Bookworm by Lucy Mangan

Yes of course. Lucy says something to Aslan about how he has changed and he says it's because she's a year older (so not her first visit!)

And then actually I think it's Peter and Susan who don't believe he is there this time and Edmund can't see him but kind of believes because he's like, OK, I can't see him but you can Lucy, so let's tell the others (so he is kind of redeemed here after being so sly in TLTWATW).

Phew. Collective remembering!

So if we take Narnia as the canon, we can say that all those things Mangan mentioned DID happen, but not necessarily in her remembered order.

And considering LWW was the first published book, but chronologically Magician's Nephew is first, we can probably forgive her because it is quite a muddle this Narnia time!

You’re right. And Edmund sees him next and pretends not to. It’s one of the moments when Lewis does ‘nastyish sibling interaction’ stuff rather well.

Damn it, I had no intention of rereading the Narnia books (of which The Silver Chair is my favourite!) or Bookworm, but I may have to now.

I think she's got the plot mixed up with Prince Caspian - in that there's a bit where at first only Lucy can see Aslan and she has to persuade the others to go with her, then later Aslan becomes visible to all of them.

Reading is subjective yes. Confidently asserting a plot inaccurately is not subjective. It is misremembering and, while it may not be intentional it is factually wrong.

I don't think the author got it wrong. As you say, reading is subjective. I think, subjectively, her summary is a perfectly legitimate reading and it was the most relevant summary in context. But it's okay that you don't like it.

The mistake that infuriated me in children's literature 'really???' moments was a women being interviewed on Radio 4 who had written a musical based on Malory Towers, and referred to the 'five books' it was based on. That was a real shocker.

Fair enough.
But a) reading is subjective and b)there are thousands of brilliant books out there that don’t have careless errors in that I can go an enjoy instead
Each to their own.
Bottom line, the author got it wrong. Some people will find that annoying.

(Actually I think when Lucy first hears Aslan's name she think of summer holidays never ending, or something like that, which is an excellent image of the very best thing a child could wish for - with always winter but never Christmas being the worst).

Her paragraph (p 134 in Bookworm is):

On her first visit, Lucy meets a talking lion called Aslan who fills her heart with love and she promises that she will return to help him. But her brothers and sister do not believe her (though Edmund is lying.....)and she almost has to go on without them. At the last minute Aslan becomes visible to them.....'

But the children all meet Aslan together (apart from Edmund who's buggered off in search of that Turkish Delight). So Lucy doesn't promise to come back and help him because they are already there. Yes, her siblings don't believe her, but that's about Narnia in general (because she says Edmund has also been and he's all like, what no, I never).

In fact, Peter is the first to approach Aslan, not Lucy. I dunno, I think these are all pretty big plot points to get wrong.

It's interesting actually in the Narnia section, Mangan is making the point that although the books 'sneak in the God stuff', not to worry because 'no child has or will be converted to Christianity through reading about Cair Paravel...fauns and all the rest. If they notice at all '

and yet her remembered reading focuses not on the iconic scene where Lucy meets a faun, but on the rather more overarching image of Aslan filling Lucy's heart with love, which is Lewis's most literal Christian message.

No. But I enjoyed it very much. And I have no patience with “I think you’ll find…”ers.

You seem very invested in this thread @CurlewKate Do you know the author?

If anyone rejects this book(or Bookish)because of some crap sub editing, they are a human definition of cutting off your nose to spite your face. And, frankly, a bit ridiculous.

She needs to change lion for fawn and then that makes sense.

For me, a mistake in a published book isn't a dealbreaker. To err is human as Seneca said. Or in the words of Horace, 'Sometimes even good Homer nods.' @ImaginedCorners 's anecdote reminds me that I've seen far worse errors in published, peer-reviewed academic articles. In the worst cases, I raise my eyebrows and think the author and editors should have done their research better, but most of the time, the errors are trivial and clearly just a momentary mental lapse.

Even the error I spotted in Bookish about the Inklings didn't worry me much; I just thought, hmm, so the Inklings aren't her specialty then. If you want to see a truly awful error, then take the famous instance where Naomi Wolf misunderstood the legal term 'death recorded' and used it to form the incorrect premise of an entire book. THAT was an indicator of shoddy scholarship and multiple people should have been embarrassed about it, including the academics who examined the Oxford DPhil the book was based on. But Lucy Mangan getting mixed up about Narnia visits? I can see how it would be irksome for loyal Narnia fans, but I don't think it undermines her integrity. She has demonstrably read many, many books, and she's misremembered a couple of details.

The whole point of Bookworm and Bookish is that we should read for joy and comfort, and I interpreted the books themselves in that spirit.

Then again, there is no pedant like a reader who knows a book well and hears someone else say something WRONG about it. The horror! 😂

Nope, don’t buy it. Look at the whole sentence.

On her first visit, Lucy meets a talking lion called Aslan who fills her heart with love and she promises that she will return to help him"

I think everyone's misreading that quote out of context. It's discussing how children don't spot the Christian allegories in Narnia on the first go. In that context it's perfectly acceptable to say 'she meets a talking lion who fills her with love', so the focus has to be on Aslan because he is the relevant bit, and Mr Tumnus and the beavers are by the by. And I think it is Lucy Pevensie's first visit if you read the whole of TLTWATW as one continuous visit, which I think is a valid reading because there's no time jump when they nip back home in the intervals.

Now, that IS unforgivable.

I have enjoyed Lucy Mangan’s books, but I (and others on MN) noticed that she also made a mistake in her latest one Bookish. She called the old man in the Adrian Mole books Bert Digweed instead of Bert Baxter.

I seem to have opened a can of worms!
Bottom line is I was really enjoying the book up until that point. As I said earlier TLTWATW was such a huge favourite of mine as a child that it really touched a nerve and yes it did ruin the book.
Reading is subjective and, no, I don’t find it hard to ‘read anything’ as a previous poster suggested. In fact I read a lot, probably some of those have errors in but pass me by because I don’t have the required knowledge.
But when an error is obvious it does annoy me. Each of us have our reading red flags and this is one of mine. If other people don’t feel the same way that’s fine.

Anyway! I have truly said all I can say, I'm off to read the damn thing now :>

The quote referenced 'some posters' - including but not only you @mylovedoesitgood .

One poster said: The whole premise and indeed title is that she is a Bookworm. Inaccuracy, in my opinion, and only my opinion, brings that into doubt.
With the implication being that LM wasn't a bookworm.

Another poster said: And yes- made me wonder if the rest of Mangan's book was genuine.
And another said: but you do question how much of a devoted reader she really was. And then that leads you to question everything else in her book, what a shame.
Both of which imply lies or pretence.

I would have read it and thought it was a slip up and it was meant to say a talking faun called Mr Tumnus. Don't think it would have given me the rage

Some posters appear to think LM is pretending to have been a voracious childhood reader for the purposes of selling a book, when in fact she’s skimmed the Spark Notes guide to children’s writing, and her error about which visit Lucy met Aslan on is a ‘Gotcha!’ which proves she has not only not read TLTWATW, but probably hasn’t read anything much, ever.

I said it’s a possibility she lied. Also, I never said she wasn’t a voracious reader.

I wrote something recently about The Archers. I got Lawrence and Leonard mixed up. Any Archer’s fans will know what a heinous error that was.!

Having thought about it, maybe I was being unfair to Lucy M. Memory can work in unexpected ways after all, especially when it's a recollection of something you experienced (or read) many decades ago. So it's unfair to suggest that she might not have read all the books mentioned.

However I still think it was a bit lazy of her not to check her facts before submitting her manuscript or whatever writers do.