Chronicles of Narnia - POLL

I liked PC-the-film's concept of a High King Peter who's not so High King after all when called upon to recall his old moves. Lewis does mention Peter's putative strategy and Magnificence in those allusions to endless wars with the Giants of the North.

Back to PC: it's as credible that flop-haired Cesar Romero Caspian would think, "Who the fuck are you, High King? I'm in charge now, you're an illustration in a book" as it would be credible for "The High King in Command."

Shout out to the King Edmunds. Edmund I of England, and Edmund Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia.

— wikishoutouts (@wikishoutouts) September 4, 2019

love how Eustace does not get less unlikeable as the series proceeds.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 21, 2015

I need to reread these. Remember really liking The Silver Chair, though, and the descriptions of Charn still stick with me even now. Know it’s basic af, but the ending of TLB really knocked me sideways - it just feels so casually cruel! Millions of people have said about this, but honestly, the thought of being a parent having to explain that...nah

TLB's underlying ethos is a facer ("dying young in a horrible railway accident is good and here's why") but it absolutely has some of the best-realised and and most startling tableaux along the way

Started reading these on a whim with my 8-year-old, in the correct order. So far halfway through TMN and it's just as good as I remember, perhaps even better.

My opinion as a kid was TH&HB > TMN >>>> TSC > TVOTDT > THTW&TW >>>> PC >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> TLB - so will be interested to see if I still agree with myself aged 10.

It’s been too long since I’ve read these.

xp -- re yr placing of TLB: yrself aged 10 was nuts and very wrong

I was a 10-year-old Catholic kid and I genuinely think it may have been one of the first cracks that led to my atheism by the age of 15, just "what kind of sick fuck thinks this is a good thing to publish as a kids' book and do I really want to be in their club?:

That was kinda about my reaction too at 10. (Even if I was more of a relaxed but earnest Anglican.)

I took the Devil and His Works very seriously at that point, remember being equally traumatised by the end of Time Bandits and listening to REM's "Star Me Kitten" on headphones on holiday in France (I had the idea that the cassette had been somehow possessed, really a very good job I lost the religion before I started on the drugs)

what kind of sick fuck thinks this is a good thing to publish as a kids' book and do I really want to be in their club?

The best part.

yrself aged 10 was nuts and very wrong

new borad description

tash! tash! inexorable tash!

I mean in my case it wasn't helped by the fact that my babysitter had apocalyptic Jack Chick tracts around, which I inevitably read. I didn't suddenly renounce theological belief but as the years went by I could pinpoint where the disenchantment derived from. (Certainly there's arresting imagery in The Last Battle, the squeezing out of the sun and so forth, but...)

Respectowiggle.

i don't remember having any inkling about the christianity when i read these as a kid

I was aware of it but loving Aslan was cooler than loving Jesus.

the last battle is good not bad, few know this

― mark s, Thursday, October 3, 2019

otm

the religion in TLTW&TW is so heavy-handed that it would take an idiot child not to spot it, and I was absolutely that idiot child

i do remember loving TLB because i was already a very depressed child

come further up, come further in!

I took this as gospel as a newly gay man.

i never got around to reading the books, just saw the BBC series in 5th grade (well, as far as they got into it).

for years I thought "Cair Paravel" was someone saying "Camp Parallel" with an accent

coincidentally i have also just started (re-)reading these w my 11 yo and yeah MN's is just tremendous. the way he makes the reader a confidante is just irresistible. i think it flags a little in the second half but comes back pretty strong at the end.

as a kid i remember thinking TH&HB was VERY boring so it's wild to see it's your favourite CAL. looking forward to it now!

You “order of composition” rather than “chronological in-universe” fanatics are weird as fuck. TMN is the first book and TLB the final one. How could it be any different?

When I was a kid, TH&HB was the clear dog of the series, although there was so much in it that was great (Aravis; the jackals & the tombs; the phrase “O my father and o the delight of my eyes” which I briefly required my kids to address me with). Later, the heavy-handedness of TL,TW&TW and TLB put them way down the list. Sometimes I wish Aslan would just fuck off. I’ve always had a soft spot for the gloomy Silver Chair (reshpeckobiggle being a joek for the ages) — the true Prince being revealed in a desperate moment of clarity but everything had primed you and the characters and even himself to distrust and dismiss his realness — there’s something deep as hell about that motif.

order of composition is correct. lion witch is the first book and everything else pivots around it

Didn't vote in this, huh! Top 2 are correct because trippy Narnia is the best Narnia.

the religion in TLTW&TW is so heavy-handed that it would take an idiot child not to spot it

Bssed on my experience as a kid, it suffices to not be Christian

Ditto. Aslan's submission to his fate and his resurrection baffled me - "so he just comes back to life? huh." I wasn't judgemental enough to call it lame but I definitely found it lacking in narrative justification.

