A while back I watched the  "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" movie and it occurred to me that it had been some time since I had read any of the books in C.S. Lewis's Narnia series. Time to get back to it, thought I.

I picked up a copy of the Harper-Collins 2001 complete in one volume Chronicles of Narnia. The organization of this version of the strikes me as a bit odd, the seven books of the Narnia series are presented in Narnian chronological order rather than publication chronological order. "The Magician's Nephew" is the Genesis story of Narnia and thus, in this odd sequencing, comes first.

This is the story of Digory, a young boy living in the time when "Sherlock Holmes still lived in Baker Street". Early in the story he encounters a young girl, Polly. Digory and his mother (who spends the majority of the story deathly ill) lives with his nutcase Uncle Andrew. Through Uncle Andrew's machinations Digory and Polly encounter Queen Jadis, she of "Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe." fame. After some hi-jinks in London they end up in the newly minted land of Narnia. Aslan, the lion Christ figure from LWW is seen creating all the animal life there while Digory and Polly act as sort of Adam and Eve figures. You know who the Witch is supposed to be...

This is another of Lewis's allegorical stories, where people and things stand in for ideas. The story is clearly a riff on the first book of the Bible. There's even an apple. I'm not a big fan of allegory but Lewis has a deft touch.

"Nephew" is the first book by Narnia's internal chronology but the next-to-last in the publishing history of the series. The only remaining book was  "The Last Battle" which serves as the bookend Narnian Apocalypse to this book. I rather suspect that Lewis was tidying up his series by this point and the book rather feels like it. The book is rather short and the story a bit on the thin side. Nor are the characters, except for the well seasoned Aslan, especially well-drawn. If you happen to have a one-book version of the Chronicles I recommend you read the individual stories in their originally written order:

1.  The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. (1950)

2. Prince Caspian (1951)

3.  The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)

4.  The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1953)

5.  The Horse and His Boy (1954)

6.  The Magician's Nephew (1955)

7.  The Last Battle (1956).

I'm not trying to dump on this book or anything, it's just that despite it's position in the time-line of Narnia, I think reader's are better served by reading these books in the order the author created them. The other books are self-contained enough to not require reading their predecessors. We have what really is a series of seven independent, separate stories not a single story in multiple parts a.la. Tolkien.

There's nothing in particular wrong with Nephew, it certainly doesn't do any harm to anyone but as an introduction to Narnia it leaves a bit to be desired. If you want to get the most out of the series, read LWW first.

Recommended: Yes