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Magician's Nephew (The Chronicles of Narnia): Discover where the magic began in this illustrated prequel to the children’s classics by C.S. Lewis: Book 1

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Parallels with events in the Book of Genesis include the forbidden fruit represented by an Apple of Life. Jadis tempts Digory to eat one of the forbidden apples in the garden, as the serpent tempts Eve into eating a forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden; unlike Eve however, Digory rejects the offer. (Lewis's Perelandra also features a re-enactment of the same Biblical story, which in that book also ends with the tempter foiled and the fall avoided.) The story begins in London during the summer of 1900. Two children, Digory and Polly, meet while playing in the adjacent gardens of a row of terraced houses.

Charn and the realm in which it resided ceased to exist entirely after Jadis and the children left. Later, when Aslan and the children are in the Wood between the Worlds, Aslan shows them that the puddle leading to Charn is dried up, as the empty world has been destroyed. Jadis entered Narnia with the humans from Earth, and 900 years later appears as the White Witch in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, ruling that land for 100 years until Aslan returned and defeated her with the aid of the four Pevensie children. [2] Commentary [ edit ] Charn is a fictional city appearing in the 1955 book The Magician's Nephew, the sixth book published in C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, written as a prequel to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Charn, and the world of which it is the capital city, are the birthplace of Jadis, also known as the White Witch, who later seizes control of Narnia. I loved the narration of The Magician's Nephew, it's clear, imaginative, and addicting. This book took me book to the time when I was sitting and listening to my grandma's tales. She always told me about folklores. I can still remember the story about there's a ghost hiding in the closet, it made me so scared and never ever wanted to open the closet alone again. Polly lives in row housing. One day, while she is in her garden, a grubby faced young boy pokes his head over the wall from the garden next door. Since no children had ever been in that house before, Polly is curious. The boy had apparently been crying and The book doesn't really spend as much time on various theological or moral points as the others do. It's more of a broad mythical statement affirming the Biblical concept of Creation in the Bible. The idea of God's Sovereignty and control over His Creation is abundantly clear and obvious, as is the fact that everything goes according to His plan and will. As Aslan says to to the Narnians, He will make sure the He suffers the most at the hands of Witch's evil.Harris, Aurand; Lewis, C.S.; Penn, William A. (1984). The magician's nephew: a dramatization. Dramatic Publishing. pp.4–5. ISBN 0-87129-541-5. In The Magician’s Nephew, Lewis gives a vivid account of the dawn of the kingdom of Narnia, the primary setting in the rest of The Chronicles of Narnia series. The burgeoning vitality of this world finds its origin in Aslan’s innate, inexhaustible creativity. Those whom Aslan creates, or those who come to share in his world through their gratitude and wonder at his creation, are endowed with dignity and beauty by association with him. By contrast, those who mistrust Aslan resist and seek to exploit the beauty of his world, even failing to see it for what it is. Through this juxtaposition, Lewis suggests that the beauty and dignity of the world and its creatures is upheld by those who honor its creator. After Digory puts on the yellow ring, he suddenly finds himself emerging in a light-filled wood with many small ponds. Polly is there, and despite both children being in a dreamy haze, they eventually remember what’s happened and make a plan to return home. At the last minute, they decide to explore other pools to see what kinds of worlds might exist there. The children switch to green rings, join hands, and jump into a different pool, which deposits them in a cold, ruined, apparently vacant world called Charn. They wander through crumbling courtyards until they enter a hall filled with the frozen forms of dozens of richly-dressed people. There’s also a little golden bell with a hammer beside it. After a heated argument (Polly senses danger and wants to go home; Digory doesn’t want to be driven mad with curiosity), Digory strikes the bell with the hammer to see what will happen. Moments later, a fierce, beautiful queen is awakened from her enchanted sleep and approaches them.

Within the Narnian arc, of course, this story is important simply for explaining how Narnia started and why a certain wardrobe acted as it did. (And why a certain professor in a future story expressed less incredulity than expected, once.) It may also be interesting for the Biblical stories it's obviously intended to varyingly echo and evoke, blended with classical mythological references. (On that note, this time reading I noticed that in Narnia it wasn't woman who sinned and offered man the opportunity to sin, but rather man who sinned with the woman at worst egging him on. I don't think anyone should particularly care about the gender blame game in either instance. But it is interesting to note nonetheless.)

