User:P64/FSF/Children's/Narnia

Talk: Narnia (world) --Everthing above this line dates from 2005 to 2007 except one reply at #Dwarfs vs. Dwarves.

Narnia => The Chronicles of Narnia

Oxford Companion to Children's Literature

2012-12-21 notice at Talk: Bridge to Terabithia#Narnia

This is the lead sentence of entry "Narnia" in The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (1999) --page 370, which is now available to non-subscribers at Questia.com.[1]

(quote)

Narnia, an imaginary country, setting of seven children's books by C. S. LEWIS: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe ( 1950), Prince Caspian: the return to Narnia ( 1951), The Voyage of the 'Dawn Treader' ( 1952), The Silver Chair ( 1953), The Horse and his Boy ( 1954), The Magician's Nephew ( 1955), and The Last Battle ( 1956), which won the CARNEGIE MEDAL.

The immediate inspiration for the first book was a series of nightmares that Lewis had about lions. More seriously, he was concerned to do for children what he had done for an adult readership in his SCIENCE FICTION trilogy, beginning with Out of the Silent Planet ( 1938): to re-imagine the Christian story in an exciting narrative context. 'Narnia' was to be an answer (as Lewis put it) to the question 'What might Christ be like if there really were a world like Narnia and he chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as he actually has done in ours.' So the children who journey through the wardrobe in the first book, and others who make the 'journey to Narnia in the sequels, experience the chief events of Christianity, described as they might happen in another world-- the earliest and most obvious example being the death and resurrection of the great lion Asian in the first book.

The novels are not, however, allegorical; they are entirely in keeping with the belief, shared by Lewis and his close friend and Oxford colleague TOLKIEN, that stories in themselves, especially of the mythical type, can give spiritual nourishment without imparting abstract meaning. The books have a very obvious debt to George MACDONALD, whose writings played a large part in Lewis's intellectual development, and they also reflect his childhood enthusiasm for Hans ANDERSEN, E. NESBIT, and the NORSE MYTHS, which he first encountered in a retelling illustrated by Arthur RACKHAM.

The Narnia books incorporate many of Lewis's personal prejudices and quirks--for example, the cowardliness and meanness of Eustace in The Voyage of the 'Dawn Treader' is put down to the fact that he is the child of 'up-to-date and advanced people . . . vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotallers' ( Lewis himself drank robustly and was a pipe-smoker). Yet the books are, as Naomi LEWIS has written, 'intoxicating' to all but the most relentlessly unimaginative of readers, and must be judged the most sustained achievement in FANTASY for children by a 20th-cent. author.

Katharine PATERSON'S novel Bridge to Terabitha ( 1978), which won the NEWBERY MEDAL, is about two children who are inspired by the Narnia books to invent their own magic kingdom.

Narnia

omnibus US http://lccn.loc.gov/2003265326 http://lccn.loc.gov/2001266506

1990 (Sibley) The land of Narnia http://lccn.loc.gov/90004192

1998 Narnia cookbook http://lccn.loc.gov/98010657

2005 Cameras in Narnia http://lccn.loc.gov/2006361315

2008 Boxen http://lccn.loc.gov/2008931135

2008 "Narnia chronology: from the archives of the Last King" (movable book); cover title: "An interactive timeline based on the books by C.S. Lewis." http://lccn.loc.gov/2007937699

2008 The crafting ... WETA Workshop http://lccn.loc.gov/2009286994

2011 Industrial light & magic http://lccn.loc.gov/2011007169

READING ORDER The reordering causes confusion of another kind. A review by goodreads.com user Eyebright (2008-01-15) states, "Despite the fact that The Magicians Nephew is the first book in the Chronicles of Narnia, strangely, it is frequently overlooked. People skip straight ahead to The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and then, at a later date come back to this book." http://www.worldcat.org/title/magicians-nephew/oclc/813649621?referer=di&ht=edition

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader -- section 3, Differences between British and American editions -- that may be worth doing for all

FILM ORDER The Lewis Estate and Walden Media once agreed that The Magician's Nephew would be the fourth movie (see that article).

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cut and paste 2012-12-09

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The Silver Chair

The Horse and His Boy

The Magician's Nephew

The Last Battle

The Magician's Nephew

The novel opens in London during year 1900. The principal characters are two pre-adolescent children, Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer. Digory also appeared as Professor Kirke from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by which time he was a grown man in his sixties. The pair have adventures after being transported to other worlds by the sorcerous experiments of Digory's Uncle Andrew. It features the genesis of Narnia and the introduction of Jadis (aka The White Witch), antagonist of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, into the newly created Narnia.

Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer are pre-teen playmates and neighbors in London rowhouses during year 1900. Accidentally they interrupt Digory's Uncle Andrew in his attic workshop, and that experimental sorcerer ensnares them as human guinea pigs for travel out of world, and maybe back. With magic rings he sends first Polly, then Digory, out to (as they discover) the Wood Between the Worlds. Rather than complete the experiment by prompt return, they visit a dying world, Charn, and accidentally rescue a powerful sorceress from its sure destruction. Then they cannot avoid bringing her back to London, which she soon expects to rule. When they do manage to get her out, back to the Wood, it is only along with a city lamp-post, Uncle Andrew, and a cab with driver and horse. Charn is no more but they all enter another world enter another world, empty, which turns out to be Narnia at its creation.

The entire novel explains the presence of foreign elements in Narnia from its origin: human beings and the lamp-post from our world and Jadis (the White Witch) from Charn.

It also explains one direct link between our world and Narnia, the wardrobe in Professor Kirke's spare room forty years later.

Oxford Companion to Children's Literature

Narnia

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