The Magician’s Nephew: Chapter 3 “The Wood Between the Worlds”
C.S. Lewis Read-Along, Vol. 6, Issue 4
This chapter is a reminder that we, as individuals and as humanity, are not the center of the universe. There is something and Someone behind it all that provides the gravity to the world and the focus on the story.
Chapter 3 “The Wood Between the Worlds”
Reading this chapter, you can see why Greta Gerwig wanted to adapt The Magician’s Nephew. I will always argue for publication order when first reading the books, but I understand wanting to start a new movie series with this book.
While there isn’t much outright action in this chapter, the scenery is so cinematic and evocative. Reading these pages, you can just imagine this wood with an overwhelming calmness. You can see it in your mind, so I understand the desire to reproduce it on screen.
The chapter starts with Digory seemingly underwater, rushing up toward a “soft green light.” He emerges from a pool onto a level lawn in the middle of a forest, without being wet or out of breath.
We immediately learn that this is the “quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing.” Digory can’t even see the sky because the overhead tree canopy covers everything.
It was this scene that I imagined when Gerwig first began speaking about directing Narnia around this time two years ago. She said she loved the “euphorically dreamlike” quality of Lewis’ writing and alluded to a quote from Lewis’ “On Three Ways of Writing for Children” from Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories. There, he says a fairy tale reader “does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: The reading makes all woods a little enchanted.”
In answering what seemed to be her goal for the Narnia movies, Gerwig joked, “A small thing … I’m trying to make it magical. I want to make it feel like magic.” She said she’s aiming for “re-enchantment … of the world.”
Obviously, we won’t know if she reaches her aim until the movie releases, but Lewis readers understand that desire reading this chapter. The wood that Digory arrives in feels enchanted and makes us think about all that we could be missing in the woods and trees around us.
