The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by reginaroadie

OTHER SCIENCE FICTION SERIES

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

POSTED BY: REGINAROADIE
UPDATED: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 12:00
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VIEWED: 3887
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Sunday, November 13, 2005 8:00 PM

I just finished listening to the unabridged audiobook of THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE on my iPod. I bought a U2 20G iPod at a discount. You know, they actually ask you to name it. So I decided to call mine Natalie. And with all that extra space on it, I decided to get some audiobooks to listen to for my walks. I saw the trailers for the flick, and was intrigued. But when I heard about the numerous Xtian parallels in the book, I thought "Huh?" So I decided to bone up on Narnia to see for myself what the big deal was.

I gotta tell you, I was blown away. I wish I had read this book when I was a kid. This is without a doubt one of the best fantasy and children's books ever written. This should be read to every kid as a bedtime story next to Harry Pooter, Dr. Seuss, Robert Munsch and the like. The Xtian parallels were strong, but not hitting you over the head. The characterizations of Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy were fleshed out a lot so that we got to really know these kids. And I can't wait to see Tilda Swinton take a crack at The White Witch. Aslan I thought was a very strong stand in for Christ. I imagine the other books would really delve into Aslan and why he's such a feared and respected character. As for his voice, Liam Neeson is OK, but I would have loved to have heard Brian Cox's voice coming from the lion. The only time I felt a bit shortchanged was the final battle. Aslan, Susan, Lucy and the others only showed up at the last minute, and once Aslan pounced on the White Witch, it was pretty much all over. But I imagine in the movie, the battle is stretched out and massive, like any of the battles in the RINGS trilogy.

Going into the holiday season, there really wasn't anything to look forward to for me after SERENITY, outside of KING KONG. But I think this'll actually give KONG a run for it's money.

Are there any other's who have read the book and loved it? Or just folk who really want to see the movie.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"YES!!!I'm a man posessed by many demons....Polite demons that would open the door for a lady carrying too many parcels...BUT DEMONS NONETHELESS!!!! Yes. I have walked along the path of evil many times, it's a twisting, curving path that..actually leads to a charming plot garden, BUT BEYOND THAT EVIL!!!"

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 8:20 PM

EMBERS

Quote:
Originally posted by reginaroadie:

Are there any other's who have read the book and loved it? Or just folk who really want to see the movie.

Yeah, I read them in college and loved them,
I think the 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader' is my favorite...
I am really looking forward to this movie,
the trailers have looked great.

**********************************************
watch the R. Tam Session vids: http://www.hittarivertam.nu/
and buy the 'Serenity' comics published by Dark Horse,
and have you joined the Browncoats yet?
http://browncoats.serenitymovie.com/serenity/?fuseaction=tools.invlink
&u=embers&linkID=36

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 8:21 PM

LIMINALOSITY

You know there are many more of this Narnia thing, right?
It is a wonderful story, isn't it? I only found it as an adult too, and wished I'd found it when I was young. I think book lists for kids are better now than they were, and include a healthier dose of imaginary worlds.

I can hardly wait for the movie, but as with most things I'l probably always like the books best.

Thanks to viral marketing...SERENITY: reopening soon in a theater near you.
Shiny Trees! Yavanna made Shiny Trees!

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Sunday, November 13, 2005 11:36 PM

N0SKILLZ

Awesome books, can't wait for the movie(s). Prolly one of the best books I read as a kid.

-------------------------------
Death is like sex in high school... If you knew how many times you missed having it you'd be paralyzed- Georgia Lass (Dead Like Me)

*Andersen AFB, Guam*

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Monday, November 14, 2005 4:22 AM

REGINAROADIE

I was wondering about that. Do you think maybe you can give me a list of all the Narnia book in reading order? I heard there's like 7 of them, like the Harry Potter books, and that LION, is actually the second book in the series, even thought it was published first.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"YES!!!I'm a man posessed by many demons....Polite demons that would open the door for a lady carrying too many parcels...BUT DEMONS NONETHELESS!!!! Yes. I have walked along the path of evil many times, it's a twisting, curving path that..actually leads to a charming plot garden, BUT BEYOND THAT EVIL!!!"

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Monday, November 14, 2005 6:28 AM

VANCOUVER

Quote:
Originally posted by reginaroadie:
I was wondering about that. Do you think maybe you can give me a list of all the Narnia book in reading order? I heard there's like 7 of them, like the Harry Potter books, and that LION, is actually the second book in the series, even thought it was published first.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"YES!!!I'm a man posessed by many demons....Polite demons that would open the door for a lady carrying too many parcels...BUT DEMONS NONETHELESS!!!! Yes. I have walked along the path of evil many times, it's a twisting, curving path that..actually leads to a charming plot garden, BUT BEYOND THAT EVIL!!!"

Hello, new Narnia readers. Hard to believe there're people out there in the English-speaking world who didn't read these as kids--but then, the Lord of the Rings sold 72 million copies after the movies started coming out, and I would have sworn everybody on the planet had already read those. So there you go.

