I'd love to participate but I've started rereading Oliver Twist and that's going to take up all my reading time for a while. Looking forward to reading other Narniawebbers' thoughts on The Magician's Nephew though.

1. What are the themes of the book?

There are two themes that stand out to me. Looking at Digory at the start of the book verses the end of the book, he changes in substantial ways.

Posted by: @twigs

2. What scene or scenes are the most memorable to you and why?

I struggle with this question.

I first fell in love with The Magician's Nephew (and consequently the Chronicles of Narnia) when Digory and Polly had their adventure through the tunnel in the rafters where they were searching for the empty (and perhaps haunted) house beyond Digory's. Lewis does an excellent job of building the excitement as Digory and Polly silently make the journey anticipating what they will find.

The Wood between the Worlds is iconic. I always want to know more about it. (But then, nothing happens there - the trees just keep on growing, so what more is there to know?) It is so peaceful and ethereal and 'a place at rest'. (I can not wait to see it on the big screen - though can anything live up to the images Lewis evoked in our own imaginations).

Aunt Letty's encounter with Jadis is hilarious! The scene is full of contrasts. I picture Jadis as a young, beautiful, excessively proud, giant of a woman who is wearing some sort of exquisite and flamboyant, bright clothing that fits my stereotype of something between Medieval and Babylonian Royal fashion; Aunt Letty, I picture as a small, tough, humble, no-nonsense, middle-aged woman who is very down to earth and practical.  Of course neither can understand the other.  Of course Jadis resorts to physical violence with absolutely no awareness of just how improper her behavior is in English society.  And then Uncle Andrew is there to behave like the clumsy jester in the scene for further chaos.

The fight at the lamppost is brilliant for similar reasons to Aunt Letty's encounter with Jadis. When I read the passage, I hear the sound of Hanson's carriage wheels skidding on the pavement before the crash when it hits the lamppost. I see Jadis balancing on the roof and then crouching in anticipation of her leap while carriage is still leaning over, teetering its balance on one wheel before she gracefully leaps onto the back of Strawberry. Then the crowd appears behind them from (in my mind) around a bend in the street. Frank, as a kindly, gentle London cockney and the shell-shocked police again contrast to Jadis. It should be Jadis who is confused given that she is the fish-out-of-water in the scene, but she is so confident in her conquest of the world, that it is everyone else who seems out of place and unable to understand what is really going on here.

The encounter between Digory and Jadis in the garden is a wonderful climax. The scene is exciting and yet it is really only two people talking (yes, Jadis vaults over a high fence, but is is her words rather than her physical presence that is the threat in this scene). I am on the edge of my seat wondering if Digory will stand firm or if he would (quite understandably) give in and take the apple to his mother.

Whenever I read one of these scenes, it is - at that moment - my favorite scene in the book.  But I think my favorite scene is where Digory first speaks with Aslan. The moment when Digory finally looks up into Aslan's face is so tender.  When Digory sees that Aslan too is crying, it brings a tear of joy from my own face. There is something in this moment (similar to 'the Unwelcome Fellow Traveler scene from the Horse and His Boy) where I just find myself saying, "Yes! this is who Aslan is!" It doesn't surprise me that it is remembering this face that makes Digory later sure when he doubts if he did the right thing and it is this face that he remembers whenever he needs his hope rekindled.

Recently, Icarus had an interesting theory that Digory's line,

@Col-Klink

Line I would choose as my guiding star if I was adapting The Magician’s Nephew? Probably:

”What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.”

For me, there are two North Stars; or perhaps one North Star and an anti-North Star – I guess that would be a South Star (or a Southern Cross + two pointers; this analogy is breaking down fast, I should quit while I am behind). The anti-North Star would be the phrase “Ours is a high and lonely destiny” and the North Star that goes with it is “All get what they want; they do not always like it.”

That is the short answer.

