Reading The Magician’s Nephew with my five- and six-year-old sons was a magical experience in itself. They fell in love with the story and its characters, and I found myself falling in love with them all over again, too. In this post, I am going to share an overview of the story and then go into some of the things we talked about as we read it.

THE STORY

The Magician’s Nephew is the first novel in The Chronicles of Narnia, though it was actually published fifth. It tells the story of how Narnia was created and reveals the special role of two children in its making. Though Polly is the leading lady, the story really belongs to Digory. It is he who seeks healing for his sick mother. With his father away in India, he is forced to live with his Uncle Andrew and Aunt Letty, unmarried siblings. Digory mopes about in a fog of misery until he meets Polly.

They become friends and accidentally sneak into Uncle Andrew’s private study. This is a happy chance for Uncle Andrew. A crazed magician, he tricks Polly into putting on a magical yellow ring that sends her into an unknown world with no way home. Then he offers Digory a chance to save her by giving him another yellow ring to go after her with plus two green rings for each of them to get home. Feeling he has very little choice, Digory accepts the rings and follows Polly.

He finds her sleeping in a quiet woods spotted with pools, called the Wood Between the Worlds. They discover that each of the pools leads to a different world. After carefully marking the pool that leads back home to London, they jump into another and land in the World of Charn. The buildings are in ruins and the Sun is red. They would have done well to leave, but their curiosity gets the better of them. They walk into a large room and find a row of people like wax statues the size of giants sitting in a long line. None of them appear to be alive. As they examine their faces, they see that they get increasingly uglier and scarier as they go down the line.

They also find a bell that strangely beckons them to ring it. Polly doesn’t want to, but Digory does. He fights with her, strikes the bell, and awakens the last in the line of the wax people—a giant woman styled as a queen. She is Empress Jadis, and she immediately sets in motion a plan to leave with the children and take over their world. Charn, as it turns out, is dying. Unable to get away from Jadis, she follows them back to London and meets Uncle Andrew.

He is captivated by Jadis and enters into her service. Jadis abuses him horribly, but Uncle Andrew seems not to mind all that much. He calls her a “dem fine woman,” dresses up in his best suit, sips a few adult beverages, and takes her out gallivanting around town. She ends up stealing jewelry from a shop, believing herself entitled to all of it. The police pursue her and Uncle Andrew as they flee in a horse-drawn cab. Uncle Andrew tries to make a break for it, but Jadis stays and fights off her apprehenders with shocking strength.

Meanwhile, Digory and Polly make a plan to transport Jadis out of London, back to the Woods Between the Worlds, and force her into another pool. They put on their rings and grab her. Because of all the chaos, they end up bringing a chain of connected people and things, including not only Jadis but also Uncle Andrew, the Cabbie (Frank), his horse (Strawberry), and a lamppost. The world they enter is completely black. Jadis gleefully explains it’s a new world and relishes the prospect of ruling it.

No sooner do they realize this, then they hear a beautiful song and the darkness begins to give way to a soft light, and the landscape begins to take shape, complete with mountains and rivers and trees and all manner of plants and flowers. Even the lamppost that Jadis had ripped from the ground in London takes roots in the rich earth. Then a golden Lion appears, and they realize He is the one singing the world into life. Jadis runs away in fear of the Lion. Uncle Andrew hides from the Lion. But the others—Digory, Polly, the Cabbie, and Strawberry—stay and listen. They watch as creatures appear. The Lion makes some of them talking animals, and they gather around Him with great love and reverence. After watching all of this unfold, Digory decides he wants to talk to the Lion and see if He might help his dying mother.

The Lion, whose name is Aslan, tells Digory that he must make amends for bringing Jadis to Narnia. He is to get an apple from a special tree in a far-off Garden and bring it back to plant as protection from her evil. Polly joins Digory on this mission, and they ride on Strawberry, now transformed into a talking, flying horse. When they arrive at the Garden, Digory sets off alone to retrieve the apple. He must pass through a gate in doing so, and he reads a placard which says:

Come in by the gold gates 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.

Just as Digory picks an apple, he sees Jadis perched in the special tree with apple juice dripping down from her mouth. He can tell she has gotten her heart’s desire, and that has made her even more evil. Jadis then tempts him to steal one of the apples for his mother, claiming it would make her better. Digory thinks about it but overcomes his desire and joins the others.

They return to Aslan, plant the apple, and a beautiful apple tree grows instantaneously. Aslan then offers one of the apples to Digory for his mother. He also instructs Digory to bury the rings so no one will ever find them again.

Digory does as Aslan commands, buries the rings, and gives the apple to his mother. She is healed, and his life is restored to happiness.

As for the other characters, the Cabbie gets to bring his wife to Narnia and become their first king and queen. And Uncle Andrew gets back to London with the children. He doesn’t really remember Narnia when he returns, but he is much improved. He’s a lot nicer than he used to be and has only a clouded memory of Jadis, whom he still thinks of as a “dem fine woman.”

REFLECTION

One of my favorite motifs in The Magician’s Nephew is appearance versus reality. Some of the characters, like Uncle Andrew and Empress Jadis, do not see the world at all properly. Even Digory and Polly see it properly in only a limited way at first. Here is how I discussed this motif with my sons.

