I totally paused!

This book was significantly better than the previous one.  Much more interesting, stuff that was easier to care about.  It’s easy to see why Disney chose this as the next movie in the series, cuz it’s the next one that happens to really have anything of note.

*****

We start this one off with the four kids, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, being all depressed that they have to go back to school.  They’re in the train station, when suddenly some magic takes them away to an island where they are kind of stranded and have no food.  Right away I thought “oh, Narnia way later” and turned out to be right.

So they wander the island and figure out they are in the ruins of their old castle at Cair Paravel, probably thousands of years later, so they eat apples and go take their treasures out of the secret room in the basement.  Along comes a dwarf (who’s name I can’t remember at the moment), who is going to be drowned by the evil soldiers of the King Miraz.  The kids save the dwarf by shooting the soldiers with arrows, hooraaaaaaay!

The dwarf tells them the story of Prince Caspian, who is the rightful King of Narnia and didn’t know it until recently.  He’s been living with his uncle, King Miraz, but has to flee one night on account of the Queen has a baby boy and Caspian is gonna get killed.  Turns out his uncle killed his dad, King Caspian (the ninth I think) cuz he wanted to be King, and wants to keep his own line in tact.

Caspian runs off, knocks his head, is saved by some dwarves and a Badger, so they all start this plan to overthrow King Miraz and restore Caspian to his rightful seat.  The four kids came to Narnia by Caspian blowing Susan’s old magic horn, it called them back!

So the kids make their way to Caspian with the dwarf, they marvel at how some things have changed so much, get lost and Aslan comes to help them (cuz of course he does, Aslan is always there when the four kids need him), make their way to Caspian, and save the day.

*****

At the end it’s revealed that Caspian and his people, the Telmarines, are really humans that came from our world long ago.  That’s the only way he could be a “true King of Narnia”, is that he’s a Son of Adam!  As a side note, I hate that term in these books.  Just call them humans, blah.  So some of the Telmarines are wicked afraid of the real Narnia and come back to our world, cept not the youngsters cuz they like Narnia.

I am kind of wondering why it is that Narnia has to be ruled by a human.  Why is it that the Narnian’s are deemed incapable of ruling themselves?  Also, how come they say Aslan only comes once in awhile, but we hear about him in every book?  Shouldn’t they tell us about times when Aslan isn’t around so we believe them?

So, not as bad as it could have been.  The series is still not winning me over though.

Next up: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

I took a little longer to read this one than the previous two, mostly because I felt super bored by it.  I just couldn’t bring myself to care much about the characters and the plot.  I’m hoping that the stuff in this book turns out to come up in a later book, because otherwise it really was just completely useless, in my opinion.  And even if it does come up again, I would go so far as to say that this back story could have taken one chapter in another book – it felt that unnecessary, and not even entertaining.

*****

The plot then: Shasta is a poor boy who has been adopted by a basically cruel fisherman (and as a side note, what kind of a name is Shasta anyway?  Maybe in other parts of the world this is a good name, but to me, it’s a cheap brand of soda or a dogs name).  Some wealthy dude comes along and wants to buy Shasta, who was eavesdropping and then decided to wander off (I think he wanted to run away at this point).  He meets the would be purchasers horse, who turns out to be a talking Horse named Bree that also wants to leave his master, so they decide to run off to their home country, Narnia.

Along the way they are chased by skeery lions and run into another girl with a Horse who are likewise running away to Narnia (which must be the bestest place in the whole world, cuz eveeeeeeeryone wants to go there).  The girl is Aravis and her Horse is Hwin.  Aravis doesn’t like Shasta, thinks he’s awful cuz she’s from a well off family and doesn’t like the poor slave boy.  But she does like Bree cuz he’s a strong war horse and seems to know what he’s doing, so she’s willing to put up with Shasta.

They arrive in the big city before the desert in between their land and Narnia, and in this city they end up getting separated because some Narnians are there, including King Edmund and Queen Susan, who think that Shasta is the prince of Archenland, Corin.  He looks just like the prince!  Who conveniently had run off earlier in the day so they think that this is him.  So they scoop him up and take him back to the place they’re staying, where he pretends to be the prince because they don’t listen to him.  He learns of their plans to escape so Susan doesn’t have to deal with Rabadash, the prince of the land they are in, cuz Susan doesn’t want to marry him.

