Narnia Audio Book Boxset

[Sonoftheday]

I am an audio book nut, anytime I am by myself I am listening to either one of my beloved christian podcasts or an audio book. I recently acquired Amazon.com: The Complete Chronicles of Narnia CD Box Set: C. S. Lewis, Kenneth Branagh, Michael York, Lynn Redgrave, Derek Jacobi, Alex Jennings, Jeremy Northam, Patrick Stewart: Books
And now I dont know what to do.

Should I listen to them in the order they were written.
Publication Order:

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia (1951)
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
The Silver Chair (1953)
The Horse and His Boy (1954)
The Magician’s Nephew (1955)
The Last Battle (1956)

Or their Chronological Order:
The Magician’s Nephew
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Horse and His Boy
Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle

I have thus far not watched either of the movies because I hate a read a book after seeing the film, so I have never been introduced the world of Narnia.

 

[ReformedDave]

Listen/read as Lewis intended. In their Chronological Order.

 

[Sonoftheday]

Listen/read as Lewis intended. In their Chronological Order.

I am leaning the other way, if for no other reason, because I will be able to watch the movies quicker.

Do you know if Lewis ever said that the magicians nephew should be read first?

 

[Sonoftheday]

In case any one else finds themselves in this quandary I found a cool article.

In What Order Should the Narnia Books Be Read? - For Dummies

 

[skellam]

I just finished recently reading through the series with my children. We read it in the published order starting with the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. We read the Magician's Nephew and the Last Battle at the end. I recommend going through in chronological order because you pick up a lot in the first book that helps to clarify the later books.

I also recommend a fascinating Mars Hill Audio conversation by Ken Meyers which explores a new book recently written by Michael Ward on the Chronicles of Narnia that appears to finally unlock the hidden structure of the books. It looks like Lewis was exploring in each book the character and qualities associated with each of the seven planets celebrated in medieval cosmology.

 

[Sonoftheday]

I did not take your advices and instead listened to The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe first. I did this because I bought the DVD the day it was released and it has been sitting packaged on my shelf until after I read the book.

I have always loved fantasy and fairy tales, and wish I were introduced to this book as a child. It's beautiful and captures my imagination even now. I am half tempted to walk into my walkin closet and pretend I am entering Narnia as I would have as a boy.

The line: "Safe? Of course he isn't safe! . . . But he's good." Brought tears to my eyes, what an excellent observation of our great Lion. I had heard the line before and liked it, but in context wow it blew me away.


Ohh and Micheal York does an amazing job reading this story. I cant wait to hear the one read by Kenneth Branagh (aka Hamlet,aka Dr. Frankenstein), or Captain Picard.

 

[py3ak]

We have that set as well. It's very nice.

As to Michael Ward's book, the critic may discover what the author never knew.

 

[skellam]

We have that set as well. It's very nice.

As to Michael Ward's book, the critic may discover what the author never knew.

I have to say that the theory is very compelling that the 7 planets represent the themes of the books. It's amazing that no one had picked up on it before until one author had a flash of insight while simultaneously reading several of his books.

It makes you wonder whether Lewis planned this before he wrote the series or if he was just so steeped in the medieval cosmology that the structure just flowed naturally and subconsciously for him.

 

[a mere housewife]

Lewis wrote in detail about how Narnia came into his head, and what he intended and did not intend by it. No mention of the planets. I need to find and paste in a section from one of his essays --criticizing exactly this kind of criticism, and citing those who in his lifetime came up with theories like this (having more 'first hand' knowledge about possible influences on him etc). He demonstrated how completely off base people can be about this sort of thing even when the theories seem very reasonable to an observer: as the author he could confidently assert that such was not the case. He was a big proponent of not reading into author's intent, influence, etc. more than they say.

 

[JBaldwin]

I have the Focus on the Family audio edition of the Chronicles of Narnia, and Doug Greshem talks at the beginning of each one describing his experiences living with CS Lewis. It's very enjoyable. My children and I have listened to those CDs many, many times. We listen to the Magicians Nephew first. It really does help to explain how it all started.

 

[py3ak]

I have to say that the theory is very compelling that the 7 planets represent the themes of the books. It's amazing that no one had picked up on it before until one author had a flash of insight while simultaneously reading several of his books.

But that doesn't seem to me a recommendation of the theory. A flash of insight picking up on something that no one had ever picked up on before sounds to me rather like what Lewis is talking about here:

We shd. probably find that many particular allegories critics read into Langland or Spenser are impossible for just that sort of reason, if we knew all the facts. I am also convinced that the wit of man cannot devise a story in wh. the wit of some other man cannot find an allegory.

And here

If you sometimes read into my books what I did not I had put there, neither of us need be surprised, for greater readers have doubtless done the same to far greater authors. Shakespeare wd, I suspect, read with astonishment what Goethe, Coleridge, Bradley and Wilson Knight have found in him! Perhaps a book ought to have more meanings than the writer intends? But then the writer will not be necessarily the best person with whom to discuss them.

