The Magician's Nephew by C.S Lewis | The Chronicles of Narnia #1

This is the story of Diggory Kirke whose Mother is sick and so has been sent to live with his strange Aunt Letty and Uncle Andrew in London. Whilst in London he meets Polly, his next door neighbour and one day on one of their adventures they end up in Uncle Andrew's mysterious room on the top floor of the house. Once there, Uncle Andrew tricks the children into touching magical yellow rings that take them to another world. This world is in actual fact The Wood between the Worlds and from here the children travel to a world that is nearing the end of it's life span and to a world beginning it's life named Narnia. 

There was a quite a bit of misogyny at the beginning of the book which was quite distracting. Diggory made repeated comments about Polly's being a girl. The suggestion was often that she was too emotional and not very brave because she was a girl. The character of Uncle Andrew also made similar comments and I found this distracting and frustrating. I know that this book is set in the early 20th century, but it was published in 1955 and is history really an excuse for sexism? I think not, but perhaps this is best left for another post. Suffice to say it was a sticking point for me. 

Having said that, overall the first half of this book was so much better than the second half. At the beginning the plot was very much a fun, exciting fantasy adventure. I loved the concept of The Wood Between Worlds which is filled with so much possibility. The trip into the dying world was good, but not as creative as I had imagined. When compared to Neverland, The Land of Oz and even to an extent Narnia, this world isn't really anything special. In fact the only difference I can see to Medieval England is that the people are somewhat bigger and there is magic. I think the magic in this world may have been Lewis' dig at sorcery of that age, but that could just be me reading too much into it. 

Another thing that I took issue with in this book was the character of Uncle Andrew. He was creepy and unfeeling. The part of the book where he is trying to entice the children to touch the magic rings is uncomfortable to read and I just don't feel that his character makes sense. I understand that a boy may have become obsessed with magic, but then why is he so reluctant to travel to the other world himself? The character himself protests that it is his age, but that is really a poor excuse. Furthermore, at the end of the book we learn that Andrew is taken back into the bosom of the family even after his cruel and reckless actions of sending two children to an unknown world. Where is his comeuppance? Why would such a theologically Christian book in it's plot allow such sins to go unchallenged? 

The second half of the book was just poor. The book is marketed as the first book in the Narnia series and yet the book seems to assume that you already have knowledge of the events that have already occurred in Narnia. Moreover the birth of the land itself was not as useful as you might think. I'm not sure that it makes any difference how the world began and I fail to see how it adds to the lore of the world in any way. Even with the second half of the book being the Genesis of the land of Narnia, it still failed to answer questions such as why humans are referred to as Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve. Now living in the West it is quite easy to read the blatant Christian theme happening there and of course there are hundreds of parallels with this story and those in the book of Genesis in the Christian Bible, but really what does that have to do with a nice children's story? Why is Alsan-Jesus a lion? Who made him the boss?

Frankly I find this book to be wholly unnecessary to the Chronicles of Narnia and a complete indulgence on Lewis' part. If you are looking for an allegorical version of the story of Christian/Jewish creation then this is the book for you. If you are looking for a high fantasy children's novel, save yourself a couple of hours and skip this one.

Rating: ★★

Next in series: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe