The Magician's Nephew (#1)

By C.S. Lewis

In this book, the one that starts it all, a boy and a girl travel to another world, one where an evil witch wants to capture them. But then, they arrive in a magical world, a new one that just begun, one created by the majestic lion, Aslan.

During the summer holidays, Polly Plummer, a girl living in London, is suddenly introduced to Digory Kirke, her next door neighbour. Digory tells Polly of his father in India, and his mother being very sick. She is cared for by her sister, Aunt Letty, and her brother, Uncle Andrew. The latter, Digory feels, is an unusual person indeed, and Digory feels miserable. Through an accident, they find themselves in Uncle Andrew's secret study. To their horror, Uncle Andrew walks in and locks them inside. He offers Polly a yellow ring from a tray of rings, but when she touches it, she vanishes!

Uncle Andrew tells Digory of the box of magical powder he had received from his godmother, and how he had made contained that powder in rings, that would allow the wearer to travel to another world. Uncle Andrew figures out that the yellow rings send you to that world, and the green ones bring you back. Going to save Polly, Digory takes two green ones and puts on the yellow ring. Immediately, he seems to be travelling upwards to a green light above him, and then POP! Out he comes out of a pool, and into a quiet, and calm wood.

He finds Polly not far from the pool, and then he realises that there are many other pools in the wood, and figures out that for every pool, there must be a world below it. Marking the pool home, he and Polly jump into a random pool. They arrive in a desolate palace, and find a hall of frozen people, all sitting down. In the middle of the hall there is a bell, and Digory strikes it with a hammer. The hall crumbles, and he and Polly nearly avoid being squashed. Then, a tall and beautiful woman at the end of the hall wakes up, and she brings them out of the palace, and tells them of the history of Charn, a dying world. The woman's name is Jadis, an evil witch-queen. She demands that Digory and Polly bring her into their world, and they are aghast.

Trying to escape, they slip on their yellow rings, but Jadis holds on to them. Arriving in the woods, she seems weak, but catches Digory's ear when they jump into their pool. Uncle Andrew is surprised to see the three of them, but Jadis makes him her 'slave' and orders a 'chariot' so that she can conquer the world.

Disappearing in a cab, Jadis and Uncle Andrew go off to who knows where, and Digory waits for them, determined to catch Jadis at the first opportunity and send her back into her proper world. They finally arrive, but with Jadis whipping the horse as fast as it will go. She wrecks the cab, with Uncle Andrew inside. Polly and Digory go to the scene of the wreck, and Digory manages to catch on to the Witch's heel and Polly, holding his hand, slips on the yellow ring. Unfortunately, Jadis isn't the only one that they manage to bring to the magical wood. The horse from the cab, the horse's owner, and Uncle Andrew all vanish as well. Jumping into what they think is the pool to Charn, the whole group emerges in darkness.

Suddenly, singing erupts, and the party witness the creation of a new world. The singer is a majestic lion, and animals are created out of the ground. The world is fresh and beautiful, and peace overflows every corner of it. The lion slowly heads towards them, and Jadis screams and throws an iron bar at him. It doesn't seem to mind at all, and the iron bar grows into a lamppost. The lion chooses two animals of every species, and gives them the ability to talk. It names the land, Narnia, and reveals its name as Aslan. Wanting something to give to his mother, Digory heads towards Aslan, along with Polly and the cab driver. The other Talking Animals spot Uncle Andrew, and chase him. Thinking he's a tree, they try to plant him. Aslan crowns the cabby and his wife the first king and queen of Narnia, and tells Digory that he has to find a magical apple to plant to protect Narnia from Jadis.