The grown ups leave the room to attend to their plans, and Corin sneaks up through the window, runs right into Shasta.  It’s like looking in a mirror!  When I read this I thought “Is this Prince Caspian then?”, figuring the book has ties to another one later on.  In any case, it’s pretty obvious from the start that the boys are twins.  Shasta and Corin switch places, so Shasta goes to find his way out of the city to meet up with his friends.

In the meantime, Aravis gets seen by a friend of hers, who also scoops her up and takes her back to her house.  Aravis tells her about her plans so the friend agrees to help her get out of the city by a secret way out.  On their way to the secret place, they get trapped in a room with Rabadash, his dad the King, and this other guy that Aravis was supposed to marry.  They hear this plan of how Rabadash is going to to kill people in Archenland and take over Narnia to make Susan marry him after all.  That talk finally ends, the men leave, then the girls sneak out.

The Horses and the people finally meet up at their spot, Aravis tells about Rabadashes evil plans, Shasta tells about this other better way to get across the desert, they make a run for it to beat Rabadash and save Archenland.  They make it to this hermits house, but zomg, a lion is chasing them again!  Bree runs in to escape the lion, Shasta runs back to save Aravis and Hwin, then he has to run like the wind to the King to let him know about Rabadash.

Shasta tells the king of the plan and they all set off to get the army.  Shasta gets left behind cuz his horse is slow, and ends up meeting Aslan along the way who leads him to Narnia.  Shasta tells people about Rabadashes plan, so the Narnians go to the aid of Archenland.  They win the battle and all is well.

Oh, and Shasta is the long lost Prince Cor, who has been missing for years.  For the record, I am Jacks total lack of surprise.  Prince Corin is so happy cuz now he doesn’t have to be King, gets to be Prince forever.  Shasta Prince Cor grows up, marries Aravis, and they are just a grand King and Queen.

*****

One thing I didn’t like was that the lions that attacked them both times were really just Aslan, driving them together and then teaching Aravis a lesson.  It again felt kind of godish to me, like he’s just there watching over them to make sure things go right and they get their just desserts.  For being touted to be so busy, he sure seems to have a lot of time to meddle in everyone’s lives.

Next up: Prince Caspian

Despite there being 8 or whatever books in this series, this is the one that everyone knows.  So far, it’s also the only one I know I’ve either read myself or had read to me in the past, and with the movie that was out recently, I was again made familiar with the story.

*****

We all know how this one goes…Lucy finds herself in a strange land instead of the wardrobe she had initially gone into.  Everyone thinks she’s lying, turns out Edmund was the liar, so everyone gets bothered with him and he goes off to join forces with The White Witch.  Personally I thought Queen Jadis was a more fun name and it’s a little sad that she was given this new name.

The kids all get to Aslan with relatively no trouble.  It seemed like their journey took so long when I was a kid, but in reality I read the whole book in just a couple of hours with interruptions.  It didn’t actually really feel as though anyone but Edmund was in any real danger the whole time.  So, they get to Aslan, then the Witches skeery wolves try to eat them, it doesn’t work, and Aslan’s posse finds Edmund about to be killed.

They get Edmund back safe and sound, Aslan makes a deal with the Witch, and then he dies.  Cept not so much, he is really fine cuz of the deep magic.  I think it would have been much more interesting/entertaining if he had just taken care of the Witch then and there.  Bah to all this deep magic nonsense, he made the world, he can deal with it!  Plus what is with this reference to him having “other worlds” to manage?  Again, I don’t want to feel like my reading of the Christian themes in this book is influencing my opinion, but other worlds seems so god-ish.  And if that lion has that much energy to be managing all these places, he should really come into my life, I could use some help with the laundry!

*****

I’m also beginning to see why I didn’t seem to have much interest in reading this whole series when I was younger, it just didn’t hold my interest.  I wasn’t willing to invest that much reading time in something that I guess maybe I felt was talking down to me.  And now I still can’t help but think that the talking Animals and then regular animals bit is just so Wizard of Oz.

So all in all, I think if I had kids I would probably not read the whole series to them, though they’d be welcome to read it on their own and discuss it with me.  It’s just not captivating enough for me as a whole.

Next read: The Horse and his Boy

I had initially intended on blogging about each chapter as I went, putting down my thoughts about each one.  But as I went on, I started finding that they were really too short for that, and I didn’t exactly have a lot of thoughts about individual chapters.  So, I’ll likely just comment on a book as a whole going forward, unless it’s a larger book with longer chapters.

