:smack: Wrong order! I really think you’d have liked them better if you’d started with Lion.
As for the characterizations, Lucy is the main character of Wardrobe, so of course we see her in more detail. But the others aren’t complete blanks. We already see hints of Susan’s trying-to-be-grown-up behaviour, and Peter has a strong drive for justice and fairness.
And I don’t get at all where you get the idea that Lewis didn’t want his readers to think for themselves… If anything, I get the opposite impression.
Incidentally, I too liked the Prydain books, and agree that they deserve more attention than they get, but I will not attempt to make value judgements between them and Narnia (or Harry Potter, or Tolkien’s work). They’re both (all) good, and that’s all the more I’ll compare them.
Lots to respond to here.
First of all, I’m only stating my opinion. Others may have different opinions. That goes without saying when discussing books or other art forms. If we had to start every paragraph on the subject with a disclaimer, then folks in this forum alone would waste thousands of hours per year.
Now about the charm of Lewis’ writing. I don’t see much in it. Any book that truly works to expand kids’ minds should carry some appeal to adults. “Charm” in kids’ literature as I see it, means using slightly antiquated words, phrases and story elements. But it also means using them correctly, to create a little laugh or a moment of relfection, even for adults. Children’s books that capture this style well include The Hobbit, the Pooh books, The Wind in the Willows, The Phantom Tollbooth, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and (to a somewhat lesser extent) The Oz books. (The good Oz books by L. Frank Baum and his daughter Ruth Plumy, that is, not the 58,629 sequels churned out after their deaths.) Lewis has a little of that going in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but I find none in the later books. His turns of phrase, such as the narrator saying “I’m sorry to say…”, just don’t do it for me. They distract and break me out of the story; they highlight the fact that there’s very little reason to emotionally care about what’s happening.
I singled out that paragraph at the start of The Silver Chair because I see it as one of the most obnoxious examples of how overbearing Lewis is. I don’t dislike it because it implies that old-fashioned single-sex and (implicity) religious schools are better than the new “mixed” schools; he has the right to assert that if he wants. But in that passage Lewis declares that school run his way have no problems with student behavior at all, and any problem that kids have with their social scene can be laid at the feet of the modern approach to education. As if children don’t have any inherent leaning towards forming groups and mocking outsiders; as if bullying never existed before the introduction of psychology and secularism.
Lewis’ “either-or” attitude is annoying by itself, but more importantly it also prevents him from writing compelling character studies. Edmund in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe might have made an solid, intelligent character arc. But Lewis runs through Edmund’s story with a bulldozer. Edmund shows up at the White Witch’s castle and she immediately attacks him, insults him, whips him, ties him up, feeds him awful food, tortures him, and kills a bunch of innocent characters for good measure. Under such circumstances, it’s hardly impressive that he goes over to the good guys. Eustace’s development in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is wrecked in a similar manner.
I remember reading my sister’s copy of TLTW&TW when I was about 10. However, I had just finished reading The Lord of the Rings, and Narnia, while it made a nice story, didn’t have anywhere near the overwhelming punch that Tolkien packed. Sorry, Lewis fans. 
I’m with on on Earthsea, though. I hadn’t known there was a 4th Earthsea book. I read the trilogy back in the '70s.
Tolkien = Author of the Century. LOTR had a crossdressing heroine who personally slays Number Two, beat that. A Shieldmaiden.
Anyway, as a linguist I appreciated how the hero used linguistics to save the day in the climactic scene of OOTSP. There were other features I was impressed with in the planet trilogy – Perelandra being at once the most beautiful and the most violent of the series – and That Hideous Strength being the most surreal, with its bare-breasted Earth Mother Goddess and intelligent bear Mr. Bultitude helping out the hero’s side – but as a linguist I thought Ransom’s deconstruction of colonialist rhetoric was Lewis’s finest moment of all. Lewis’s conservatism was of the old-fashioned gentlemanly kind and mostly had to do with the unstated self-assuredness of born privilege that comes with identifying as Church of England within one of the Church’s most prestigious institutions.
Tolkien’s Catholicism kept him an outsider (as an ex-Catholic, I know what that’s like), and I believe this perspective lent his literary vision greater depth and originality. “One of the major powers of the muted is to think against the current.” --Rachel Blau DuPlessis
In LOTR, the Woses, the Wild Men of Drúadan Forest, were good guys. Tolkien drew upon literary concepts of the Noble Savage to depict primitive children of Nature who live in tune with the earth. The very first indication that the tide is turning against Sauron comes when Ghân-buri-Ghân sniffs the breeze and announces “Wind is changing!” The wind that Sauron had been controlling to spread darkness and despair all over Middle-Earth is at that point lost from Sauron’s control, thus a significant symbolic turning point. I love Ghân-buri-Ghân, he’s my second favorite character after Éowyn. I think the Woses are a big part of the reason why hippies went for Tolkien. In 1971, when I was 11, my family traveled to Kentucky where I was introduced to a middle-aged woman who had read LOTR. All she would say about it in her Kentucky drawl was, “Oh, that’s the hippies’ Bible.” At the time I didn’t know yet I was going to become a hippie myself. I didn’t know what to answer her. “Oh, that’s the hippies’ Bible.”
What?! So, you’re dissing Hop On Pop too?
You’re a madman.
When I mention that C.S. Lewis is one of my favorite authors, the person I tell this to inevitably brings up the Narnia books–usually in praise or fond memory. I am then obligated to respond with, “except those.” I do not think the Narnia books are his best work, nor that they wear well, nor that they satisfying fiction for an adult. I also read them at a young age, but immediately tossed them aside for the Lord of the Rings, which in contrast does wear well, and is satisfying fiction at least to me, as an adult.
As for C.S. Lewis, give me The Screwtape Letters, or Till We Have Faces, or even The Great Divorce any day of the week over the Narnia books. I’m also fond of the Space Trilogy.
Narnia? Bleah.
But chances are, I will go see TLTWATWW.
Just saw a sneak peak…and let me just say…it’s worth your while. I won’t give anything away, but no wonder there’s rave reviews about this flick. The acting talent in this movie is incredible…the effects are even better…the battle scene is downright flawless. a damn good movie, all in all. easily the best i’ve seen all year and i plan on seeing it again 
I find Goodnight Moon to hold up exceptionally well as adult reading material, therefore validating ITR champion’s assertion that in order for a children’s book to be considered “good” it must also appeal to adults.
I see a lot of people comparing Narnia to LOTR and Prydain. Anybody here read the “Dark is Rising” series by Susan Cooper? Where do you think it stands in the rankings? It’s been a while since I’ve read them, but IIRC, they would rank somewhere above Narnia, but below LOTR, probably neck and neck with Prydain. But, just to be sure, both are on my (re-) reading list after finals. Thanks y’all for reminding me of them.
Hijacking the hijack; When I was in fourth grade, the Book of Three was actually our class assigned reading project, and I co-wrote a play adaptation along with two other G&T students. I never would have been inspired enough by Narnia to do that, though I don’t think the series was total crap. It just never hooked me.