23 thoughts on “Five Cents, Please”

  1. You’ve never read the Chronicles of Narnia (jaw drops)?
    We’re reading the L,W&W to our kids now, in advance of seeing the movie.
    My wife is indignant, because in the latest boxed-set edition of the Chronicles, they have made “The Magicians Nephew” book 1, which is NOT how C.S. Lewis wrote the books or intended them to be read.

  2. I’m Price Rillian, BTW.
    He even resembles me alot, except I haven’t worn my hair that long in a while!

  3. I am Susan, whom I’ve never been very fond of. 🙁
    I’ve read the narnia book a zillion times (we went through 3 sets growing up, and I’ve read them to my children a few times). Michelle, I hope the set is on your reading list?!! My sister in law was an elementary school teacher for years and never read the Little House books which I found apalling, (or would if I knew how to spell it.)

  5. “I have not yet read the Chronicles of Narnia.”
    Really? Wow. Are you not a fan of the genre, Michelle? Have you read LOTR? Some folks simply do not find fantasy fiction their cuppa. Or have you just not gotten ’round to it? I’m reading them again now. Been years. Years & years. I’m smack dab in the middle of Horse & His Boy. Since I’ve already read them a few times before in published order, I started with Magician’s Nephew. I wouldn’t recommend it if it were one’s first time through, though. MN presumes too much knowledge of Narnia. The original published order is far better the first time through. Then it would be OK to read them chronologically.
    Oh . . . & I’m Prince Caspian!

  7. The original publisher’s order starts with Magician’s Nephew, just so everyone is clear. It’s not some newfangled reinterpretation.

  8. Growing up, fantasy wasn’t my cuppa, Gene. My brother and sister both read the series but I wasn’t interested. (I did love the Little House series though, hippo!) I also did not read Tolkien, although I did try The Hobbit in junior high and couldn’t get into it. The only reason I broke down as an adult and read the Harry Potter series (which I love) is because of the Christian brouhaha over the series.
    Eventually, I may get around to reading Lewis and Tolkien, especially if I decide to see the movies. (I’m probably the only person I know who also did not see the LOTR movies.)

  9. Michelle… TELL me you’ve read Chesterton and Belloc.
    I can’t imagine my literary life without Dead British Guys.

  10. “Michelle… TELL me you’ve read Chesterton and Belloc.”
    Belloc, yes.
    As for Chesterton, I once read a collection of his Father Brown mysteries, but that’s it. *hangs head*

  11. It’s Prince Rilian. He’s not Welsh.
    The ‘publishing order’ of a series (as distinguished from ‘chronological order’) refers to the order in which the books originally came out. (‘Writing order’ is occasionally used for cases in which a book in a series was written but not published first.)
    If you will check the copyright pages, you will see that The Magician’s Nephew was published a looooong time after most of the other Narnia books.
    The publishing order is:
    1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
    2. Prince Caspian (1951)
    3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
    4. The Silver Chair (1953)
    5. The Horse and His Boy (1954)
    6. The Magician’s Nephew (1955)
    7. The Last Battle (1956)
    They make a lot more sense if read that way the first time. No spoilers are spoiled. The author’s thought process flows more clearly. I read them that way every time, in fact, because it’s much more fun that way.
    You will also note the continuity of core characters in the first four books written. The fifth book is pretty much all original characters with some cameos by old friends, and is set during the last chapter of LWW. (Which I thought was a rather neat trick even as a kid. It’s the trick that probably is to blame for a good deal of fanfic in all sorts of fictional universes.) The sixth book is the prequel to it all (but tells you stuff you wouldn’t care about yet if you hadn’t read the other books), and the seventh book is the conclusion. Simple, ne?
    The publishing order is even more important with series written over long periods of time by authors who have vastly improved during that time. Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series, for instance. If you read Barrayar, the sequel to Shards of Honor, right after Shards of Honor… well, it’s pretty shattering. Shards is a light romance written long before 1986 but published then. Barrayar came out in 1991, after Bujold had already won a couple of Hugo Awards. One is a light romance combined with some angsty and thinky bits. It’s a good solid book. One is an intricate political epic in which heads literally roll. It’s a not entirely successful, yet much greater and more wrenching book. (However, the fact that these two books are published together in an omnibus edition is evidence that the publisher doesn’t agree with me about the intrinsic cognitive dissonance….)
    So yeah, publishing order doesn’t have anything to do with the numbers publishers put on the spine. Look for the copyright dates.

  12. [URL=http://www.jamiefrost.co.uk/narniaquiz][IMG]http://www.jamiefrost.co.uk/narniaquiz/banners/14.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

  13. I forgot to mention that Bujold put out three or four other books in the series (about the son of the Shards and Barrayar protagonist) between 1986 and 1991. Those were the ones she won her first couple of awards for: Falling Free (1988, and a pre-prequel) won the Nebula for best novel; “The Mountains of Mourning” (1989) won the Hugo and the Nebula for best novella; The Vor Game (1990) won the Hugo for best novel. In that period, The Warrior’s Apprentice, Ethan of Athos, and The Borders of Infinity also came out. In that time, Bujold also went through a period of great change. People who start by reading novels she wrote after this time have trouble going back to read novels written before it. (Not that she was ever a bad writer; she just became so much better.) So reading Bujold in chronological series order will give you mental whiplash, despite all the care she puts into continuity.

  14. Sorry Tim, but C.S. Lewis wrote a letter in 1957 which indicates that he supported the chronological order. It was published in Letters to Children, but I snipped this from a C.S. Lewis FAQ page:
    A case can be made for both orders. Lewis himself came down in favour of the chronological order, which is why Douglas Gresham recommended it. In a letter written in 1957 to an American boy named Laurence, Lewis wrote the following:
    ‘I think I agree with your order {i.e. chronological} for reading the books more than with your mother’s. The series was not planned beforehand as she thinks. When I wrote The Lion I did not know I was going to write any more. Then I wrote P. Caspian as a sequel and still didn’t think there would be any more, and when I had done The Voyage I felt quite sure it would be the last. But I found as I was wrong. So perhaps it does not matter very much in which order anyone read them. I’m not even sure that all the others were written in the same order in which they were published.’

  15. If you say so, cw.
    But I remember there was a certain magic in a number of discoveries in “The Magicians Nephew” that would not be there if it were read first.
    Some tasty “Ah-HAH…” moments.

  16. Actually, I first read them in the chronological order and I still found the same sense of magical discovery, but I felt it when reading the other books instead of feeling it during the Magician’s Nephew. (A sense of “so that’s what became of that person, place, etc.”) So I think that it would ultimately work either way.

  17. Not arguing for one way over the other, just stating that you can’t say C.S. Lewis never intended them to be read in chronological order. Not writing them chronologically is a fact, but we don’t know for sure what order he intended them to be read, we can only make an educated guess so help your wife calm down. I didn’t read them for the first time until I was an adult. I read them chronologically because that is the way they were numbered. I don’t think I missed out on anything other than many wasted years having never read them. I still found them very moving and magical.

  18. Oh Michelle, I’m so relieved you have read the Little House series! my faith in you is restored….:)

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