I’ve long thought that the idea of reading The Chronicles of Narnia in chronological order is plain silly. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the first, and needs to be read first. Prequels, like The Magician’s Nephew, demand a knowledge of the “quels” they’re “pre-” to. As I’ve been reading the series with my kids over the last few months (we step into The Last Battle today), I’ve become even more convinced that Lewis told them in the right order when he wrote them, not when he talked about it later.
John Miller over at National Review Online makes the case wonderfully. Mostly by quoting the two books vying for first read. He’s right, it’s Wardrobe all the way.
Lewis put the matter more succinctly in a letter toward the end of his life: “An author doesn’t necessarily understand the meaning of his own story better than anyone else.”
Lewis of course understood the meaning of Narnia. But a wise expert is not the same thing as a final authority — and on the question of which Narnia book should come first, Lewis was utterly wrong.
Rusty
George Lucas is now arguing that his movies should now be viewed IN ORDER 1-6. I believe one’s choice is simple: figure everything out in 1-3 or 4-6. You can’t have it both ways. If you choose to watch 1-3 first any of the new information in 4-6 will no longer be new. Now, if you choose to watch them 4-6 first, there is much in 1-3 that is new: midichlorians, MANY new characters, Palpatine and Vader’s advance to power, the rise of the Empire, etc and etc. Lucas is wrong. Sorry Georgie!I imagine a similar case can be made for Narnia =)
H. C.
2 comments:1. Thanks for your steady stream of input to the <>Noise<>, I should just make you a team member, since you do half the writing here.2. You’re exactly right. My boys loved Ep. IV, and then Ep 3 came out in theaters before we had a chance to move on to <>Empire<>. And then from only seeing commercials, Frodo’s walking around talking about Anikin Skwalker becoming Darth Vadar..wow! I hear that am am dismayed. He’s not going to have that “What the –?!” moment the rest of us had with Luke. He was robbed.
warmthvibe
Random comment- sorry for the brevity- I’ve read Don DeLillo’s White Noise and did a pomo presentation on it. I have to say that I enjoyed the book and am glad to see you centered your blog around it.
Joel
I don’t know what the intentions of Lewis were, but it is obvious that chronologically The Magician’s Nephew is first. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it should be first in the Narnia “canon.” Think of the Bible, and Job, or the Hebrew ordering of the OT which ends with 2 Chronicles. Chronology is not always the way to order things.