Sharon B read the Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis.
I have a theory about series that go beyond four books: They shouldn’t. A trilogy is great, and a series of four books is thoroughly enjoyable, but past the fourth book, things go a little south. Most series fall into the same pattern, I’ve found:
- The first book is a new and exciting experience; you get caught up in the plot and the characters and you want to read more.
- The second book can’t quite get out of the shadow of the first book; nine times out of ten it doesn’t really have legs as it’s own story, but you enjoy reading it because you get to spend more time with the characters you loved from the first book.
- The third book manages to have a genuinely interesting plot, fills you with excitement and reminds you why you engaged with this series. Or it kind of sucks and you wonder what happened.
- The fourth book is still good, and it can be the most mature and developed story of the whole series – but it’s often a completely different beast to the first book, and there’s something about it that feels like a natural ending.
- Every book after that is moving further and further away from what you loved in the first book, and sometimes they just end up being kind of sad, really.
Now, I love The Chronicles of Narnia. I’ve loved them since I was a kid and I re-read them every now and then – and still love them. But they absolutely conform to my theory. Let’s look at them in publication order:
- The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is one of the finest novels for children in the English language. It was a game-changer that has inspired countless copy-cats over the decades, and has a group of passionate fans who love it to pieces.
- Prince Caspian is a wonderful opportunity to be reacquainted with the Pevensie kids and get back to Narnia for another adventure… but it’s not the most memorable book in the series, and the story isn’t a patch on the first book.*
- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a rip-snorter of a story, and the bits that people love most about the series are probably in this book, if they weren’t in the first one. But we lost half the kids from the first book before we even started and, even though we picked up another kid, we lose the other characters we love at the end…
- The Silver Chair (the Fourth Book in the series) is actually a really good book with a great story, but it doesn’t have any of the characters from TLtWatW, so it kind of feels as if the story that started in that book is well and truly over. If this had been the last book, it would have been a good book to end on.
- The Horse and His Boy is an odd book that stands on its own well enough, but doesn’t feel like it belongs in the series. It’s in the “world”, but completely outside of the narrative of the first four books. If all of the references to “Narnia” were changed to “Elsia”, and “Aslan” was a hawk called “Elsor”, you’d never pick it as belonging to the series – and the series wouldn’t miss it if it wasn’t there.
- The Magician’s Nephew is a prequel that takes away some of the wonder and mystery from the back-story of the first book by filling in gaps that didn’t need filling (how did a street lamp end up in the middle of the Narnian woods?). It’s okay, but it’s not great.**
- The Last Battle is trying too hard to be an analogy, and forgets to be a fun book to read. It’s kind of sad and vaguely depressing and an unfitting end to the series – and I can’t forgive Lewis for what he did to Susan. The series should have stopped before this book.
*I have to admit I usually forget what happens in Prince Caspian. I've re-read it a couple of times, and every time it's like "oh, *that's* what was in this book".
**Having said that, I was given a box set of the series as a child which was in story-event order, not publication order. The Magician's Nephew was actually the first book in the series that I read, and I have fond memories of reading it as a child - especially some parts, like the "wood between the worlds". It's only on re-reading it now that I notice it's definitely post-fourth-book.
