the Last Battle

This book is C. S. Lewis's final instalment in The Chronicles of Narnia - and oh boy, if you were to read back through this month's worth of posts you would see me saying some pretty ungenerous things about this saga. Not undeservedly, I will say. As much love as I have for Lewis as a Christian apologist in my experience so far his fiction is streets behind that of the man who turned him to Christ in the first place.

    Plot-wise it's relatively simple - there's a sneaky ape called Shift who finds the skin of a dead lion and persuades his donkey friend called Puzzle to wear in and pretend to be Aslan so that he can take rulership of Narnia to his own benefit. King Tirian, a descendant of Caspian, tries to clear matters up but soon becomes embroiled in the larger schemes. Eventually Eustace and Jill (from prior books) are summoned and start making more headway in unravelling the conspiracy, eventually even summoning as a bonus Peter, Edmund and Lucy (Susan is not allowed as she apparently doesn't believe in Narnia anymore) to help thwart the plot. Which they do. The actual eponymous "last battle" is extremely short and small-scale, even if it's very important for the story itself - but what makes this book a worthy conclusion to a seven-novel saga is its final three or four chapters. Basically, having achieved everything that that world was meant to, Narnia just ends, under the controlling supervision of Jesus Aslan. As disparaging as I may at times have been of this series throughout these posts I genuinely do think their moral core is incredibly strong and edifying, especially for children readers or listeners, and this final segment is where in my opinion that shines through the strongest - this last bit of the saga where Narnia is being wrapped up back into the fabric of creation is not only the most powerful part of the series but some of the most beautiful allegorical fantasy I've read anywhere. Lewis is very clearly trying to communicate some of the boundless hope found in Christian concepts of the transition between the dying creation of post-Fall Earth and new-Built Heaven - and it shows, in glorious imagery and a resoundingly satisfying conclusion to the whole series of seven novels.

    So, as I said in my post about the first of these, and as I do for all sequences of posts about series of books rather than singulars, I have been reserving my overall reflections until this last one.* Thankfully that doesn't mean I have to spew out an absurdly long thing here as my totality of thought looking back on the Chronicles of Narnia are pretty simple. I could even do it in a mere four point-paragraphs. Here goes:

1. Clive Staples Lewis is a far better non-fiction writer than he is fiction. I mean, I haven't read all his fiction, but I haven't read all his non-fiction either, but on balance I think this is a fair assessment of just how the communicative parts of his brain work best. Though that said, The Screwtape Letters is technically fiction and is my favourite thing of his that I've read to date... so... don't take me seriously.
2. All of these characters are pretty dull. Their flaws are obvious and superficial if they exist at all, their approach to problems is pragmatically plot-development-oriented, and they all have they same manner of dialogue. All except Jesus Aslan, of course, but he's a special case.
3. Speaking of Jesus Aslan, it bears to mention that fellow Inkling Tolkien was not a fan of the Narnia series because, among other given reasons, he thought its religious allegory was too on-the-nose. And he was right. But then the two authors had different purposes; J.R.R. was seeking to create an agelessly original yet academically-legitimate mythology for the English peoples, while C. S. just wanted to make children excited about discipleship in a new, engaging way. Different strokes, innit? (see image below)
4. Overall recommendation: I think I would have enjoyed this series far more if I'd been at all familiar with it as a child. Obviously I saw the movies as the were coming out in the early 2000's, but though my parents read the whole series to most of my siblings they never did with me - I was already in too deep with my own literary taste, I suppose. But that said I do think that Christian allegory or not this is a very rich and entertaining series of fantasy novels, that even despite its evangelical bent is by no means proselytizing literature and can be enjoyed on its own merits as fantastical story, with relatable (if arguably a bit predictable) protagonists and a lot of thematic & plot developments that can be on their own terms pretty thought-provoking to a young mind.

So yeh, overall, I don't think this seven-novel series quite deserves the hype it seems to have of being in the same ilk as Tolkien and Le Guin for the best fantasy series of the 20th century, but it has a lot going for it and I can easily imagine younger readers absolutely eating this up. Go for it.