And particularly here

But my fourth bleat—which is also my loudest and longest—is still to come.
All this sort of criticism attempts to reconstruct the genesis of the texts it studies; what vanished documents each author used, when and where he wrote, with what purposes, under what influences—the whole Sitz im Leben of the text. This is done with immense erudition and great ingenuity. And at first sight it is very convincing. I think I should be convinced by it myself, but that I carry about with me a charm—the herb moly—against it. You must excuse me if I speak for a while of myself. The value of what I say depends on its being first-hand evidence.
What forearms me against all the Reconstructions is the fact that I have seen it all from the other end of the stick. I have watched reviewers reconstructing the genesis of my own books in just this way.
(...)
...My impression is that in the whole of my experience not one of those guesses has on any one point been right; that the method shows a record of 100 per cent. failure. You would except that by mere chance they would hit as often as they miss. But it is my impression that they do no such thing. I can't remember a single hit. But as I have not kept a careful record my mere impression may be mistaken. What I think I can say with certainty is that they are usually wrong.
And yet they would often sound—if you didn't know the truth—extremely convincing. (...)
...The 'assured results of modern scholarship', as to the way in which an old book was written, are 'assured', we may conclude, only because the men who knew the facts are dead and can't blow the gaff. The huge essays in my own field which reconstruct the history of Piers Plowman or The Faerie Queene are most unlikely to be anything but sheer illusions.

 

[skellam]

As one might expect when faced with written evidence that Lewis did not have a particularly high regard for critics who looked for hidden meanings in his work, I'm sure Ward has had this criticism brought to his attention. I looked at his website and he does address this on his FAQ page. He also has an interesting take on the question of the order to read the Narnia series (He recommends always starting with the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe).

 

[py3ak]

Well, the answer to question #6, about Lewis' negative remarks, fails rather miserably, and the whole tone of the FAQ leaves me less impressed than ever with Dr. Ward (and by his own admission he is one of those people who try to find harmonic parallels). When Lewis says that his impression is that there is a 100 percent failure ratio in these reconstructions, he is intending to call the whole practice, the whole existence of the "target" into question. The huge reconstructive essays are unlikely to be anything but sheer illusions. It is also ironic that this "flash of insight" came about after Lewis was dead and couldn't blow the gaff on it himself.

There is a scene in The Power That Preserves that was inspired by the label on a can of disinfectant spray in a public restroom. But no critic would go to bat for the theory that therefore all of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant were inspired by household products: not because that's impossible (it's less unlikely than other alternatives), but because it's not an attractive theory, it has no romance to it. I see a similar trend in some historians of theology who want to reduce Calvinism to some sort of central dogma from which all else is derived, Marxists or Freudians who want to reduce the complex springs of human behaviour down to either sex or money, and critics who want to produce some sort of unified field theory which does away with the variety, the absurdity, and the sanity of the imagination of a great author.

 

[skellam]

I would agree that the website does come across as marketing hype with the constant reminders to read more about it after you buy his book. I think it hard to discount that the parallels of each of the planets do fit the themes of the Narnia books. It's just a theory that can never be fully proved or disproved, but I don't think that detracts from the enjoyment of the stories and may add another level of insight for some readers.

 

[a mere housewife]

There may be parallels, and seeing them may add to the enjoyment of some readers (I see parallels to Christian teaching in many pagan mythologies): that doesn't mean it is what the author intended. In this case, Lewis thought of the whole approach as one of bogus scholarship, and if we're to let what he actually communicated (he was a very clear and lucid communicator) rule our ideas about his thought and work, we must assume that he would not have been such a hypocrite as to have encouraged this approach by writing with some secret plan for readers to ferret out, etc.

 

[a mere housewife]

Sorry for the double post (I don't have an edit icon) --I was going to add that Lewis wrote the above quotes Ruben posted in an address to theological students, and was pleading specifically against what this leads to with regard to Scripture. Ultimately this kind of thing is used to discount what an author actually says to promote the secret discovery of what he really meant according to some ingenious parallel or what subconsciously influenced him etc; Lewis was saying that it's all bogus, not only with Scripture, but in all literature.

 

[py3ak]

If you state the theory in the form that some aspects of the books fit in with some aspects of the mythology of the planets, that is one thing; arguing that it is a secret code unlocking their meanings perpetuates a saddening trend of reading Lewis while at the same time ignoring him. From the Boar's Head Tavern types who think he is their patron saint, to the proponents of highbrow entertainment as worship who claim him in spite of his express statements against that sort of nonsense, to critics who will undertake to read Lewis while discounting everything he ever said about criticism, there is a strong tendency to pay lip-service to Lewis, while treating him as a wax nose readily twisted about to support any position the author in question happens to hold.