Uncle Andrew and Jadis

Uncle Andrew’s view of things was hard to peg in the first few chapters of the book. My sons and I were right there with Digory and Polly, wondering if Uncle Andrew was really a madman. He certainly seemed strange, but it wasn’t clear that he wasn’t just misunderstood until Digory and Polly accidentally found themselves in his private study and got sent away by the rings. To Uncle Andrew, Polly and Digory were no more than guinea pigs in a crazy experiment.

Okay, we decided at that point; he’s definitely a madman. As it turns out, he’s also a bad guy.

What’s more, we decided his madness had to do with the state of his heart. He can’t see people as they are because he only sees them for what they can give him. For example, he believes Jadis is a “dem fine woman,” but she’s really an evil giant of a witch. He also thinks she might fall in love with him and make him an equal in her royal court. The only problem is that she keeps calling him “slave” and “dog” and threatening to hurt him. His delusions about Jadis defy logic.

Uncle Andrew is also unable to understand the Talking Animals in Narnia. To him, they sound like beasts, and he is utterly terrified of being eaten by them. His entire time in Narnia is spent worried that he is going to be eaten. His greatest fear, not surprisingly, is of “the Lion.” Although Uncle Andrew’s time there is really quite sad, it is also full of humor. We had our fair share of laughs about the ridiculous things Uncle Andrew does in Narnia, especially when he is planted like a tree, but we also found ourselves cheering for him to be reformed.  

We never cheered for Jadis, though. Like Uncle Andrew, she is utterly disconnected from the world around her. We saw this most obviously when she is in London, and it’s not just because she is an outsider, dressed in funny clothes, who happens to be the size of a giant. She also treats everyone there like her lowly subjects and can’t appreciate why they don’t respond to her power.

The characters of Uncle Andrew and Jadis are great examples of how selfishness distorts our true nature. It takes us into a false reality, almost like another world itself, in which we cannot see things for what they are. Though Uncle Andrew is not as evil as Jadis and ends up becoming a better person by the end of the book, he nonetheless never manages to let go entirely of his false ideas of grandeur in the service of Jadis.

At least, as my sons pointed out, he turned out better than he started.

Digory and Polly

When we first met Digory, he was feeling very bad for himself, and we were all wondering how he would manage his difficulties. As we know from the summary above, he had a lot to deal with, especially being so young.  

But behind Digory’s miserable exterior is a hope against hope. Just maybe, his mom will get better. Just maybe, there is more to life than what he sees around him. My sons and I certainly felt Digory’s great yearning right along with him.

Digory gets his first glimpse of a bigger world over his garden wall. There he finds Polly, a little girl about his own age. Interestingly, they both notice the dirt on the other’s face but not on their own. (My sons thought that was hysterical.) Despite any grievances about the other’s hygiene, they become good friends. Their games offer Digory a measure of relief from his miseries, and he begins to look forward to their imaginative adventures. But reality hits imagination in the face when they wind up in Uncle Andrew’s study.  

Two things happen simultaneously for Digory when he accepts Uncle Andrew’s magic rings. First, he realizes there are countless other worlds waiting to be explored. Second, he learns that some hardships are worth pursuing for the sake of others. Thus begins the transformation of his worldview.

Upon finding Polly in the Wood Between the Worlds, the two children become even better friends. More than just playmates, they become one another’s companions in a life-threatening adventure. They look out for each other and steer each other accordingly. For example, when they first meet Jadis, Digory doesn’t realize at first that she is bad. Polly, on the other hand, picks up on it right away because Jadis keeps looking past her and treating her like she’s not even there. Polly is not simply offended by this, but it puts her on alert. She rightly senses that Jadis is only paying attention to Digory because he can get them out of Charn and into another world worth ruling. Funny enough, Jadis eventually looks past Digory, too, and he realizes just how correct Polly was.

When it comes to Aslan, Digory and Polly know He is good. Despite the fact that He is a Lion, and in their world lions would be very scary, they approach Him without fear of being eaten. That’s not to say they’re not scared. They are, but for a different reason. They are scared because they know Aslan will not look past them. Rather, He will look at them so deeply as to see them as they really are, dirty faces and all. In turn, they will be forced to see themselves through His eyes. Happily, what they see are not merely two good little children but a Son of Adam and a Daughter of Eve.

As such, they receive their birthright in the form of an apple from Narnia’s version of the Garden of Eden. But the apple is not just any apple; it’s a magical apple. And it’s not just magical in the cheap way Uncle Andrew uses magic. Nor is it magical in the selfish way of Jadis. It’s magical according to the nature of Aslan: it is life-giving. Digory feeds it to his mother, and she is miraculously healed. Better still, Digory knows now that an earthly death cannot kill his mother. She, too, is a Daughter of Eve and shall have eternal life.

With this realization, Digory’s worldview is fully transformed into that of a Narnian, which is to say that of a Christian. The hope that he held in his heart of hearts is realized. There is more to the world than what he first knew at the beginning of the book, and there is most certainly more to it than what he knows at the end of the book. He has learned that reality is more than what he can see.

FINAL THOUGHTS

My sons begged me to start The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe the same night we finished The Magician’s Nephew. It was late, so I made them wait. They carried the book down the next morning and got the first chapter out of me before breakfast. They were hungry for more just like Digory.

That’s one of my favorite aspects of The Chronicles of Narnia. They are every bit the page turner that makes a good book, and yet they offer so much more than an exciting plot. They are also full of deep mystery that stirs the soul and makes it yearn for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.