I think the fact it was the first fantasy story I ever read. I loved the idea of talking animals and centaurs and all these elements mashed together in one story, and it was easy to read while still having a somewhat complex storyline. So because of this I read it over and over until I felt perfectly at home there, and as a result I'm still a major Narnia fanatic.

Perhaps it is because it was my first major reading comprehension challenge too.

But there is an athmosphere, which is beyond that. It is not JUST the Christian thematics and a sense of coming close to what's holy, it is also a kind of adventurous and well humoured spirit along the roads.

Seriously, I think we have both read some fantasy in Disney previous to reading Narnia. Like adventures where Donald Duck drinks sth and gets superpowers, or ... plus technically Disney is Ruritanian level fantasy inasmuch as geography is not that of our world.

I don't remember any Disney movies I may have watched before Narnia. I might have watched "The Fox and the Hound" or "Bambi" or "Lady and the Tramp", but I don't remember it.
And I agree with you, Hans, about the atmosphere surrounding Narnia. It's the innocence of it along with the depth of the meaning combining and making it such a fantastic story.

What I liked when I read it was that all of the characters were easy to relate to, and close to my age. 🙂 Some of them still are, but anyway. It's that things happen to regular people, not a few kings or queens that were kings or queens from the start. At least in the Pevensie's case. It was easier to imagine myself as a character in Narnia when there were already regular people there. And that it has Talking Animals, and creatures that we don't have in this world, along with Magic. It's kind of something that's hard to not like when you're young, and even so when you're not. There's lots of variety, as in having a story that's set in a desert, one on the sea, the rest on regular ground and one underneath, plus points of humor and thought throughout the books. Along with they have pretty epic clothes and weapons. (In the movies and in the books. ) So there're my thoughts on it.

My favorite thing about Narnia is that it is an allegory. I love allegories and Lewis's style of writing also attracted me. There's something different in his and Tolkien's writings that I can't help but admire. The way they put character into I really enjoy the movies and I think they are what made me realize how much other people liked the books. They're children's stories, for adults, you know? They are so simple, but in a good way, complicated as well. Very notable.

Wow. HArd question. I was attracted to it by the freedom of imagination, and the imagination put into it. The talking animals, the weaponry, especially the Centaurs. I love the battles, just about everything about Narnia! C.S. Lewis dd write it well, and that allows for more reason to like it. It fit into my head mainly because it was another world created, other than our own. Things like the fact that Narnia was created with a song immediately attracted me. What I believe in shows up in Narnia.

My favorite thing about Narnia is that it is an allegory. I love allegories and Lewis's style of writing also attracted me.

Chess, If you love allegories, you might enjoy an allegory C. S. Lewis wrote: The Pilgrim's Regress. Tolkien also wrote exactly one, Leaf by Niggle (though some might add Smith of Wootton Major).

Narnia was a what, did you say?

Chess, If you love allegories, you might enjoy an allegory C. S. Lewis wrote: The Pilgrim's Regress. Tolkien also wrote exactly one, Leaf by Niggle (though some might add Smith of Wootton Major).

Narnia was a what, did you say?

YES, I've read The Pilgrim's Progress two to three times and it is an amazing allegory and well written, although I believe it was written by John Bunyan... 😕 Speaking of whom, also wrote The Holy War, another extremely well written allegory. Definitely a must-read.

I said that Narnia was an allegory didn't I? 😆 I meant the series: The Magicians Nephew through to The Last Battle. 🙂

@Chess: hansgeorg was referring to The Pilgrim's Regress by CS Lewis (of which I only read a little bit a few years ago... I need to pick that up again at some point).
(Discussion on the definition of allegory and such should be moved to a more appropriate thread or to PMs, please, so as not to gum up this thread.)

--

Anyway, it's about time I put my two cents toward this thread.

I've never grown out of juvenile fiction, so that bit was never an issue for me. I actually listened to the Focus on the Family audio dramatizations before I read the book (a friend forced me to take her CDs home and give them a listen in the summer of 2005; I acquired the books about a week and a half before LWW came out in theaters). So I guess I kept listening because I was interested in the adventures. Actually, yes, that's the case, because I later ranked the books by how much I liked their respective adventures: SC and PC at the top, MN at the bottom, so on. So, yeah, adventure came first, then other aspects like the characters and the spiritual implications. I enjoyed how different that world was, how anything could happen, how very ordinary kids achieved great things in relatively ordinary ways (eg: walking across a wilderness for days in order to complete a quest as opposed to having some sort of magical powers or whatever).

While I had picked up on several spiritual themes from the get-go, I continued to pick them up upon repeated readings: something would stick out in PC this time, in VDT another time, in MN later, so on. I read Finding God in the Land of Narnia (Jim Ware and Kurt Bruner) a couple years after I got into Narnia and did have a couple "oh, yeah, hadn't thought of that that way before moments" in the midst of "yeah, I already knew that". I think two years ago now, I also had some of that when I read Planet Narnia (Michael Ward), which, even though the book's goal is definitely not to "find God in the land of Narnia", still brought up things that reminded me of God all the same.

