I finished reading C.S. Lewis’ Magician’s Nephew (book 6 of the Chronicles of Narnia) on an airplane returning from a business trip this week. I had been reading Milton’s Paradise Lost at the same time. C.S. Lewis was quite familiar with Paradise Lost: he wrote a book about it called Preface to Paradise Lost, which I will be reading next. It did not occur to me when I started reading them that they both deal with the same issues, creation and the origin of evil, but reading them together proved to be enlightening. Lewis’ book is clearly influenced by Milton’s. One of the most striking details to me was the way Satan and Jadis both leap over the wall into the garden of Paradise. Amazon »