’’Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters.’’
Name of Book: The Magician’s Nephew (part 1, The Chronicles of Narnia)
Name of Author: C.S.Lewis
Category: Fantasy
Although, I really liked C.S.Lewis’ Narnia books, the first and the last parts were my least favourite. This one is a bit too childish for my liking. To put things more clearly, I had heard someone describe C.S.Lewis’ style as JRR Tolkien trying to write like Enid Blyton. This book, The Magician’s Nephew is the other way round - Enid Blyton trying to write like Tolkien, a major mistake. I’m sure many people after having read this book would have steered clear of Narnia. And I don’t blame them. I, too, would have, if I haven’t bought the entire collection together. I was lucky. The rest of the books (excluding the last part) are 10 times better than this one. Lewis had written the second part (The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe) before The Magician’s Nephew (TMN) and I wish he had maintained that form into this book too. But while the other books focus on the adventures taking place inside Narnia, this one has a major portion outside it. But I guess that’s understandable since Narnia had not been created then.
Hold on... Maybe I’m moving too fast. I guess most of you readers would be thinking - what exactly is Narnia? That’s a simple question which has a very complicated answer. Narnia is a magical land outside earth. According to Lewis, there are many worlds which exist together and are linked with magic. Narnia was created by Aslan (The Great Lion) who breathed life into trees and animals. The land is inhabited by talking animals, dwarves, humans, dryads, hamadryads, giants, hags etc... Narnia follows a different timezone than ours. A person might leave our world and enter Narnia and spend 20 years there but return back here within the same hour. Complicated, isn’t it? Don’t worry, just don’t look for minute details while reading these books. Just enjoy it as a child would.
TMN introduces us to Narnia. Digory and Polly, who lived in London, somehow stumble into Digory’s uncle’s private rooms. Uncle Andrew was a magician who tricks them into putting on magic rings that would teleport them out of our world. Digory and Polly then enter a dying world where they save the Queen, who was really an evil witch and they return to our world, where the Queen starts creating many disturbances. Digory and Polly somehow manage to go back to the Woods which link different worlds and they enter another world which was yet to be created. They witnes its creation by Aslan, the Lion. They watch as Aslan breathes life into animals and gives them the ability to talk and walk on two legs. But the Witch plans to make Narnia her own and so Aslan gives Digory, who brought the witch to Narnia to bring a magic healing Apple which would protect Narnia. The book then follows the conflicting thought in Digory’s head - Should he do what the Lion asked him to or should he take it to his mother who was mortally sick? I guess I should also mention that the book also has a flying horse, a cab driver who becomes king a jackdaw who made ’’the first joke’’.
I wouldn’t recommend you to read this book first, though it is the first part. It would be better if you read the second part first. That way you would already be enjoying Narnia by the time you begin this book. If you didn’t like the second book, I’m sure you wont like this one. So trust me in this. But considering the fact that I read this book before the rest, and still liked The Chronicles of Narnia, I guess you all might like it too. The book as such is very nice. It is only on comparison with the other parts that I rate it low. As it was written after 5 other books, I would guess that the main purpose of writing this book was only to clear up a few details and it does do that. So, I guess it succeeds in its aim.