Saturday, December 17, 2011

The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis


Title : The Chronicles of Narnia (The Magician's Nephew)
Author: C. S. Lewis
Publication: Harper Collins Publishers
Price: US $ 6.99

A real world full of miseries, a kind of mid world of peace and perfect happiness, yet another one with just one sinister living creature left and one with talking beasts and the land of youth! ‘The Magician’s Nephew’ is an enchanting tale of an innocent friendship between Digory, the protagonist and his neighbor Polly and how they set out to explore the mystery behind an empty house, but instead end up discovering many new worlds – the world of woods, Charn – the land of dead and evil and Narnia- the young land of youth.

A little boy’s quest to explore new worlds, his little mistakes, extreme love for his mother, his quick wittedness and faith in values give shape to the whole adventure.

A beautiful message that comes out of the story is that evil (here portrayed by Jadis and her world of Charn) thrives in darkness, in stale environment and in desolate loneliness. Goodness, however thrives in open air, even though it might not be as mighty as the cruel. A similar thought can be seen in the ‘Land of Gup’ (where there is always light, genuine goodness and camaredrie are the order of the day) and the ‘Land of Chup’ (where there is always darkness, no one speaks and there is only evil) in the book ‘HAROUN AND THE SEA OF STORIES’ by Salman Rushdie. Surely, goodness needs no hiding place, it needn’t fear anything.

When things go wrong, you’ll find they usually go on getting worse for some time; but when things once start going right they often go on getting better and better.” or so declares C. S. Lewis in his book ‘The Magician’s Nephew’. For me after a stint with a few books, all of which, most unexpectedly, turning out to be some adult crap could not be read beyond a few pages was most definitely the unfortunate ‘wrong part’. This youthful and lively book of Narnia series came as a welcome change, the ‘right thing’, a whiff of fresh air, an easy one day journey into fantasy. Away from the mundane miseries, the book draws up a virtual picture of a world with peace, where happiness is natural and so is exuberance.

Truly a must read for all fantasy lovers!

The powerful and interesting storyline makes sure the readers will come again for its sequels for I am sure whoever has read this has loved it!

3 comments:

  1. So good to know that you liked it. I have read the second book of this series and liked it too. But from your review it looks like the books do not have much connection in them so each can be read independently too.

    Thanks for the review. I must try this one soon.

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  2. Thank you!

    Reading the book was a delight. Thanks so much for the book!

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  3. Some interesting information about Chronicles of Narnia..

    http://childrensbooks.about.com/od/middleschool/p/narnia.htm

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