The Magician's Nephew

The Magician's Nephew, The Chronicle of Narnia (Book 1)

C. S. Lewis

Pauline Bayens, Illustrator

HarperCollins, 1955, renewed 1983

Ages 8 and Up

The story is about a time when your grandpa was a child, it is important because it talks about the first goings and comings between our world and that of Narnia.  Sherlock Holmes still lived on Baker Street and treasures were still being persuade.  Wearing stiff collars was an everyday thing, though this would not be enjoy able, at this time food was better and incredible candy was cheap.  In this time a girl named Polly Plummer lived in London, on one of the long rows of houses that were all joined together.  One day to her surprise a boy come up over from the garden next door.  She was so shocked because a child had never lived in the house next to hers, only Mr. and Miss Ketterley (Brother and Sister).  Digory and Polly introduced themselves to each other.  There had always been a rumor that Mr. Ketterly was mad, when asked Digory agreed or said that there must be some other mystery if he is not mad.  He has a study on the top floor and Miss. Ketterly strictly instructed Digory never to go in there.  Digory does not find all of this exciting because he hears Uncle Andrew always sneaking around at night, Digory also claims that "he has such awful eyes". This was the manner in which Polly and Digory became friends.  Since it was such a rainy summer they were forced to start "indoor adventures".  I love how this is talked about, I remember being a child and loving to play indoors when it was nasty outside.  You can let your imagination take control and anything is possible, no matter where you are inside.  Do you like to have adventures indoors?  What do you do, where do you go? etc.  Polly had already discovered a dark place in the box-attic, it was something like a long brick tunnel with the roof sloping off on one side.  Being careful was essential since you had to step from rafter to rafter or else you would fall through the ceiling of the room below.  Polly had already created a sort of floor for their secret place, using different pieces of things she found around.  It looked almost like a smugglers cave.  Digory was very fond of the cave and loved to go exploring, he wondered how long the tunnel would go.  Polly informed him that the walls do not extend to the roof, this was great news for Digory!  Polly thought about the house next to Digory's and how her dad had always told her that it was empty, Digory suggested that they go and have a look.  My how fun that would be, I think I would still enjoy it even being 21 years old! They decided that they were going to go and check it out, but how would they know when they got there?  They tried to figure out how many rafter it would be until they got there, and any door beyond Digory's house would be the empty one.  Do you think it will be empty? would you want to go and check it out?  Silently the crawl through the tunnel until they think that they are in the empty house, and they open the door they find and step inside.  Much to their surprise the room was completely furnished and there was even a fire burning.  Right off the bat Polly sees a tray of the most beautiful rings she has ever seen.  The room was silent except for the clock ticking.  Suddenly from the high-backed chair someone rises up, it turns out to be Uncle Andrew!  They were not in the house next door but in the top of Digory's house. "There!  Now my fool of a sister can't get at you!" say's Uncle Andrew.  At this Polly and Digory started to feel very uneasy and just wanted to crawl back to Polly's house.  They tell him that it is time for dinner and that they need to go home, but Uncle Andrew tells them that they are not to leave yet, they cannot pass up the opportunity that lays before him.  Uncle Andrew can tell that Polly really likes the rings so he offers her one of the yellow ones, claiming that he cannot give away the green.  However, Digory feels as though something is array and shouts at Polly to not take the ring, too late.  In an instant, a blink of the eye, Polly was gone, only Digory and Uncle Andrew remained.  This would terrify me, would you be scared?  Who do you think had the greater shock, Polly or Digory?  Why? 

Uncle Andrew starts to tell Digory a story of Mrs. Leafy, how he came to posses the rings.  When she was dying she wanted to see no one but Uncle Andrew and right before she passed she gave a box to Uncle Andrew and made him promise that he would destroy the box.  Well, Uncle Andrew did not keep this promise that he made to Mrs. Leafy.  He claims that she was one of the last mortals that had fairy blood in her and that the box was from the lost city of Atlantis.  Uncle Andrew discovered that the yellow rings would take you to a different world and he told Digory that he would have to go after Polly, since she did not have a green ring which to bring her back.  Before he was able to try his experiment with the children he had used guinea-pigs.  A quote that I really like however twisted it could be is "No great wisdom can be reached without sacrifice."  He tricked Polly into taking the rings, knowing that he would have to get Digory to go after her with a green ring in  order to bring her back.  He had tricked them both and knew it all along.  

