Magician's Nephew (The Chronicles of Narnia): Discover where the magic began in this illustrated prequel to the children’s classics by C.S. Lewis: Book 1

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Parallels with events in the Book of Genesis include the forbidden fruit represented by an Apple of Life. Jadis tempts Digory to eat one of the forbidden apples in the garden, as the serpent tempts Eve into eating a forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden; unlike Eve however, Digory rejects the offer. (Lewis's Perelandra also features a re-enactment of the same Biblical story, which in that book also ends with the tempter foiled and the fall avoided.) The above is, of course, a reference to the eventual death and resurrection of Aslan the Lion for the sins and betrayal of Edmund Pevensie in *The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe*. Aslan later warns of what the reader knows to be the Nazis in World War II and the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Indeed, another aspect of the book is how science needs moral restraint. Some act like Lewis and Tolkien hated science and technology. They hated the abuses of it. They used technology more often than folks seem to realize, and especially Lewis did. The point about science here is that made in his "adult fairy tale" *That Hideous Strength*. To work well, to make discoveries that genuinely benefit all, and not just a few, indeed, to actually work at all, science needs a moral, Christian basis. Suffers from the same problems as Lewis' other books, both his children's fantasy and his pokes at theology: Lewis' worldview is not sophisticated, and his sense of psychology has a large blind spot. However, it's not his faith that is the problem--it certainly wasn't a problem for Donne or Milton. He returned to The Magician's Nephew late in 1950, after completing The Silver Chair. He managed to finish close to three-quarters of the novel, and then halted work once again after Roger Green, to whom Lewis showed all his writing at the time, suggested there was a structural problem in the story. Finally he returned to the novel in 1953, after finishing The Last Battle in the spring of that year and completed early in 1954. [6]

I barely remember it,” I groaned. “Can't we just go straight to The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe? It's so much more exciting!”I hadn't been to Narnia in 11 years, and I wanted to take my daughters there for the very first time this summer, so I called my son (my Narnia expert) and asked him if I could skip The Magician's Nephew this time around, when I read it to his sisters. It's mildly embarrassing that I've lived almost 32 years and I've only read one book from the Narnia series. Well, I guess I've read two now, but I feel like I should have read those a long time ago. As an adult, it's difficult to even rate this book fairly because the adult version of myself wants to be all critical and make comments about how this isn't Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, but it's not supposed to be. And that's fine with me.

The Hall of Images displays the regal history of Charn, showcasing lifelike portraits of past rulers who are depicted as tall, beautiful, and powerful figures seated upon their thrones. The sequence of these images, through the expressions on their faces, tells a story of a civilization that was once benevolent but degenerated into a cruel, tyrannical empire. The early Emperors and Empresses of Charn were kind and decent, but over centuries, for unexplained reasons, their lineage devolved into one of malevolence, corruption, evil, and despair, seeing their subjects only as a means to an end. Evidently, their hunger for power was insatiable and they conquered several other realms, as Jadis gloats that "many great kings" attempted to stand against Charn, but were defeated and their names lost to history. Slavery was once common in Charn, as was human sacrifice. The last queen of Charn was Jadis, although the numerous empty thrones after hers suggest a premature end to the dynasty. The story begins in London during the summer of 1900. Two children, Digory and Polly, meet while playing in the adjacent gardens of a row of terraced houses. They decide to explore the attic connecting the houses, but take the wrong door and surprise Digory's Uncle Andrew in his study. It was awesome to read about the origins of Narnia. The lamp post and the witch and whatnot. Aslan. That was just autocorrected to Asian so that was funny. I don't have any reason to believe he is an Asian lion, but I again haven't read the entire series yet so that could be explored in future novels where Aslan spends his childhood as a small lion cub in Beijing before creating Narnia later in life. I don't think that's accurate though.But then, Lewis' world is mostly a faultless one. People never act or decide, they are lead along by empty symbols of pure good or pure evil, following one or the other because they are naive. As usual, Lewis' view of humanity is predictably dire: always too naive, too foolish to know what good and evil are, even when they are right in front of us, and yet we are apparently still to be reviled and cursed when they make the wrong decision, even if we couldn't have known what we were about. Lewis had originally intended only to write the one Narnia novel, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. However, when Roger Lancelyn Green asked him how a lamp-post came to be standing in the midst of Narnian woodland, Lewis was intrigued enough by the question to attempt to find an answer by writing The Magician's Nephew, which features a younger version of Professor Kirke from the first novel. [4]

A BBC Radio 4 adaptation exists. [55] Focus on the Family also made an adaptation of this book with a full cast, sound editing, and music. [56] Both productions adapted all seven books.Charn's star is described as red, large, and cold. When Digory asks Jadis about the star's appearance, she asks him about his world's Sun. When informed that the Sun is yellow, brighter, smaller, and "gives off a good deal more heat," she remarks with sudden interest, "Ah, so yours is a younger world."

During their visit, Digory accidentally wakes Jadis from suspended animation, and she is able to leave the world with them.

All CS Lewis Reviews

Overall, this story is definitely worth reading to get the whole picture of Narnia. And that's why you should definitely read it. But on its own it's not as great as some of the entries in the Chronicles of Narnia. Glory be! said the Cabby. “I'd ha' been a better man all my life if I'd known there were things like this.” Like most of us, Lewis seems to feel a deep need know what is right--to be right. Yet his experiences have shown him, again and again, that we are fundamentally ignorant, despite our most devoted attempts to be knowledgeable. It's an impassable contradiction.