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Narnia 101: How do you get there?
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A drive to the bookstore. A walk to the library. A trip down memory lane.
How do you get to Narnia? For most it means opening one of the seven books of the Narnia Chronicles by C.S. Lewis. This fantasy series for children has been a favorite of children and adults since the first book’s publication in 1950. But for the wee Londoners, their passages to Narnia are a little more inspired.
Hide and sneak
Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter Pevensie fumble through a wardrobe filled with fur coats into the wintry world of Narnia. An out-of-place lamp-post marks the way back to the World of Men. It will appear again in another book, but it’s the furniture that gets top billing in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”
Blow it
On their next visit, the Pevensie children find themselves whisked off a train platform into a thicket near a sandy beach. They have been drawn back to Narnia by the titular character Prince Caspian who has blown Susan’s ivory horn, a gift from Father Christmas.
Take a dip
Staring at a picture of a ship that looks decidedly Narnian, Lucy, Edmund and Cousin Eustace begin to feel and smell the ocean. It’s not long before they are swept off the picture’s frame into the roiling sea and then dragged aboard for “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.”
Huff and puff
While escaping a group of bullies at their school, Eustace and Jill flee via a gate in the schoolground’s wall. Instead of leading them to the open moor it opens to Aslan’s Country. From there the lion himself blows them into Narnia on a quest to save the prince bound to “The Silver Chair.”
Clip clop in
In “The Horse and His Boy” there is no magical passage between our land and Narnia; the characters from a neighboring land travel by horse through Calormen and Archenland to get there. Only after much adventure on the road do Bree and Hwin, the talking horses, finally make their way back home.
Pick a pond
In “The Magician's Nephew” Digory and Polly have one of the most intricate and interesting journeys to Narnia. After crawling through a tunnel created above their interlocking rowhouses, they stumble upon mad Uncle Andrew’s study. His nasty present to Polly sends her to the Wood between the Worlds, an eerie place filled with ponds that are portals to countless worlds. Digory must follow to get Polly back and from there they visit the magical world of Narnia, but only after picking up some unwanted baggage in the dying world of Charn.
Crash it
The only book that begins in Narnia, “The Last Battle” focuses more on Narnians. Characters from the other books do appear and the reader eventually discovers that their entrance to Narnia has come via a fatal train wreck in their own world. They don’t stay long. After “The Last Battle” Narnia comes to an end and those who believe go on to Aslan’s Country.
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