SCIENCEFICTION SQRL's review

The Chronicles of Narnia Boxset
by C.S. Lewis

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/980115.The_Chronicles_of_Narnia_Boxset?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Chronicles of Narnia Boxset" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1196609833m/980115.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/980115.The_Chronicles_of_Narnia_Boxset?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">The Chronicles of Narnia Boxset</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis">C.S. Lewis</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9834844?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 3 of 5 stars I read some of these books when I was a child, but I'm not sure I've read all of them. The Horse and His Boy is one of my favourite books. I hated The Last Battle. I'm planning to reread them, but I'm not sure I want to read Last Battle ever again. I remember vowing that I wouldn't the first time!
 
 The Magician's Nephew
 
 For the first half of this book, I was convinced I'd never read it before, but halfway through I began finding some aspects familiar--notably the Cabby, and Strawberry the cab horse, although I didn't remember him getting wings. So probably I have read it before, back in the dim and distant past of my childhood ^_^.
 
 I enjoyed this book, especially the part where Digory and Polly start exploring the attic. Exactly the sort of adventure I like! dark, spooky and well away from the grown-ups :). I also loved the Wood Between the Worlds. Great too to get an explanation of why the Wardrobe was a door into Narnia--had entirely forgotten that part.
 
 Overall, a fun book as well as something of a nostalgia trip.
 
 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
 
 This is probably the Narnia book that's best known. If anyone's read a Narnia book at all, it'll be this one. Here Lewis introduces Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy, who then reappear at regular intervals.
 
 Another enjoyable book, although the Death of Aslan was distressing to me as a child--I had no idea he'd come back to life!
 
 The only thing that jarred was Father Christmas. He didn't feel like he belonged in Narnia--he belongs to our world, not theirs. But that's a minor niggle.
 
 Lucy is my favourite of the four children. Peter is too good to be true, Edmund's a nasty little sneak (although he reforms later) and Susan is wet. So Lucy, who is always right, and as frequently put upon, is my identification character. Bless.
 
 One aspect the book carefully eschews considering is how it would feel to go from being an adult, in a position of wealth and power, to being a child again. It would have been interesting had Lewis given this some consideration, but perhaps he felt it was beyond his remit--or wouldn't be of interest to his readership.
 
 A good romp, this one, always excepting the nasty bits.
 
 The Horse and His Boy
 
 Definitely my favourite when I was a child, and a favourite still. I love the reversal--horse in charge of boy, instead of boy in charge of horse. There's lots of good stuff in this book, especially the spats between Shasta and Aravis.
 
 Some very exciting and scary things, too, like Aslan's interventions, and when he scratches Aravis. Truly he is great and terrible! heh
 
 Less impressed this time round with Shasta's meteoric rise from fisherman's boy to prince, but I love Bree more than ever. Doesn't want to go back to Narnia until his tail grows back! Awww!
 
 Prince Caspian
 
 I love the opening to this book, where the children return to Cair Paravel but don't immediately recognise it. Their proud castle has fallen into ruins, and the land on which it stands has become an island--an excellent way of showing how things change that prefigures the changes that have come over Narnia in their absence.
 
 Caspian is well presented too, although after the Kings and Queens arrive, he fades a bit into the background, which is a shame. He has an exciting time of it, anyway.
 
 All is put right and the villains defeated in more or less gruesome ways, and Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy once more thrown out of Narnia and back to their mundane lives. Worse, Peter and Susan are told they cannot return. They take this suspiciously well!
 
 The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
 
 I'm not at all sure whether I've read this book before. Most of it seemed unfamiliar, but the bit where Eustace turns into a dragon rang a bell. I knew what was going to happen to him before it happened--although that may just be my superior powers of analysis ;). Or it may be that I caught an episode of the BBC serialisation a few years back. Who knows?
 
 As sometimes happens, secondary characters take over and overshadow the protagonists. In this book, it's Reepicheep who stands out the most, although the Appalling Eustace does a good job in his role of Boy Who Needs to Turn Back to the Light. His relationship with Reepicheep is nicely drawn.
 
 Aslan, as usual, turns up here and there to set things--or people--right. I can't help wondering, however, why the lords who set to quarrelling and wanted to fight with the Stone Knife only got to sleep for a while and were later restored, whereas the lord who only wanted a quick dip in a harmless-looking pool was permanently turned to gold. Seems like he committed no offence but got punished far worse than those who did. Similarly, it's hard to reconcile Eustace's punishment for coveting the dragon's gold with the hoard of gold and jewels we saw Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy had back in their treasure cellar in Prince Caspian. It's all right to have untold wealth so long as you don't really want it? Does that make any sense?
 