Owen Barfield has observed that Lewis was insistent on applying what-you-are-saying to what-you-are-saying and to the-fact-that-you-are-saying it. If I prudently wait until Dr. Ward is dead, I can then relate his books to The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, arguing that Beatrix Potter (who was fascinated by codes, even writing her diaries in a self-created code) provided him with a key to a secret structure that governed all his life, and sound quite plausible (though I'll admit I might have to go with Jemima Puddle Duck instead). The reason it wouldn't be popular is that there's no romance, no intrigue, to being inspired by a children's book. But if I were to postulate such a hidden organizing principle based on the work of Athanasius Kircher, it would be well-received (unless the critical, or should I say uncritical, climate changes).

 

[skellam]

If you state the theory in the form that some aspects of the books fit in with some aspects of the mythology of the planets, that is one thing; arguing that it is a secret code unlocking their meanings perpetuates a saddening trend of reading Lewis while at the same time ignoring him. From the Boar's Head Tavern types who think he is their patron saint, to the proponents of highbrow entertainment as worship who claim him in spite of his express statements against that sort of nonsense, to critics who will undertake to read Lewis while discounting everything he ever said about criticism, there is a strong tendency to pay lip-service to Lewis, while treating him as a wax nose readily twisted about to support any position the author in question happens to hold.

I have not actually read the book Planet Narnia, nor do I intend to. I listened to his presentation on Mars Hill and thought the parallels were interesting not that it was a secret code to unlock the true meaning of the books. The meaning of the books is clearly a Christian allegory.

Of course, there is a fundamental difference between Scripture and literature. We know the ultimate source of the influence on the writers of scripture. I don't think, regardless of what Lewis had to say on the subject, that totally abandoning the research and study of an author's life, environment and influences and how these affected his work is warranted.

 

[py3ak]

When you say that the meaning of the books is clearly a Christian allegory, I am afraid that you are contradicting Lewis' own insistence that they were not an allegory.

It is perfectly fair to say that Lewis' own ideas of criticism were incorrect and to ignore them in your treatment of him (although since I think Lewis' views made a lot of sense I personally am not going to find that treatment really interesting). But it is another thing to pretend that Lewis was doing something in the face of his express statements to the contrary and his attacks on such approaches in his own critical writings. It is on that score, then, and against such people rather than against you that I have taken up the cudgels so vigorously on this point.

Sadly when Christians are taught to read Lewis or Jane Austen or whomever it may be in a certain tendentious way, there is no guarantee that it will not also affect their reading of Scripture.

Umberto Eco has an interesting anecdote in On Literature on the way that a character in his book Foucault's Pendulum seems inspired by Casaubon in George Eliot. Ultimately he admits that the evidence for this idea is there, even though he specifically tried to rule it out. So by the author's own admission one can say that there are parallels; but what one cannot say is that this was the author's intention. When Eco has to admit that it fits perfectly, one snatch of dialogue composed for the express purpose of overthrowing that idea notwithstanding, I think it becomes exceedingly obvious that we need to be able to draw a sharp distinction between what a reader may come away with as over against what was in the mind of the author. Lewis made such a distinction, and had no objection to people finding things in his works that he didn't know were there; but the problem comes in when we claim that we have gotten inside his mind and discovered his intention. (And the parallels to some fantastic readings of Biblical Theology are I think rather too obvious to ignore: although in attributing such theories to God Himself we are guilty of considerably greater offense than in doing so to men). Consider this:

Dear Hilton Young -
I think I muffled the point I was trying to make yesterday about the significance-unknown-to-the-artist in a work of art. I certainly didn't intent to treat 'Either Inspiration or the Unconscious' as an exhaustive alternative for its source.
It's more like this. Every fiction, realistic or fantastic, uses forms taken from the real world: a woman, a ship, a gun, a horse etc. Now the total significance of these in the real world (call it T) is known to nobody. And the fraction of it known to each is slightly (or, it may be) widely different. The fraction in the artist's mind (both conscious and unconscious is T/A: in the reader's T/R. An extreme case of difference wd. be, say, if a child who didn't yet know the facts of generation put a marriage into a story. His ignorance might make that bit of his story simply comic and absurd to the adult reader: but it might also make that bit to the adult reader far more significant than the child had ever intended it to be.
Now I hope no individual reader of my work is to me as adult to child. But the aggregate experiences of my readers, contributing to each from T/R1 + T/R2 etc., presumably are. At any rate a classic, wh. has been read by great minds for 1000 years, and discussed, will have all its forms interpreted by a composite mind, which ought to see in them more than the artist intended. This is not a complete substitution of a new work for his original one, for it is his particular grouping of forms which evoke the whole response. (As if successive generations learned better and better dances to one original tune: a certain formal element in it remaining constant but being more richly and subtly filled).
All this is only an elaboration of the old maxim that what you get out of work depends on what you bring to it. Humanity as a whole brings to the Aeneid more than Virgil could: therefore it must get more out. After all, you as an Atheist have to believe that in admiring natural beauty we are getting out of it what no-one put in: why shd. we not equally get out of verbal compositions what the composer didn't put in?