Aslan makes the horse a flying horse, and names it Fledge. They make it to the garden where the apples grow, and Digory plucks one. To his horror, however, the Witch is there, and she is already eating an apple. She tries to tempt him to give the apple to his mother, but Digory holds strong and ignores her. They plant the apple beside the river that flows through Narnia, and Aslan says that it will protect Narnia for many years. The apple quickly grows into a wonderful tree. Under Aslan's bidding, Digory takes an apple from that tree for his mother. Aslan sends them back to our world and Digory gives the apple to his mother, successfully healing her. With the core of the apple, Digory plants it and it turns into a tree as well. However, it is blown down by a storm and its wood is used to make a wardrobe in Digory's house.

This book certainly is a wonderful read, however, it may seem all a bit boring to those who have read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. C.S. Lewis successfully answers all the questions as to the creation of Narnia, and the series continuity is preserved even though this book came out many years after The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The explanation is simple and convincing, much more satisfying than, say, George Lucas's prequels.

The Magician's Nephew is an adventure through many worlds, and it is very entertaining. The mystery of magic, the wonder of the worlds, all combine to make The Magician's Nephew fascinating. Lewis captures the essence of country people going to live in the city wonderfully, and he plays on Digory's fear of his mother dying like a maestro, making unimportant things becoming important, and maybe the tree and its apples represents the garden of Adam and Eve, and the temptation, the difference being that Digory does not give in. The book will keep you on tenterhooks from the start, although maybe those tenterhooks start to weaken in the middle. Lewis finds his playing ground in Narnia, and from there he hits it home.

Digory epitomises the classic hero, one that makes mistakes and yet is willing to admit it, one that can change and will change, and one that is interesting to watch the development of. His first mistake is striking the bell, even though Polly warned him against it. His second is letting Jadis catch on to him and escaping to our world. His breaking point is his ill mother, and the Witch nearly manages to trick him. His courage, however, and his resilience to obey Aslan more than makes up for these mistakes, and that is what makes him excellent. One rues Lewis's fatal mistake in The Chronicles of Narnia, and that is the continual shifting of characters. While it may bring new faces to the story, it leaves Lewis no space to develop the characters. As such, we never really know much about Digory, and as he only appears in other books as an old Professor, we cannot know more about him.

Polly is the other main character, although she suffers from Lewis's bias against girls: She seems in this book only to stand back and go along with Digory's plans, and as such Digory gets all the credit for coming up with the ideas. She would have been an interesting character, but Lewis shunts her aside to make Digory the main character. One regrets this decision, as a pair would have been better suited to carry out The Magician's Nephew to the end.

Jadis, the Witch-Queen, is evil, certainly, although Lewis never manages to flesh that out, what with all the world-hopping going on. The only evil deed we ever see her do is eating the magical apple, because all the rest is simply grabbing on to people and talking about conquering Earth, which we know she can never do.

Speaking of world-hopping, Lewis seems to be running out of ideas on how to send people to other worlds, as the ring explanation takes up a good many pages and sounds like it came right out of a science textbook. Complicated as it is, the rings sound like Tolkien, and they don't make up for the page space they take up.

Aslan sounds like God, perhaps formed from Lewis's Christian beliefs. He creates the world, gives life to animals, and protects Narnia from outside dangers. He is the majestic lion, one that is good and has not a speck of evil inside him. He is the everlasting strong person, willing to sacrifice himself to save Narnia, as he does in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

The Magician's Nephew certainly has some pacing problems, what with the uneven slow descriptions of the creation of Narnia, and the action-paced scenes of escaping from Charn. Lewis seems to suffer from periods of lethargy and then excitement, and this escapes into his writing. However, just because it has these problems, doesn't mean that it is a fun read that lets you escape to the fantasy world of Narnia, if only for a few hours.

Perhaps it may not be the best book in Lewis's series, but it is a fine one.

Rating: 8.7/10
Advice: For those who have never discovered Narnia, this is the perfect introduction. And for those         who have, it is a wonderful read.

The Reviewer wishes all his readers a very happy Chinese New Year and he hopes that all of you will continue to have prosperity in life!

Next post: Agatha Christie follows up 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles' in the fear-inducing title: 'Murder on the Links'. However, is it really that mysterious? Poirot returns in the next review!