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So I'm rereading the seven Chronicles of Narnia, in internal chronological order. It's been probably a dozen years since I read all of these books, and in the following entries my thoughts are a jumble of reactions on at least four levels: Watsonian, Doylist, and fannish of both a critical and laudatory variety. I loved these books as a child, and I still do; it's still possible for me to access, dimly, the spirit of following the author's lead in which I first read them in fourth grade, but that doesn't preclude criticism, not anymore at least; like so many other books of children's fantasy, I do find them in some ways flawed, or at least, they're not everything I want them to be on the page. So, you know, depending on your reaction to Narnia, you may just want to look at this cat macro instead. But I shall do my best to be honest about my own reactions, and the reasons behind them.
Lewis, C.S. The Magician's Nephew. New York: Harper Collins, 1994. [1955]
I used to think that this was my favorite of the Narnia books, and though I'm withholding judgment on that now until I've reread all seven, I can see why I liked this one so much; I think it still might be my favorite in the end.
swan_tower asked me why I thought that, and what I told her at the time was what I liked about it this time too: I find Jadis' backstory, and Jadis herself, to be fascinating (I bet her sister was just as titanic), and the bits about the creation of Narnia, and Polly and Diggory wandering around in the Wood Between the Worlds (Polly names it that, incidentally), and Uncle Andrew being such an idiot, and most of all the fact that Diggory's mother is dying, and he makes the choice he does anyway, and is rewarded for it, beyond thought and hope--I still find that interesting and affecting.
This time around I also noticed how Polly Plummer is MADE OF AWESOME; I also noticed the, well, preachiness (and also classism) that Lewis indulges in at times, particularly via Aslan, to say nothing of Uncle Andrew's greedy, colonialist impulses, and the implication of the Kirke family in British imperialism via India and the Raj. Also too this time I noticed that the Narnia books canonically take place in Sherlock Holmes' world, which is just screaming for a well-done crossover fic, preferably with Holmes getting the better of Uncle Andrew, who I actually despise a lot more now. But this is clearly the most Tolkienic of the Narnia books, and as a kid I was fascinated with the worldbuilding of Middle-Earth; around the same time that I read the Narnia books (fourth grade) I devoured the books of Tolkien's published papers despite not really fully understanding what was going on in them ever, and there are some things in TMN that simply have to have come by way of conversations with Tolkien, particularly the Trees of Gold and Silver (and the guardian white Tree) that are briefly mentioned before Frank and Helen's coronation. I enjoy it when books link up to each other, and I've always enjoyed knowing the origins of things (is it surprising that I am now going for a history Ph.D.? No it is not), and this book was explicitly written to link up to the later ones and to provide an origin story for Narnia, and I love it for that. It's probably best not to peek too far behind the 'creation by the Lion in a day' curtain, but even on this side of that barrier, it's a memorable story.
I was talking with my roommate about Narnia, and she pointed out that Jadis and the White Witch aren't terribly similar characters, which I hadn't really considered before but which I think is definitely true to an extent. Jadis in TMN is, well, passionate in a way--darkly, cruelly passionate, but passionate all the same, whereas the Witch is so--frozen. You can see it in their coloring, even, and Lewis does a decent job of lampshading the differences between them by having Jadis eat the apple wrongfully, but the White Witch has swallowed Winter, to borrow Michelle West's phrasing, in a way that Jadis hasn't and the apple doesn't account for in-text. More than anything, it's interesting to consider that Lewis thought that Jadis was the alpha point for the Witch.
Lewis, C.S. The Magician's Nephew. New York: Harper Collins, 1994. [1955]
I used to think that this was my favorite of the Narnia books, and though I'm withholding judgment on that now until I've reread all seven, I can see why I liked this one so much; I think it still might be my favorite in the end.
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This time around I also noticed how Polly Plummer is MADE OF AWESOME; I also noticed the, well, preachiness (and also classism) that Lewis indulges in at times, particularly via Aslan, to say nothing of Uncle Andrew's greedy, colonialist impulses, and the implication of the Kirke family in British imperialism via India and the Raj. Also too this time I noticed that the Narnia books canonically take place in Sherlock Holmes' world, which is just screaming for a well-done crossover fic, preferably with Holmes getting the better of Uncle Andrew, who I actually despise a lot more now. But this is clearly the most Tolkienic of the Narnia books, and as a kid I was fascinated with the worldbuilding of Middle-Earth; around the same time that I read the Narnia books (fourth grade) I devoured the books of Tolkien's published papers despite not really fully understanding what was going on in them ever, and there are some things in TMN that simply have to have come by way of conversations with Tolkien, particularly the Trees of Gold and Silver (and the guardian white Tree) that are briefly mentioned before Frank and Helen's coronation. I enjoy it when books link up to each other, and I've always enjoyed knowing the origins of things (is it surprising that I am now going for a history Ph.D.? No it is not), and this book was explicitly written to link up to the later ones and to provide an origin story for Narnia, and I love it for that. It's probably best not to peek too far behind the 'creation by the Lion in a day' curtain, but even on this side of that barrier, it's a memorable story.
