Camuel wrote:Whilst MN was the First book (the tree at the end becomes the wardrobe in #2, I agree that they should skip to LWAW. It is the most popular of the stories after all.
Looking forward to seeing this. CS Lewis is a genius and I hope they do as good a job with Narnia as was done with Tolkien's LOTR
There is much disagreement about this in narnia fandom... First off, it was NOT the first book. The events are merely first chronologically. The first book was LWW. I have the books in ORIGINAL ORDER from a 70's release. They were changed to Chronological order later on, at Lewis' request, and that was a mistake in my, and many fans', opinion.
To learn all the details of how the world was made and of how the witch became the witch, how the world was turned into "always winter but never Christmas", how the lamppost tree was made, who the old man was in the house... It totally removes the mystery and amazement that exists when you read LWW first instead... I think purely chronological storytelling is rather boring, especially when the order of introducing ideas doesn't take place chronologically. It wasn't written to be Chronological. Lewis merely wanted it changed because he saw it as one continuous story and he had the background and foreground and everything in between. He made this decision, after the books had been published, as someone who had the whole story and not as someone being introduced to it for the first time. This was a major mistake.
Magician's nephew, book 6 in the original order, is full of details that are significant only as an extra layer to add to the story laid out in LWW and maybe some of the other books, and not as a foundation themselves. I will definately introduce it to my children in original order, and I would suggest anyone getting into it for the first time to do the same... This is also why I am glad that, regardless of whether HAHB or MN make the leap to the big screen, LWW comes first. This is the way it should always be.