The Chronicles of Narnia - The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis

First published in 1956.

Narnia . . . where you must say good-bye . . . and where the adventure begins again.

The Unicorn says that humans are brought to Narnia when Narnia is stirred and upset. And Narnia is in trouble now: A false Aslan roams the land. Narnia’s only hope is that Eustace and Jill, old friends to Narnia, will be able to find the true Aslan and restore peace to the land. Their task is a difficult one because, as the Centaur says, “The stars never lie, but Men and Beasts do.” Who is the real Aslan and who is the impostor?

This one officially comes in a close second to THAHB. I was going ‘oh no’ for a good half of the book when the shiesty ape came into power and enslaved all the talking animals and, essentially, destroyed Narnia. But all good things must come to an end, right?

The will of the king and the children to fight in the face of adversity is provoking and encouraging. To stand up for what you believe in when so many people are ready to slaughter you for it is beyond bravery.

What kept this book from being my favorite was one pretty minor thing towards the end of the book. Aslan states something along the lines of the good in the world is answered by him and the bad is answered by Tash, the nasty bird-headed god of Calormen. Yeah, not liking that “I’m the best god in the universe and all the rest of them are shit” statement. Yeah, yeah, at least he doesn’t make that god nonexistent but seeing as Aslan makes himself to me the only “good” god, that didn’t sit right with me and my non-church self.

I also spent a good part of the book trying to connect the allegorical dots. Now my education when it comes to all things churchy is pretty much nonexistent. I know the basics and that’s about it. Who are the Calormens supposed to represent? I’ve wanted to say those of Islamic faith since THAHB but considering the animal-headed god, I also want to say Egyptian but the clothes and actions aren’t necessarily matching up.

It was a really good book. The ending was nice and well-rounded but I don’t understand the reason for Susan’s outcast. So, essentially, all of them went to Narnia after they died (heaven) and Susan gets left behind because she likes lipstick? She lost faith in Narnia? She doesn’t get to heaven because she thought it was all a dream? Granted I was upset to read that she’d switched her beliefs in the land but did she not serve as she was supposed to? Apparently that’s just not enough. Aslan’s an all or nothing type of lion. And the more I think about this, the angrier I get. As if Lewis is saying if you be a dumb little girl and get caught up on boys and make-up, you'll be denied entrance to heaven. Nice. Not liking that one either.

And one thing that’s been really bugging me, what the deuce is up with thirst and these books? The characters are always thirsty and looking for water to drink, even in the most inopportune moments. Here Eustace was in the middle of battle and complaining to himself about how thirsty he was. Why? I don’t get the significance and why it’s so prominent in all of the books. It got to a point where I thought it was just filler, something else for them to do but I have no idea. It was just so prevalent and at the same time so pointless.

It was a nice end to the series, though, despite its flaws and religious lessons. By this book you’re so entrenched and feeling for Narnia that when it’s destroyed you feel its loss as well.

The Chronicles of Narnia - The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis

First published in 1953.

Narnia . . where owls are wise, where some of the giants like to snack on humans, where a prince is put under an evil spell . . . and where the adventure begins.

Eustace and Jill escape from the bullies at school through a strange door in the wall, which, for once, is unlocked. It leads to the open moor . . . or does it? Once again Aslan has a task for the children, and Narnia needs them. Through dangers untold and caverns deep and dark, they pursue the quest that brings them face to face with the evil Witch. She must be defeated if Prince Rillian is to be saved.

Redemption! Yeah, this one was good. Still not as good as THAHB but definitely much better than PC and VotDT combined. Aslan kept himself to a minimum and the children were thoroughly tortured by the elements, giants, another witch and a slew of other things. Fun!

My inner feminist reared her ugly head at the whole “witch is the snake that corrupts man” homage but I just kept thinking that it was of the times. Biblical references. Calm down. Still, the insinuation irked me. As is Lewis’s ability to let women stand by and let men do all the fighting. *breathe*

Anyway, this fairy tale was much more fleshed out, no deus ex machina that I can remember and I really enjoyed it. I saw the issue with the giants at the first mention of “they’d love to have you for the Autumn Harvest” but that’s really the only thing I saw in advance. I’m not one of those perceptive people that sees things like that. At least, I don’t actively look. So if I see something like that, I think I’m being beaten over the head with it. But that’s just me.