* One additional thing I will say - the editions I were reading was a box-set of seven separate volumes as opposed to the single volume linked in these posts, but I couldn't find it in online booksellers. I don't know about the linked version but mine had copies of all the original black-and-white illustrations from the first-published novels - and while I appreciate their inclusion I can't say that they were of a notable quality and their addition didn't really do much for me.

the Silver Chair

This book is the penultimate instalment (in chronological reading order anyways) of C. S. Lewis's Narnia series, and is HANDS-DOWN the weirdest. Eustace, from the last book, along with his vaguely-apparently-friend-from-school Jill, gets sucked back into Narnia in what seems to me an obfuscatorishly strange train, but never mind; once back there Prince Caspian is now in old age, so Trumpkin the dwarf and Puddleglum the marsh-wiggle are the main guides around the magical world; there's the eponymous silver chair with an ancient curse on it, at one point they go way deep underground into the realm of 'earthmen', Jesus Aslan shows up eventually - everything you may expect by this point from a Narnia novel. I did enjoy reading this more than most of the rest of the series, but I think largely out of a sense of bewilderment than actually being impressed by the prose or the story being told.

the Voyage of the Dawn Treader

This book is the fifth instalment of C. S. Lewis's Narnia saga, and though it follows directly on from the worst (the last one) it is a breath of fresh air when it comes to narrative imagination. Lucy and Edmund (who you may know from prior instalments) along with their odious cousin Eustace are sucked once more into the magical realm, where they find themselves on a pretty questionable sea-voyage under the captainship of Caspian (from prior book) who is on a quest to re-discover the lost lords of Narnia. This book is pretty episodic, with chapters or chunks of chapters having very little bearing on each other but telling interesting little self-contained bits; that said it is an engrossing and entertaining part of the overall Chronicles, and without wanting to give too much of a spoiler - the voluntary, even excited, sacrifice made by Reepicheep toward the end was the most emotional I've gotten reading this whole series so far. So there's that, I suppose.

Prince Caspian

This book is the fourth chronological instalment of C. S. Lewis's Narnia saga, and in my opinion by far the simplest to summarise. Basically the same four kids from book two (see earlier this month in the blog) get whisked back to Narnia, where it turns out that despite having been a very short time for them in England, 1300 years have passed there, and the realm is now in crisis as the usurper Miraz has displaced the true heir to the throne, the eponymous. You know. So obviously Peter and Susan and Edmund and Lucy have to track him down and help him battle to reclaim rule over Narnia and they do, without much by way of real narrative struggle. I mean, there are obstacles, but written in such a way that even a six-year-old having this read to them could see no real reason to worry as the plot armour of Good Prevailing is so thick. The worst of the series so far.

the Horse and His Boy

This book is the third of C. S. Lewis's Narnia saga, and arguably the weirdest. Though that is very arguable indeed, as all of them are arguably pretty weird. What's weird about this one though is that is has almost zero bearing on the characters or plot of the other six novels in this saga. It follows Shashta, a poor boy from Calormen, who escapes slavery with a talking horse called Bree, eventually meeting up with a girl called Aravis (who also has a talking horse) with whom he tries to escape to Narnia in the far north but along the way they get into all kinds of political scrapes and intrigue. Oh, and Jesus Aslan shows up briefly of course. I really don't know exactly what Lewis was trying to say with this book. It adds virtually nothing to the larger saga, even thematically, as everything that is communicated through subtext is replicated better in other places across this series of seven shortish novels. This one does have a handful of good moments though. Don't take my perplexity at its existence as an excuse to skip it if you're actually reading through the Narnia saga.

the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

This book by C. S. Lewis is the second (by chronological reading order) book in the Chronicles of Narnia series, and easily the most famous from that world. To the point that even in a mere plot-summary post I don't see the point in writing all that much as surely anyone literary enough to be reading a blog about books will be at least tangentially familiar with the plot of what is, arguably, the most famous children's fantasy novel of the 20th century perhaps after The Hobbit, so yes, this will be a short one.

