I voted for Voyage of the Dawn Treader because I think it has the most overall moments that have stuck with me.
And I definitely would not vote for Prince Caspian (which I enjoy, particularly the time travel aspect), Magician’s Nephew (a definitely fun read, but not enough of the Narnia we love) or The Last Battle (boring, way too preachy and Christian for me).
On another day I might have voted for: Wardrobe introduces all the best characters, and is a remarkable work of standalone fantasy, with heroes and a villain and world building and whatnot Silver Chair has the best overall plot arc and plot twists and so forth, plus puddleglum and many memorable scenes. I think it would actually make a GREAT movie, and not need all the extra crap tacked on to have a nice digestible conflict the way Dawn Treader did Horse and his Boy does the best job of taking the world and then telling a completely different story in a new place, but one which still feels like (and ends up intersecting with) Narnia. Plus some truly great moments.
I’m rather disappointed that they didn’t get to this one while Will Poulter was young enough to keep playing Eustace. But like you, I was also disappointed at the changes they made to Dawn Treader in the film, so maybe we dodged a bullet here.
I was so angry about the changes the films made to Wardrobe and Caspian (which isn’t even one of my favorite books!) that I couldn’t even bring myself to watch Dawn Treader at all.
I was really peeved that the movie version of Caspian omitted my favorite bit of dialogue in the whole series, when Lucy finally re-unites with Aslan:
“Aslan" said Lucy “you’re bigger”.
“That is because you are older, little one” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”
Yeah; I thought the movie version of Wardrobe was pretty decent, but quality went downhill from there in spite of what I thought was pretty good casting.
I don’t think I had the heart to watch Dawn Treader either. Or if I did, I have blotted it from my mind.
Dawn Treader was the worst adaptation because they completely subverted the entire premise of the book - and I still can’t figure out if they trashed it on purpose.
The original book is probably the most medieval children’s book published in the modern era. It’s a fantasy-land Grail quest, and like in the original Grail quest, the point is the journey not the destination. Although they will do their best to find the ‘Grail’ - news of the seven lords - its more important to conduct the quest honorably, to ‘take the adventure Aslan sends’ and, essentially, to pursue personal growth. This is the point Reepicheep makes when he shames the crew into sailing into the shadow around the Isle of Dreams - there is no practical value in it at all and that’s exactly why they have to do it.
And it’s THIS book into which the producers shoehorn some bloody McGuffin about saving the world by rounding up a bunch of rusty old swords! Aslan wept! I’ll send the mice in to skewer them in the kneecaps
I liked all of the books, but the first one, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe was the best because it started the whole story. The Last Battle made me a little sad, because Susan would not be going on to the real Narnia.
I first read them as an adult and I love them dearly. As an adult I saw the symbolism being presented, I don’t know if a kid would. It was the same with the Judy Garland bersion of The Wizard of Oz. As a child they were a grand but scary story, as an adult I got the jokes I didn’t as a kid.
Absolutely, I still re-read my set every once in a while and I’m 43.
I’m surprised there isn’t more love for The Magician’s Nephew. That’s my favorite of the series. The Wood Between the Worlds always fascinated me. And I still love the quote on the Charn Bell.
“Make your choice, Adventurous Stranger; Strike the bell and bide the danger, Or wonder, till it drives you mad, What would have followed if you had.”
Consider The Wizard of Oz and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I haven’t done anything approaching a scientific count, but it seems to me that strong female protagonists are at least as common in classic children’s fantasy as they are in modern children’s fantasy. (Alice is an astonishingly cool character, in my reading. I love that kid.)
Ha!, that was me! I was surprised to see that I was the only vote at the time (happy to see one more person joining me). It has been many, many years, so maybe I should go back and re-read them, but when I was a kid, I liked Caspian, I thought the interaction between Telmarines and Narnians was interesting, I liked the scene where the children find their old castle, I liked the character of the old professor, and several other things. Maybe adult me would see it differently.
I struggled between Caspian and “The Horse and His Boy”. In both of these books, you see how a different culture reacts to Narnia, so maybe that’s what attracts me to them.
British literature seems to have had a fairly strong tradition of books involving groups of boys and girls (often siblings) having adventures together, as in the works of E. Nesbit, Arthur Ransome, and Enid Blyton; and I think Lewis was thinking along those lines when he wrote The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe.
The Magician’s Nephew is my favorite. I think the description of Aslan singing Narnia into existence is beautiful.
This is the funniest of the books. The scenes with Uncle Andrew and the animals and Jadis loose in London are hilarious.
I like the Well of the Worlds and the children’s exploration of Jadis’ world.
Aslan gets some of His best lines. One is when he tells Polly and Digory that this world is not yet as bad as the Empress’, but they should beware lest society get that evil. That’s an observation the US would do well to heed. The second is when he tells Digory: “As yet, you and I are the only ones in this world who understand sorrow. Let us be good to one another.”
I just re-read The Magician’s Nephew; knowing that Lewis lost his own mother to cancer when he was 6.
it’s very touching to look at the scenes with Diggory and his mother as well as Aslan’s lines quoted by Peyote Coyote above.
And again it strikes me that while it’s a wonderful prequel, it shouldn’t be read first before all the others. Maybe I’m prejudiced by remembering my own discovery of the books starting with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when I was 8, but I really don’t see any advantage to reading Magician first? Anyone want to weigh in on this?
I used to hang out on a C S Lewis appreciation board, and “Publication Order versus Chronological Order” was pretty much the “shoes on or off inside the house” or “declawing cats - yes or no?” of the place.
I’m a Publication Order woman myself. Welcome to the Dark Side - we have Turkish Delight!
Publication order. The world-building in The Magician’s Nephew made me feel like I was visiting Narnia for the first time and made me excited for anyone reading The Chronicles of Narnia the first time, too.
Personally, I hold that publication order is self-evidently the order that Lewis preferred, because if he preferred some other order, that would have been the order he would have published them in. This is not changed by the fact that he was too much of a gentleman to tell a little girl that she was reading his books wrong.