Review - The Horse and His Boy

The Horse and His Boy isn't one of my favourite books of the series, now. I think when I was younger it might have been one of my favourites -- I think I owned a BBC dramatisation of it, or something like that, which was pretty good and helped my very positive memories of it. Shasta wasn't my favourite protagonist even then, I think, though I did love Aravis and wished we saw more of her.

Looking at it now, The Horse and His Boy feels like a bit of an aside, really. Shasta/Cor, Aravis and the two horses aren't that important, ultimately, to the history of Narnia. The other books all cover pretty important moments -- creation, freedom from oppressive regimes, new rulers, daring rescues... This book hardly has Narnian characters in it, and when it does, they're not absolutely central to the plot. It's more about Archenland and Calormen -- which is nice, in seeing more of the world, but it just doesn't seem to quite fit.

The writing is still beautiful, the narrator still a benevolent omniscient storyteller type. The book makes me want to go to Narnia as much as the others do. If I say I don't love it as much as the others, that doesn't mean I don't love it very much.

But now for Prince Caspian!

Reviews - Prince Caspian & The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

I think I say that every Narnia book is a runner up for my favourite. Actually, that's how I feel: I love them all so much. Prince Caspian introduces my favourite characters of the series: Caspian and Reepicheep. I can't put my finger on exactly why I love it so much. I guess it has aspects of a kind of "King Arthur returns" story -- only, in Narnia, which I love even more. The Pevensies have to do some camping and adventuring, and things aren't easy, and there are references to Greek mythology (Bacchus) and to things that were vaguely mentioned in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (again, Bacchus, and the fauns dancing, etc).

The writing is, again, warm and intimate, just the right amount of knowing and understanding. Oddly enough, I don't think I would accept this kind of narrator from a more modern writer. It's so intimate, so like C. S. Lewis has sat you down next to him (or if you're a child, on his knee) and started to tell you a story -- perhaps a little condescending, but you can accept it from him, because you accept it. That's how I found it.

Also, I might just never have 'got it', but I can't really see which Biblical story this is an allegory of, if it is at all. Were all the Narnia books allegories?

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is my undisputed favourite, however much I love all the others. It has everything that I love about Narnia in it -- the warm, personal narrator; Caspian; Reepicheep; my favourite Pevensies... There's something about the more episodic structure that appeals, too. There's lots of detail that I find lovely, even just the little detail, like the spell for the refreshment of the soul in the magician's book, and the way Eustace feels like it's peeling a scab off when Aslan peels off his skin, and the sea-people in their sea-kingdom.

I can't put my finger on why Caspian is my favourite character of all the Narnia books. My mental image of him is beautiful, which I suppose helps: there was very good, gorgeous cover art on my original edition, I think. And he's noble, and good. I suppose it also helps that he's human, that sometimes I want to kick him -- it makes him less than too good to be true.

This story is utterly golden in my mind.