I was talking with my roommate about Narnia, and she pointed out that Jadis and the White Witch aren't terribly similar characters, which I hadn't really considered before but which I think is definitely true to an extent. Jadis in TMN is, well, passionate in a way--darkly, cruelly passionate, but passionate all the same, whereas the Witch is so--frozen. You can see it in their coloring, even, and Lewis does a decent job of lampshading the differences between them by having Jadis eat the apple wrongfully, but the White Witch has swallowed Winter, to borrow Michelle West's phrasing, in a way that Jadis hasn't and the apple doesn't account for in-text. More than anything, it's interesting to consider that Lewis thought that Jadis was the alpha point for the Witch.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-14 21:24 (UTC)I resent TLM way out of proportion with what it does. For the most part the book just raised more questions than it answered. For instance, if the population of Calormen and Archenland are descended from the cabbie and his wife, who are a son of Adam and a daughter of Eve, why they children of Adam and Eve themselves?
I particularly resent TLM because of the way it was retconned into being the first book in the series when that is clearly not where it belongs in the narrative.
On the other hand, I adore so much of the setting. I love the connected rowhouses--I get excited whenever I see that style of house in the UK because of TLM. And I adore all the visuals of the Jadis backstory. They're just breathtaking. And the wood between the worlds also makes me happy, although again it feels a bit too much like a setup for TLB. While I can come up with Watsonian reasons for Digory to have neglected mentioning the rings to the Pevensies, none of them are particularly satisfying. I actually found the way they handled the buttons and the Neitherlands in The Magicians a lot more satisfying.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-14 21:29 (UTC)But it also established the Christian frame around the series from the get-go in a way that you dont get if you start with LWW.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-14 21:36 (UTC)The Christianity of some things in LWW and PC in particular stands out to me now that I've understood the elements of the allegory, but in many ways it's much subtler than TMN and TLB.
Yeah, I was indifferent to the Pevensies too, definitely as a reaction to them being completely unfamiliar to me after TMN.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-14 22:57 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-15 14:40 (UTC)(There is actually only one series I have come across where internal chronological order trumpts publication order, and that is the Anne of Green Gables series by L. M. Montgomery.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-15 18:42 (UTC)That's basically the evidence people have been using to say that Lewis "preferred" internal chronological.
Most series where publication order and internal chronological order are different, I go back and forth between the two but with Narnia I'm kind of a zealot. Possibly this is only because they changed the official series order while I was growing up, but still. When my first boxed set wore out I went on e-Bay and acquired another one of the appropriate era rather than cope with the retcon numbering. LWW assumes that the reader has never heard of Aslan. TMN opens with essentially "here's some backstory for that universe you already know about."
In conclusion, um, FEELINGS?
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-15 18:52 (UTC)But really, what I like most about publication order is that you start with LWW, and you proceed through the Pevensie adventures down through The Silver Chair, and then you take a worldbuilding break with HBB and TLM and the first half of TLB, and then there are bonus Pevensies back in Narnia. It has a good narrative shape, a better one than I've found reading them any other order, and it's that shape I'm attached to rather than the set numbering.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-15 19:20 (UTC)Just looking at the listing on the back of the old edition of TLB that I got out of the library, I think I agree with you about the shape of the narrative.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-15 19:50 (UTC)I guess the situation is that Lewis's stepson was really attached to the chronological order, and he convinced Harper Collins that Lewis was too. I don't think Lewis had especially strong feelings on the subject.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-15 19:14 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-14 21:33 (UTC)The retconning here makes some other things stick out really awkwardly in the later books, particularly Caspian's right to kingship in PC. I don't think Lewis really conceived of other countries with humans in them until after writing that book, and that leads to some really unpleasant, racist stuff with the Calormenes in particular (which of course culminates in TLB). It's been eons since I've read TLB, since I'm going in order, but they definitely don't fit with the other five in some really crucial ways--though you could probably construct a sort of meta-narrative starring Digory and Polly using them.
Oh, Digory and the Pevensies, I'm not even going there mentally unless I absolutely must. But yeah, so much of the story in TMN prior to the creation is just so awesome, and that's what I like best, except for the subplot with Digory and Jadis and the apples, but that's partly one of my favorite things because of my personal history.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-14 22:42 (UTC)My favorite part of Good Omens is Crawly and Aziraphale after Adam and Eve leave the garden. One of my favorite things in HDM is the daemons and puberty as the visible sign of the Fall left over from Eden. I really adore the musical Children of Eden.
So... yes, I totally read the end of TMN as being Adam and Eve fic. Some day I should finally read PL and figure out how this subgenre I love is actually all based on it, but I'm a bit afraid to face it.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-15 00:32 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-15 00:38 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-15 00:42 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-14 21:37 (UTC)Because they intermarried with naiads and river-gods, as they couldn't marry each other (incest). So much like Jadis is not a Daughter of Eve (being descended from Lilith), the "humans" of Narnia aren't Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve because they're descended from non-humans as well.
Conversely, the Telmarines fell into Narnia as a whole society, men and women both, and then stayed isolated and insular, so their stock remained solely human.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-14 21:41 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-14 21:44 (UTC)This of course begs the slight question as to how Frank and Helen's grandchildren were allowed to reign in Narnia before the Winter, but you could handwave that one as, there being no threat, it wasn't quite such a Big Deal. Or even as part of why the Witch could invade: with no true Son of Adam or Daughter of Eve on the throne, she had as much claim as any.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-14 21:53 (UTC)I mean, we're basically on completely fanon ground here, but I think the Witch probably killed the Tree and then went after the realm. Basically,
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-14 22:30 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-14 22:18 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-14 22:25 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-14 22:43 (UTC)