Chronicles of Narnia

[chongjasmine]

I had just watch prince caspian movie.
I had heard that the chronicle of narnia was a series of children's books.
Well, do you recommend them to an adult like me?
Also, which of the narnia's books is the most exciting, and which, the most dull?

 

[The Ace]

They're Christian allegories, but decent stories. Although, 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the first published, the recommended reading order is as follows;

The Magician's Nephew
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Horse and his Boy
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the, 'Dawn Treader.'
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle.

The quality is fairly consistent throughout.

 

[Ian Whates]

Interesting order, Ace, memory tells me that The Horse and his Boy should be second with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe third, but it's a long long time since I read them.

 

[The Ace]

Well, HB takes place during the golden age, remember ? Some way through the final chapter of tLtWtW.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Liked the first on , but fairly hard going even for an adult at times , and certainly not books I would read to my children.

 

[thepaladin]

I would, but to each his own. They are more character drive in some places, more plot driven in others. I like C. S. Lewis pretty much across the board. I can only suggest that you try them for yourself.

 

[Ian Whates]

I read all the books as a kid and absolutely loved them -- some of my very favourite books for many years. Didn't realise there was a Christian subtext until much later, just loved the adventure and the characters.

 

[Pyan]

I'd go with Paladin and Ian - they can be read as straight adventure fantasies, with the symbolism ignored, or as mirrors to Christianity, depending. Either way, a good introduction for children to the genre.

 

[Sparrow]

I too read the Chronicles of Narnia as a young lad and as others have mentioned the christian bent to the series is not so overt that it takes away the charm of a splendid tale well told. At the time I certainly had no idea what might have inspired those stories. Indeed, the christian allegory must have fluttered somewhere above my head, as harmless then as now.

My advice is to read the lot of'em, and in order. You won't regret it.
As a postscript, read Neil Gaiman's short story The Problem of Susan which squarely lampoons CS Lewis and his christian mores. When your God is a Lion, don't be shocked when that God rings the dinner bell...


Of nylons, lipstick, and invitations, I will not say more.

 

[thepaladin]

That comes from the last time we see the Pevensie children and Susan isn't with them. For the fantasy it simply seems to imply that like characters in other fantasy stories Susan has ceased to believe and therefore Narina is no longer real to her...she isn't there for the last adventure.

On the Christian side (and most children of course won't pick up on it) she has been side tracked by worldly interests and will return to God later when all is made plain.

I suppose most children while seeing the morality tales won't pick up on the more overt Christian symbols (the most overt of course being Aslan the Lion taken from the Lion of God and the Lion of Judah and other titles Jesus was the primary subject of).

 

[Sparrow]

Susan denied that Aslan and Narnia were real, and that belief in such things is best left for children. She returned to the real world with eyes opened.

Apparently wearing stockings and lipstick is the fast track to hell.



You really ought to read Gaiman's story. The Lion and The Witch divvy up the kids and... well, it gets very messy.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Apparently wearing stockings and lipstick is the fast track to hell.

Interesting the way so many people are certain the Susan is going to Hell, when Lewis said nothing of the sort.

Not unless the rest of us are supposed to be in Hell, since Susan were merely left behind in our world.

I was disappointed at what happened to Susan, because it struck me as a strange turn for her character to take (she hadn't grown up worldly and shallow the last time), and I sense the cold hand of authorial manipulation to make a point, but the punishment isn't for lipstick and nylons. Did Lewis even mention nylons? It seems rather an intimate detail for Lewis to include. She's being punished for allowing herself to be distracted by vanity and choosing to deny the truth.

The whole, "Susan was consigned to Hell" is such a willful misreading of what Lewis says. I always smell an agenda (if not the agenda of the person who is saying it, then at least the agenda of whoever convinced them that Lewis said what he didn't say at all).

 

[Pyan]

"My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer a friend of Narnia."

"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says, 'What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'"

"Oh Susan!" said Jill. "She's interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on growing up."

"Grown-up, indeed," said the Lady Polly. "I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race onto the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and stop there as long as she can."

The Last Battle - C.S. Lewis

I think that is the superficiality of Susan's present life and interests that CSL is disapproving of and is disappointed in, and the "nylons and lipstick and invitations" are merely symptomatic of that shallowness. And nowhere in the book does he state or imply that she will be going hell for that foolishness, as Teresa says.

 

[Pyan]

Another thing - in The Horse and his Boy, Susan's growing up and maturity is actually spoken of with approval - within Narnia itself, it's not at all bad to be good-looking and have men fall at your feet.

CSL himself actually states, in Letters to Children, that:

The books don't tell us what happened to Susan. She is left alive in this world at the end, having by then turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman. But there's plenty of time for her to mend and perhaps she will get to Aslan's country in the end... in her own way.

Hardly Susan's gone to Hell....

 

[Sparrow]

Yeah, CS did actually mention nylons. It was Jill who comments that Susan cares for nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations.

Paradise is snatched away from poor Susan. I suppose growing up and liking boys does not a happy Lion make. As with most other Gods you're either all in or all out. And btw, as I recall CS never gives any real justification for Susan getting the hook. It comes quite abruptly and on the say-so of one character.

 

[thatollie]

The order Ace puts the books in is the order of the single volume edition in my bookcase. I wouldn't see any problem with reading them as an adult, I've reread it a few times (Then again I've reread Winnie-The-Pooh a few times as well).

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I thought that one thing The Last Battle makes perfectly clear is that Lewis is saying that Paradise doesn't get "snatched away," you either choose it or you don't. Those who didn't choose it were afraid of being taken in. Since Susan thought that Narnia and Aslan were a fairy tale, it would have been a cruel time to ask her to make the choice

pyan -- I had forgotten that line of Jill's, though I did remember Polly's.

But it suddenly strikes me that that while Peter simply says she is no longer a friend of Narnia, and Eustace says she no longer believes in Narnia the specific accusations come from the two characters who know Susan least. How long has Jill even known, Susan? It has to be some time after The Silver Chair so Jill is hardly qualified to say what Susan "always was a jolly sight too keen on ."

Of course we have Lewis's own word on in that she had become silly and conceited but, as you point out, it's the same letter where he says she had time to mend and get to Aslan's country.

That "in her own way" is also interesting. It sounds like Lewis may have known exactly how she would do it, but wasn't going to cheat his readers with a, yes, but here is what I didn't tell you. (Do I hear a little voice at the back of my mind whispering "Albus Dumbldore.")

 

[thepaladin]

Ms. Edgerton I believe you have hit it on the head. The same book points to a situation where everyone is in the same spot and one group simply refuses to see where they are. They simply can't fatham paradise. In The Great Divorce Lewis covers the same groud in a more adult (though no less alagorical) manner.

 

[Arwena]

Everyone recognizes that there is Christian allegory in Lewis. (Some of us are not put off by it!) There is Christian allegory in Tolkien, too, though he was 100x more subtle about it. I think Lewis (and Tolkien) thought that many more people would be amenable to Christian ideas if it was presented in story form. Lewis probably saw it as "the human story is the Christian story," though, I suppose, if you wish you could say, "the Christian story is a human story." The only story is, of course, you have to be willing to sacrifice everything for love of others.

 

[thepaladin]

I've read a lot of Lewis and have almost everything I can lay my hands on..books, stories, essays......... I love Lewis. Tolkien used to (can one say "kid" about the "Inklings"?) anyway "light heartedly criticize" Lewis for being too overt in his stories. He found lewis's symbolisim too obvious...

I've run down Charles Williams and George Macdonald. (Macdonald predated the Inklings but was an influnce on Lewis).