 Lewis's snobbery does peek out a bit from the pages of this book, making it apparent that it's been there all along. After all, why does Shasta, entirely untaught, know that he must rescue Aravis from the lion? Why, because he's a prince. Princes are inherently noble; they can't help it. It's in the genes.
 
 Yeah, right.
 
 The Silver Chair
 
 I don't think I have read this one before--either that or it was thoroughly forgettable, which is also possible.
 
 Eustace returns, and with him a girl called Jill Pole who is, as one might have put it in Lewis's day, wet. No doubt it's accurate to have a girl constantly doubting herself, especially if she's been bullied, but it becomes wearing after a while. To set off the delightfully pessimistic Marsh-wiggle, it really needed one character in this book with a bit of backbone. Unfortunately, we don't get one. Eustace and Jill are tasked by Aslan with rescuing King Caspian's son and heir, Prince Rilian, who mysteriously disappeared some years before. Interestingly, Jill and Eustace appear in Narnia in Aslan's own country, the high yet snowfree mountains to the East.
 
 From there they proceed on their quest, missing three of the four signs given them by Aslan as they go along. It all turns out right in the end, though--they escape being eaten by giants, and manage to rescue Rilian and free the race of Earthmen from a strange serpent-woman.
 
 One aspect of this book that puzzled me is the suggestion that this serpent-woman (who also murders Rilian's mother) is akin to the White Witch who held Narnia in snow-thrall for a hundred years. Forgive me, but I did only read The Magician's Nephew fairly recently, and there it's made very clear that the White Witch is the last of her race. So I don't see how that could be :).
 
 The scene with the silver chair is dramatic, with Rilian begging for release and the children and Marsh-wiggle bound by a promise made to him that they wouldn't release him no matter how much he begged. Fortunately, they manage to get the last of Aslan's signs right, and set him free.
 
 Rilian is needed because his father is dying, and they only just manage to be reunited before the end. Kingship in Narnia is therefore secured. On a side-note, the special quality of nobility/kingship/not being a peasant noted above is present in Rilian, too.
 
 A weaker book than some of the others, partly because so many familiar characters are missing, and partly because the character mix isn't right. But some entertaining stuff, nonetheless.
 
 And now I have to decide whether to read The Last Battle. Very unsure.
 
 The Last Battle
 
 Well, I decided to read it after all. I'm not eight years old any more! lol
 
 It wasn't quite as I remembered it--presumably I've imported the battle in which a giant dies, struck down by an arrow, either from a different book or my own imagination. But the ending's as much of a cheat as ever. The children are happy that they're dead? And that their friends are dead? And that their parents are dead? (that's some train crash, by the way, wiping out people on the platform as well as on the train...not that it hasn't ever happened, but still--was it all a terrorist plot to fling everyone into Narnia?)
 
 Obviously there's something defective either in my wiring or in my upbringing (I suspect the latter), but it seemed a cheat when I first read it and it seems a cheat now. Still, I'm sure they'll be happy in the Land of Never Getting Tired, where you can be excited without being frightened (neat trick!), etc etc.
 
 I did like the whole false Aslan plot, and the way Tirian struggles to show people the truth. I especially liked the dwarfs sitting in the dark stable in the middle of true Narnia, blind to the truth.
 
 The door through which they look back into Narnia reminded me of another door that gave access to Elidor. Reminded me a lot.
 
 Remainder shop bargain.
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/305220?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

SCIENCEFICTION SQRL's review
rating:

bookshelves: f-is-for-fantasy, fiction
status: Read in March, 2008

** spoiler alert ** I read some of these books when I was a child, but I'm not sure I've read all of them. The Horse and His Boy is one of my favourite books. I hated The Last Battle. I'm planning to reread them, but I'm not sure I want to read Last Battle ever again. I remember vowing that I wouldn't the first time!

The Magician's Nephew

For the first half of this book, I was convinced I'd never read it before, but halfway through I began finding some aspects familiar--notably the Cabby, and Strawberry the cab horse, although I didn't remember him getting wings. So probably I have read it before, back in the dim and distant past of my childhood ^_^.

I enjoyed this book, especially the part where Digory and Polly start exploring the attic. Exactly the sort of adventure I like! dark, spooky and well away from the grown-ups :). I also loved the Wood Between the Worlds. Great too to get an explanation of why the Wardrobe was a door into Narnia--had entirely forgotten that part.

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