All of the sudden Uncle Andrew and the study vanished and Digory went off the another world.  It seemed to be quite a dreamy place, he came out of a pond but was not in the least bit wet after emerging from it.  He was in the quietest imaginable, and there were dozen of pools just like the one  he had come out off all over the place.  After only moments Digory almost forgot that he had just gotten there,he felt as if he had always been there.  He was not scared or curious or even excited, after looking around for a while he noticed a girl lying underneath a tree.  They looked at each other for a long while before she spoke.  When she did finally start to speak it was in a very dreamy tone, she thought she had seen him before, Digory had the same thought.  Neither of them could quite figure out what was going on until finally they started to piece everything together and realized how they came to be in the woods.  Once they knew what had happened they decided that they need to get back to our world.

Now Digory is the sort of boy that wants to know everything, he wants to go and explore the other puddles for he feels that they will take them to different worlds.  They came to think that the woods were a sort of in-between place.  Polly did not want to go and explore but after arguing for a while decided that if they could truly get back to our world then she would go with him into other puddles.  So they put on their green rings and jump in the puddle and as soon as they start to see Uncle Andrew they switch to their yellow rings and return to the woods.  Would you agree to jump into other pools or would you want to go home?  If you went home, would you want to come back another time and try and explore the other worlds?  I think I would have done the same as Polly, make sure that we can get home then go and explore.

They mark the tree by the pool that takes them home and they set off the jump into another pool.  After finding one they jumped in and once everything became clear they realized that it was a very old place that they had come to.  Arched doors everywhere, courtyard after courtyard, everything look as though it were falling apart and there was rubble everywhere.  Nothing seemed to be alive, not even insects.  Poll felt uneasy and wanted to go home but Digory kept going on and wanted to explore more.  Then they came upon a room that appeared to be full of hundreds of people, they were all seated and perfectly still.  Digory claimed that the room was enchanted.  They walked up and down the room looking at all of the different faces that the people had.  In the middle of the room was pillar about four feet high, there was a small golden bell that hung on a little golden arch in the middle.  Laying beside of it was a little golden hammer, it appeared that there was something written on the side.  The inscription said "Make your choice, Adventurous Stranger; strike the bell and bide the danger, Or wonder, till it drives you mad, What would have followed if you had." Being the curious boy that he was Digory rings the bell.  The bell made a beautiful noise that carried on for what seemed like forever, just when they thought that nothing was going to happen they hear a voice asking who as awakened her?  The Queen seems almost offended that it was he who awoke her. They told her that they had gotten there by magic but she determined that they had no magic in them but, were just servants of a magician.  If I were Polly I would probably been offended by the Queen the way she was.  The Queen basically took no notice of her at all.  Would that make you mad or would you even care? 

They found out that the Queen had basically killed all of her people in a battle.  She just kept saying that she was the Queen and they were her people and what else were they for but to serve her. Would you be afraid of the Queen after hearing this?  Or what would be going through your mind?  Finally they decided that it was time to get out of that world, so when the Queen let go of their arms they quickly put their rings back on and headed back to the woods.  When they were coming out of the pool Digory heard Polly screaming for someone to let go, but it was not he who was holding on but the Queen.  They quickly figured out that you could go from world to world just by touching someone who is wearing a ring.

Once they were in the woods the Queen started gasping for air, it was as if the air in the woods was hard for her to breathe.  They then tried to come back to our world and leave the Queen in the woods but as they were jumping Digory felt her cold finger on his ear.  Upon reaching our world the Queen appeared to be catching her breath and regaining her strength.  Uncle Andrew was speechless when he saw what they had brought back with them.  Almost immediately Uncle Andrew became the Queen's slave, doing everything she commanded of him.  Once this happened she lost all interest in the children and seemed to not even notice them.  

