Why I Didn't Like "The Silver Chair"

and how I changed my mind

The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis are foundational for me in more ways than one. I recently wrote a found poem using the words of Puddleglum, the Marsh-Wiggle in The Silver Chair.

For the longest time, I never read that book.

When I was a kid in the house where my family lived (for me, from the age of 5 - 10, the longest I lived anywhere until the home I have now), we owned The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

I was very familiar with that first book of the Narnia series, but we didn't own the other six books. For a while, I didn’t know there was more to the story.

At some point, when I was maybe seven or eight, a couple of my older siblings started borrowing them from the library. Of course, everything they did (and read), I wanted to do, too. So, I started reading the other books—at least, the ones available.

The thing about the early ‘90s is that I wasn't aware of interlibrary loans (if they did exist back then). So, I read some of the books over and over again. By the time I was 11 or 12, I was familiar with Prince Caspian and The Horse and His Boy.

And of course, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was my favorite.

I remember the wonder I felt reading the end of The Magician’s Nephew for the first time and discovering the magical connection between that story and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

But for some reason, the library we visited did not have The Silver Chair. I skipped over it time and again and read the other books repeatedly. It was a long time before I finally read that book in the Narnia Chronicles.

When I finally read The Silver Chair, I must have been 11 or 12. I was very excited but found myself frustrated while reading it.

I was a middle child, a girl who always tried to do exactly what I was supposed to do and get everything right … so these two characters—Jill and Eustace—frustrated me to no end.