XPost: alt.usage.english, rec.arts.books.childrens, alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: ejanss@nospam.comcast.net   
      
   lenona321@yahoo.com wrote:   
   > Maybe I should add what no one else has mentioned (but I have, in old   
   > threads) yet. Namely, that when you read LWW first, you get to   
   > experience the Professor as a stunningly unique, open-minded,   
   > philosophical adult character for children's fantasy (especially since   
   > he never visits Narnia in that book). This gets utterly ruined if you   
   > read MN first. Not that you might not feel a bit of a letdown when you   
   > read MN later on, but if you've given yourself a nice long time to let   
   > the Professor's personality burn into your memory (and maybe read at   
   > least PC and VotDT in between), it won't feel so bad. Why should young   
   > readers be deprived of that experience, when I can't think, offhand, of   
   > any other well-written adult character in children's fantasy who   
   > believes in magic without ever actually seeing it? (If anyone can,   
   > please let me know.)   
      
   Also, it's the "gasp!" surprise of the first book's that the Professor   
   not only seems to be surprisingly tolerant of Lucy's ideas for a   
   grownup, but also in on the story--   
      
   Nephew, OTOH, not only eliminates this from the get-go, but also   
   suggests that we're supposed to *know* why it's such a big deal that   
   Digory became a professor and built a wardrobe out of the tree, etc.,   
   etc....Neither of which sound like a particularly big deal when you hear   
   them for the first time.   
      
   Derek Janssen (who can assume this thread's been around long enough for   
   someone to have made the traditional George Lucas "Force/Midichlorians"   
   comparison)   
   ejanss@comcast.net   
      
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