Oh, and one more favorite part of the story: I love the bit where animals are trying to figure out whether Uncle Andrew is an animal or vegetable and then decide to make him their pet. It's beautiful to see their gentle affection for their pet that they are so fond of while Uncle Andrew is in constant terror!

And now for the longer version of my answer for those who can be bothered reading it 🙂

Uncle Andrew is incredibly selfish and justifies his actions by saying “Ours is a high and lonely destiny”. When we look at his actions, they're actually pretty diabolical.

Aunt Letty tries to protect Digory from Uncle Andrew:

“Well either he’s mad,” said Digory, “or there’s some other mystery. He has a study on the top floor and Aunt Letty says I must never go up there. Well, that looks fishy to begin with. And then there’s another thing. Whenever he tries to say anything to me at meal times—he never even tries to talk to her —she always shuts him up. She says, ‘Don’t worry the boy, Andrew’ or ‘I’m sure Digory doesn’t want to hear about that’ or else ‘Now, Digory, wouldn’t you like to go out and play in the garden?’”

It is not explicit at this point, but Uncle Andrew is trying to groom Digory to be a guinea-pig for his experiment. Uncle Andrew wants Digory in his study so that Digory can risk his life finding out where the rings take him. Once Uncle Andrew has Digory and Polly he shows that nothing is going to hinder him from making them take part in his' experiment:

... the very first thing Uncle Andrew did was to walk across to the door of the room, shut it, and turn the key in the lock. Then he turned round, fixed the children with his bright eyes, and smiled, showing all his teeth.

“There!” he said. “Now my fool of a sister can’t get at you!”

It was dreadfully unlike anything a grown-up would be expected to do. Polly’s heart came into her mouth, and she and Digory started backing toward the little door they had come in by. Uncle Andrew was too quick for them. He got behind them and shut that door too and stood in front of it. ...

“I am delighted to see you,” he said. “Two children are just what I wanted.”

“Please, Mr. Ketterley,” said Polly. “It’s nearly my dinner time and I’ve got to go home. Will you let us out, please?”

“Not just yet,” said Uncle Andrew. “This is too good an opportunity to miss. I wanted two children. You see, I’m in the middle of a great experiment. I’ve tried it on a guinea-pig and it seemed to work. But then a guinea-pig can’t tell you anything. And you can’t explain to it how to come back.”

“Look here, Uncle Andrew,” said Digory, “it really is dinner time and they’ll be looking for us in a moment. You must let us out.”

“Must?” said Uncle Andrew.

Uncle Andrew sees Digory and Polly as just more pawns for his experiment, he is not the least troubled that he endangers their lives. And it is in this context that he justifies all his actions by saying 'ours is a high and lonely destiny”:

“But what’s happened to Polly?”

“Congratulate me, my dear boy,” said Uncle Andrew, rubbing his hands. “My experiment has succeeded. The little girl’s gone—vanished—right out of the world.”

“What have you done to her?”

“Sent her to—well—to another place.”

…

“But look here, what has all this got to do with Polly? I do wish you’d—”

“All in good time, my boy,” said Uncle Andrew.

…

That promise I did not keep.”

“Well, then, it was jolly rotten of you,” said Digory.

“Rotten?” said Uncle Andrew with a puzzled look. “Oh, I see. You mean that little boys ought to keep their promises. Very true: most right and proper, I’m sure, and I’m very glad you have been taught to do it. But of course you must understand that rules of that sort, however excellent they may be for little boys—and servants—and women—and even people in general, can’t possibly be expected to apply to profound students and great thinkers and sages. No, Digory. Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny.”

…

“I bet she was a bad fairy,” thought Digory; and added out loud, “But what about Polly?”

“How you do harp on that!” said Uncle Andrew. “As if that was what mattered!

…

“I knew,” he went on, “that if only you could get it into the right form, that dust would draw you back to the place it had come from. But the difficulty was to get it into the right form. My earlier experiments were all failures. I tried them on guinea-pigs. Some of them only died. Some exploded like little bombs—”

“It was a jolly cruel thing to do,” said Digory who had once had a guinea-pig of his own.

