Decemba 25th, it is, and we's gonna 'ave Chris'mas t'day! Le's make a Chris'mas puddin'!"

Mr. Beaver's lack of historical knowledge has already been addressed, concerning his not knowing about other humans having been in Narnia. He then continues to give a faulty account of the White Witch's parentage. I'll forgive him for not knowing that the Witch actually was the Queen of Charn in another world, and I'll assume that the story about her being part-Jinn and part-giant was handed down from those same intelligent beasts that planted Uncle Andrew in the ground, thinking he was a tree. But Mr. Beaver says something really odd. He says something about Adam's first wife being a Jinn named Lilith, from whom the Witch was supposedly descended. What's this Lilith being Adam's first wife business? These talking animals have strange traditions.

Not a nit, but there's an interesting chunk of Narnian history lost between The Magician's Nephew and this book. In that story, Aslan had Digory plant a tree of protection near the lamp-post to keep the Witch out of Narnia. Well, at some point something must have happened to this tree, because we never see it again, and the Witch did get in. It would have been interesting to find out what happened to it.

Lilith being Adam's first wife is a genuine bit of Jewish folklore. I believe the name was originally that of a Sumerian deity. In Jewish folklore, she's become a sort of vampire or succubus. Keep in mind that I'm doing much of this from memory and it may not be entirely accurate.

Anyone happen to know exactly what Turkish Delight is?

Webster has this to say-

Main Entry: Turkish delight
Function: noun
Date: 1877
: a jellylike or gummy confection usually cut in cubes and dusted with sugar -- called also Turkish paste

Yep. Basically it's a sort of primitive version of gummi candy, kinda reddish and (so I hear) very heavy and sticky. You can usually find it in specialty foods stores.

Funny. Maybe because of the similarity of the names, I'd always pictured it as a cross between nougat and Turkish Taffy -- kind of like vanilla flavored Tootsie Rolls.

In Britain, Fry's and Cadbury's do a chocolate covered version which I much prefer to the sugar dusted kind. But alittle can go a long, LONG, way.

I suppose most discussion of this should happen in the movie section but: www.narnia.com

Yay!

As there doesn't seem to be a narnia section in the movies yet, it seems appropriate to post this here...


The first official Narnia trailer is out. It does raise some interesting questions, though.

(POTENTIAL SPOILERS)

It appears that the stone table now has a sort of 'Stonehenge' arrangement around it.

The wardrobe starts out in the movie covered by a sheet. (A minor change, but a friend made a good point... it'll sure be HARD for anybody to find Lucy in the wardrobe during hide and seek- now that she's taken off the sheet and tossed it across the room... :-) )

There seems to be a bright glow emanating from inside the wardrobe... but hopefully this is just a corny trailer effect, just like 'National Treasure.'

There also appear to be several added scenes, including Peter's sword getting stuck in an iceflow which breaks off and carries them downriver as he tries to reclaim it, and some (presumeably White Witch based) sheets of flame cutting in between the two armies with their battle lines drawn. We'll have to see how these changes measure up...


Finally, any word on who's cast as the voice of Aslan? While I doubt it, I most sincerely wish it would be the actor from the Focus on the Family radio adaptions. He remains the definitive Aslan in my mind.

Brian Cox WAS the voice for awhile, but isn't any longer.

One interesting nit is what is powering the lamppost in The Lion The Witch & The Wardrobe? (OK it might not be electric.),...

While "Magician's Nephew" explains why there's a lamppost, it's never addressed where the power comes from. I don't know when the UK switched from gas-powered lampposts (which had to be lighted by a guy with a long pole) to the electric ones... but if it's gas-powered, that doesn't solve the problem.

In a way, I think "Magician's Nephew" is the weakest in the series because Lewis tries to explan everything there. Jumping right into Narnia in LW&W, Lucy and the reader experience a sense of wonder and astonishment at the mix of familiar things - a lamppost, British tea-time, a Queen, Turkish Delight - and the completly fantastical - a faun, a whole new country, talking animals etc. I think this mixture works much stronger than a completly fantastic country.
It also helps explain why Lucy, a small girl of about 6 years, goes on exploring - the lamppost is familiar enough to give her courage that some things are the same in this world. This can be seen as a symbol for the underlying theme, that although things look fantastic in Narnia, the same basic moral rules apply as in our world.

Explaining things later seems to not only diminish the magic, but also a bit convoluted:

SPOILER

The lamppost is there because Jarvis held onto the cross bar and broke it off and the ground was still fertile enough (yeah, right...);

Since only humans can sit on Narnia's throne, two humans have to be brought there (though we learn in "Prince Caspian" some more humans became Talmarians; and Lewis never addresses the incest problem of only one couple supplying the whole royalty. Is that why the humans died out, allowing the Ice Queen to take over?);

The wardrobe is a door to another world not because every child wishes to there be some magic behind the ordinary, drab things of everyday life, but because it's made from magical wood...

Partly I would have liked it better if Lewis had kept the mystery. I wonder if criticsm from nitpicking readers made him attempt to explain this?

Newer US series put "The Magician's Nephew" before "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe".

In Narnia, somehow the British tradition of tea (at least among the fawns)is known and the White Witch instantly knows what Turkish Delight is--when theoretically she wouldn't know what Turkish Delight is (unless she heard about it once from the first King and Queen--and the first King and Queen made tea a tradition in Narnia).

I know I am un-nitting my nit as I write it.

Makes sense; King Frank and Queen Helen were thoroughly British, after all! :-)

Lucy was eight years old when she became a Queen of Narnia.

Any parent of an eight year could tell you that many children of that age don’t possess the mental capabilities to take care of their bedroom, let alone an entire kingdom.

That might be a problem, Natalie, if Lucy were the sole ruler. However, she had Edmund, Susan, and Peter right there, co-ruling with her.

I think they're good.