I am Kyle's self-indulgence

I recently learned that new box sets of The Chronicles of Narnia organize and number the books in chronological order, as opposed to the traditional sequence by publication date. This move made no sense to me. I imagined some oblivious publishing executives sitting in an office building somewhere, making the decision without any regard for the craft of storytelling or fantasy traditions.

Then I heard that the chronological order was supposed C.S. Lewis' intent. According to Wikipedia, he wrote:

"I think I agree with your order (i.e. chronological) for reading the books more than with your mother's. The series was not planned beforehand as she thinks. When I wrote The Lion I did not know I was going to write any more. Then I wrote P. Caspian as a sequel and still didn't think there would be any more, and when I had done The Voyage I felt quite sure it would be the last. But I found as I was wrong. So perhaps it does not matter very much in which order anyone read them. I'm not even sure that all the others were written in the same order in which they were published."

Lewis' words suggest that, considering that he hadn't planned on a lengthy series from the beginning, he really had no original intent for the order of the books. Nevertheless, the quote does show at least a preference for the chronological order. With great respect for the author, I must disagree.

As the first book in the series, The Lion, the With, and the Wardrobe effectively introduces the reader to the world of Narnia through the eyes of Lucy. We do not know much about the world at first, but we learn about it as Lucy does. This is how great fantasy works: it transports the reader into an already established world, and provides the reader with whatever information she needs as the story goes. In most cases, the fantasy world is revealed through the eyes of another character who is also experiencing it for the first time. We see all the foreign lands of Middle Earth through Bilbo's (or Frodo's) eyes. We get to discover the secret world of magic along with Harry Potter. We get to learn about the Force along with Luke Skywalker.

This immersion into and gradually revealing of a fantasy world adds an element of mystery and suspense to the exposition of a story. The mystery is lost if we know everything about the world before the story even begins. In the case of the chronological Chronicles of Narnia, we know what Narnia is and, more importantly, who Aslan is, before Lucy ever finds out. All the surprises are ruined.

Whether we're talking about sequels or prequels, subsequent stories in a series are written with the assumption that the reader is familiar with the world and characters of the story. Let's look at Star Wars. George Lucas made the original trilogy (Episodes IV-VI) without any real intent to film the prequels (Episodes I-III). As I mentioned above, the original Star Wars movie is the introduction to the world. The prequels, which were released later, depend on the viewer already being familiar with this world. The appearances of R2D2 and C-3PO are meaningless if the audience is not familiar with these characters, to say nothing of the boy who would become Darth Vader. Conversely, surprises from the original movies cease to be surprises if one watches the prequels first. Darth Vader's revelation that he is Luke's father in The Empire Strikes Back is no longer earth-shattering if a first-time viewer has already seen the end of Episode III.

Whether or not Lewis was aware of it, he wrote his books with some assumptions concerning what his audience knew of the world of Narnia. It's best for a new reader to discover that world as children traditionally have: with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe first. At least the movies have got it right.