“How do you keep getting off the point!” said Uncle Andrew. “That’s what the creatures were for. I’d bought them myself. Let me see—where was I?

…

“And what about them?” said Digory. “A nice mess they’d be in if they couldn’t get back!”

“You will keep on looking at everything from the wrong point of view,” said Uncle Andrew with a look of impatience. “Can’t you understand that the thing is a great experiment? The whole point of sending anyone into the Other Place is that I want to find out what it’s like.”

“Well why didn’t you go yourself then?”

Digory had hardly ever seen anyone look so surprised and offended as his Uncle did at this simple question. “Me? Me?” he exclaimed. “The boy must be mad! A man at my time of life, and in my state of health, to risk the shock and the dangers of being flung suddenly into a different universe? I never heard anything so preposterous in my life! Do you realize what you’re saying? Think what Another World means—you might meet anything—anything.”

“And I suppose you’ve sent Polly into it then,” said Digory.

…
“I was going to tell you, when you so rudely interrupted me,” said Uncle Andrew, “that I did at last find out a way of doing the return journey. The green rings draw you back.”

“But Polly hasn’t got a green ring.”

“No,” said Uncle Andrew with a cruel smile.

“Then she can’t get back,” shouted Digory. “And it’s exactly the same as if you’d murdered her.”

“She can get back,” said Uncle Andrew, “if someone else will go after her, wearing a yellow ring himself and taking two green rings, one to bring himself back and one to bring her back.”

And now of course Digory saw the trap in which he was caught: and he stared at Uncle Andrew, saying nothing, with his mouth wide open. His cheeks had gone very pale.

…

Jadis too sees people as only instruments for her work. She is utterly selfish and lacks any empathy. She too proudly boasts of her abuses of others by saying 'ours is a high and lonely destiny':

... She paused and added, “All in one moment one woman blotted it out forever.”

“Who?” said Digory in a faint voice; but he had already guessed the answer.

“I” said the Queen. “I, Jadis, the last Queen, but the Queen of the World.”

...

“It had long been known to the great kings of our race that there was a word which, if spoken with the proper ceremonies, would destroy all living things except the one who spoke it. But the ancient kings were weak and soft-hearted and bound themselves and all who should come after them with great oaths never even to seek after the knowledge of that word. But I learned it in a secret place and paid a terrible price to learn it. I did not use it until she forced me to it. I fought to overcome her by every other means. I poured out the blood of my armies like water—”

“Beast!” muttered Polly.

“The last great battle,” said the Queen, “raged for three days here in Charn itself. For three days I looked down upon it from this very spot. I did not use my power till the last of my soldiers had fallen, ... She flashed her horrible, wicked eyes upon me and said, ‘Victory.’ ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘Victory, but not yours.’ Then I spoke the Deplorable Word. A moment later I was the only living thing beneath the sun.”

“But the people?” gasped Digory.

“What people, boy?” asked the Queen.

“All the ordinary people,” said Polly, “who’d never done you any harm. And the women, and the children, and the animals.”

“Don’t you understand?” said the Queen (still speaking to Digory). “I was the Queen. They were all my people. What else were they there for but to do my will?”

“It was rather hard luck on them, all the same,” said he.

“I had forgotten that you are only a common boy. How should you understand reasons of State? You must learn, child, that what would be wrong for you or for any of the common people is not wrong in a great Queen such as I. The weight of the world is on our shoulders. We must be freed from all rules. Ours is a high and lonely destiny.”

…

She paused for a moment to look once more at the deserted city—and if she was sorry for all the evil she had done there, she certainly didn’t show it—and then said: “Now, let us be going. It is cold here at the end of all the ages.”

“Going where?” asked both the children.

“Where?” repeated Jadis in surprise. “To your world, of course.”

…

“It will soon be worth seeing when I rule it,” answered the Queen.

