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Narnia Books - Really badly written?

well my 13 year old cousin who taks out her ass half the time has taken to saying "those books are SO badly written" in her faux posh accent (this part of the family likes to think they're a cut above the rest) whenever we see the advert for the new voyage of the dawntreader movie advert... she's obviously heard her parents or teachers saying it.. or is this a general agreement that they're badly written? when i was young, i loved them.. and now I'm 16 i still do! my DAD still likes them and he's old.



if you've read, what do you think of the books?
(edited 12 years ago)

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Reply 1
They are pretty badly written. Maybe it's just because they haven't aged well and now are a bit of a dull read (like Famous Five and other old children's book), but then again, most children's books are badly written (e.g. Harry Potter). Children's books are great for general storyline, but in terms of prose, they're rarely well written.

Not read Twilight though, so can't compare.
Reply 2
They are amazing, like many things as we grow older we learn things about the world so dont want to take the simple things in life.

I suppose she hasnt read the Christianity hidden meanings in the books like how Aslan = Jesus, Narnia being heaven on earth etc.

Absolutly hilarious how she can find a piece of garbage like Twilight readable and not Narnia! I recently read every book one by one and loved it.

But shes probably as you say just agreeing with others and besides I didnt really like the movies much myself too much glam for me.
Reply 3
drbluebox
They are amazing, like many things as we grow older we learn things about the world so dont want to take the simple things in life.

I suppose she hasnt read the Christianity hidden meanings in the books like how Aslan = Jesus, Narnia being heaven on earth etc.

Absolutly hilarious how she can find a piece of garbage like Twilight readable and not Narnia! I recently read every book one by one and loved it.

But shes probably as you say just agreeing with others and besides I didnt really like the movies much myself too much glam for me.


haven't seen the movies... they look awful

this is also a person who say harry potter is one of the worst things ever and twilight is much more original and yes, better written.
Reply 4
Svenjamin
They are pretty badly written. Maybe it's just because they haven't aged well and now are a bit of a dull read (like Famous Five and other old children's book), but then again, most children's books are badly written (e.g. Harry Potter). Children's books are great for general storyline, but in terms of prose, they're rarely well written.

Not read Twilight though, so can't compare.



lol i liked enid blyton, bit simply written though.
have to disagree about harry potter though.
Reply 5
drbluebox
They are amazing, like many things as we grow older we learn things about the world so dont want to take the simple things in life.

I suppose she hasnt read the Christianity hidden meanings in the books like how Aslan = Jesus, Narnia being heaven on earth etc.

Absolutly hilarious how she can find a piece of garbage like Twilight readable and not Narnia! I recently read every book one by one and loved it.

But shes probably as you say just agreeing with others and besides I didnt really like the movies much myself too much glam for me.

There's a deeper meaning to Narnia than the christian messages. Each book relates to one of the planets (using the Seven Heavenly Bodies system). Which is why the same imagery pops up again and again in each book (e.g. all the different symbols for dragons in Voyage of the Dawntreader).
Reply 6
Svenjamin
There's a deeper meaning to Narnia than the christian messages. Each book relates to one of the planets (using the Seven Heavenly Bodies system). Which is why the same imagery pops up again and again in each book (e.g. all the different symbols for dragons in Voyage of the Dawntreader).


I wasnt sure as it was a while since I read about it, but I heard Lewis was a adult convert to Christianity thats why the books have meanings but not being religious myself I dont know too much about the hidden meanings but picked up on the Narnia = heaven thing
Reply 7
They were amazing at the time :smile:
Reply 8
Amazingly, I don't think I ever bothered with them.
Harry Potter and Twilight aren't badly written though. What's bad about the writing in them? :dontknow:
Reply 9
The problem I have with Harry Potter is it falls into a "He said ... She Said... He did this He did that" rut. It ends up reading as a list of actions like it's a film script, which is a very easy hole for a have-a-go author to fall into. It's just pretty plain and unimaginative to read.


Found this article :

And for all that she is gifted enough in devising popular scenarios, the words on the page are flat. I think it was Verlaine who said that he could never write a novel because he would have to write, at some point, something like "the count walked into the drawing-room" - not a scruple that can have bothered JK Rowling, who is happy enough writing the most pedestrian descriptive prose.

Here, from page 324 of The Order of the Phoenix, to give you a typical example, are six consecutive descriptions of the way people speak. "...said Snape maliciously," "... said Harry furiously", " ... he said glumly", "... said Hermione severely", "... said Ron indignantly", " ... said Hermione loftily". Do I need to explain why that is such second-rate writing?

f I do, then that means you're one of the many adults who don't have a problem with the retreat into infantilism that your willing immersion in the Potter books represents. It doesn't make you a bad or silly person. But if you have the patience to read it without noticing how plodding it is, then you are self-evidently someone on whom the possibilities of the English language are largely lost.



The article may be a bit vitriolic, but I agree with the basis of the arguments. There's a saying that Children's books are just stories that are too badly written to sell to an adult audience, which I think is pretty true in Harry Potter's case.
Reply 10
Svenjamin
The problem I have with Harry Potter is it falls into a "He said ... She Said... He did this He did that" rut. It ends up reading like a list of actions like it's a film script, which is a very easy hole for a have-a-go author to fall into. It's just pretty plain and unimaginative to read.


