Rereading Narnia

We’ve been listening once again to Kenneth Branagh’s impeccable reading of Lewis’s Magician’s Nephew. I have always loved this book; it was the first of the Narnia series that I read as a child, and I know it well. Still, hearing this reading brings out elements of the story that I never registered reading it myself — the humor in particular. Some of these scenes are hilarious! You can tell that Branagh is having a ball when he reads Uncle Andrew’s parts, or the scenes featuring Jadis loose in London. I remember being deeply touched when I read the story as a child, but I don’t remember laughing out loud, as I do now, at the comedy.

In any case, it’s a favorite around here, and conversations have been springing up between my daughters. How did old Mrs. LeFay get hold of Atlantean dust, anyway? Why doesn’t Digory get in trouble late in life when he digs up the rings (in The Last Battle), even though Aslan told him never to use them? Is the Wood Between the Worlds related to the mountains of Aslan, and would the witch have died if they’d left her there? Why doesn’t Aslan warn them that she may try to tempt them? (A question I pick up now and then about the Garden of Eden, too.)

It strikes me that I’m witnessing a literary expertise forming, at least of sorts. Lewis himself favored rereadings, and I think he’d be pleased to know how many of us return again and again to his own works — even though he very well might have no answers on the finer points of plotting. But is there any value in getting to know an imaginative world this well? I wonder what others would say about this.

I’d say yes. (Surprised?) The willingness to revisit a book, the ability to stay alert and keep noticing things even after we’ve “been there before,” the effort to connect and harmonize the parts into a whole — all of these seem like useful life skills that can be generalized from reading into other aspects of life. To be able to enjoy and appreciate what’s already familiar is to maintain a level of independence from the need for novelty.