So... Original or Chronological?

[Bobtheduck]

Are you an original order fan of Chronicles of Narnia (LWW first and MN 6th) or a chronological order fan (MN first and LWW second)?

I am an original order fan. I think that is the way they should be written to preserve the mystery and newness of it all. The way that MN lays everything out for you takes away from some of the "strangeness" of LWW if you read it afterwards because by that point you're allready used to it...

I've been on IMDB gathering arguments that others had made and here are a few I find to be entirely coherent:

"Several artistic effects in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe are undercut when one of the other books is read before it. The careful use of details to enable readers to share Lucy's initial experience in Narnia and the equally careful buildup before Aslan's name is mentioned work best and have their fullest impact if this book is one's introduction to Narnia."

"The introduction to the lion is not at all the same, artistically or emotionally, in The Magician's Nephew: it assumes, on the contrary, that readers do have prior knowledge of him. When the voice first begins to sing in chapter 8, Lewis emphasizes the beauty, not the mysteriousness, of it. And when the sun rises and the singer becomes visible, the story says simply, "It was a Lion. Huge, shaggy, and bright it stood facing the risen sun" (ch. 8). There is no buildup like "Don't you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion--the Lion, the great Lion" and no introduction to him as "the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea" as there is in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (ch. 8). There are no characters in The Magician's Nephew who could have such knowledge of him (Lewis never does bother to identify him until the animals, as soon as they are given the gift of speech, say his name somehow they just know it, without being told). Readers who have already read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe enjoy the pleasure of understanding something the characters in the story do not know. Artistically and emotionally, then, The Magician's Nephew fits in better as a flashback, filling in the background of places and people already known, than as a first book introducing those places and people."

That is basically a more eloquent version of what I have said all along, but I found this to be on target too, which is a comparison that I should have thought of but didn't:

Put it this way: if one were to watch both Star Wars trilogies for the first time, you wouldn't start with the more recent prequel trilogy, even though it's the story that takes place first chronologically. If you did, the revelation at the end of The Empire Strikes Back wouldn't be shocking at all, as you would already know who Luke's father is, if you'd watched the prequel trilogy first.

When "Empire" came out, the identity of Luke's father was considered one of the best twists in any movie up to that point... It set the stage for future movies, and anyone experiencing the series for the first time should be allowed that chance as well, i believe. The same thing goes for CoN... I think readers should be allowed the chance, the first time through, to be in a strange world you don't know about when all his happens rather than having it all explained to you.

Drdsr, quoting Lewis, said "Of a book's meaning...its author is not necessarily the best, and is never a perfect judge..." I doubt this quote was referring to the order of the books, but it definately applies... Reading MN first changes something about the books. It changes the atmosphere. It would be an entirely different experience... You can always get the "complete view" by reading the books in Chronological order, but you can never again recapture the mystery you can get only by reading the books in order of publishing.

One view that no one ever seems to take on the matter is the relationship between TMN and TLB. TMN deals with the creation of worlds (Narnia) and the destruction of worlds (Charn). If one reads TMN or sees it as a movie, first, the possibility that Narnia will come to an end is always in their mind. If we save TMN for book (or movie) 6, then it is a perfect prelude to TLB. Once again, we see that publishing order just makes sense.

This also jumped out at me

Has anyone considered that a truly chronological reading of the series would require one to read The Magician's Nephew first, then read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe until halfway through the last chapter--then stop midway through the last chapter, read The Horse and His Boy, and THEN finish LWW? Just a silly thought..

Sorry for not having much of my own to say, but other people (who are likely much bigger fans than I am) said it so much better than I have been able to. But, what do you all think?

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Ever since I began reading The Chronicles of Narnia in Year 7 I have read them in chronological order. The reason for this is that it is the way my set are numbered (I think they are 1994 editions) and not many people I knew had read anything but the Lion one. Some years later there was one person that told me to read them in the published order and I thought the idea was ridiculous and that you should read it chronologically. .Just recently I read them in published order and I enjoyed them even more than usual! So I say read them in published order because that leaves a sense of wonder and mystery and the books get darker and darker and mature in the themes.

[bigsleepj]

I like to read it in the Quentin Tarantino order. First you begin reading the 2nd Chapter of The Last Battle, then you read the first two chapters of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, then you read the "Deplorable Word" chapter in Magicians Nephew. Then you page to where Edmond first meets the Queen, then to "Silver Chair" where the companions first meet the Green Lady...et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Just kidding.

I prefer the original order, not the Chronological Order. I know Lewis "sanctioned" the chronological order in a letter to a child asking which is the best way to read them, but someone once told me "to trust the art, not the artist". From an artistic point of view the written order works best just like you'd have to watch Episodes 4 - 6 for the full effect of Star Wars. You can't trust the artists because they think differently about their creations than we do.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Nice answer J! Or it could be that the artists are so immersed in their works that they don't logically think about stuff like that.
I'm kind of annoyed that they are published in chronological order as that means I never read them as they were written and will never have the same sense of wonder others have had because of that. Darn.

[termyt]

Tarantino order I'll have to give that a try.

I'm always a fan of "order they were written" myself. This way, you are more likely to follow the writer's flow as he himself went through the works. LWW was written first. There is no assumption that we know anything of Narnia. MN, on the other hand, assumes we know quite a bit of Narnia. It doesn't go into a whole lot of detail about who Aslan is because we should already know. Also, there is a mystery to Aslan in LWW that would be lost if MN is read first.

But this is coming from my point of view as someone who first read them in published order.

I guess I just basically parroted Mr Schakel's point of view, but there you have it.

[mitsuki lover]

I perfer chronological order that way you have more of a sense of what's going on.
That's also why I would also want to see the Inuyasha movies in order of where
they appear in the series,but that is off topic.
So to put it another way I perfer to see it in order.

[Arnobius]

I also favor the original order. Even though the books that are out of place might fit in well chronologically, they seem to wrk better theologically in CS Lewis' order. We see what the children see first, and then see the truth behind what they see later.

[Namelessknight]

I prefer them in the chronological order myself...

[VioletEyedCat]

I am definitely a believer in the originally published order. Like termyt has said- the growth of Lewis as a writer while he's penning the series has a dramatic impact on the way the novels flow as books. Good point about the amount of detail, too. I'm a big believer in reading the books in the order they were written. Who reads the Simarillion before the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings? Nobody. Yet the Simarillion is set thousands of years before the rest of the books.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Uh. Actually some people do read the Silmarillion before the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

[Kkun]

The first time I read it was in the chronological order, since that's how the box set I received had them organized. However, I'm re-reading them in the original order. All of the mystery has been spoiled since I've read them all before, but it's still interesting. I love these books.

[Scribs]

Original order, because things fit together so much better.

[VioletEyedCat]

Uh. Actually some people do read the Silmarillion before the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

Really?!? Wow. If I tried to read Simarillion before the rest, I would have never read the series. Simarillion reminds me of the Bible sometimes, but without all the Spirit Inspired Wisdom. I like the original order better because you can tell that the complexity of the novels gets more advanced as they go one from Hobbit, to Lord of the Rings, to Simarillion, with Simarillion being the most complex.

[bigsleepj]

Heheheheh. I frequent a CS Lewis forum called "Into the Wardrobe " and they started a 2456317 Club for people who like reading it in the published order. They post it into their signatures even. The scary thing is they even got Cafe Press T-Shirts and such.

[mitsuki lover]

Personal favorites:
The Horse And His Boy
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
Did anyone see it when they ran The Silver Chair on PBS?
Puddlegum was played by Tom Baker!