The Chronicles of Narnia:The Magician's Nephew By C.S Lewis

[lavenvi05]

NightIntent

lavenvi05

You know what annoyed me though? disney channel said it was the first book, and instead of making the Magician's nephew into a film, they put in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It's a good movie, but still...

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was the first book, as published. Chronologically, book-time, The Magician's Nephew would be first, but it was published sixth. So I'm assuming Disney's going with the publishing order, not the book time periods.

But that's stupid!  

[NightIntent]

lavenvi05

NightIntent

lavenvi05

You know what annoyed me though? disney channel said it was the first book, and instead of making the Magician's nephew into a film, they put in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It's a good movie, but still...

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was the first book, as published. Chronologically, book-time, The Magician's Nephew would be first, but it was published sixth. So I'm assuming Disney's going with the publishing order, not the book time periods.

But that's stupid!

Um. Why? It's just a prequel. Lotsa authors do them. There's nothing weird or stupid about it.  

[Harbone]

I find prequels rather charming, in fact. The Hobbit is a prequel. Terry Brooks did a whole Trilogy of prequels long after Sword of Shanara, as I recall.

I pretty much read Magician's Nephew as the sixth or seventh book and it was rather neat to discover who the young man in the story grew up to be. In fact, if you haven't read Wardrobe, yet, it doesn't have the same impact, where as the open-mindedness the character later displays makes a lot more sense.

But you don't really have to know that BEFOREHAND for it to be nifty. It's not that important.

Another example: in the movie SECRET of ROAN INNISH by Sayles, most of the characters in the movie resist telling the grandmother that little Jaime has been seen in his bucket. But, when told, it turns out she suspected as much all along and rushes to bring the family together and save the day. Why does she do that? Well, if there was a prequel to SECRET of ROAN INNISH (which I hope there won't ever be, but bear with me, here) it might explain the lady's experience with the reality of Irish myth all on her own, but it wouldn't really matter, since the emotional importance, the vital Aristotlean* surprise here is the accepting way the character reacts, not the reason why the character reacts that way. She actually has many reasons to react that way (Jaime is family, she's lived in the area all her life, she's heard the myths, too, etc) just as the central character in the Magician's Nephew has his own reasons for open mindedness without even having to explain he'd been to the Wood Between the Worlds (he's family, more-or-less, he's lived in the house, as far as we know before reading Nephew, all his life, he's permissive with his guests, well-read and an eccentric, etc.)

I'm being a little vague so as to avoid spoilers, but I think we all know who the magician's nephew grew up to become.  

[lavenvi05]

NightIntent

lavenvi05

NightIntent

lavenvi05

You know what annoyed me though? disney channel said it was the first book, and instead of making the Magician's nephew into a film, they put in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It's a good movie, but still...

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was the first book, as published. Chronologically, book-time, The Magician's Nephew would be first, but it was published sixth. So I'm assuming Disney's going with the publishing order, not the book time periods.

But that's stupid!

Um. Why? It's just a prequel. Lotsa authors do them. There's nothing weird or stupid about it.

Well, I like it when they put it in order, like Harry Potter. The magician's nephew is how the story began.  

[Shiama]

i read the series a long time ago so it is a little blank in my mind. i read it when i was like in 2nd grade >.< but my friend read it after the movie came out and she said that his writing isnt really all that great.  

[Harbone]

lavenvi05

NightIntent

lavenvi05

NightIntent

lavenvi05

You know what annoyed me though? disney channel said it was the first book, and instead of making the Magician's nephew into a film, they put in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It's a good movie, but still...

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was the first book, as published. Chronologically, book-time, The Magician's Nephew would be first, but it was published sixth. So I'm assuming Disney's going with the publishing order, not the book time periods.

But that's stupid!

Um. Why? It's just a prequel. Lotsa authors do them. There's nothing weird or stupid about it.

Well, I like it when they put it in order, like Harry Potter. The magician's nephew is how the story began.

If you want to be that specific, you might as well say the story began with "Fiat Lux" (since the Chronicles clearly exist in a Christian continuum.) A story can begin anywhere and sometimes it's better for a story to slip back a little bit in time.

But I kinda understand how you feel. I felt much better when I learned the term "In Media Res" and its long and noble history!  

[lavenvi05]

"Fiat Lux"? "In Media Res"?  

[Nuala]

[ Message temporarily off-line ]  

[Harbone]

Good publishing history info, Nuala! Thanks.

And I probably spelled those latin terms wrong.

Fiat Lux means "Let There Be Light," I think. The first thing God says, pretty much.

In Media Res means "In the Middle of Things." It's a literary term!
Starting a story "In Media Res" is a great way to get past what, it seems, author Howard Waldrop calls "Driving Through Kansas." I know this guy who went to Clarion West, a writer's seminar, and he told me that all stories have that boring part where you have to establish who's who and what their background is, before the interesting bits click in, and the boring part is like driving through Kansas - you know there's something interesting on either end, you just happen to be nowhere near it at the moment (my apologizies to those who think I'm down on the natural wonders of Kansas, but I never cruise through there at a good time of the year. Think of it as an Oz reference!)

Anyway, when you start a story "In media res" you get the action going right away. You start out with the heroine in the grips of peril or the weird revelaion, then you fill in the bits you need to make it all clear as you go along (with flashbacks and references and suprises, kind of thing.) It's often quite effective, but if done wrong, it gets really confusing really fast.

And I agree with the end of the Last Battle being nasty, but so is "Paradise Lost." Christianity is kind of a Johnny-Come-Lately religion so it has to rag on the others. Wiccans and Muslims also have their nasty side. (Kudos to the Upanishads for having the opportunity to knock the damnation ball around and skipping out on it.)  

[JewelintheLotus]

The Magician's Nephew was my favorite. Still is I guess I read it a long time ago. I think I was ten or eleven. Harbone, I'm curious. What did you think of the Screwtape Letters? I've been curious about them, but I've never heard anyone talk about having read them.  

[Lioness4]

The Magician's Nephew is the best in the series and my favorite. heart  

[lavenvi05]

Screwtape letters? What the heck?  

[Harbone]

JewelintheLotus

The Magician's Nephew was my favorite. Still is I guess I read it a long time ago. I think I was ten or eleven. Harbone, I'm curious. What did you think of the Screwtape Letters? I've been curious about them, but I've never heard anyone talk about having read them.

Well, I've read the Screwtape Letters, personally I like them and I think they're a pretty easy read - easier than Narnia, in some cases. C. S. Lewis writes them in open-letter format. For those who aren't familiar with them, they're a series of letters from an older demon named Screwtape to his "nephew," Wormwood. Mostly, Screwtape is giving advice on how to tempt the mortal in Wormwood's "care" into doing cowardly things, such as ignoring his duties in wartime and things like that.

Ole Clive Staples throws in some of his usual digs against modern education, bureaucracies and certain cherished US forms of intellectualism, but I forgive him. The letters are really quite funny and poor Wormwood seems to get the worst of it from beginning to end.

(You never hear Wormwood's side of the story, only his uncle Screwtape's responses in letter form.)  

[Pumkyn]

i love the series, but i hate how not so many people know that The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe is actually in a series.

they dont even know that the lion,...is actually number two.  

[lavenvi05]

Well, you better believe it. I wonder if they'll make the other books in the series into movies. I mean, it would be stupid if they didn't.