I have had some interesting discussions about C. S. Lewis’s Narnian books recently. One was with a Middle School girl this morning. She was borrowing “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” to read because her family was about to watch the video of the recently released film.
The seven Narnian stories were very important to me as a young reader. We were living in Kuala Lumpur at the time, and I discovered the series at a house my parents were visiting. The gentleman there kindly allowed me to borrow one book, and then for the next seven weeks I would finish the book by Monday evening and wait with anxiety for Sunday to come around, as he bought a new book each week to church to lend to me.
What is the correct order to read them? The series scans the whole existence of Narnia… “The Magician’s Nephew” deals with its creation, then comes “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. “The Horse and His Boy” occurs during the second book. “Prince Caspian” comes next, and then “Voyage”. “The Silver Chair” follows, and then “The Last Battle” includes the final end to Narnia.
I confess I no longer really enjoy reading “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. The language is dated in parts, and in some ways Lewis seems to grown more confident in his style in the books he wrote after this. I think “The Last Battle” contains the most radical and challenging ideas. There is some provocative thinking about faithfulness, humanism and heaven. My all time favourite however is “The Silver Chair”. It is (to me) the most “stand alone” of the stories, and has a wonderful dramatic arc. Some like it less because it does not feature the original four children. I just love Puddleglum the Marshwiggle! (You will have to read it to find out about Marshwiggles). His dialogue with the underground witch queen about knowing what is true and right by faith is very powerful.
As a set, definitely worth a revisit!
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