“Oh, but you can’t,” said Digory. “It’s not like that. They wouldn’t let you, you know.”

The Queen gave a contemptuous smile. “Many great kings,” she said, “thought they could stand against the House of Charn. But they all fell, and their very names are forgotten. Foolish boy! Do you think that I, with my beauty and my Magic, will not have your whole world at my feet before a year has passed? Prepare your incantations and take me there at once.”

…

When Digory encounters the bell and hammer in the hall of images in Charn, he inadvertently behaves much like Uncle Andrew and Jadis. Like Uncle Andrew, Digory is wants knowledge (he wants to know what will happen if he strikes the bell):

Digory made rather a fuss about agreeing to this, but he had to in the end because Polly absolutely refused to do any exploring in new worlds until she had made sure about getting back to the old one. She was quite as brave as he about some dangers (wasps, for instance) but she was not so interested in finding out things nobody had ever heard of before; for Digory was the sort of person who wants to know everything, and when he grew up he became the famous Professor Kirke who comes into other books.

...

“Oh but don’t you see it’s no good!” said Digory.“We can’t get out of it now. We shall always be wondering what else would have happened if we had struck the bell. I’m not going home to be driven mad by always thinking of that. No fear!”“

Don’t be so silly,” said Polly. “As if anyone would! What does it matter what would have happened?”

“I expect anyone who’s come as far as this is bound to go on wondering till it sends him dotty. That’s the Magic of it, you see. I can feel it beginning to work on me already.”

In the hall of images, Digory treats Polly merely as an obstacle to what he wants to get done. Just like Jadis had killed all the people so that she could have 'victory' over her sister, Digory hurts Jill's arm to stop her using her ring and so that he can strike the bell. Because of Digory's selfish actions Jadis briefly tries to rule over our world as she had in Charn and Narnia was subjected to a 1000 year winter. He might not say “Mine is a high and lonely destiny”, but he is hurting others for his own selfish pursuit:

“None of that!” said Digory in a voice even nastier than he meant it to be; for he saw Polly’s hand moving to her pocket to get hold of her yellow ring. I can’t excuse what he did next except by saying that he was very sorry for it afterward (and so were a good many other people). Before Polly’s hand reached her pocket, he grabbed her wrist, leaning across her with his back against her chest. Then, keeping her other arm out of the way with his other elbow, he leaned forward, picked up the hammer, and struck the golden bell alight, smart tap. Then he let her go and they fell apart staring at each other and breathing hard. Polly was just beginning to cry, not with fear, and not even because he had hurt her wrist quite badly, but with furious anger.

Digory is following the same pattern as Jadis and Uncle Andrew.

Later, before Aslan, Digory encounters a different 'high and lonely destiny':

“You see, friends,” he said, “that before the new, clean world I gave you is seven hours old, a force of evil has already entered it; waked and brought hither by this son of Adam.” The Beasts, even Strawberry, all turned their eyes on Digory till he felt that he wished the ground would swallow him up.“But do not be cast down,” said Aslan, still speaking to the Beasts. “Evil will come of that evil, but it is still a long way off, and I will see to it that the worst falls upon myself. ...”

Aslan does never says that he has a high and lonely destiny. He shows no pride. Where Uncle Andrew and Jadis boast of a high and lonely destiny – for which they are willing to hurt and sacrifice everyone else to get what they want, Aslan does not boast, he merely accepts his high and lonely destiny in which he will suffer for others (as we see in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe).

Aslan does not treat Digory as a pawn for his own ends. Although Aslan sends Digory on a quest (just like Andrew sent Digory to the wood between the worlds), it is clear that Aslan cares about Digory and that both Digory and Digory's problems matter to Aslan:

Up till then he had been looking at the Lion’s great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself.

“My son, my son,” said Aslan. “I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet. Let us be good to one another. ...”