    Siblings evacuated from London during the blitz, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy wind up staying with an eccentric elderly relative. During a game of hide-and-seek one of them (in case you're lucky enough to be unfamiliar I won't say which) discovers a whole other magical world hidden in the back of a wardrobe, but the other siblings don't believe this. Until they all get there, then they do. But there's an evil witch who wants to kill Jesus Aslan. So the children have to make so very mature decisions and lead a war against evil in the realm of Narnia - which, shock and horror, they win, so they get to become monarchs despite only having been in the place for like a few days. I don't know. Don't even get me started on the literary-political implications of the way C. S. Lewis treats monarchy in this series of novels. Anyway, NEXT

the Magician's Nephew

This book is the first novel (not in writing order but in reading order which is the order I read them in and thus am blogging them in) in C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia series. As I tend to do with all series of books, I will reserve my overall reflections and recommendations until the last post in the series, and here simply resign myself to a spoiler-free-as-can-be plot summary.

    Digory and Polly, two childhood friends, are playing in a garden when uncle Andrew invites them into his attic and tricks them into touching magic rings that transport them into another world. The exact otherness of these worlds are not really specified by the narrative, but they go through several different dimensions of place until they run into a scary lady called Jadis, who then tags along with them, back to England which she tries to take over, until they end up in a new place - Narnia, in the process of its being created ex nihilo by Aslan the Jesus-lion. Jadis has a hissy fit and throws away the lamp-post she'd been using as a weapon; it grows into a whole new lamp-post - then Aslan says hello to Digory and Polly, and uncle Andrew and the cab-driver who for some reason has come with them, Aslan summons the cab-driver's wife from England and makes her and him the new King and Queen of Narnia, and Digory and Polly go back to normal reality with uncle Andrew. It's a weird story, I know. I've left out a few details but nothing that really has any bearing on the rest of the books in the series other than that you should know that Jadis is still annoyed and knocking about Narnia somewhere, and Andrew stole a magical apple that he planted into his garden that might someday grow into a tree large enough that you could, if you wanted, make a wardrobe out of its wood... and one has to wonder whether said wardrobe would maintain some kind of magical linkage to the realm of its origin?

2022 catch-up

So, this past year I read forty-six books, which is far from my best, but better than last year. I'm still not managing to read as many books by women, people of colour or LGBT+ people as I'd like - I'm scuppered by already having bookshelves too full before I can conscionably buy more, even as much as I'd like to in order to offset my own reading biases. In any case, let's get down to an overview of some of what I read in the past year...

• Literally all of Dan Abnett's Inquisitor novels that exist so far - see Eisenhorn 1/2/3/4, Ravenor 1/2/3 and Bequin 1/2
• Dan Abnett's original sci-fi war story - Embedded
• Dan Abnett's original fantasy thriller - Triumff
• Dan Abnett's [un]original dinosaur drama - Extinction Event
• Yeh I've been re-reading a lot of Dan Abnett this year, get over it
• Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series - where I got up to book five and then my heart said "nope" and I put it on hold for the foreseeable future
• Don't worry that's it for Dan Abnett in this year's list
• The first two instalments of the maddest best fantasy trilogy I've ever read - Brian Catling's The Vorrh and The Erstwhile
• An underwhelming biography of the most important man ever to live
• Some reasonably interesting insights into Daniel the prophet's relevance to modernity
• Corrie ten Boom's absolutely bonkers prayer journey
• Four galleries worth of The Far Side, alongside its prehistory
• Che Guevara's manual on Guerrilla Warfare
• A grotesquely bad culture-war-christian manifesto - ech
• George Orwell's positively-intentioned but thoroughly out-of-date guide on spotting political fakespeak
• Sarah Bessey's incredibly edifying Jesus Feminist
• Richard Rohr's magnificent guide on how to join The Divine Dance
• And then Jürgen Moltmann's far more intellectual dive into the Trinity
• A fun graphic way of interpreting biblical data - see here
• Richard Keyes's ruminations on what church should be: Chameleon or Tribe?
• Pope Francis telling Catholics to get their environmental shit together
• Three of Plato's most significant historic texts ever - probably
• That great moment where Ludwig Wittgenstein "solved philosophy" but nobody understood him so every other philosopher had to keep going anyway
• Sheffield's absolute boss-man ex-mayor Magid Magid on The Art of Disruption
• My favourite of the three Roald Dahl novellas I read over Christmas - Matilda

So - that's it from me for this past year, and I'll be sure to keep reading random stuff and updating this blog as often as I can be arsed so there's some record of all the random stuff I'm reading... that's why I'm doing this, right?

Peace & love

Isaac Stovell