The thing with reviewing series, unless there’s a big dip in writing style or some drastic change, the reviews start to get redundant unless I focus on the story itself and even then it’s either I liked it or I didn’t. So, I’m pretty short on things to say aside from “go read nao.” Oh, I cried at the end. Very sad. I was hoping the old friends would see each other one last time. And the very end, back at the school, a little strange and a touch contrived but it was so minor I really didn’t mind. Loved the underground world. That was probably my favorite part.

The Chronicles of Narnia - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

First published in 1952.

Narnia . . . where anything can happen (and most often does) . . . and where the adventure begins.

The Dawn Treader is the first ship Narnia has seen in centuries. King Caspian has built it for his voyage to find the seven lords, good men whom his evil uncle Miraz banished when he usurped the throne. The journey takes Edmund, Lucy, their cousin Eustace, and Caspian to the Eastern Islands, beyond the Silver Sea, toward Aslan’s country at the End of the World.

Eh. I was nonplussed with this one. A cool story but it was kind of scattered and I’m really starting to see the deux ex machina moments that Lewis uses via Aslan and his actions in the stories. All it seems the children have to do is wish upon an Aslan and something comes along to help them out. It’s getting a little tiresome.

I understand the story is supposed to be scattered all over the place since the children are island hopping but I think because each incident at each island was rounded out so nicely that it was more noticeable for me. I guess I just wasn’t as enchanted with this story as I was with the previous ones. THAHB is still my favorite in the series at this point and I think Eustace really irked me to the point of not enjoying this one and wanting to drown him in the ocean they were sailing on. He was a pain in the ass. I would have liked to seen him change (character, not shape) as opposed to getting told he was a different person after the dragon thing but such is this and the rest of the stories.

And Aslan appearing to the children as a lamb . . . even I think that’s getting beaten over the head with the Jesus references. Not to mention him saying that he’s known by another name in our world and the children will have to know him by that name. Hmmm . . . is it Horatio? Not that that’s a bad thing but the religious references are becoming more and more obvious as the series goes on.

Eh is what I have to say about this one. I guess every series is going to have its lulls.

The Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis

First published in 1951.

Narnia . . . the land between the lamp-post and the castle of Cair Paravel, where animals talk, where magical things happen . . . and where the adventure begins.

Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are returning to boarding school when they are summoned from the dreary train station (by Susan’s own magic horn) to return to the land of Narnia - the land where they had ruled as kings and queens and where their help is desperately needed.

Don’t get me wrong. I liked this book. I really did. But compared to the others I just found it kind of lackluster and a little unfocused. The book is called Prince Caspian but the emphasis didn’t seem to be on him; it was on the children and how they saved the day. I was expecting something a long the lines of the life and times of Prince Caspian, or something like that. The history that we do get of him is passively told for a couple of chapters (which was interesting nonetheless) and everything else was about the re-emergence of Old Narnia.

Prince Caspian was definitely more of a secondary character than the focus of the book. It almost seemed that he was just fodder for another adventure for the children which was kind of irritating. I was sad at the end, however, when we’re told that Peter and Susan were getting too old to travel back and forth between the real world and Narnia. Very Peter Pan moment right there.

Overall I guess I wasn’t as impressed with this one as I was with the others. It is a little disheartening to go into something thinking you’re getting one thing and get something else. Like I said, it wasn’t bad by any means. It’s still a fantastic story but I think the power of a title comes into play here. If the title of the book is Prince Caspian, I expect him to be the main focus of the story, not a secondary plot line.

The Chronicles of Narnia - The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis

First published in 1954.

Narnia . . . where horses talk and hermits like company, where evil men turn into donkeys, where boys go into battle . . . and where the adventure begins.

During the Golden Age of Narnia, when Peter is High King, a boy named Shasta discovers he is not the son of Arsheesh, the Calormene fisherman, and decides to run far away to the North - to Narnia. When he is mistaken for another runaway, Shasta is led to discover who he really is and even finds his real father.