Polly had to go home because it had become quite late but made a "pax" that she would come back as soon as she could.  The first thing that Uncle Andrew did was get himself a glass of wine from where he hides it in his wardrobe.  After his glass of wine he went down to try and get some money from his sister, she refused.  Right at that moment the door flung open and the Witched appeared (the Queen).  She did not believe Andrew when he told her that she was his guest and demanded that she leave the house.  Aunt Letty did not approve of bare arms.I wonder why this is so?  Ask the class and she what answers they come up with and perhaps they could look it up on the internet to see if it had to do with the culture of the time.  The Witch tried to use her magic powers on Aunt Letty but realized that they did not work so, instead she threw Aunt Letty across the room.  It was very lucky for her that she had been working on a mattress, which saved her life.

The Witch made Uncle Andrew take her out into town because she was trying to conquer our world, Digory did not know what to do.  He had no idea where they were going to nor did he have money to ride in a taxi so he resolved to sit and wait for them to return, so he sat by the window waiting... Digory started to think about the different worlds and the different possibilities, then a friend came by to bring some fruit for his mother, she was very ill and had to stay in bed all the time.  The ladies started talking about how nothing would cure her in this world, only fruit from the land of youth could help her now... So while Digory was sitting there waiting for the Witch to come back he started to wonder if there really was a land of youth somewhere and if he could find it by jumping into the pools in the Woods.  Well after time had passed he heard a fire engine and wondered if it was her, and sure enough it was.  She came round the corner riding on top of the hansom and flogging the horse with no mercy to keep running.  It seemed as though the witch was what was making the horse go mad, the horse was neighing but it sounded more like a scream and tossing it mane everywhere.  Then second hansom pulled up it had a police officer and a fat man in a coat.  A third came barreling up with two more policemen, then all sorts of people came running up behind.  Out of the first hansom pops Uncle Andrew, he was wearing his best top hat but now it had been bashed over his head.  Apparently the Witch had reeked havoc al over town and everyone was upset and trying to get the police to do something about it.  Finally the cabby whose horse she was riding came up and was trying to calm the horse down and get her back from the Witch. Some of the people started to mock the Witch, in turn this infuriated the Witch so she broke one of the arms off of a lamp post and started to charge forward on the horse.  If I were there I would be sooo soo scared, I do not think I could be like the others and run after the Witch to see what would happen.  Although it would be interesting and make for a great story to pass along.  Asking the children what they would have done in a class discussion is sure to bring up so interesting thoughts.  Digory and Polly saw this as their chance, the ran forward and caught on to her ankle.  Polly quickly put the ring on and they went off to the Woods.  When they arrived the realized that they had also brought Uncle Andrew and the Cabby, they only meant, or thought, they were brining the Witch and the horse with them.  

They put on the green ring hoping to return to our world and to leave the Witch behind but instead they ended up going to an empty world, "This is Nothing", so it seemed at the time.  It was nothing but blackness.  Then all of the sudden something started to happen, a voice seemed to be singing, it was the most beautiful sound anyone had heard.  One moment there was nothing but dark and then there were stars and planets and all sorts of things developing in the sky.  It appears that the Witch and Uncle Andrew neither one liked the singing very much while Polly, Digory and the Cabby loved it.  Once the sun had risen they saw what was singing, it was a lion.  The lion continued to sing, but the song would change and with each different melody he would create something else.  At last there appeared earth and water and trees.  At one point the Witch throws the bar from the lamp post at the Lion but it does not seem to effect it, he just keeps singing and the bar fall to the ground, where it had fallen to the ground it grew into a lamp post!  The Witch got scared and ran off in the opposite direction of the Lion.  The song kept on changing and now there were animals appearing out of lumps on the ground, lumps of all sizes turned it to every kind of animal imaginable!

"Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake.  Love. Think. Speak. Be talking beast. Be divine waters."  These were the first words that the Lion spoke.  Right before he said this he had chosen certain animal, he touched them and they came and made a circle around the Lion.  Once he spoke those words all the creatures that he touched and those that could speak said, "Hail, Aslan.  We hear and obey.  We are awake.  We love. We think. We speak. We know. One thing that I found interesting was the fact that one of the animals he chose was the horse that the Witch was riding, the one the cabby was after.  How crazy would it be to experience something like that!  You could talk to the class about how they would react to something like this.  All the animals start to talk and laugh and joke around, Aslan warns them that there is already evil present in the world of Narnia, even though it was not but a few hours old.  