Found this article :

I agree. They are fun for the adventure and storyline, but they're not some exquisite example of top class literature.
Reply 11
EskimoJo
Amazingly, I don't think I ever bothered with them.
Harry Potter and Twilight aren't badly written though. What's bad about the writing in them? :dontknow:



look up Nerimon on youtube for Alex reads Twilight and all your Twilight questions will be answered, if you can't see it yourself, dw, it's real funny.

nothing wrong with HP though
Haven't read the Narnia books but the writing in the Twilight Saga is ****! Not much descriptive language is used, many many typos that the publishers didn't pick up on, and in one of them I noticed that they suddenly went back in time! In one chapter Meyer mentioned that it was June, then a few chapters later it's May of the same year! Think that was in Breaking Dawn :s-smilie: How can people say that those books are good? It's badly written and after the first book the storylines are CRAP.
Reply 13
drbluebox
I wasnt sure as it was a while since I read about it, but I heard Lewis was a adult convert to Christianity thats why the books have meanings but not being religious myself I dont know too much about the hidden meanings but picked up on the Narnia = heaven thing


Tolkien helped convert him :biggrin:. (Although Lewis went CoE whilst Tolkien was a Catholic...)



I don't think they're badly written. I think it's more the different era they were written in which influenced the writing style. Example, take a best selling modern author and compare the written style and language to one of the "classics" authors (Asten, Dickens etc etc ). I personally find the "classics" a lot harder to read but I still really enjoy them. (Apart from Dickens... can't read his works no matter how much I try...)
Reply 14
Svenjamin
The problem I have with Harry Potter is it falls into a "He said ... She Said... He did this He did that" rut. It ends up reading as a list of actions like it's a film script, which is a very easy hole for a have-a-go author to fall into. It's just pretty plain and unimaginative to read.


Found this article :




The article may be a bit vitriolic, but I agree with the basis of the arguments. There's a saying that Children's books are just stories that are too badly written to sell to an adult audience, which I think is pretty true in Harry Potter's case.


fair enough, i don't think they're poorly written, i'd say they are well written but I wouldn't say they're a work of literary art though, but they don't need to be if they're for kids.. i guess that's your point.
i would say twilight is poorly written though.
Reply 15
I liked Narnia and c.s lewis, they were ok as a kid.
Reply 16
Hravan
Tolkien helped convert him :biggrin:. (Although Lewis went CoE whilst Tolkien was a Catholic...)



I don't think they're badly written. I think it's more the different era they were written in which influenced the writing style. Example, take a best selling modern author and compare the written style and language to one of the "classics" authors (Asten, Dickens etc etc ). I personally find the "classics" a lot harder to read but I still really enjoy them. (Apart from Dickens... can't read his works no matter how much I try...)


I know what you mean, I can't read things like Shakespeare (or watch in his case) without some translation guide. if that's what you meant about dickens anyway, unless you meant his books were boring.

I agree about the classics though.
Reply 17
Svenjamin
The problem I have with Harry Potter is it falls into a "He said ... She Said... He did this He did that" rut. It ends up reading as a list of actions like it's a film script, which is a very easy hole for a have-a-go author to fall into. It's just pretty plain and unimaginative to read.


Found this article :




The article may be a bit vitriolic, but I agree with the basis of the arguments. There's a saying that Children's books are just stories that are too badly written to sell to an adult audience, which I think is pretty true in Harry Potter's case.


I sort of see that as mediocre writing, not necessarily 'bad'. I see bad as mistakes, words/passages that don't add anything, overly descriptive/lack of description, if it reads like a thesaurus was used for every word (not because I don't understand big words, but sometimes it seems unnecessary or forced)...
I think when writing for children, it's difficult not to get into a he said, she said pattern, and it is sometimes necessary to add description to how something was said because a child might not understand the context even from the reaction to what was said, especially in a fast-paced children's book when attitudes and emotions change quickly. If, as in the article's example, Harry goes from furious to glum in less than a page, then a child might miss that.
I don't think that makes the books bad, but I guess if I read a book in that writing style when I wasn't aware that it was supposed to be a children's book, I'd see it as poorly written. I find chick-lit a bit like that sometimes.
Basically, I can't imagine great writing in a child's novel. I haven't read any Roald Dahl as an adult. Hmmm... I've got The Hobbit upstairs, so hopefully that'll be good. :smile:
Reply 18
Svenjamin
There's a deeper meaning to Narnia than the christian messages. Each book relates to one of the planets (using the Seven Heavenly Bodies system). Which is why the same imagery pops up again and again in each book (e.g. all the different symbols for dragons in Voyage of the Dawntreader).


Have you read Michael Ward's book, or did you just come across this 'critical view' somewhere?

With regards to the thread, the only thing that annoys me about C.S. Lewis, stylistically, is his use of punctuation. Nevertheless, I have not long re-read the Narniad for an academic essay I am going to publish, and its conception and creation is far more ambitious and successful than the likes of Harry Potter. With regards to the quality of children's literature, the suggestion that most of it is poorly written is ridiculous, especially the Narniad. It would be interesting to see what those people thought was good literature, considering some of the best nineteenth-century realists, so to speak, wrote good children's literature too.
Reply 19
I saw a documentary about the Seven Heavens in Narnia. Very clever, I thought.

I don't think the books are badly written at all. Quite the opposite - if only more of the books today had even half the quality.

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