The seven, in "correct reading order":
1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
2. The Magician's Nephew (note: this is a "prequel" to #1. If you were putting them in chronological order according to Narnian history, this would be #1)
3. The Horse and His Boy
4. Prince Caspian
5. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
6. The Silver Chair
7. The Last Battle

The "correct reading order" line is from the list on the inside of my copy of Prince Caspian. The movie-makers seem to be following that order, though they might find they have some prequel-type problems when it comes to the next one. However, they are all effective as stand-alone books. Most of us old Narnia fans read The Horse and His Boy separately, or at least hold it apart in our minds, since it is the only one that takes place entirely in Narnia, and the events in it actually happen during the last part of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I wouldn't be surprised if the filmmakers leave it out, if they're doing the whole series.

Other things you may not know, if you're new to these books: C.S. Lewis wrote them at the same time that J.R.R. Tolkien was writing the LOTR trilogy, and in fact they wrote them together, in some senses. They were both dons at Oxford at that time, and had a club called The Inklings, with some other writers such as Charles Williams. (Dorothy L. Sayers, who wrote the Peter Wimsey murder mysteries, was also on the scene at the time, but they wouldn't let her in...or so I've read.) Tolkien would read his latest part of the Ring trilogy to Lewis et al, and get feedback, and then when Lewis also decided to write a children's series, he read his stuff to Tolkien and the others.

They were both Christians and intent theologians at that time--which is where D.L. Sayers fits in, as she was also a scholarly kind of Christian, and was producing the definitive translations of Dante, which went on to be the best-selling such books ever, at that point--but Christianity only really shows up in Lewis's books. Tolkien was coming at his Lord of the Rings from a much more linguistic and pre-Christian point of view: he had created several full-fledged languages, complete with intricate grammars (these became the various Elven, Dwarvish, Human etc languages of the books), and really was interested in creating a specifically English mythology, of the type that might have been passed down had the French not conquered England so early on and imposed their own mythology. You can take a full course in Quenyan, one of the several Elvish languages, from a Tolkien-language scholar online, but I warn you: it's brutal, being based on Scandinavian languages, and having 9 cases (that's more than Latin, folks! Though 5 fewer than Finnish...)

Hence, the LOTR is about as secular as it gets, considering that, with the completeness of the world JRRT created, there were/are many mythologies and religions within Middle Earth. Even the The Silmarillion, which would be the counterpart to Lewis's Magician's Nephew, is not Christian, as you would expect: Tolkien conceives of Creation as having started as music, so the binaries of Good and Evil aren't there.

But I digress. A potential drawback to reading the Narnian Chronicles as an adult is that the Christian preachiness will be more apparent than if you read it as a kid. Myself, I don't find it a huge distraction: it only really surfaces explicitly in small segments, like at the end of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and the last quarter of The Last Battle. I have more of a problem with the kind of Puritanical, judgemental underlay of the series, which Tolkien's writing avoids. (I keep mentioning him because, to most kids, the Narnian series are one of the stepping stones to the Ring trilogy, with Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles being the other main stepping stone--there's another series that is really fantastically enjoyable, and wise in a way that some others perhaps aren't...)

Anyway, enjoy! The Narnian stories really are great books, and if I venture some critiques it's only because I have the luxury of viewing them with a jaded eye, having read them about umpteen million times.

Beautiful gift editions are available now, too, after a big blitz a few years back for the 50th anniversary. Pauline Baynes, who has done the definitive illustrations, went back and hand-coloured a bunch of the pictures that had been in black and white all this time. So it's a good time to discover them.

How's that for over-answering?

Vancouver

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Monday, November 14, 2005 6:45 AM

XANDERLHARRIS

I got this off of the internet.

Original Order
1950 The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
1951 Prince Caspian
1952 The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
1953 The Silver Chair
1954 The Horse and His Boy
1955 The Magician's Nephew
1956 The Last Battle

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

In 1957 an American boy wrote C. S. Lewis to ask about the best order for reading The Chronicles of Narnia. The boy's mother believed the books should be read in order of their publication, beginning with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. But the boy thought it would be better to read them in order of Narnian history, beginning with the creation of the enchanted world in The Magician's Nephew.

C. S. Lewis wrote back to the boy, saying, "I think I agree with your order for reading the books more than with your mother's," and soon afterward the publishers began to number them in this way. But Lewis, who had written bits and pieces of the books at different times, also noted that the order probably didn't much matter: "I'm not even sure that all the [books] were written in the same order in which they were published."

Ash

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Monday, November 14, 2005 6:50 AM

EMBERS

Quote:
Originally posted by reginaroadie:
Do you think maybe you can give me a list of all the Narnia book in reading order?

well I have to disagree with Vancouver,
the order in which they were written is:
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Andes/6712/CON.html

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

and this is the order in which I read them,
that is how publishers first presented them...
then they changed it to put 'Magician's Nephew' first
(which was a dumb idea because it was meant to be read later, after you knew more about Narnia)
I never saw Vancouver's order before....

edited to add: Thank you XanderLHarris for clearing that up!
that makes a lot of sense.