Sometime between the film releases of PC and VDT was when Narnia became not so much children's stories with spiritual themes, but spiritual themes woven, tucked away, packed tight in the guise of children's stories. In other words, I started to focus less on the adventures (even though I still immensely enjoy them, don't get me wrong), and more on the little nuggets of truth just waiting for me to re/discover. Now, that is the prevalent thing I see in the series. HHB, which had originally ranked on the lower half of the scale, rocketed up to the top one day when I realized that Aslan, despite only physically showing up about five times and rather briefly, was all over the story; that and his "I am the Lion" monologue instilled a sense of "O-o-o-o-o-o-o-oh... wow, is that ever amazing!" in me. Last year, I read (well, actually, more like skimmed through) LB for a read-it-in-a-week session and I was this close to crying (first time I ever got anywhere near that emotional over Narnia) for the sheer beauty of it all when Tumnus said how the further up and further in one goes, the bigger it all gets. (LB now ranks #2 on my list.) And get this, sometimes when I'm having a difficult time, my dad will use Narnia on me to help me out: "Remember that part in PC when _______?" or "This is no different than __________ in HHB." or such like.

As it stands now (and has done so for a few years now), my attraction to Narnia is summed up in two quotes:
"[In your world,] I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there." ~ Aslan
"The value of myth is that it takes all the things you know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by the veil of familiarity." ~ C.S. Lewis
While I may not have met Aslan face to face in his fictional, leonine glory in a fictional world of wonders, I, as a reader of fiction, have come to know him, and thus have also seen Christ at a different angle and through the veil of familiarity. And that, my friends, is the reason I love Narnia.

YES, The Pilgrim's Progress two to three times and it is an amazing allegory and well written, although i believe it was written by John Bunyan... 😕 Speaking of whom, also wrote The Holy War, another extremely well written allegory. Definitely a must-read.

Waiting for edit since private message.

I said that Narnia was an allegory didn't I? 😆 I meant the series: The Magicians Nephew through to The Last Battle. 🙂

Well, the thing is, it isn't.

In an allegory, there is a one to one correpondence between features of the story and sth you are really talking about, usually in the real world.

(Discussion on the definition of allegory and such should be moved to a more appropriate thread or to PMs, please, so as not to gum up this thread.)

Sorry.

I've never grown out of juvenile fiction, so that bit was never an issue for me. I actually listened to the Focus on the Family audio dramatizations before I read the book (a friend forced me to take her CDs home and give them a listen in the summer of 2005; I acquired the books about a week and a half before LWW came out in theaters). So I guess I kept listening because I was interested in the adventures.

Juvenile's anyway just a convenient label for librarians. And book stores.

"[In your world,] I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there." ~ Aslan While I may not have met Aslan face to face in his fictional, leonine glory in a fictional world of wonders, I, as a reader of fiction, have come to know him, and thus have also seen Christ at a different angle and through the veil of familiarity. And that, my friends, is the reason I love Narnia.

Well said, I might be shy of speaking of spirituality, but I agree.

One more thing, it may well have helped to prepare me to stay true to my first reading of the Eucharist : Real Presence.

Why should Christians in the Real World have less close contact with Christ than fictional characters in Narnia?

@ariel & @hansgeorg my apologies, on the confusion. I misread Pilgrim's Regress. 🙁

Why should Christians in the Real World have less close contact with Christ than fictional characters in Narnia?

I don't think we should. I believe he wants to be as close a friend to each of us as anyone can get, and more. Walking beside Him, and asking with Him about things going on in life. Just as C. S. Lewis portrays in Narnia.

@Chess: Hey, don't worry about the misread! Didn't mean to make you feel bad.

@hansgeorg:
Haha, I shall have to use that reasoning if someone asks why I read juvenile books!
And definitely what Chess said about our relationship with Christ. Narnians have the advantage of talking with Aslan face-to-face, hence why it seems easier for them to be close to him. Unfortunately, we (being humans in general) seem to have a natural tendency to be all "out of sight, out of mind", but that's no excuse to not be close to God. Narnia encourages me to be more... connected, I guess (failing to come up with a better word), especially through HHB and VDT, in which direct interaction with Aslan is limited and yet I see his pawprints all over the place, just as I do not see God in this world, but if I take a good look, I see His hand through it all.

// Narnians have the advantage of talking with Aslan face-to-face, hence why it seems easier for them to be close to him. //

And Catholics have the advantage of talking to Him face to Host.

I don't think we should. I believe he wants to be as close a friend to each of us as anyone can get, and more. Walking beside Him, and asking with Him about things going on in life. Just as C. S. Lewis portrays in Narnia.

Look into John Calvin (Protestant Reformer of Geneva) and St Francis of Sales (last bishop of Geneva), read Introduction to the Devout Life by the latter and Institutions of the Christian Religion, or his Bible commentary by the former, see who of these agrees with you.

CSL loved another RC devotional book, "Imitation", by the Medieval St Thomas from Kempen (also known as Thomas a Kempis), but it is the same tradition as Introduction to the Devout Life, more or less.

"Imitation" = CSL's abbreviation of "On the Imitation of Jesus Christ" / " De Imitatione Jesu Christi".

I love the Narnia stories because they can be enjoyed on so many different levels -- as a wonderful fantasy, as illustrations of spiritual reality, as character development studies, as commentary on culture and society. Like Ariel and Chess, The Chronicles inspire me in my relationship to the True Lion of Judah, to grow in trust and prayer and obedience and love. I n Horse and His Boy I love the image of Aslan being there for all the ups and downs of Shasta's life... and it is such a comfort that Jesus is just as present, even though we might not see him now.

@ Hansgeorg,
Please don't take this the wrong way; your comments are interesting but you are getting off topic here. I have started an Inspirational Reading Recommendations thread in the Narnia and Faith section of the forum, < https://www.thelionscall.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=599 > and encourage you to post your theological reading suggestions there instead. When threads lose their focus, it limits discussion from developing the given topic in depth.