This is my favorite book in the series so far. I loved the imagery and the story that’s being told here and the will that this this weak little boy (because that’s what he really is) does have. I can picture almost an Egyptian-like feel to the world that Shasta’s in, and I really don’t think that’s unintentional.

As someone that’s as nonreligious as they come, even I picked up on the Moses in the reeds homage this story paid. I knew going in that CS Lewis had some heavy Christian themes in his Narnia series. I guess it goes right along with write what you know, right? At least he did something different with it. He was given an image to color and it looked like one that everyone else had. He just used different crayons.

I would have liked to have seen some more of Bree, though. He seemed to have a pretty big conflict towards the end of the story, with his dignity and walking back into his land a relative stranger. The story certainly hops around enough that that could have been a possibility to have in there instead of just a passing mention of what he did with his life at the very end. That part just seemed to be left hanging and, really, it was the only part that left me a little unfulfilled.

I liked the integration of the original children (well, the LWW children, anyway) into this very different tale. Being someone that’s pretty unfamiliar with The Chronicles of Narnia, I like how they’re used as sort of fishing wire to string the stories together, even at the very end of The Magician’s Nephew (although that would be only if you were even remotely familiar with LWW).

Overall, an excellent book and I can’t wait to keep plowing through the series.

The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

First published in 1950.

Narnia . . . the land beyond the wardrobe, the secret country known only to Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy . . . the place where the adventure begins.

Lucy is the first to find the secret of the wardrobe in the professor’s mysterious old house. At first, no one believes her when she tells of her adventures in the land of Narnia. But soon Edmund and then Peter and Susan discover the Magic and meet Aslan, the Great Lion, for themselves. In the blink of an eye, their lives are changed forever.

You know, I can’t help but question whether a book like this would be published today. There’s a lot of telling, not so much showing, a lot of action is skimmed over and it’s very obviously a religious allegory (not that that would make it ineligible for publication). I couldn’t help but think that as I read it but at the same time I couldn’t help but think just how magical the story actually is.

Compare the circumstances to other works now and you don’t have all that much that is original but then, back in 1950, this was the epitome of original. There was nothing else like this story except for facetious fairy tales that carried very little depth. This was the basis for portals and other worlds and magical creatures that authors today either consciously or subconsciously pull from for their own stories. So no, it’s not original today but it is the very reason it’s not original today, because it was so original and magical then that it was bound to spurn derivatives.

This is a classic fairy tale despite the obvious Jesus references (if I could find that YouTube video, I’ll post it, with Aslan as Jesus). It’s light and airy and the kind that, obviously without me saying it, will stand the test of time for many more years to come. The children are eternally relatable , their wishes are forever there in the reader, to escape to a magic land and become king or queen. There’s nothing in there that couldn’t appeal to anyone, at any time, reading it.

When comparing this book to something like Stardust by Neil Gaiman, I think the voice of Narnia just stands out. This was Lewis’s voice. He was born to write these types of fantastical stories in the style of an age-old fairy tale. While Gaiman’s idea for Stardust was on the level of awesome, the voice just wasn’t right. There was a sort of force there, a trying too hard. I use Gaiman as an example because (aside from the fact that I can’t think of any other authors that have tried to write like this) he’s a magnificent writer and writes amazing stories. Stardust was an experiment for him, not his usual voice so it’s not chalked up to him not being able to write. That old timey style voice of fairy story telling is bestowed only on a select few. Lewis was one of those few.

These stories are capable of transcending time with ease and are written in such a way that they’ll never go out of style. Sure, you’d have to be either really damn good or someone of Gaiman’s status in the publishing industry to get something like this published now, and even then there’s no guarantee of equivalence, but it doesn’t erase the fact that Narnia was published, does exist and will continue to exist for generations. There is a classicism about these stories that just can’t be erased and just can’t be mimicked unless you’ve been bestowed with the voice to do it.

