Customer Reviews

A Guide Through Narnia

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Sammons explores the themes and structure of the Narnia Chronicles by C.S. Lewis. The book is written simply, without obscure literary terminology; very accessible to the public or by Jr. High and High School students who want to expand their understanding of this critically acclaimed series.

The book is structured as follows: Chapter 1: a discussion of Lewis's life

Chapter 2: how Lewis wrote the series and exposition on Lewis's views on the genre

Chapter 3: synopsis of each book in the series. These summaries were very well written.

Chapter 4: description of the land of Narnia

Chapter 5: in-depth review of the character of Aslan. One of the best chapters in the book, Sammons explores the symbol of Aslan in each book and His role as the moving force in the plot

Chapter 6: discussion of the good/neutral characters of Narnia

Chapter 7: discussion of the evil characters of Narnia

Chapter 8: Christian concepts in the books

The book also includes an index of character and place names, but the reader would be advised to obtain a copy of "Companion To Narnia" by Paul F. Ford instead.

Sammons explores the question whether the Narnia Chronicles are allegory for Christian faith. She is not "preachy" but seems to honestly describe the faith and the symbols within the novels. She does a fine job in providing quotes from C.S. Lewis's writings to back her points.

Though I agree with other reviewers about the splendid Narnia book summaries, overall I felt this book was not written in a manner fitting a scholarly book. Nor did it provide provide the well-rounded symbolic interpreation I was hoping for. I'm not saying I could do better (and it did make me ponder several biblical sybolic ideologies) but in general, it seemed the same citations appeared throughout the book -- almost to the point of redundancy -- and book was too focused on biblical themes, not a "guide thorugh Narnia" per se. I was hoping for something with more rounded interpretation and meaning of Lewis' world.

This book is fantastic. Dr. Sammons does of wonderful job of pinpointing the glorious symbols used by Lewis in the Chronicles. I now have a broader understanding of my favorite series. This is a must for any true Narnian. It was definitely worth the cost of the out of print search. Though, its better to just look at ....

I wanted to read this because, on the whole, I love the Narnia books but I could only get through about half of it and the rest I skimmed through. Incredibly boring and not enlightening at all.