Carrie’s Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge ends today, so I thought I’d summarize what I read for it and a few thoughts on the experience.

At first I only committed to reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe because I had so many other books stacked up to read. But I had forgotten that the books aren’t that long and read fairly quickly, and, after all, once you visit Narnia, you can’t wait to go back!

I ended up not getting started til about the tenth of the month due to finishing up a couple of other books. If I had started right at the beginning I may have completed the whole series. But as it was, here is what I finished (links are to my reviews/thoughts) along with one other challenge-related post:

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Prince Caspian.

Voyage of the Dawn-Treader.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Graphic Novel.

Narnian Magic (not a book, but a hammering out of my thoughts on the use of magic in the series.)

As you can tell, I am reading them through in publication order rather than story order. That seems to be a big debate these days, but I can’t imagine rediscovering them with anything other than LWW first. And I like reading them in more or less the order Lewis created them (though they may not have been published in the order written) and the public first discovered them.

I’m also part-way through The Way Into Narnia: A Reader’s Guide by Peter Schakel. I am going to save the rest of it for next time because it does have a chapter on each of the books and I don’t want to read those until I have read those books. But the first chapters have been delightful: one is a short biography of C. S. Lewis and the influences in his life that contributed to and may have led to his writing the Chronicles and the other has to do with expressing truth through fairy tales. Two of my favorite quotes are:

Fairy stories appeal to some adults and some children because the escape gained through fairy stories enables them to recover, or regain, a clear view of life, and to recover realities not recognized by those who limit reality to material objects…Tolkien says that spending time in an Other-world enables us as we return to see the everyday world renewed, noticing new mystery and complexity in creatures and objects we were taking for granted. (p. 29).

A fairy story is not “untrue”: “the peculiar quality of the joy in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth” on which the fairy story is constructed. It shows us “a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium” in an imaginary world and helps us recover that gleam in the everyday world we inhabit (p. 30). (Quoting a Tolkien lecture “On Fairy Stories” that Lewis edited for print.)

(Update: My discussion of The Way Into Narnia is here.)

My only disappointment connected with the challenge is that I ordered a set of the series — I wanted to read my own rather than the library’s — but the box that was supposed to house the set arrived broken. So I am going to send it back and look locally for the series, and meanwhile I did use library books again this time, but that was no problem.

I so enjoyed revisiting this series. I like that the challenge immerses me in the series all at once, just as Carrie‘s Lucy Maud Montgomery challenge did earlier this year. I’m thinking I need to do this one month with Laura Ingalls Wilder and another month with Louisa May Alcott as well some time. As much as I love reading new books, and have so many stacked up to get to, I love revisiting these old friends and remembering why I loved them in the first place.

I discovered this book on my shelves while looking for another Narnia-related book. I don’t remember where and when I bought it or whether I ever read it to the children (I’ll have to ask them if they remember it). I didn’t remember it at all until after I read it through again.

Even though the Amazon listing calls this book a graphic novel, the book itself doesn’t have that designation anywhere on it. Perhaps they added that onto it later to make it current and trendy? I don’t know.

It is bound like a book but the illustrations, though not what I would call comic-bookish themselves, are laid out in something of a comic book or graphic novel style. I tried to get a few examples: Please forgive my fingertips in the pictures trying to hold the book open.

The book is abridged and illustrated by Robin Lawrie and was published in 1993. It appears to be out of print though I did find used copies on the Amazon and B&N sites.

I thought the illustrations themselves were lovely and far above what we think of as a comic book style. And I appreciated that many passages were straight from the books though of course many parts were summarized and several scenes left out at the book is only 64 pages.

To many of us the thought that our beloved classic fairy tale has been reduced to a graphic novel  invokes an initial reaction of horror. But we wouldn’t have the same reaction if it were called an abridged illustrated children’s version, which it could be called in one sense. Graphic novels seem to have a connotation of luridness about them though I don’t know if they truly are: my boys read a few when they were younger but were never obsessed by them, and the ones we read were fine though one shop that sold them was creepy. Too, I have no objection to good books being translated into this style for those who do read them. If there are people who only read graphic novels, why not give them a good choice of material?

