Into the Wardrobe

I think an original draft of the beginning of Voyage of the Dawn Treader went something like this: "There once was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb and he almost deserved it...He liked books if they were books of information and had pictures of grain elevators or of fat foreign children doing exercizes in model schools, and he always read his multi-volumed books in strict chronological order..."

(ok, ok, I may be misremembering...:-)

I am of course a strict publication order proponent, but in fairness to presenting all the data, I have mentioned before that in Taliessin through Logress, The Region of the Summer Stars, Arthurian Torso, the incomplete and difficult Arthurian poem cycle of Charles Williams that includes Lewis' delightful commentary and analysis in the last section (and worth reading even if one has not read the Williams poems), Lewis recommends reading the poems in "chronological order" which he then supplies the numbering of, different from the manner in which Williams had (at least up to that unfinished point) left them.

One might think that it was enough that Williams, for whatever reason, thought they should be in the original order that he placed them in, but Lewis' reasons for recommending the "chronological" order is partly that the poems are so difficult, and the legends talked about of less common knowledge, that first time readers might be able to follow it better that way.

Of course as a Narnia publication order advocate, I would counter applying that argument to the Narnian order by saying that the original publication order of the Narnia books would never confuse people the way Charles Williams' poetry might.

Anyway, again, just for completeness' sake, even though I disagree with its potential application to Narnia.

--Stanley

Just thought I'd muddy the waters (after all it's been a while since Heresy was raised)

Way way back when I first joined the Wardrobe, i tended to lurk. Much was being posted about religion and "The Space Trilogy", so ap[art from a very brief "hello" post in the Cafe Wardrobe I didn't really have much to contribute.

Then a series of posts started when someone asked what the true order of the Narnia books was.

At this point I decided to dive in, and post a viewpoint, which was basically the "wonder of discovering just exactly how a Lampost came to be in Narnia" rather than having it presented in the "first book".
In other words.. LWW is read, and there's this Lampost in the wood. "What? How? Why?" and then in subsequent books it just fades away.
And then in the second to last book, the reason is presented, out of the blue, with no reason.
Naturally, after reading the books, the "first wonder" is lost. But if the books are read in "chronological order" then the wonder is lost forever and never to be found.

The result of this initial post of mine was quite effective... It killed the thread

Another result was, that it got me thinking.. and a Heretic was born

However... I got to thinking again.

There's another reason for reading the books in published order, which naturally is quite... long winded.. but hey.. has that ever stopped me?

In summary, reading in published order gives an insight into the way that Narnia "developed"

Basically the first 4 books are a sequence of stories.

Lion Witch Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair

Now the continuity breaks, as the first "recap" is told

The Horse and His Boy

So, why have a recap?

Well.. lets work backwards...

The final story, is The Last Battle.

However, this story requires two building blocks...

1) The destruction of Narnia implies a Creation of Narnia. And so, a story The Magicians Nephew is told. In this the basic elements of Narnia are set. The White Witch and the Great Winter, The Wardrobe coming from the wood of the Tree, and of course, the presence of The Lampost.

2) A crucial element is the Calormenes. To tell how Narnia falls, an insight into the Caloremes is needed, and hence. The Horse and His Boy.


So.. reading in the published order not only gives the sense of wonder as Narnia is unfolded, but also an insight into how the story is formed.


Sooo...

I stand by THE PUBLISHED ORDER

Ohh and this is the order they are listed in the back of The Last Battle published by PUFFIN which i have.

/me rests his case.

People tend to be loyal to the order that they were introduced to and subsequently, fell in love with. This holds true for music and movies. When a movie or song is remade, fans usually stick to the version they fell in love with.

I read the Chronicles in neither the published nor chronological order. The books held a magnificent wonder for me nonetheless. Here is the order I followed:

1. LWW
2. MN
3. HHB
4. PC
5. VDT
6. SC
7. LB

I know this is odd, but I basically followed the chronologicla order with the exception of switching LWW and MN.

Firstly, by reading MN second, I had LWW fresh on my mind as I read the backstory. If I had read it sixth, the explanations in MN would not have been as impactful. I agree that it is important to maintain the wonder associated with reading LWW first. Reading MN second capitalizes on that wonder before it has faded. Secondly, PC, VDT, SC, and LB had a good continuity when read in succession. That continuity is broken when HHB and MN is inserted before LB.

I'm glad that there is a generation of readers who are still falling in love with the books!

With the popularity of the movie, I think a lot of people are going to be reading the Chronicles in that order. They'll pick up LWW to read the movie book, and then go on to the other Chronicles, of which MN will come first.

I think that's a pretty good order to read them in. So long as LWW comes first I don't mind if MN and HHB is moved ahead in the Chronicles. That might be an interesting way to discover Narnia. And at least to texascat, it has been.

- Dan -

Since I'm entirely in favor of the original publication order, and some excellent arguments have been made for it already, I don't really have anything to add. Just thought I'd point out that to truly read the CoN in chronological order, you'd have to stop reading LLW before the last chapter, read HHB, go back to LLW, and then finally move on to PC. Might make for an interesting reading order...

methinks that somewheres I posted a couple of "alternative alternative" reading orders.

Both of which entailled pausing partway through one book, reading another, then returning to the first book again

One of the slot points is...

Magicians Nephew is actually different from the opthers in that there isn't (apart from Aslan) a continuing set of characters. (Yes I know Polly & Digory are in Last Battle.) So MN could effectiveley be slotted into the Last Battle as a recap being told to the Penvesies and Eustace and Jill in response to the appearance of Trillian at their meal.

But then.. hey.. I'm just a Heretic

Well because they put MN before LWW I knew the White Witch to be Queen Jadis, and I think it could have been better if we find the beginning near the ending of the series [if that makes sense] like the publication order is so we are more curious about the beginning of Narnia. That's one the the most significant changes in the order, they kept PC, VDT and SC in the same order so that's good and HHB was moved to the startish of the series but I think it doesn’t really affect the series, but now I think about the order it seems to better to have HHB after SC..not sure why though..