*****

The gist of this book is that Polly and Digory meet, they run into Uncle Andrew by accident and he sends them on a magical journey.  On their journey they meet The White Witch Queen Jadis, and unintentionally set her free, bringing her into our world and later into Narnia.  They also take Uncle Andrew and a cabby (with his horse) into Narnia, and witness its creation with Aslan and all that.  The Witch stays in Narnia, as well as the cabby and his wife, who become Narnia’s first king and queen.  Their horse also becomes the first winged horse in the land.  The children and Uncle Andrew go back to their world, Polly and Digory remain fast friends, and Digory goes on to become the professor from the next book.

*****

I felt like as a whole, this story was kind of unnecessary.  I never remember being terribly concerned as to where Narnia had come from, how the Witch got there, or really why The Professor was encouraging of the children in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  In some respects, this actually made the Witch feel kind of easily defeated, since this book made her sound all powerful and so horrible.

I had also been told and read ahead of time that these books have very strong Christian themes throughout.  Undoubtedly as a result of being told this, it was pretty prevalent in my mind while reading the book.  The creation of Narnia did feel kind of like the creation story in Christianity as well, and I really just didn’t think it was necessary to go into.  I honestly felt bad for the animals that weren’t chosen by Aslan to be talking and aware Animals, I wondered as I was reading it what caused the difference, why did Aslan choose some and not others.  Choosing two from each species felt very Noah’s Arc to me, and since that’s a story already told elsewhere, I guess I kind of yearned for a different origin of things.

And why, if the Witch was so bad, yet Aslan so powerful, couldn’t he just magic her ass out of there?  He just created the world, he could just as easily create different prophecies and do away with the evil in the land altogether.  Maybe this is all stuff that a mind like mine doesn’t work with well…I want more explanations for things, like why he had to deal with her being there at all.  I felt like I needed to have more faith in order to really “get” the story, need more ability to suspend my disbelief than I have in me.

I don’t think it was a horrible book necessarily, just not maybe one that ever needed to be written.  It kind of takes the magic out of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe a bit, knowing where things come from and that Aslan created the world.  Some things are okay left unexplained, to me.  And the explanations just bring about more questions anyway

Next up: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Nothing terribly outrageous or noteworthy in this chapter.  Just fantasy stuff with Polly and Digory, trying to figure out the rings.  I like that the chapters are short, easy to get through.

I think if I had been the children I would have wanted to examine the woods to see if anyone else was there.  Who knows what kind of interesting creatures might be traveling between worlds.

And I found it rather amusing that Digory is referred to as, “…the sort of person who wants to know everything, and when he grew up he became the famous Professor Kirke who comes into other books.”  Huh?  Maybe I’ll find this out as I read further into the series, but uh, it seems a strange thing to say.  And since when does Digory want to know everything?  He was too skeered in the first chapter to leave the tunnel until Polly said it was safe.

I’m next to positive I never read this book.  It was my introduction to prequels and I remember feeling kind of cheated by this, to know that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe had been read to me, then suddenly there was this earlier book.  I liked chronological order, early inklings of an obsessive mind.  So it’s quite possible I skipped this one purely out of protest.

Maybe I’m being nitpicky from the start, but I think it’s a wee bit pretentious to start a book out by saying “It is a very important story….”  Clearly the one presenting it finds it important, they wrote it!  So far, the ages of Polly and Digory haven’t been revealed to us, but they do talk quite grown up for children playing in the garden.

Two pages in and I feel like I’ve witnessed two events lifted from other, older sources.  Mr. and Miss Ketterly sound an awful lot like Matthew and Marilla in the Anne of Green Gables books.  Then Polly says “Perhaps he keeps a mad wife shut up there.”  Hello, Jane Eyre!

I’m not certain at this point if we’re supposed to think Uncle Andrew is evil or what exactly is his motivation, but it is rather cruel to trick a young girl into touching a ring and just up and vanishing like that.  However, it would seem as though we have met the Magician and his unsuspecting Nephew.

I already feel as though I’m being a bit unfair, treating this as though it should have more logic and be less obvious to an adult.  But I have to remind myself that I’m definitely not the target audience, and part of the magic of reading a book as a kid is that you feel smart enough to figure things out on your own.  And if you don’t, it’s still magical and a pleasant surprise.