Though I’d rather read to my children or have them read the full book version for all its richness, if I had one who didn’t particularly enjoy reading or was into graphic novels, I wouldn’t hesitate to let them read this version.

I do wrestle with whether I would use something like this to introduce the books. (My boys are older now so it is a moot question until grandkids come along except for philosophizing). I think I’d still rather have them read the books first and then show them something like this afterward, but I can picture letting a small child look through this while the rest of the family read the books out loud. Knowing the story, I enjoyed looking through this summary and the illustrations.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

The folks at 5 Minutes For Books host What’s On Your Nightstand? the fourth Tuesday of each month in which we can share about the books we have been reading and/or plan to read. You can learn more about it by clicking the link or the button.

Since last time I have finished:

No Distance Too Far, Book 2 in the Home to Blessing series by Lauraine Snelling, about a young female doctor in the early 1900s trying to discern whether she is called to Africa, reviewed here.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, reviewed here.

Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis, reviewed here.

Voyage of the Dawn-Treader by C. S. Lewis, reviewed here.

A graphic novel of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe abridged and illustrated by Robin Lawrie. I just finished this last night and haven’t reviewed it. It’s beautifully illustrated and not hard to read in one sitting, so it may be a good introduction for young readers who are more visually oriented. I’m still wrestling with whether I’d want my children to see this first or the novels. I do appreciate that it uses much of the original text rather than changing the language.

Gospel Meditations For Women by Chris Anderson and Joe Tyrpak, about a 32-page booklet. Excellent.

I’m currently reading The Way into Narnia: A Reader’s Guide by Peter Schakel and Beyond Suffering: Discovering the Message of Job by Layton Talbert.

Next, depending on how long Way Into Narnia takes, I may try to read The Silver Chair by Lewis if I think I can do so before Carrie‘s Narnia Reading challenge ends this week. Next up after that is A Heart Most Worthy by Siri L. Mitchell, and I’d like to go through Gospel Meditations For Men with my son. After that I’m not sure — I have several books stacked up to choose from.

Happy Reading!

I love the way Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis begins: “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrub, and he almost deserved it.” Eustace is an obnoxious cousin of the Pevensie children of the previous Chronicles of Narnia books. Lucy and Edmund are having to stay with Eustace’s family while their parents and Susan are in America and oldest brother Peter is preparing for an exam with the professor in whose house LWW took place.

It’s been a year since their last visit to Narnia, and they’re missing it and reminiscing about it in Lucy’s room when they notice a ship in a picture on the wall looks very Narnian. The ship begins to look like it is actually moving, they feel the spray of sea water, and suddenly they find themselves in the ocean near the ship…along with Eustace, who happened to come into the room. The ship turns out to be Caspian’s, and he pulls them out of the water. Three years have passed in Narnia, peace reigns throughout the land, and Caspian is making good on his vow that he would search for the seven lost lords of Narnia whom his evil uncle had sent away in Prince Caspian.

Lucy and Edmund join Caspian, Reepicheep, and the rest of the crew on the search: Eustace has no choice but to come along, complaining the whole time. Their adventures, discoveries, temptations, and lessons make up the bulk of the book. And I can’t say much more than that without telling you too much and spoiling the story for you if you’ve not read it.

I saw somewhere that this book was thought to be “darker” than LWW and Prince Caspian. I don’t know that I would say that, but it does seem each major character struggles more with personal temptations.

We did watch the film version of this book a few months ago, and I liked it well enough at the time, but now that I’ve reread the book, I am disappointed that they made several unnecessary changes. When will filmmakers learn that when they veer farther away from the plot of well-known, beloved books, their film suffers?

One of my favorite scenes in the book is when Aslan relieves Eustace of his (small spoiler here) dragon skin (and that scene was a big disappointment in the movie).

And one of my favorite lines is when Aslan tells the children that in their world he has another name and “You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.” That to me encapsulates the Narnia series as a whole.

Though neither Caspian nor Dawn-Treader quite measures up to LWW  for me, they are only a small notch or so below it. I did like and enjoy them very much.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)