Tolkien Tuesday: Reading "The Magician's Nephew--Chapters 1-3"
In the first (chronologically) of C.S. Lewis's "The Chronicles of Narnia," the author introduces us to a whole new world of magic that also feels very familiar.
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Welcome to Tolkien Tuesdays, where I talk about various things that I love about the lore and writings of Tolkien, whether in a chapter reading or a character study or an essay or even writings about other, related authors (such as C.S. Lewis). I hope you enjoy reading these ruminations as much as I enjoy writing them and, if you have a moment, I’d love it if you’d subscribe to this newsletter. It’s free, but there are paid options, as well, if you’re of a mind to support a struggling writer. Either way, thank you for joining me!
As you may have gathered from the title of this entry, I’m expanding Tolkien Tuesday to encompass C.S. Lewis, as well. To me this makes a great deal of sense, given the fact that the authors were so close and that they are, in many ways, the twin grandfathers of modern fantasy. So, I’m starting out with The Magician’s Nephew. I realize that this is a bit of a controversial choice but, since this is the way that the books are typically marketed these days, I’m going to roll with it.
In any case, in the first three chapters of the book we meet our young protagonists, Polly and Diggory. After they meet they quickly become close and, while exploring an abandoned attic they end up stumbling into Diggory’s uncle’s attic, where they’re soon snared in the old magician’s scheme to send test subjects to other worlds. They soon end up in a strange, ethereal place called The Wood Between the Worlds and, after making sure that they can get back to their own, they set out to see just what other worlds they might encounter.
I have to be honest: I’ve never been nearly as big of a fan of The Chronicles of Narnia as I have always been of The Lord of the Rings. Oh, I always liked them well enough, but I always thought that Lewis was just too damn obvious with the Christianity of it all (I still think that, for what it’s worth). Like Tolkien, I tend to have a rather dubious view of allegory, particularly as Lewis employs it, since it insists so much on its central message to such an extent that it becomes very easy to lose sight of the magic of the story itself.
This time around, though, I found myself irresistibly caught up in Lewis’ world. There’s a rhythm and a tone to his narration that I quite love. It reminds me of the narrative voice of The Hobbit–with its quippy asides and its references to the world that the reader inhabits–with a bit of fairy-tale logic thrown into the mix. From the moment they meet it’s clear that they have what it takes to make an extraordinary friendship duo, and though much of the story is told from Diggory’s point of view, we still feel as if we get to know these two young people quite well.
Uncle Andrew certainly makes for a captivating and chilling villain. This is a man, after all, who is more than happy to use both an absolute stranger and his own nephew in his own schemings and attempts to learn more about other worlds. For men like him, the only thing that matters is that he gets the knowledge; the collateral damage that might be left behind is rather beside the point. Indeed, he says as much repeatedly to Diggory who, unlike his uncle, has the decency to wonder what might happen to Polly now that she’s been sent away (he also has a lot of compassion for guinea pigs).
Indeed, for all that he is headstrong and can sometimes be a bit of a bully–particularly when it comes to getting Polly to do what he wants–these chapters nevertheless allow us to see Diggory as a true stand-up fellow. If he’d been a different type of person, one more like Uncle Andrew, he could easily have just gone about his life and not even bothered to pursue Polly at all. Diggory, however, is motivated by a sense of justice and of loyalty to something other than himself, something that Uncle Andrew simply can’t understand. In a way, he is very much a creature of modernity, in that he believes that there is nothing that should or can stand in the way of the pursuit of knowledge: not family, not decency, not loyalty. It’s what makes him so terrible and yet so utterly recognizable (for all that the story takes place in 1900).
Yet Uncle Andrew, like so many other magic-wielders, believes that he has far more knowledge than he really does. This is to say, he is motivated by hubris and overweening ambition. In that sense, he has more than a little in common with Jadis who, as we will discover in the next few chapters, is also someone who yearns for power and knowledge so that she can dominate others. And, as both characters will also discover, overweening arrogance and belief in themselves will be their downfall.
Lastly, I wanted to talk a little bit about temporality in this novel. As so often in these types of stories–I’m reminded again of The Hobbit–there are moments when the narrator will tell us that Diggory in later years would think or say this or that. On one level, this serves to put us at ease as to the level of danger involved; no matter what happens to Diggory on this adventure, we can at least take comfort from the knowledge that he’ll make it out alive. On a deeper level, these moments also tie us into the events of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which of course was published several years before this novel and shapes our understanding of the events taking place.
Speaking of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, it’s not everyone who can pull off a prequel that somehow manages to feel as lively and engaging as the book to which it serves as the background. Lewis, however, was undoubtedly a genius in this regard. Even though The Magician’s Nephew has a similar pattern to the original Narnia book–in that it follows young people who stumble upon magic without even realizing that it exists at all–it still feels fresh and enchanting. Thanks to the unique magic of Lewis’ prose, we find ourselves in both the temporal space of the book that we’re currently reading, even as we look at clues for things to come.
So, yeah, I guess I enjoyed The Magician’s Nephew far more than I thought I would. It’s the type of story that just sweeps you up in its imagination, taking you into a world that’s very like and yet unlike our own, one where magic works and where a magic ring can take you into a space between worlds. I’m already hard at work reading the next few chapters, and I can’t wait to share my thoughts with all of you!