by Stanley Anderson » September 1st, 2007, 7:02 pm
I propose a new order name, referred to as the "First Time LWW*LB". The asterisk is the typical programming "wildcard" character (yes I know other characters are sometimes used as wildcards). In the First Time LWW*LB order the only thing that really matters is that the reader is a first-time-through-Narnia type and that they read LWW first and LB last. Anything else in between doesn't matter and for later readings nothing matters in terms of order. Though of course there are chronological events and various reasons that make sense to read the others books in a certain order, none of the others have such an important sequential "dependence" on the first time reader's enjoyment the way that LWW and MG do for each other or LB does for the whole series.
Now if I could only come up with a nicer sounding way to refer to it than the unwieldy FTLWW*LB :-)
--Stanley
…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.