The Narnia Chronicles

[ramtops]

I've bought two boxed sets of C S Lewis' Narnia Chronicles in my life and (I think) had one bought for me... I certainly had all the books when I was a child, but I have no idea what happened to them. And, indeed, they may not have been in a box. But I digress ... The first set I bought was for my daughter kalunina when she was small, and the second a few years ago, from Amazon, for myself.

that last set sat on the bookshelves, unopened, until we catalogued all the books last year, when I did at least rip the cellophane off them. I hadn't read them myself for over about 35 years, probably, and I decided to do so over the recent late December holiday period.

I'm sure I bought them from Amazon UK, and was somewhat irritated to find that it is a US printing - odd typefaces, spelling USAnianised in places, and very badly proofread / typeset, with paragraphs repeating themselves in places.

I had remembered the the stories with much fondness - religious allegory and all - after all, I'm a convent girl, and I can brush religious allegory aside when need be. I was really looking forward to them, but oh *dear*. The Xian stuff reads to me now as though it's been shovelled on with a JCB, and the whole middle class mores jarred horribly. And the stories themselves are really quite light in most respects. I was actually pleased to finish the last one this morning - I was determined to get through them, but it was tough work.

I doubt I'll read them again, and I'll wait for LWW on DVD, I think.

next up: Alan Bennett's Untold Stories - looking forward to that.

Comments

[quercus.livejournal.com]

I read most (but not all) of Narnia as a kid, then a year ago I deliberately read all 7, in order(sic).

As a kid, I enjoyed them. They didn't have the subtle depths or easy accessibility of Earthsea, nor the doorstep-thick erudition of the real Tolkien, but they were OK.

Re-reading them recently, then just as john_d_owensays, I found them a bit thin. Wardrobe is the best of the bunch, but apart from that they're woefully thin writing. How about a character with some depth? Puddleglum (surely the inspiration for Marvin) is about as good as it gets. The allegory didn't bother me as I barely noticed it. For someone who is well known as a true scholar of medievalism thought and allegory, Lewis' attempt in Narnia is pretty crude in comparison.