Digory gets to thinking and he has to talk to Aslan,it was about his mother.  He ends up getting a ride from Strawberry, the cabby's horse, to where Aslan is talking to his close council about the evil that is already in the world.  When Digory gets there Aslan asks him to explain how the Witch got there, Digory had to tell the council that he was the one who brought her there.  Polly and the Cabby finally arrive there after the explanation of the Witch.  Aslan asks Cabby if he would like to live there forever, the Cabby says that he would only if his wife were there with him, so Aslan starts to sing again and there appears his wife.  After she arrives Aslan crowns them as the first King and Queen of Narnia.

After getting done with the ceremony, Aslan turned to Digory and asked him if he was ready to undo the wrong that he had already caused in Narnia.  He agreed to do what he was asked to do, he thought about his mother and helping her when he made this decision.  Aslan tells Digory that he must go and fetch a seed for him that is only found in a special place that is very far away from where they are.  When he is told this, Digory becomes afraid and thinks that it will never happen, therefore he will not be able to help his mother.  Alsan tells Digory that he will have help on his mission and then he turns to Strawberry and asks him if he would like to become a flying horse.  Well of course he accepted this and was transformed into a flying horse, and his name from then on Fledge.  So Fledge and Digory are ready to set of when Polly asks if she can join them on their journey.I love how it is just not the boy that goes on the quest that Aslan gives him, although it is geared more towards men being the hero of this story and the protagonists.  Off they go in the direction of the mountains.  After a while they become cold and tired and then land on a nice looking spot to stay for the night.  Fledge eats grass and Polly finds a bag of toffee in her pocket and she and Digory split it.  They also had the idea to plant one of the toffees to see if it grew into a tree just like the lamp post did.  The children and Fledge were chatting about where they were to go in the morning and what Digory was supposed to get.  The talking became less and less while they were drifting off to sleep when all of the sudden Polly hushes everyone but at first no one hears anything but then Fledge hears something to.  Polly swears that she saw a tall, dark figure go off in the westerly direction.  Who do you think it could have been that Polly saw?  Why do you think they were there?  Do you even think that Polly actually saw someone?

The next morning Polly wakes everyone up and exclaims how the toffee did turn into a tree! The fruit on the tree was not pieces of toffee but fruit that reminded them off toffee.  The morning was beautiful and they take off to try and find the seed that Aslan has sent them after.  They start to smell something wonderful in the air and it seems to be coming from further up ahead.  They realize that it is coming from the very place that they need to go.  When they reached the top of the hillside they found green walls surrounding a garden of sorts.  They found a set of high gates of gold, they were shut and facing east. Fledge and Polly had thought up until this point that they were going to go in with Digory but once they got there they realized that it was a private place that was only meant for him to go into.  

"Come in by the gold gate or not at all, take of my fruit for others or forbear, For those who steal or those who climb my wall Shall find their heart's desire and find despair" was the encryption that was written on the outside of the gate.   Digory was not sure how to open the gates but when he walked forward and touched them, they sprang open.  Once Digory was inside he knew exactly which tree to get the fruit from, so he reached up and got a piece and put it in his jacket pocket.  While he was there he was tempted to eat a fruit himself, while he was having these thoughts he looked up into the tree and saw a beautiful bird that was sitting there and appeared to be peering down upon him.  So this was the deciding fact as to if he were going to take an apple for himself or not.  Would you have eaten an apple?  Or obeyed what the enscryption had said?  Do you think it was wrong that he had the temptation, do you ever get tempted to do things that you know you are not supposed to do? Do you act on those thoughts or do you obey what you know?  I think it would be very hard to resist eating an apple, at least for me.  It probably took a lot of will power to resist something that looked that appealing.  

