Narnia Sequencing

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When you read The Chronicles of Narnia, do you read them in the order they were written, starting with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; or do you read them according to the story’s chronology, starting with The Magician’s Nephew? I’m currently reading them the second way, and it doesn’t feel quite the same.

Comments

  1. Rod says:
    2003-03-12 at 14:34

    Definitely the the order in which they were written. Yes, some people are so uptight as to need to follow the internal chronology, but there are many things which make no sense if you do it that way, allusions that are lost upon the reader if they don’t understand the reference.

  2. Roy Jacobsen says:
    2003-03-12 at 15:20

    I’m with Rod. Read ’em in the order Lewis wrote ’em.

    I liked reading The Magician’s Nephew and slowly figuring out that Diggory was Professor Kirk and that Jadis was the White Witch.

  3. Raffy says:
    2003-03-12 at 16:28

    Better from book 1 to the The Last Battle. More is revealed with some of the characters in later books that isn’t given out when they are first mentioned.

  4. Daniel says:
    2003-03-12 at 19:32

    This is a pet peeve of mine. You must read them in the order they were originally released. Otherwise, it’d be like watching Star Wars starting with Episode I. Yyou just don’t get the right progression of the story. The Magician’s Nephew is a prequel.

  5. Tim says:
    2003-03-12 at 19:43

    Order written.

  6. ailene says:
    2003-03-13 at 00:43

    Just read the first book that you picked up, be it the second or the twenty-fifth book. I never read the Lord of the Rings in order, and I like it a lot better like that. The same goes for the Chronicles of Narnia. The story’s beautiful enough that it will still remain beautiful from whatever end you start reading.

    Yeah, some people can be uptight about this whole order-of-books business. =)

  7. Vix says:
    2003-03-15 at 02:03

    Definately the order in which they were written