**********************************************
watch the R. Tam Session vids: http://www.hittarivertam.nu/
and buy the 'Serenity' comics published by Dark Horse,
and have you joined the Browncoats yet?
http://browncoats.serenitymovie.com/serenity/?fuseaction=tools.invlink
&u=embers&linkID=36

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Monday, November 14, 2005 7:54 AM

VANCOUVER

Quote:
Originally posted by embers:
Quote:
Originally posted by reginaroadie:
Do you think maybe you can give me a list of all the Narnia book in reading order?

well I have to disagree with Vancouver,
the order in which they were written is:
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Andes/6712/CON.html

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

and this is the order in which I read them,
that is how publishers first presented them...
then they changed it to put 'Magician's Nephew' first
(which was a dumb idea because it was mean to be read later, after you knew more about Narnia)
I never saw Vancouver's order before....

edited to add: Thank you XanderLHarris for clearing that up!
that makes a lot of sense.

**********************************************
watch the R. Tam Session vids: http://www.hittarivertam.nu/
and buy the 'Serenity' comics published by Dark Horse,
and have you joined the Browncoats yet?
http://browncoats.serenitymovie.com/serenity/?fuseaction=tools.invlink
&u=embers&linkID=36

Yeah, good info there. Like I said in my post, the whole "correct reading order" thing was a quote from my edition. It is in inside the first page, opposite the title page (which says "Prince Caspian: Return to Narnia--a subtitle I don't remember ever noticing before!!). It says "All seven stories of Narnia are publised in Puffins, and the correct reading order is:" and then it gives the list I gave. It wasn't my opinion; I personally don't think it matters all that much either way, except it's probably best to read Prince Caspian, Dawn Treader, and The Silver Chair in that order, unless you don't mind Caspian's his age going the wrong direction, and probably it would wreck some things to read The Last Battle in any other position than last. But the whole Magician's Nephew/Lion, Witch debate, and what to do with The Horse and His Boy, are pretty trivial.

Anyway, wanted to clarify that this was Puffin's ordering, not mine.

Vancouver

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Monday, November 14, 2005 8:01 AM

EMBERS

Quote:
Originally posted by Vancouver:

Anyway, wanted to clarify that this was Puffin's ordering, not mine.

Vancouver

I'm sorry Vancouver,
I didn't mean to sound like you were making it up,
I only posted because it surprised me...

I think everyone is right, the order doesn't really matter (altho it is better to do Prince Caspian before Dawn Treader...)
but I do think it is always best to start with:
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
the reason I feel strongly about that is because

Select to view spoiler:

I think that Lucy's isolation, when her siblings accuse her of making it up about Narnia, is more meaningful if you don't know that the Professor had already been to Narnia

so sorry, Vancouver...

**********************************************
watch the R. Tam Session vids: http://www.hittarivertam.nu/
and buy the 'Serenity' comics published by Dark Horse,
and have you joined the Browncoats yet?
http://browncoats.serenitymovie.com/serenity/?fuseaction=tools.invlink
&u=embers&linkID=36

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Monday, November 14, 2005 2:57 PM

XANDERLHARRIS

I agree with you Embers.

Ash

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Monday, November 14, 2005 3:31 PM

QUEENOFTHENORTH

I've loved these books since my fifth grade teacher read the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to us in class. I've read them over and over so many times. They're fantastic. Can't wait to see the movie.

I give to you the Seeker of Serenity, the Valkyrie Warrior, the Gourmet Cook and the Truth Scoper.

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Monday, November 14, 2005 5:56 PM

ILOVEFIREFLY

how can all of you stand this i read it with parrarel univesal theroys in mind and it denied everyone of them it was the worst month of my life

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Monday, November 14, 2005 6:12 PM

CALLMEATH

I LOVE these books. CallMeSerenity (my sis for those who don't know) had me reading them as soon as I could, so that by the time we read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe in 4th grade, I knew the book by heart.

So, yeah, I'm excited.

"Invader's blood marches through my veins like giant radioactive rubber pants. The pants command me! Do not ignore my veins!"

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Monday, November 14, 2005 6:19 PM

THATWEIRDGIRL

I enjoyed them more as a child. But I do occasionally go back and read them. I gotta say, the end always bothered me. How are they going to deal with that in the movies? I guess just do it.

Select to view spoiler:

I know we saw Susan's gradual drifting from Narnia, but it just felt harsh. I still can't get on a train without thinking about the last battle.

www.thatweirdgirl.com
---
"...turn right at the corner then skip two blocks...no, SKIP, the hopping-like thing kids do...Why? Why not?"

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Tuesday, November 15, 2005 12:00 PM

FANTASTICLAUGHINGFAIRY

I've been reading the books on and off since i was tiny, and I always read them with the Magician's Nephew first etc. and personally don't think this detracted from it in anyway. I don't think it really matters what order you read them in - just that you do!

...and we will call it...this land...

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