2016 re-reading

This review isn't too different to my other reviews of the Narnian series which I re-read this year, but with less focus on flaws and much more of what I loved so much about these books growing up. Yes, Lewis once again demonises the people whose views he disagrees with: Eustace's parents - the vegetarian, pacifist, co-educational-school supporters - are predictably satirised, but I have to admit that it's done very cleverly, and I couldn't help chuckling despite myself. And of course there's the part about Eustace and the dragon, which involves transparently Christian imagery but it works better in this novel than in some of the others because it makes such sense in terms of Eustace as a person. (However, the part towards the end where Aslan is a lamb roasting fish totally failed for me - it's plain insertion of doctrine that doesn't fit into the story at all, as is Aslan's comment at the end about their needing to get to know him under a different name in our world.)

But this novel really reveals the magic of which Lewis, at his best, was capable. I love the sense of setting out on adventure and voyage, the Magician's island and the magical spell book Lucy reads, the sweet waters ('liquid light') at the End of the World, the excitement of the whole idea of reading the End of the World - the whole atmosphere of the book, in fact. This novel firmly remains one of my very favourites in the series.