As soon as Digory was ready to leave the garden and head back to the gates he turned around for one last glance and to his dismay he saw that the Witch was there.  She had just finished eating an apple and threw away the core.  The juice appeared darker than expected, it had made an awful stain around her mouth.  He realized that there was in fact some sense in the last line.  The Witch appeared stronger and prouder than ever, but her face was as white as salt.  After he had processed all that he had just seen, he turned and ran out of the gate with the Witch right after him.  As soon as he was beyond the gates, they closed all by themselves giving him a little bit of time to try and get away from the Witch.  He called out to Polly to get on Fledge but by that time the Witch was already over the fence. It turns out that the Witch was the thing that Polly had seen the night before.  The Witch tries to tell Digory that he should not take the apple back to Aslan, that he should keep it for himself and he could give it to his mother so that she would be healed.  Digory knew that he had the hardest choice laid out before him.  The Witch continues to taunt and tempt him until he finally realized that his mother would not want him to break his promise to Aslan.  Then she also made the fatal mistake of brining Polly into it. She suggested that he leave her behind and return to his home, the meanness behind this idea cleared his head and he could clearly see what the Witch was trying to do.  After that it was easy to disregard everything that the Witch was saying.  They mounted on Fledge and flew away.

Aslan was very pleased when they returned with the apple and he knew that the story of what he had done would be passed down for hundreds of years.  Aslan told him to throw the apple towards the river bank, on the softer ground.  Then there was the official crowning of the King and Queen.  While everyone was cheering behind Digory he heard Aslan tell him to look, the whole crowd turned and saw that tree had already started grow!  Aslan instructs the Narnians that the tree is to be of the up most priority, it is their shield.  While the tree lives and flourishes the Witch can cause no harm to Narnia. 

Digory is still preoccupied with his mother and Aslan knows.  Aslan then tells Digory that evil would have befallen them if he had stolen and apple, but since Aslan is going to get him to pick an apple from the tree that has just grown.  He is warned though that it will not give endless life but it will help to heal her.  After he got the apple they went home.  Aslan tells them that they do not need rings when he is with them. I have still to figure this statement out, even after completing the book I do not know exactly what he means when he says it.

When they get back it appears that the adventure has taken no time at all, for they are brought back to the time when they left.  Digory raced up the stairs and to his mothers bedroom, the fruit looked different in our world compared to the way it looked in Narnia.  He talked to his mother and she agreed to eat it, so Digory cut it up for her and fed it to her piece by piece.  As soon as she finished it she smiled and fell asleep, it was not the sleep that she had been getting lately, it was a real, natural sleep.  What a great feeling that would be, to finally see your mother get the sleep that she desperately needs and desires.  What feelings do you think were going through his mind as he was feeding the apple to his mother?  Do you think he was scared that the apple would not help his mother or did he have so much trust and confidence in Aslan that he knew it would work?  That evening he buried the core in the back garden.  When the Doctor came by the next morning he exclaimed how extraordinary Mother's health had improved.  That afternoon he went and met Polly in the garden and they buried all of the rings along side of the apple core. When they got to where the apple core was buried the day before you could already tell that it had grown some, more than normal in our world, but not the same as in Narnia either.  A month later the whole house had changed, Digory's mother was well and up and about the house.  She had all the windows open, the curtains drawn back, flowers everywhere, the piano was tuned, everything was much brighter and much more cheerful in the Ketterley house!  To top it off Digory's father decided to come back from India forever and they were going to move into the giant country house they had!  

Polly and Digory remained friends always, she would come and visit them almost every holiday.  When Digory was middle-aged and the Ketterley house belonged to him a great storm came through and blew the tree in the back yard down.  He couldn't even imagine having the timber chopped into firewood so, he got it made into a wardrobe.  He, himself, did not ever discover the magic behind wardrobe but there were discovered by someone else.  This was the beginnings of the coming and goings between our world and Narnia.  When Uncle Andrew was to old to live in the house by himself, Digory brought him to the country house.  By this point he had given up on Magic, he had also become a somewhat more desirable of a person.  However, if he was ever alone in a room with someone he would tell them stories of a women who had a devilish temper but was quite beautiful.  I hope there is no need to explain who "she" is. I had never read any of these books before this one, although I had seen the movie, "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" as I am sure most people have.  I was very surprised to see how it all began, nothing like what I was expecting.  I have always heard about the religious undertone to these stories and after reading this book I can easily see why.  It could be seen as very similar to the creation story if one were to analyze the particulars of both stories.  I want to read the rest of the books to see how they differ and how the real story goes compared to what is shown in the movie.  I would suggest these books to my class but it would probably not be one that I would get a class set of, although I throughly enjoyed it(I would have them on the shelves in my classroom in a heart beat)!