Yes, there is so much that could be expanded on in Narnia but what’s already there on the pages is amazing. Perhaps it is because it’s the epitome of a fairy tale and someone who’s much more critical than I can might be able to see how empty of a plate it might be but to me, there’s just enough there to trust the reader. It’s not bogged down in worldbuilding infodumping or unimportant backstory or research masturbation on the part of the author. All that’s there is what’s important to the story at hand, and nothing else. It goes from point to point seamlessly and with little to no fat and, for me anyway, makes the experience of the read that much more enjoyable.

The world misses fairy tales like this, in all their simplicity but I don’t think there can be much more than what there is now without an inundation which would only devalue what’s already available. Let’s hope the world never has to know what it’s like to live without Narnia.

The Chronicles of Narnia - The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis

First published in 1955.

Narnia . . . where the woods are thick and cool, where Talking Beasts are called to life . . . a new world where the adventure begins.

Digory and Polly meet and become friends one cold, wet summer in London. Their lives burst into adventure when Digory's Uncle Andrew, who thinks he is a magician, sends them hurtling to . . . somewhere else. They find their way to Narnia, newborn from the Lion's song, and encounter the evil sorceress Jadis before they finally return home. (book back blurb)

My aunt gave me this set of books when I was pretty young and all they did was collect dust on my bookshelves. I just never had the inclination to read them even though they were there. I wasn’t big into fantasy until very recently so that might explain why Narnia never really drew my interest.

Then, when I did get into fantasy, it became one of those series that “you just have to read” because it’s the epitome of fantasy reading and writing. Terry Pratchett was in there but he was knocked off my list pretty quickly. I just wasn’t all that impressed with his work and found his books kind of redundant. Door stoppers scare me so I’ve never touched Lord of the Rings and even now the story doesn’t interest me. I couldn’t even sit through the first movie. How am I supposed to get through those books? I wasn’t too impressed with Neil Gaiman’s Stardust but Anansi Boys made me see just why he’s a god among fantasy enthusiasts.

But who could mention fantasy without mentioning The Chrnoicles of Narnia? I found The Last Battle first, on the bargain bookshelves at Barnes and Noble and picked it up. Then someone so aptly put it, I can't rightly read the last book of the series without reading the other six. Duh. So during one of my many visits to B&N, I snagged the first in the series which I always thought to be The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. The emphasis is always on that book so for someone not familiar with the series, it’s the natural thought to think.

But no. So The Magician’s Nephew it was. I honestly had no idea what to expect. I’d never seen reviews of Narnia and it’s written qualities, just come across people that raved about how amazing they are and how the movie doesn’t do it justice. Ironically enough, I do own the movie thanks to my mom. I watched it only after I started reading the series.

After reading this book, I’ve realized that, after all these years, I’ve missed something great. Nephew is a book told in the voice of an old Victorian fairy tale (much more successfully done than Stardust, I think) and the development of the story is simplistic yet infinitely deep all at once. We’re not given explicit, paragraphs upon paragraphs, of detail to pound into our heads of just what it is we’re reading. Everything’s concise. The dialogue is a bit overdone but I’m chalking that one up to the obvious style the story has. For that it fits perfectly.

I'm barely at the halfway point of the Narnia series and I can already see why it’s garnered so much love over the years it’s been out. C.S. Lewis has captured a timeless piece of art in this book and I’m jonsing to read more. The Screwtape Letters has nothing on Narnia (despite the fact that they’re not even in the same realm of existence).

The characters are defined in the simplest terms and most Victorian of definitions (hats off to The Breakfast Club) and yet, as I was reading, they were nothing short of three dimensional. I could hear the Lion’s song as he was singing it and imagine perfectly the mark of dark juice around the Witch’s mouth after she ate that apple. And there was none of the flowery prose or superfluous words. How come more fantasy writers don’t attempt to take after Lewis instead of Tolkien? What is it about Tolkien that renders such imitation and what about Lewis that authors decide to just let lie?

A story without the fat but complete with all the trimmings. The only thing I was yearning for at the end was more of the series. More Narnia. Sure, the head-hopping got confusing for a couple of nanoseconds but other than that, I don’t see any room for any other kind of criticism. No wonder people are such enduring fans of these books.

I loved this book so much that I asked for the series for Christmas. And I received. I love my mom. I'm just about halfway through Prince Caspian now.