UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion
Past Group Book Discussions
>
Voyage of the Dawn Treader - Discussion
date
newest »
newest »
I no longer have a copy of this, but have read it so many times that I still hope to be able to join in with the discussions later.
Loved the Narnia books as a kid, but also re-read them several times as an adult!
Loved the Narnia books as a kid, but also re-read them several times as an adult!
I must have read this a dozen times right through my teens. I fell in love with the magic of Narnia so much that I bought a set of special edition hardbacks and had series of prints framed, which are on the wall in my hall to this day. Go Reepicheep!
I loved them too. I liked The Horse and his Boy as well. The last one was a real downer though. Hated that.
I think the last one made me cry. I'm going to get Dawn Treader on Audible and relive the adventure!
I'm a harder woman than you - oh, that didn't come out the way I meant!
It's because you live further north than me. :o)
I so loved the Narnia books as a child. My grandparents found me once inside their ancient wardrobe, tapping at the back of it with a disappointed look on my face.Then I read them to my children as they grew up, falling in love with the stories all over again in the process. I'll do the same when I get grandchildren, though I'm in no hurry on that score...
Ignite wrote: "The last one was a real downer though. Hated that."Curious about why you found it a downer. I thought it was supposed to be uplifting.
I didn't find it so. I was the same with The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I felt cheated.
I Bought the whole series 8 years ago from a charity shop and realised I had never read past book 4 as a child, as I didn't know How it ended. Wouldn't say I found it uplifting. I chose to read the series out loud to a scared foster cat, it made him come out of hiding!
I think The Last Stand was sad (I'm sure I cried), but the uplifting element comes from the sense that it's not really over when it's over if you get what I mean. Which is a comfort we'd all like to believe in.
Okay, I guess it's that last book when you start to get the feeling that Lewis is pushing a barrow so-to-speak, so it could be kind of a groan moment.You can ignore allegorical stuff in the earlier stories and just think of them as great stories, but its harder in that one. That could be the problem.
I can't stand anything too overtly religious but I've always been able to forgive Lewis with the Narnia series because they're just such good stories.
I just ignore the religious angle and enjoy the surface version.
I loved the Narnia books too as a child, and reread them fairly frequently. But looking back now I realise they always infected me with a degree of melancholia. I mean all the books, not just the "sad" bits. I wonder why that was...
I guess he had to end it somehow and taking it through to Judgement day seemed logical.But he probably wouldn't if he was writing them today. Not too many people, even religious ones, see the traditional view of an approaching judgement at the end of life as having much sense any more.
Maybe he would have written it with all of the characters zooming off to far corners of the universe and starting their next lives in cool new planets. He was an excellent author of adult sci-fi. I really enjoyed his Silent Planet series.
The biggest thing I took away from the series was the great sense of adventure - and never more so than with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I just downloaded the audio version read by Derek Jacobi.
Agree with that Steve. Adventure it was for me too.
I've read the Narnia books so many times I really don't need to read them again for a *long* time. Might join in the discussion though.
This one was easily my favourite of ghe series. I still have my hardback from childhood. sadly, without DJ now.
Oh, not Dinner Jacket then. I was enjoying that picture...
Why would I put a dinner jacket on a book?
Will wrote: "Why would I put a dinner jacket on a book?"To add a bit of class? I dunno... anything is possible.
I've seen a book somewhere with a dinner jacket on the dust jacket. Really useful marketing trick if you're writing a book about dinner jackets. :)
Or if the dinner jacket is a symbol of the kind of society your book is about. He he he.Books from round here would require sleeveless black woollen singlets. That's what the blokes on the farms round here wear.
To get back to Dawn Treader though, they didn't have life jackets in those days, so you might have to put a viking type ship on the cover.
I remember the old BBC tv series of the Narnia books. The dragon was a bit naff!
R.M.F wrote: "I remember the old BBC tv series of the Narnia books. The dragon was a bit naff!"So was Aslan. It's fair to say that the beeb didn't go overboard on the special effects!
I have started to read the narnia books in sequence and have just started dawn treader. loving it so far.
The Christian aspects of the entire series always put me off...
Sam wrote: "R.M.F wrote: "I remember the old BBC tv series of the Narnia books. The dragon was a bit naff!"So was Aslan. It's fair to say that the beeb didn't go overboard on the special effects!"
Fast forward a few years, and nothing's changed!
Louise-Lesley (Elle) wrote: "The Christian aspects of the entire series always put me off..."This makes me want to ask, if it was any other religion would that put you off? It's still a good story, there are only aspects of Christianity in it it's not preachy, although the last book is very obviously Heaven etc....
Yes, any religious aspects put me off a book. More so with Christianity because I know more about it and can see the references easier, but it's the same with any religion.Religion in a book puts me off full stop.
And strangely, it was the last book I didn't like.So it's the hot place for me, eh?
I didn't like the last book as much as the others but not sure I would say that I didn't like it at all.
I read somewhere that Lewis based the series on the planets i.e Mars for war (Prince Caspian), Jupiter for, er, :)
Yes, I saw a video somewhere someone had done an acedemic study on the books and come to that conclusion.
You could probably come up with any number of basis's (it that even a word?) if you look hard enough.
Narnia was inspired by Mountains of Mournes in Northern Ireland. We have a CS Lewis reading room in our University library...
I always find when people start discussing Narnia that the conversation drifts towards religion and the setting and so on.If you ignore all that clap trap which to be fair has been made up or created years after the books were published then you can actually enjoy some lovely fantasy written for children and adults.
Bev wrote: "I always find when people start discussing Narnia that the conversation drifts towards religion and the setting and so on.If you ignore all that clap trap which to be fair has been made up or cre..."
That's a fair point, but Lewis himself has admitted his faith played a large part in the story, so it's hard to seperate the two.
I recently read Among Others which is all about a character who grows up loving SF/Fantasy books. She's most upset to find out that the Narnia books were allegories for the Christian faith (she reads about it in a book about the Inklings I believe). I remember a friend at school being similarly put out when I discussed it with him and mentioned the idea. I was most surprised because to me the parallels were so obvious that they had to be deliberate. But then I was brought up as a good little Methodist so maybe that had something to do with it :)
I don't think you can ignore the 'clap trap' - even in his reading room there is religious connotations.
Runner up in the January Book Selection Competition.
This month I am going to try having a single discussion group per book. If you want to add spoilers please use the spoiler tag. I will add another thread explaining how to do this in a minute for those who have never done it (view spoiler)[it is easy (hide spoiler)]
Voyage of the Dawn Treader