The Magician's Nephew

The Magician's Nephew. The Chronicle's of Narnia #1. C.S. Lewis. 1955. HarperCollins Publishers. Pages: 221. [Source: Childhood Gift]

He never finished what he was going to say for at that moment something happened. The high-backed chair in front of the fire moved suddenly and there rose out of it - like a pantomime demon coming up out of a trapdoor - the alarming form of Uncle Andrew. They were not in the empty house at all; they were in Digory's house and in the forbidden study! Both children said "O-o-oh" and realized their terrible mistake. They felt they ought to have known all along that they hadn't gone nearly far enough. 

• • •

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.

• • •

The Magician's Nephew continues to be my favourite Narnia novel. It's not because it's the first novel, no, it's because of what Digory and Polly have to go through and what they see on their way to and while they're in Narnia.

I can still remember the day when my father gave me my boxed set of The Chronicles of Narnia - I was in second grade, I think, and I was getting ready to go to an assembly with my father at the school I was going to (Comox Elementary, which has sadly been closed down). He handed me the boxed set and let me open it, and told me he would read the books to me whenever he could. And he did, though the last novel I remember that he read to me was The Horse and His Boy. I read the rest by myself because my father, I guess, soon became too busy to just sit down and read to me.

The story starts with Polly playing out in the garden when a boy peeks his face up over the wall dividing his garden from her own. The boy, who she was soon to learn was named Digory, was crying because of how ill his mother was getting. After that meeting, they become good friends and go regular little adventures, you know, the kind kids like to do.

But one day, they go up into the attic and decide to try and go explore the empty row house attached to their houses. But they make a grave mistake and accidentally enter into Digory's attic, where they discover that his uncle has converted the attic into a study...

This has to be my most favourite Narnia novel. There's so many things that happen in it that make me think. Think, think, THINK, think, THINK! And I love it when a book makes me THINK.

One of the parts of the books that makes me think the most is the part when Digory and Polly appear in Charn and take in what's left of that world. The fact that Charn's sun is red and "tired"-looking immediately makes me think that Charn's sun was a red giant - which is a star that has reached the end of it's life. It was hanging low over the horizon, so it made me think that it had probably swelled from its original size and took up most of the sky by the time Digory and Polly got there. Charn was an old world, and yet the sun had always been large and red, according to Jadis.

The fact that Charn was no more by the time Digory and Polly's adventure in Narnia was over unsettles me a bit, and I don't know why. 

I deeply love C.S. Lewis' style of writing in this book. It makes it sound like a lovely fairy-tale and it sucks me in every time I open this story. I look forward to the day I can read it to my kids, like my father did to me.

One thing I wish I could do, though, was find one of the sets of green and gold rings that Uncle Andrew created. I would love to explore the Wood between the Worlds, just to see what other worlds there could have been. My curiosity always gets to me like that. What other worlds were there other than ours and Charn and Narnia?

Note: I never realized, until now, that Digory and Polly lived in the Victorian era, when Sherlock Holmes still solved mysteries and the thought of motor-cars were still a bit of a ways away...

Murder On the Orient Express

Murder On the Orient Express. Agatha Christie. 1934. William Morrow Paperbacks. Pages: 365. [Source: Bought]

After watching the "Mummy On the Orient Express" episode of Doctor Who, I was curious about the original form of the story by Agatha Christie. I really didn't think about it, though, until I saw the novel at Chapters. It was on a display case with a sign stating "Sherlock's Bookshelf". I was drawn in by the sign because I was experiencing a Sherlock kick at the time.

I had this novel for a long time before I decided to read it. And it wasn't until I took a good look at it that I realized that it was the 10th book in the Hercule Poirot series. So I was a little apprehensive when I finally dove in.

When I began to read, I really didn't know what to expect. I didn't know who Hercule Poirot was so when I was introduced to him I never really connected to him. I couldn't see what his personality was like, so it was like I was sitting back and kind of watching the action from the distance. Though I did start to feel like I was in the story as the mystery became more and more intense.

I always like a good old mystery. This was a good mystery and I can see why it's considered Agatha Christie's best. I couldn't deduce who was the culprit until the very end, and I like it that way. I usually can deduce who's the culprit is about three quarters of the way through the novel - I don't know how or why, I just do sometimes.

But I was really happy with it. It really made the last five days go like the wind.

The Phantom of the Opera / Le Fantôme de l'Opéra

The Phantom of the Opera / Le Fantôme de l'Opera. Gaston Leroux. 1909-1910/1911. Bantam Classics. Pages: 338. [Source: Library]

When I borrowed The Phantom of the Opera from the library, I didn't really know what I was getting into. I thought that the story would start out with the main characters, which I assumed were the Phantom and the girl, which I later learned was Christine.

But no, The Phantom of the Opera began with a group of characters that had nothing to do with the story at all, and that was when my frustration began.

I was disappointed with The Phantom of the Opera because I my mother told me that it was Phantom/Christine-centric. Yes, the story revolves around Christine and the Phantom, but not as much as I had thought. Hoped. Instead, as I read, I felt removed from the action, unable to connect with the characters.

It was torture for me to get through this novel. In fact, it read less like a novel and more like an autobiography/Leroux's personal opinion of what happened. I went in wanting a novel and didn't get what I wanted.

So, I did not like The Phantom of the Opera. I did not like Erik/The Phantom, nor did like Christine. Christine didn't feel real. She was out there. She infuriated me. I connected with Raoul, more than anyone else because of how Christine played with his heart! She would go to him, and then leave, over and over, and it made me so MAD at her! In my head I imagined throwing the book across the room, and throttling her.