 

[skellam]

Sadly when Christians are taught to read Lewis or Jane Austen or whomever it may be in a certain tendentious way, there is no guarantee that it will not also affect their reading of Scripture.

Umberto Eco has an interesting anecdote in On Literature on the way that a character in his book Foucault's Pendulum seems inspired by Casaubon in George Eliot. Ultimately he admits that the evidence for this idea is there, even though he specifically tried to rule it out. So by the author's own admission one can say that there are parallels; but what one cannot say is that this was the author's intention. When Eco has to admit that it fits perfectly, one snatch of dialogue composed for the express purpose of overthrowing that idea notwithstanding, I think it becomes exceedingly obvious that we need to be able to draw a sharp distinction between what a reader may come away with as over against what was in the mind of the author. Lewis made such a distinction, and had no objection to people finding things in his works that he didn't know were there; but the problem comes in when we claim that we have gotten inside his mind and discovered his intention. (And the parallels to some fantastic readings of Biblical Theology are I think rather too obvious to ignore: although in attributing such theories to God Himself we are guilty of considerably greater offense than in doing so to men).

Thanks for your thoughts on this. My knowledge of C.S. Lewis is not as broad as yours and I appreciate your insights. I find it interesting that Lewis does not consider the Narnia stories Christian allegory. The sacrifice of Aslan for the sins of Edmund is a very powerful image for the substitutionary atonement of Christ and so obvious that my children were able to pick up on it when we read it. When I look up the definition of allegory and find that it is "the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence," this seems to fit.

 

[py3ak]

I admit to being a Lewis crackhead! If anyone has a copy of The Personal Heresy written with E.M.W. Tillyard I'll be happy to take it off their hands.

I don't have the volume it's in with me, but Lewis does state that Narnia is not an allegory, and if you look at it you can see that it really is quite different from Pilgrim's Progress. First off there were some images: a faun with an umbrella was the first, I believe. But once the imaginary world was taking shape he asked himself, "What would these realities look like in this world", in essence, and things developed from there. So there isn't a one-for-one correspondence, as in a giant representing despair, or a slough representing despond, but rather an imaginative world is developed and then certain realities from our world are transposed into it.

By the way, if you enjoy the Chronicles of Narnia, Till We Have Faces, The Pilgrim's Regress and especially The Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planer; Perelandra; That Hideous Strength) are also things you would probably enjoy. I think Perelandra stands out as the greatest piece of writing in the whole genre of science fiction. Not In The Days of the Comet or This Day All Gods Die can compare with it.

 

[ReformedDave]

Listen/read as Lewis intended. In their Chronological Order.

Do you know if Lewis ever said that the magicians nephew should be read first?

I believe he mentions it in his "Letters to Children".

 

[skellam]

By the way, if you enjoy the Chronicles of Narnia, Till We Have Faces, The Pilgrim's Regress and especially The Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planer; Perelandra; That Hideous Strength) are also things you would probably enjoy. I think Perelandra stands out as the greatest piece of writing in the whole genre of science fiction. Not In The Days of the Comet or This Day All Gods Die can compare with it.

I wrote a term paper on Lewis in high school and read a great deal of his books but that was some time ago. I enjoy science fiction and have been thinking about reading back through Space Trilogy. Pilgrim's Regress also looks like it's worth a read. Thanks.

 

[py3ak]

Pilgrim's Regress will introduce you to some truly breathtaking poetry.

 

[Sonoftheday]

SPOILER ALERT

This has probably been discussed at great lengths here, but I watched the 1st movie after finishing the book and found it quite dissapointing. They seemed to have went through and removed as much of the theological symbolism as they possibly could have. They turned Peter from an honorable hero to a coward forced into everything rather than doing what was noble. Even his first battle is turned into an accidental kill as he is cowardly standing with his sword out the wolf jumps to its own death. Ed is made to look only confused rather than being under the evil spell and having having evil thoughts against his siblings. I could go on ranting but the point is they removed everything I loved about the book and turned it into every other fantasy story. Also they changed the line after the resurrection of Aslan so that it is no longer there was magic before time, before the witch was created, but rather the witch just didnt understand the magic. This destroys the symbolism of the eternal covenant. Also Mr. Beaver didnt drink beer or smoke a pipe.

I perhaps sound to harsh on the film, It is not that I did not like the film, I loved it. I will undoubtedly watch it several times with my children (and by myself), but I love the symbolism Lewis had in his book that was not kept in the film.