Started in Narnia

Nessa

Nessa

New member
One of the things I've found interesting about the Last Battle is because it is the only book (if you don't count Horse and his Boy which is set in the Golden Age) that starts in Narnia itself, and people from our world "come" there, rather than "go" there.

That's how it is set up in the book anyway. I wonder if C.S Lewis decided on this straight away or if during the course of the story he decided that the story would make more of an impact. How different would it have sounded if it had been like the others and started in our world.

Any thoughts on this?
 
My thought is that he learned from experience. Part of the reason the book Caspian was clumsy as a literary work is that it starts with the Pevensies being dragged off the train platform and into Narnia. But the point in time when they show up at the Cair is actually well into the story, so Lewis had to do that clumsy flashback to fill things in. (He does a similar thing with Dawn Treader with the tumble through the picture, but manages the backstory much more smoothly in the form of Drinian narrating the voyage to that point.)

With Battle, he starts at the place and time of the true beginning of the story: the finding of the lion skin in Cauldron Pool. Had he started in our world, it probably would have been either at the "Narnian dinner" that Peter called, or with Peter's urgings to call the Narnian dinner. Then you'd have had the buildup until the train wreck that popped Eustace and Jill into Narnia, and had to backfill the story to that point.

So I think part of it was just literary maturity. We know from Lewis' own accounts that he wrote from the "pictures" his imagination painted in his head, and even at times had his story "run away on him" (as an author, I can attest to this phenomena - you have people or events crop up, and you don't know where it's all leading.) I think part of the jerkiness of the first couple of works was that he just wrote what he saw. My guess is that he learned that it was okay to rearrange the "pictures" into a smoother narrative and write that.
 
I agree with you that Prince Caspian could have done nicely without that whole lot of backtracking and would have been better in order of events. I haven't seen the feature film yet but in the BBC TV version they rearange it so that events happen in order. I think your right in that he discovered that the story would flow more smoothly if it was started from where it actually started, rather than half way through.
 
Oh, I don't mind Caspian, either - it's just that from a writing perspective, a flashback style like that asks a lot of the reader, especially young ones for whom the story was written.

Horse began the story in Calormen, but it was in the Narnian universe.

A more interesting question is to notice how many of the stories happen largely or completely outside the land Narnia. Lion, Caspian, and Battle are there, of course, but Dawn Treader is completely outside Narnia, and Silver Chair and Horse are both mainly outside, with the main characters only setting foot in the country briefly.
 
I do believe that I have rearranged several of the stories in the book I am writing quite a few times. I guess I am gettin literary Maturity:D.

Yes, I do agree that it seems to show that Lewis is growing into the series method of writing as the CoN series progresses. I will say though, it seems like there is always one character somewhere or another who fills in a little of the backstory through a story he is telling. It happens in each book. Emeth does it in TLB as do the Pevensies. The beavers and Tumnus do it in LWW. Trumpkin in PC. The owls and the prince in SC. Aslan in HHB. Drinian in VotDT. And Aslan in MN.
 
I think it all has to do with how Lewis wanted the story to unfold for the reader.

In TLB, Lewis wanted the reader to understand how Shift's actions, although meant in good fun, led to circumstances that spiraled out of control. TLB is the only story in which the bad guy (Shift) is the first person described. The first chapter almost felt like a chpater in passing, a simple look at the dynamics of the friendship of two ordinary Narnians.

In PC, Lewis wanted the reader to feel the story from the Pevensies' point of view. We see the mysteries of where they came to in the Pevensies' eyes and watch as they slowly uncover the revelation of where they are and get to find out what has happened as they do. This is the same thing as what happened in LWW. We see things from the Pevensies' points of view.

It was only in TLB that we really don't follow the lives of the Friends in England because their views are less important than the views of the Narnians, in particular, King Tirian. The problem with TLB in terms of starting in England was dealing with the backstory. It was the only time we had two different stories that had to be told, the story of Shift and Puzzle as well as the story of Tirian. There was no way to provide the two backstories in appropriate places after the arrival of Jill and Eustace. Tirian could have provided his backstory, but Puzzle would have been harder in terms of his level of storytelling ability.

MrBob
 
Back
Top