But I made it to the end, and Raoul finally got the girl. I guess I can be slightly pleased with that ending. But, oh boy, I'm never going to pick this book up again.

The Silmarillion

The Silmarillion. J.R.R. Tolkien. Published posthumously by Tolkien's son, Christopher, in 1977. George Allen & Unwin Publishers Ltd. Pages: 365. [Source: Borrowed from the Library].

"There was Eru, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him, and he was glad."

"Then those of the Ainur who desired it arose and entered into the World at the beginning of Time; and it was their task to achieve it, and by their labours to fulfill the vision which they had seen. Long they laboured in the regions of Eä, which are vast beyond the thought of Elves and Men, until in the time appointed was made Arda, the Kingdom of Earth. Then they put on the raiment of Earth and descended into it, and dwelt therein."

~~~

When I borrowed The Silmarillion from the library, I knew that I would probably struggle through it since Tolkien wrote it like a history textbook more than a story.

And rightfully so - The Silmarillion is basically the history textbook for Middle-Earth, so it doesn't flow like normal fiction at all. There are three more tomes out there that delve even more into the world that's Middle-Earth - but this is a book review for The Silmarillion, so I'm not going to talk about them.

Now, there's a lot about this book that I liked. The only parts I found that I didn't like was the fact that there was bad guys and evil and that it seemed like, whenever something beautiful was made it was destroyed by the evil. But there's always evil where there's good, unfortunately.

Eru Ilúvatar (air-u ill-oo-va-tar) is basically Middle-Earth's/Arda's Aslan/Emperor across the sea (if you compared Arda to Narnia). He's the one who was behind the creation of Middle Earth, though he didn't create it directly. Instead, he bid a group of angelic beings, the Ainur, to sing it into existence. I compare the Ainur to angels because Melkor, an Ainur, eventually turned against Eru, thus becoming Arda's Satan. I compared the events of the story while I was reading it to those of the Bible because Tolkien took a lot of inspiration from and made sure that there was a Christian message woven into his stories.

Reading The Silmarillion was very informative, and I found that it helped me to piece together a lot of events that occurred in The Lord of the Rings. In my opinion, it's a book I would like to own so I could go back and read over the stories when I want to - and I would get a newer edition where the letters were bigger so I didn't end up reading the same sentence more than once. And I'm definitely not reading it all in one go, ever again, lol.

I would give this book a rating of 4/5, since I felt like I was in Middle-Earth, watching from the sidelines, but it's not something I would want to read again for a very long time.

Back to the Classics 2016 Reading Challenge

Back to the Classics 2016 Reading Challenge

Books and Chocolate (sign up)

January - December 2016

I hope to read at least six books.

What I want to read for the challenge:

1) A volume of classic short stories: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. First published 1892. The copy I have was published by Penguin Random House in 2014.  [Source: Bought]

2) A 19th Century classic: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. First published 1894. The copy I have was published by Penguin Random House in 2014. [Source: Bought]

3) A classic by a woman author: Murder On the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. First published 1934. The copy I have was published by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperColllins Publishers in 2011. [Source: Bought]

4) A fantasy, science fiction, or dystopian classic: The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien. Published posthumously by Tolkien's son, Christopher Tolkien, in 1977. The copy I have was published by George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd in 1977. [Source: Borrowed from the Library] Was considered both Tolkien's first work and his last, meaning, he could have written it before he died, but Christopher had to pick up the pieces.

5) Re-read a classic you read in school (high school or college): The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. First Published 1939. The copy I have was published by the Houghton Mifflin Company in 1989. [Source: School Book Review book].

6) A classic in translation: The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. First published in serialization in La Gaulois from September 23, 1909 to January 8, 1910. Published in English in 1911. Originally published in French and titled Le Fantôme de l'Opéra. [Source: Borrowed from the Library]

7) An adventure classic: The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis. First published by The Bodley Head publishing company in 1955. [Source: Childhood Gift]

8) A classic detective novel: A Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie.

9)

10)

11)

12)

The Catagories:

1. A 19th Century Classic - any book published between 1800 and 1899.

2. A 20th Century Classic - any book published between 1900 and 1966.

Just like last year, all books MUST have been published at least 50 years ago to qualify. The only exception is books written at least 50 years ago, but published later.

3. A classic by a woman author.

4. A classic in translation. Any book originally written published in a language other than your native language. Feel free to read the book in your language or the original language.

5. A classic by a non-white author.  Can be African-American, Asian, Latino, Native American, etc.

6. An adventure classic can be fiction or non-fiction. Children's classics like Treasure Island are acceptable in this catagory.

7. A fantasy, science fiction, or dystopian classic. Dystopian could include classics like 1984, and children's classics like The Hobbit are acceptable in this category also.

8. A classic detective novel. It must include a detective, amateur or professional. This list of books from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction is a great starting point if you're looking for ideas.

9. A classic which includes the name of a place in the title. It can be the name of a house, a town, a street, etc. Examples include Bleak House, Main Street, The Belly of Paris, or The Vicar of Wakefield.

10. A classic which has been banned or censored. If possible, please mention why this book was banned or censored in your review.

11. Re-read a classic you read in school (high school or college). If it's a book you loved, does it stand the test of time? If it's a book you disliked, is it any better a second time around?

12. A volume of classic short stories. This must be one complete volume, at least 8 short stories. It can be an anthology of stories by different authors, or all the stories can be by a single author. Children's stories are acceptable in this category also.