In the Garden Digory has to choose whether to follow Aslan's example or Jadis and Uncle Andrew's example. Digory desperately wants to save his mother's life. It would be a high and lonely destiny for Digory to steal an apple (and also abandon the mission which Aslan had sent Digory on) to save his mother's life. But it would also be a 'high and lonely destiny' like that of Aslan's to follow his mission to protect this new world from the Witch and to suffer the grief and consequences of doing the right thing. And what is Digory to do?

“But what about this Mother of yours whom you pretend to love so?”

“What’s she got to do with it?” said Digory.

“Do you not see, Fool, that one bite of that apple would heal her? You have it in your pocket. We are here by ourselves and the Lion is far away. Use your Magic and go back to your own world. A minute later you can be at your Mother’s bedside, giving her the fruit. Five minutes later you will see the color coming back to her face. She will tell you the pain is gone. Soon she will tell you she feels stronger. Then she will fall asleep—think of that; hours of sweet natural sleep, without pain, without drugs. Next day everyone will be saying how wonderfully she has recovered. Soon she will be quite well again. All will be well again. Your home will be happy again. You will be like other boys.”

“Oh!” gasped Digory as if he had been hurt, and put his hand to his head. For he now knew that the most terrible choice lay before him.

The other line that is a North Star is “All get what they want; they do not always like it.”

Aslan speaks this line about the witch:

“So we thought, Aslan,” she said, “that there must be some mistake, and she can’t really mind the smell of those apples.”

“Why do you think that, Daughter of Eve?” asked the Lion.

“Well, she ate one.”

“Child,” he replied, “that is why all the rest are now a horror to her. That is what happens to those who pluck and eat fruits at the wrong time and in the wrong way. The fruit is good, but they loathe it ever after.”

“Oh I see,” said Polly. “And I suppose because she took it in the wrong way it won’t work for her. I mean it won’t make her always young and all that?”

“Alas,” said Aslan, shaking his head. “It will. Things always work according to their nature. She has won her heart’s desire; she has unwearying strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it.”

This is the Witch's lot. Even in ruling Narnia for a 1000 year Winter, she is living in her own prison. Even in Charn, she is already living a miserable, lonely life without any real friends or loved ones.

Uncle Andrew has a similar (though much more comical) experience. He wants to be a great magician, discovering new worlds. And yet, when he gets his wish it is a horrific experience for him:

Uncle Andrew, coughing and spluttering, picked himself up.

“Now, Digory,” he said, “we’ve got rid of that woman, and the brute of a lion is gone. Give me your hand and put on your ring at once.”

...

“No fear,” said Digory. “We want to stay and see what happens. I thought you wanted to know about other worlds. Don’t you like it now you’re here?”

“Like it!” exclaimed Uncle Andrew. “Just look at the state I’m in. And it was my best coat and waistcoat, too.”

…

“Bring out that creature,” said Aslan. One of the Elephants lifted Uncle Andrew in its trunk and laid him at the Lion’s feet. He was too frightened to move.

“Please, Aslan,” said Polly, “could you say something to—to unfrighten him? And then could you say something to prevent him from ever coming back here again?”

“Do you think he wants to?” said Aslan.

“Well, Aslan,” said Polly, “he might send someone else. He’s so excited about the bar off the lamp-post growing into a lamp-post tree and he thinks—”

“He thinks great folly, child,” said Aslan. … But I cannot tell that to this old sinner, and I cannot comfort him either; he has made himself unable to hear my voice. If I spoke to him, he would hear only growlings and roarings. Oh Adam’s sons,how cleverly you defend yourselves against all that might do you good! But I will give him the only gift he is still able to receive.”

Digory too has to face this reality in regards to his own choice too:

“... And the Witch tempted you to do another thing, my son, did she not?”

“Yes, Aslan. She wanted me to take an apple home to Mother.”

“Understand, then, that it would have healed her; but not to your joy or hers. The day would have come when both you and she would have looked back and said it would have been better to die in that illness.”

Again it is Aslan who chooses to suffer for what he wants and very much likes the result. (But that is more about the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe).