The Magician's Nephew - C. S. Lewis

Being the first chronological entry in the Chronicles of Narnia series, I cannot count the number of times I read The Magician's Nephew as a child. It was therefore with great familiarity that I picked up this book and embarked on my nostaglic re-reading as an adult. The words haven't aged at all, they were just as I had left them all those years ago, still fresh in my mind. After years of the ponderous Proust, it was a great treat to revisit a series that awakened my love of literature. It often seemed like there were two camps of fantasy lovers, those who were raised on Tolkien, and those by C. S. Lewis, I was definitely in the latter. Although not the strongest book in the series, it is far from the worst, and has always been one of my personal favourites. However, re-reading as an adult, I can see its deficits far more clearly.

Published in 1955, this entry is a prequel to The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and acts as an origin myth, documenting the birth of Narnia. The story begins with neighbours Digory and Polly exploring the former's creepy old attic, which his uncle Andrew, an amateur magician, uses as his study. They discover some magic rings with the power to transport them to different worlds, and here we learn that Narnia is far from being the only magical realm. A peaceful forest punctuated by many pools of water acts as a hub between worlds, with each pool being a portal to another world. Nowhere are the biblical parallels as strong as in this entry, Aslan walks around a Genesis black void, creating matter from nothing and breathing life into inanimate objects. The Witch is given an origin story, and later tries to tempt Digory into eating forbidden fruit in a paradisiacal garden. Even the infamous lamp post and the wardrobe are given origin stories. The plot is functional and fun, but nowhere near as enjoyable as the book that started it all off.

Rating: 3/5