This sixth book of The Chronicles of Narnia, The Magician's Nephew, is the story of how Narnia began. It is also a fairy-tale like story of how all worlds begin and the potential they all have for ending at theirown hands.
Digory's uncle is a crazy old magician who, dabbling in things he doesn't even begin to understand,creates some magic rings. With them, he induces his nephew and friend (Polly) to try them on. Theyfind themselves in a world of woods with tiny little ponds, each of which is a world in itself. Continuingthe pattern of ignorance Digory and Polly enter a world that should have been left alone and end upbringing the evil that destroyed that world into ours. Trying to rectify the situation, they lure the evil toanother world--a world just forming--and unknowingly wreck paradise.
While at first glimpse the book might appear to be just a fun tale about the founding of Narnia, closerinspection reveals that it is a metaphor for (among other things) how most evil enters a world, and a life. Not necessarily through malice but vain ignorance?
The writing in this book is excellent, as is usual with Lewis. If there is a weakness (and it's admittedlyslight), it's that the two main characters seem to closely resemble Eustace and Jill from The Silver Chair.
Additional Notes:
The sense of wonder this book generates is best appreciated if the series is read in the order Lewispublished the volumes, with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe coming first and this book comingsixth, because so many of the details lead the reader to think, "O! That's why that's there!" or "That'swhy things are that way in Narnia!" . . . The counter-point to this story is Lewis's Perelandra, in which weget to see a world aborning in which evil is vanquished. The reader is frustrated by the beauty that ismarred here by evil, but without it the other six books would not have been written.
