The “Day After” Readathon — Update #1
Little did I realise, when I went to bed last night, that I would be picking up The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe much earlier than I had anticipated. However, with the whole household not keeping well in general, and the extremely late night we had had, none of us were able to wake in time this morning for New Year’s Day service. 
As a result I got to picking up my first read of the year and am already more than half way through. I’d actually thought, with the pace I had set this morning, that I would be able to finish it in time for this post. That wasn’t possible, though, will all the household chores that needed to be seen to and errands that needed to be run.
Anyway, let me break this down into a glance-friendly format.
What am I reading for the readathon at the moment?
The first published book of Narnia by C S Lewis — The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
How far into the book am I?
127/203 pages in.
How am I finding it so far?
I have to admit to being a little skeptical when I picked up this book. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere before, my first ever experience with Narnia was about four years ago when I started to read The Magician’s Nephew. Never having read it as a child the charm of the story was difficult for me to absorb while struggling with the simplistic language. I found I couldn’t go past chapter one. So I had given up never intending to try again. However, after having watched the first two movies, I found I really really wanted to give it a second chance.
I think I’d doing pretty well this time around. I suspect this is mainly because 1) I am reading it in the publishing order, and 2) the fact that I’ve watched the movie seems to be helping me in some weird way. I think, perhaps, I know what comes next and I know how much the themes in the book could be well absorbed by an adult. I like how Lewis begins this book with a letter to his god-daughter, Lucy (whom I suspect he named the younger “Daughter of Eve” after). He says:
I wrote this for you, but when I began it I had not realised that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down form some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. (my emphasis)
The sentence that I’ve bolded…it’s so true, isn’t it?! We go through a stage where we love fairy tales. Then we feel all grown-up and believe we don’t have any use for them any more. Then once we really are all grown-up, we long for the charm and simple pleasures a child takes in fairy tales.
I think I am…finding this book charming, that is. May I say it is very reminiscent of Enid Blyton?… Which brings me to two or three not important-at-all, but mildly interesting things (to me) that caught my eye.
- The little illustrations in my book portray Edmund as being blond and Peter, dark-haired. In the movie, it’s the other way around.
- I love how Lewis describes food! I think these British kiddy writers are fantastic with this sort of thing. They can make bread, butter and jam sound like a feast! This is where I was most reminded of Enid Blyton.
- There was another point…but I seem to have forgotten it. :-/
So, that’s how things stand for this readathon so far. I’ll have another update in the morning!
If you’re taking part in this readathon, how have you been doing? If not, never mind, what you readin’?
ASIDE:
To those of you who have taken the time comment on various posts on my blog in the last three/four days, I apologise for not having responded so far. My time has been a bit limited and I’ve been busy gawking at other peoples’ blogs! I’ll get down to responding asap…hopefully in the morning. 
