I've had this boxed set for sometime and have really been meaning to read it. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is a lovely story that takes place during war time where four children are sent to live with a professor. The professor owned the perfect kind of house for exploring. Who hasn't known one of these types of houses? And it is on one rainy day that Lucy stumbles upon a wardrobe. A very special wardrobe that leads her into the world of Narnia. Through the fur lined coats and tree branches, straight into snowflakes drifting down from the sky. I can see why this book has held it's appeal since the 1950's. C.S.Lewis wrote this story for his granddaughter with the following dedication message: "I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already to old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it....."
It's one of the qualities of the book that so appeals to me, how he wrote The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe specifically for a child. I think he captured all the magical, mysterious things that children love reading about within the pages of the book. There is the winter wonderland feeling, special Turkish Delights, danger of being turned to stone and a prophesy to complete. There is just something comfy to me in all that, I know that sounds kind of vague, but reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe leaves me with the feeling of a grandparent reading a story aloud. I hear it in a passage like "And now of course you want to know what happened to Edmund..." It will always be one of my favorite books to re-read.
We had TWO boxed sets of these, but mine were numbered differently than my daughter's. I enjoyed them in middle school, but they are a hard sell now because they are not easy books to read. The language is more complex than most things written now, I think.
ReplyDeleteI think my child described reading this and The Hobbit like reading the directions to a board game, requires lots of thought. Especially with The Hobbit because of the language.
DeleteThink it about time I reread this one. Yesterday someone shared a post with me on C.S. Lewis and writing for children...here's the link in case you haven't seen it:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/06/18/c-s-lewis-writing-for-children/
And what you said didn't sound vague to me...know exactly what you mean!
Thanks for the link, I love what he says about writing for children. Glad to hear I'm making sense. Those asides of C.S. Lewis are such fun to read, hope you get a chance soon.
DeleteAh, I'm so glad you finally read this, Brenda! It's such a lovely story, isn't it? I need to reread it as an adult to see what I think of it now. Kim is an atheist and I think mentioned in our Golden Compass discussion that she was bothered by the religious allegories, which I totally missed as a child, but I'm curious to see how I'd take it now.
ReplyDeleteHe really did capture that sense of wonder and magic so well. I don't know if you've ever seen SHADOWLANDS, the film based loosely on the period in his life when he met his wife, but she had a son--and that son, upon visiting CS Lewis for the first time, goes up into a room, sees a wardrobe, creeps close to it, and opens it. That half-doubting, half-expectant hope on his face is something everyone who's read these books can relate to.
Wendy @ The Midnight Garden
Yes. Agreed. One of my favorite books of all time.
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