Review: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Lewis wrote this book for, and dedicated it to, his goddaughter Lucy Barfield. It comes across as definite YA material aimed at a child and, for this reason, this is one book where I like the movie better, that is The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the 2005 film directed by Andrew Adamson. The book just not have the depth and literary quality for of, say, LOTR, despite Lewis being an Inkling. When I first read this book, I was a tween library assistant and read it intrigued by the Christian angle pointed out by the librarian at my grade school. I thought then and now the Aslan sacrifice and resurrection such an obvious metaphor and even a deus ex machina as to be a cheap plot device. In the movie, Lucy is about to apply her cordial and is stopped by Susan (an attempt I did not see in the book) and carrying that through I think would have been better than the who flash of "deep magic". Other differences that make me prefer the movie:

Book: The White Witch turns a group of Narnians into stone after she is told about Father Christmas by the Fox. Movie: She turns the Fox into stone after Edmund tells her about their dealings with Asian. (I prefer the whole downplaying of Father Christmas as his more prominent role in the book brings it to an Xmas fairy tale for a child.)
Book: The battle of Beruna is only joined when Susan, Lucy and Asian arrive. Movie: The full battle is seen. (Of course, with the stunning level of today's CGI, I want the big battle scenes.)
In the book they talk about the giant Mr. Rumblebuffin, and in the move they never mention him. (That's fine with me, let's have an interquel about these giants, though. The book is overly dense with a taxonmoy of fairy tale species.)

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