Narnia Business
by Rusty W.
Spell
Prelude/Disclaimer/Apology
Who cares anymore, right?
It’s all been argued before elsewhere, probably
better, but with no resolution, right? We’re just
wasting space and breath now. Sure, but you know the old
"If I can save just one kid..." idea, so here
we are.
The
Sordid History
It went down like this.
C.S. Lewis wrote the books that came to be known as The
Chronicles of Narnia (a name he didn’t come up
with). They were published – beginning with The
Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe – from 1950 to
1956, one a year. They were also written in that order,
with the exception of The Horse and His Boy and The
Silver Chair, which were flip-flopped. When
publishers began boxing them all up together and
numbering them, they put them in the order of
publication, which is to say:
1. The Lion, the Witch,
and the Wardrobe (1950). 2. Prince Caspian (1951). 3. The
Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952). 4. The Silver Chair
(1953). 5. The Horse and His Boy (1954). 6. The
Magician’s Nephew (1955). 7. The Last Battle (1956).
These books take place
over a long period of fictional Narnia time, and the
order in which they were written and published does not
correspond with the Narnian chronological order. For
example, The Magician’s Nephew (the sixth
book) details the creation of Narnia, and The Horse
and His Boy (the fifth book) takes place during the
age of the first book.
Because of this, some kid
decided that he might like reading the books in
"Narnia time" order, and wrote a letter to C.S.
Lewis explaining that he liked this order even better
than the original one. Lewis wrote back and said "I
think I agree with your order" and "Perhaps it
does not matter very much in which order anyone read
them."
Because of this casual
remark, publishers eventually boxed them and numbered
them this way:
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.
A stupid thing to do, even
beyond the reasons which probably seem obvious to those
who’ve never heard of Narnia and are reading this
information for the first time.
Why
It’s So Stupid
- "I think I agree
with your order" written in response to a
children’s fan letter wasn’t C.S.
Lewis’s way of saying, "This is the
order that I prefer. I want all publication of
the old way to stop and for this matter to be
corrected. Thank you." So when people say
this is Lewis’s "preferred order,"
they are being ridiculous. Furthermore, Lewis and
the kid were discussing different ways to read
the books after being familiar with the original
order, in which case the order certainly
"does not matter very much." I can read
acts II and IV of Hamlet before reading
I, III, and V if I like, but only after reading
it the way it was written first.
- The idea that
chronological order for any piece of
fiction is the "logical" or
"best" order is absurd. I might re-edit
a copy of Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction so
that it runs in chronological order, and I might
even write Tarantino a letter saying that
I’ve done so and that I enjoyed watching it
that way, and he might even say,
"That’s a good idea. I think I’d
like that too." But that doesn’t mean
that when people put out a new edition of the DVD
after he dies that they should take this letter
as proof that he messed up the first time and
would really prefer this new version. Hell, if
Tarantino today stood up and said
"I’ve decided Pulp Fiction is
better in chronological order, and I am going to
re-edit the movie accordingly," he would be
wrong and my hope is that someone would stop that
madman.
- The Lion, the
Witch, and the Wardrobe is an introduction
book. It was written to be read first. It speaks
of Aslan as if we don’t know who he is,
which of course we would if we had already
read The Magician’s Nephew (a book
which, by the way, speaks of Aslan as if we do
know who he is, which of course we wouldn’t
if we are reading it first). The entire tone of
the book sounds like a first book (whereas the
tone of The Magician’s Nephew sounds
like a book well into the series).
- The
Magician’s Nephew’s charm, in part,
is from the revelations it provides (as book six
of seven) about the entire series, especially
about book one. In The Magician’s Nephew,
we find out where the wardrobe and the lamp post
came from, who the professor is, how the White
Witch came to be, etc. etc. etc. If readers were
to read The Magician’s Nephew first,
they (a) wouldn’t care as much about the
characters and events in the book as much, since they
only fully work fully as revelations, and (b) would
constantly say – while reading The Lion,
the Witch, and The Wardrobe –
"Yeah, yeah, we know this already."
- If you’re really
wanting to read chronologically, technically
you’d have to put down The Lion, the
Witch, and The Wardrobe in the middle of the
last chapter, read The Horse and His Boy,
and then read the remainder of the chapter.
Silly, yes? There’s also a reference to The
Horse and His Boy in The Silver Chair
which (again) loses its impact if you’ve
already read the book. Besides, The Horse and
His Boy (the weakest of all the Narnia books,
certainly the only one that might be considered
"bad") isn’t of interest to anyone
except readers who are well into the series, so
it’s better to have it near the end.
- The publication order
works as a narrative unto itself. We begin with a
perfect intro to Aslan and Narnia in its Golden
Age, expand the world and the time with the next
three books, take a break (which seems to serve
as the large passage of time needed before we hit
the last book), and end the series with a double
whammy of a creation story followed by an
apocalyptic one. The contrast is wonderful, and
only works in this order. Beyond narrative, the
entire tone and breadth of the series expands
almost with each book (even the Pauline Baynes
illustrations get more complex), and each new one
informs and strengthens the previous.
And
Finally...
The thing is, I can read
them in any order I want, so why do I care? The answer
is: It’s not me, it’s the kiddies.
Some ten-year-old (or
forty-year-old) picking up a library book with a big
number "1" on the spine of The
Magician’s Nephew is going to get dicked out of
the best reading experience. My brother and I, before all
of this controversy began, used to make fun of people
who’d read the books out of order, or would say they
were "wasting" them. But those people knew
better, and these don’t.
I mean, jeez, what if you
had to watch The Phantom Menace before you watched
Star Wars? What if someone put Harold
Pinter’s play Betrayal in chronological
order? What about The Odyssey? What about
Kubrick’s The Killing? What ever happened to en
media res? Flashbacks? Anyone? Have we all gone
insane?
Okay, and maybe it is
me, because I can’t bring myself to buy the new
editions of the books. I don’t want to have to
rearrange my box and have the numbers on the spine read
"2, 4, 5, 6, 3, 1, 7." Maybe they should just
quit numbering the bastards and print two suggested
orders on the side of the box. A compromise. It’s
the insistence on the incorrect that kills me.
So, right, I’m just
whining now and there’s nothing I or you can do
about it. But like I said, if I can save just one kid
from getting screwed, it was worth writing this
otherwise-hopeless article.
1. The
Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
2. Prince Caspian
3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
4. The Silver Chair
5. The Horse and His Boy
6. The Magician's Nephew
7. The Last Battle
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