Growing up with fairy tales and fictions, I would identify myself as a fantasy junkie who is easily attached to juvenile literature. Among all the fairy tale stories I’ve read so far, there is one old classic that has got my favorite of all time. The Chronicles of Narnia, that’s the name!
Written by the notable author, C.S.Lewis, there are seven series of them: (According to the chronological year)
- The Magician’s Nephew
- The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
- The Horse and His Boy
- Prince Caspian
- The Voyage of The Dawn Treader
- The Silver Chair
- The Last Battle
If you have read all these books over and over again, just like me, you ought to know the entire storyline pretty well, so I’m not going to be a spoiler here.
“Narnia…where the woods are thick and cold, where Talking Beasts are called to live…a new world where the adventure begins.”- C.S.Lewis.
People are wondering why I fell for Narnia deeply. It’s a little bit hard to describe my love feelings towards Narnia in superficial language, I know I love Narnia just as how much Jerry the mouse loves the cheese. One of the reasons, which I believe it plays the biggest part is because the author manifested different sides of Narnia in different series. I personally prefer a community of a utopia that didn’t just portray a single civilization, but to be unique and diverse so that the magical land of all things sound “logical” and “real” to me. Apparently, Narnia possesses this characteristic and that is why it grabbed my interest from childhood until now.
As a huge Narnia fan, I utterly enjoy reading all seven of them, but if you are asking for my top-3 preference, here’s my golden list:
- The Silver Chair (1953)
The story began with the two children of our world, Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole who had called by Aslan to Narnia for a task- To save Prince Rilian, the son, and the heir of King Caspian the tenth. In order to make their task easier, there were four signs to guide them through the journey. They traveled to the North with Puddlegum, a marsh-wiggle for the lost prince. Throughout the journey, they’d faced several challenges before they could save Rilian from the witch.
Surprisingly, many Narnia fans defined this book as the least favorite in their list, but I considered it as my most favorite of all time probably because I love horror and mysterious genre in general. The Silver Chair is peculiarly the darkest book that doesn’t just imply the story of dark magic, but it also included certain interesting linings such as the lost prince, the marsh-wiggle , the ruined city of giants, and the underground world that hadn’t appear in the previous Narnia books. These are the facts that fascinated me the most!
2. The Horse and His Boy (1954)
The story took place at the golden age of Narnia, under the jurisdiction of High King Peter with his brother and sisters. Far away in a fishing village, there was a boy named Shasta. To escape from getting sold to Anradin by his foster father, he set his journey with Bree (a talking horse from Narnia) to the north. During his journey, he met another pair of escapers, Aravis the Tarkheena and Hwin (talking mare from Narnia). While they were in Tashbaan, both Shasta and Aravis had respectively overheard the scheme of a forced marriage between Queen Susan and Rabadash in different occasions. Throughout their journey from Tashbaan, to the desert, then to Archenland and to Narnia, both of them and their horses had faced difficult trials and tribulations before they could reach Archenland and warn King Lune about the upcoming war from Calormen, which eventually brought Shasta to learn his true identity.
I personally view The Horse and His Boy as my second favorite of Narnia series, next to The Silver Chair. To be specific, the reason is that it is the only story that takes place entirely in the world of Narnia (No transition from the earth to the magical land). It is also the only story that embodies the middle-east culture which has broaden the way we perceive Narnia in the previous English mindset. As stated above, I love reading fictions that do not just reflect a side of a civilization, but with a diverse cultured community to make the whole story real and well-rounded as well. It can thus be seen that such an idea has successfully made the entire story salient than the rest of the Narnia series.
3. The Magician’s Nephew (1955)
It is the story that tells the origin of Narnia, where the place was founded more than 50 decades ago of our world. Digory and Polly met each other during a wet summer in London, and they started their adventure in the house. Everything was exciting until they met Digory’s Uncle Andrew with his wicked rings and they were brought to the woods between the worlds. While exploring worlds in different pools, they accidentally ran into the world of Charn and brought the evil Empire- Jadis back to London with them. In order to pick up the pieces, they put on the ring and took her back to the woods between the worlds again, but with Uncle Andrew, Frank the cab driver and his horse- Strawberry this time. During a nuisance, they found their way into another pool, where they were all witnessed the creation of Narnia from Lion’s song. The children had to take an apple from a tree in the far away garden as they brought evil into the young land. They planted the apple to protect Narnia from the evil sorceress Jadis before they returned home.
The Magician’s Nephew is the only story of Narnia that spent almost half of its story in our world and probably just a quarter in Narnia itself. Many might find it boring as the story doesn’t involve much about Narnia, but it is still a splendid classic to me as the story explains how our world somehow relates to Narnia, how the evil activities started, and why Narnia was under the power of White Witch a thousand years later in the book of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Unlike other stories where there are wars or dark and perilous adventures, the storyline of The Magician’s Nephew is obviously simple yet fruitful to be classified as the children book.
I was also amazed by how the story included more than two-dimensional worlds where we can’t find from the other stories. Though the involvement of Charn is just about two chapters long, it is eye-opening enough to learn that C.S.Lewis’d actually made a good story idea here by implying the transition from the dystopia to a utopia within a book. That makes the story more interesting and it turns out to be in my top-3 list.
In conclusion…
If you have not read the books, I believe you wouldn’t want to leave yourself hanging after my review. So if you are eager to read all the books now, you may read them online, or get the full collection from any bookstores out there! Trust me, you won’t regret reading them all.
[Source from my external blog page: https://joeltzy.wordpress.com/2018/08/18/gallop-into-utopia-my-top-3-favorite-books-of-narnia/]