All CS Lewis Reviews

The above is, of course, a reference to the eventual death and resurrection of Aslan the Lion for the sins and betrayal of Edmund Pevensie in *The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe*. Aslan later warns of what the reader knows to be the Nazis in World War II and the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Jadis: Empress of Charn, who becomes the White Witch appearing in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

It was awesome to read about the origins of Narnia. The lamp post and the witch and whatnot. Aslan. That was just autocorrected to Asian so that was funny. I don't have any reason to believe he is an Asian lion, but I again haven't read the entire series yet so that could be explored in future novels where Aslan spends his childhood as a small lion cub in Beijing before creating Narnia later in life. I don't think that's accurate though.Uncle Andrew and the study vanished and Digory could feel himself rushing through empty space. He felt as though he was under water, an idea which frightened him. He felt himself rushing upward just before he emerged from a small pool. He rose to his feet and looked around, noticing that there were trees everywhere and other small pools, similar to the one he had just come out of. The place had a doping effect on Digory. He did not want to think of Uncle Andrew, Polly or anything else. He spots a young girl, lying near a tree, apparently halfway between sleeping and waking. She comments that she had seen him before. He asks how long she had been there and she responded that she had always been there. Digory states that he, too, had always been there, but Polly had seen him emerge from the pool. The two vaguely remember crawling about the rafters in a house and about people with dirty faces, but it is only when they spot the guinea pig with a yellow ring tied to it that they remember Uncle Andrew. This awakens the last of the statues, a witch queen named Jadis, who, to avoid defeat in battle, had deliberately killed every living thing in Charn by speaking the "Deplorable Word". Lewis had his way to tell the story. He thoroughly showed me about this world where the origin of Narnia comes from. Not only I got to know about the wardrobe, but I was introduced to the characer that would be a big part in the next book. The Magician's Nephew should be read before The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for you to get full knowledge about this world. Schools programmes". The Radio Times. No.4404. 11 September 2008. p.79. ISSN 0033-8060 . Retrieved 1 November 2019.

Lewis greatly enjoyed stories of Arthurian legend and wrote poetry about this world. MrsLefay visits Digory in The Lefay Fragment, and becomes Andrew Ketterley's nefarious godmother in the finished novel. She gives Ketterley a box from Atlantis containing the dust from which he constructs the rings Digory and Polly use to travel between worlds. Both Lefays are allusions to Morgan Le Fay, a powerful sorceress in a number of versions of King Arthur's tales, who is often portrayed as evil. The box itself is also evocative of Pandora's box from Greek myth, which also contained dangerous secrets. [38] The Atlantis legend [ edit ] But then, Lewis' world is mostly a faultless one. People never act or decide, they are lead along by empty symbols of pure good or pure evil, following one or the other because they are naive. As usual, Lewis' view of humanity is predictably dire: always too naive, too foolish to know what good and evil are, even when they are right in front of us, and yet we are apparently still to be reviled and cursed when they make the wrong decision, even if we couldn't have known what we were about. For Jadis and Uncle Andrew, the price of being practical before being good results in the loss of a paradise. The world Aslan creates is not particularly practical with its numerous talking animals and spirits, its great forests, magnificent rivers, and active sky, but it is beautiful, and gladdens the spirits of those who are less "practical" than Jadis and Uncle Andrew. Jennings, Coleman A.; Sendak, Maurice (2005). Theatre for Young Audiences. Macmillan. pp.46–7. ISBN 0-312-33714-0.

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The Lion’s singing has brought forth the stars, the sun, and now grasses and trees. The Witch hates the music and flees the Lion’s presence, but the children long to meet him. Suddenly, countless animals of different kinds burst forth from the ground. The Lion, Aslan, walks among the animals and touches noses with certain ones. The chosen animals gather around him, and he breathes into them the ability to think and speak. Aslan charges these Talking Beasts with the care of those who don’t speak. As Digory approaches the still singing Lion, more life is sprouting about him. Mounds began to grow in the ground and from them sprang numerous different animals. As the animals begin to gather around the Lion, the cab horse trots past Digory and joins the other beasts. From each species of animal, the Lion chooses two who remain with him as the remaining animals wander into the forest. The Lion breathes on his chosen and commands them to awake and be speaking beasts. A number of aspects of The Magician's Nephew parallel Lewis's own life. Both Digory and Lewis were children in the early 1900s, both wanted a pony, and both were faced with the death of their mothers in childhood. Digory is separated from his father, who is in India, and misses him. Lewis was schooled in England after his mother's death, while his father remained in Ireland. He also had a brother in India. Lewis was a voracious reader when a child, Digory is also, and both are better with books than with numbers. Digory (and Polly) struggle with sums when trying to work out how far they must travel along the attic space to explore an abandoned house, Lewis failed the maths entrance exam for Oxford University. Lewis remembered rainy summer days from his youth and Digory is faced with the same woe in the novel. Additionally Digory becomes a professor when he grows up, who takes in evacuated children during World War II. [13]

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