Review: The Last Battle

I’ll start with a confession, which seems fitting given the content of The Last Battle. It hasn’t been until this most recent re-read that I realized – I don’t really like this book. It’s sad. It’s grim. It’s weird. It’s a story about how all our main characters die and the fantasy world we’ve adored is utterly destroyed. And no, all that talk about how it was just the Shadowlands; a dim reflection of the true glory of heaven doesn’t cut it – because that’s not where I spent the last six books.

Review: The Magician's Nephew

Despite the recent(ish) reordering of the books’ sequencing, there’s no doubt that The Magician’s Nephew was written as a prequel and intended to be read as such. Not just because it references events from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in such a way that it assumes the reader is already familiar with that particular text, but because it basis a lot of its plot on the appeal that only prequels can provide.

Some might say that prequels undercut the sense of suspense any story might otherwise have, simply because the reader already knows (at least in broad strokes) how it all works out. And sure, I never feared for Digory’s safety (who after all, appears as Professor Kirke in other books) in the same way I get anxious for Eustace and Jill in The Silver Chair.

Review: The Horse and His Boy

If The Silver Chair was a book of firsts (first three-dimensional female protagonist, first non-related boy/girl pairing, first story that didn’t rely on Aslan as a deus ex machina) then The Horse and His Boy is a book of onlys. This the only book in the series to take place entirely within the world of Narnia, the only book to include a romance, however slight, between its two protagonists, and the only book that exists as a “midquel”, taking place as it does within the Golden Age of the Pevensie reign as briefly mentioned in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.

Unlike The Lion or Prince Caspian, whose narratives revolved around putting the rightful monarchs on the throne, or The Silver Chair, which is a straightforward quest, or Dawn Treader, a voyage of discovery, The Horse and His Boy is an escape/identity story, in which Narnia is the destination, not the setting. The attempt that Shasta and Bree take to reach Narnia safely provides the book’s catchphrase “Narnia and the North!” though this plot is hijacked about halfway through when our protagonists stumble onto a political plot that threatens the safety of Narnia and its neighbour Archenland.

Review: The Silver Chair

I was looking forward to getting to The Silver Chair as it was actually my very first foray into Narnia. Since as long as I can remember I’ve owned the (disappointingly abridged) audiobook, and in re-reading it, I could still hear the narrator’s voice in my head and the voices he put on for the different characters. There’s even a good chance that somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain it’s the story’s vivid descriptions of caves and tunnels and darkness that sparked my problems with claustrophobia.

My point is that although I read all the Narnia books in childhood, The Silver Chair is the one that I came to so early that I have no memory of discovering it for the first time. The dying king, the four signs, the desolate moor, the Harfang giants, the gloomy subterranean network, the enchanted prince – I’ve always had these images in my head.

Review: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

One thing that C.S. Lewis is to be commended on is that he never told the same story twice. It’s odd to think it, but only three of the seven Narnia books take place predominantly in Narnia. The others involve other countries across different time periods, with protagonists who had vastly different goals, motivations, and reasons for being there. Adventure stories, quest narratives, rescue missions, fairytales – each book is vastly different in its structure and content, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is possibly the most different of all.

With Peter studying with Professor Kirke and Susan in America with the Pevensie parents (this, by the way, is the first time the last names of Pevensie and Kirke are mentioned), Edmund and Lucy are stuck with Uncle Harold and Aunt Alberta in Cambridge – which wouldn’t be so bad except that they’re also saddled with their cousin Eustace Scubb.

Review: Prince Caspian

Thanks to a bargain bin at my local bookstore, Prince Caspian (along with The Horse and His Boy and The Magician’s Nephew) is one of the three Narnia books I owned as a child, and which I’ve consequently read many more times than the remaining four books (though I had The Silver Chair on audiotape). So it holds a special place in my head-library of nostalgic childhood reads, even though it’s arguably the weakest book in the series.

The structure of the story is the most unusual element of the book: the Pevensie siblings are waiting for a train to take them to school when they're pulled out of their own world and onto a sandy shoreline. They explore, they find a ruined castle, and they realize that though this is Narnia, several hundred years have passed since their last visit. They have spent only a year in England, but (according to this time line) thirteen hundred years gone by since the Pevensies reigned in Cair Paravel. Everything drips with loss and nostalgia.

Review: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (Part III)

Okay, so I’ve made a long-winded argument as to why I think The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a fairy tale and not a fantasy or religious allegory, and I’ve spoken at length on Edmund’s portrayal in both the book and the 2005 film. I promise my re-reads of the following six books will not be this verbose (I don’t think I could manage it even if I wanted to), but here are the rest of my assorted observations.

Review: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (Part II)

WWII and Edmund’s Motivation...

If anyone follows me on Tumblr, they’ll know that whenever I post something Pevensie related, I tag it with the phrase “my favourite Pevensie is the one I’m looking at.” I’m a fan of all four characters, and it’s impossible to decide which one I enjoy the most.

When I was younger, Lucy was my favourite character. When I got a bit older, I realized that I was totally Susan. Peter (let’s be honest here) is rather dull, and yet - as though in compensation - gets to do all the cool heroic stuff. But Edmund...well, the more you read these books, the more interesting Edmund becomes.  

Review: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardobe (Part I)

I was planning this review to be a well-structured and organized essay on the lasting appeal of C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, one that examined character and theme, context and legacy, all in an orderly and chronological fashion.

Well, it’s not that. This is more of a grab-bag of ideas and observations.