I've only actually read that one and The Magician's Nephew. Should I read the rest now, in my 49th year?

reason I don't like order of publication is that TLTW&TW is so worthy and moralistic, it's a poor start and worth getting past as track 2, not as an opener

H&HB was a favourite as it took place entirely within the world and explored different cultures (not sure how I will feel abt this now of course), also I had just been to Mont Saint-Michel and imagined the city as being like that, I have always been more interested in setting than in plot or characters.

Bssed on my experience as a kid, it suffices to not be Christian

the bolt of tash falls from above

Another reason for TMN to be canonically Book One is that it would mean they finally make a film of it next time they get around to it, instead of getting bogged down in the final third of TLTW&TW again.

Ha! It would be good finally to get a film that far into the series...

I've always been in the 'order of composition' camp. Any other way and you lose all those 'aha!' moments that I found so enchanting as a child. You're discovering things about a world as Lewis is inventing them, and that's a wonderful way to read fantasy.

I've only actually read that one and The Magician's Nephew. Should I read the rest now, in my 49th year?

― ledge,

If not, the bolt of Tash will hit you from above.

I guess I don't mind The Lion. The first volumes in a series are often the most awkward; the writer's creating a world and he hasn't figured out every detail (e.g. the White Witch as descendant of Lilith and the Djinn instead of, as we learn later, the queen of Charn).

all his books are basically nifty tableaux with trudge as connective tissue, and from dawn treader onwards CSL just got better at cutting back on or sparking up the trudge (yr walking thru a wood but it's the WOOD BETWEEN THE WORLDS) (yr walking thru a wood but uh oh calormenes are SHOOTING AT YOU plus oh no there's TASH)

the last battle is good bcz it's basically all jumpdoors all the time (no trudge)

order of composition is correct. lion witch is the first book and everything else pivots around it

^^^

I loved the opening setup of The Last Battle is great, the unique way in which the human characters are drawn back to Narnia. Same reason I really loved the opening of Prince Caspian as a child: the way the reader uncovers the "mystery" along with the returning characters is almost Lovecraftian and the passage of time lends a certain weight and reality.

is great

Like, as a child I too might get older some day.

we finished TLTW&TW, it was better than I had remembered, tighter in the action, less obviously religious. I want more of their life as adult kings & queens, diplomacy, working out a longer term plan for the country. I would have had Peter marry and have grandchildren by the time they return, that would set up the sequel better

occurred to me this time - it is always winter, and it frequently snows, so

* why isn't the snow tens of metres high and impossible to get past?
* what source of food could there possibly be in such an environment?
* when it suddenly thaws wouldn't there be catastrophic flooding?

also

* there are many sons of adam and daughters of eve in the kingdom just to the south, have none of them ever wandered north a bit?

I'm fine with father christmas being there, it's a land of mythical creatures, why not?

Lewis hadn't worked out the narrative yet; later novels show that, yeah, the descendants of King Frank and Queen Helen dwelled in Narnia, not to mention Archenland and Calormen.

I also wish Lewis had written a novel during the reign of Peter, but I suppose leaving the Golden Age to the imagination is the point.

That said, the White Witch would've killed any humans: she can't have potential claimants to the thrones of Cair Paravel, right?

* what source of food could there possibly be in such an environment?

turkish delight!

I'm reading these w my 11yo right now and we're doing them in the "suggested" order rather than publication order. We just finished Horse and His Boy - just as racist and orientalist as I remembered, v difficult to deal with, honestly, but actually way less boring than I remembered so I guess there is that.

We're currently on Prince Caspian which is great. So many awesome names I had forgotten. Nikabrik! Reepicheep!

Re: the Golden Age of King Peter (and Queens Susan and Lucy, and King Edmund), didn't it only last a year? I swear I remember that's what they said at the beginning of Prince Caspian. And then when they're tugged back into Narnia it's hundreds of years later?

I think the reign lasted about a dozen years.

At the end of The Lion Lewis writes that they matured into young men and women.

I define post-punk as music inspired by the energy of punk but catholic by necessity and as amorphous as the tenuous articulations of its makers.

Also: boo.