The Chronicles of Narnia (Novels)

By C. S. Lewis

Catholic-ometer: 4.5 of 5

Enjoyability: 4.5 of 5

Having read and reviewed each of the Narnia books separately, I decided that it would be a good idea to look at the series as a whole, just to bring up a few things that make the books similar, and in some cases, different from one another.

The Chronicles of Narnia is definitely a series that was originally written for children to enjoy.  Its allegories are sometimes subtle, but rarely unclear, and its vocabulary is quite accessible, even to the very young.  There are minor imperfections in a few of its allegories, and I enjoyed some of the stories more than others, but on the whole, it's not a major problem.  They're very fun books.

As an adult, reading them over again, I find that there are levels of depth to them that I just missed as a young kid; especially in the later stories; like the Last Battle, and the Horse and His Boy.  I also noticed, reading as an adult, that the first few books Lewis published in this series make frequent use of the third person omniscient method of storytelling, while later books drop it in favor of a smoother style of narrative.  It's a welcome change, though oddly enough, it didn't really make the stories any better; just cleaner-sounding.

Another thing that I noticed is that Lewis writes more about factions than people in his Narnia series.  The people are certainly given names and rolls in the story, and every so often, one of them even references past events, just like a real person would, but the story isn't really about who the characters are, so much as it is about what they need to do.  It's not too different from real life in that respect.

I think that these stories will be most enjoyable to adults who enjoy reading into complex allegories, and to children and adults who simply have a strong sense of wonder, and love exploring beautiful, magical worlds of fiction, which don't, at the same time, try to crumple up their values and throw them in the dustbin.  Consideration for the Christian values of the public is a rare thing in modern literature, which, I think, is one of the main reasons why these books were and are still so popular.  Whether because of their Christian courtesy, or because of their entertaining adventures, or both, The Chronicles of Narnia deserve the popularity they've gotten.  Thumbs up.