| $@%&! level: None “Bedroom” level: None Violence level: Medium (it's the end of the world, after all) Back Cover: “During the last days of Narnia, the land faces its fiercest challenge—not an invader from without but an enemy from within. Lies and treachery have taken root, and only the king and a small band of loyal followers can prevent the destruction of all they hold dear in this, the magnificent ending to The Chronicles of Narnia.” |
I’m jumping ahead of myself. Maybe it isn’t surprising that I want to talk about the end, given that this is the last book in the series. That means that the end isn’t just the end of this story but then end of all stories about Narnia, and that deserves some attention. (Incidentally, they’re never going to live up to my imagination of this ending if they decide to try doing it in the movies.) But the story that immediately precedes the ultimate end is definitely worth talking about as well.
This is the only story of Narnia that begins with the Narnian perspective of the visiting children from our world. All the others begin with the children and lead to them finding their way into Narnia, but this one begins in Narnia, and Jill and Eustace don’t show up until much later (when nothing else can get King Tirian out of the mess he’s got himself into). In fairness, the way the story is set up, it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense if you started in the middle with Jill and Eustace the way they normally do. Getting a dwarf to tell the history of Prince Caspian was one thing, but the flashback narrative wouldn’t have worked for this one. The narrative time is too short, and the experience too personal, to be told by anyone after the fact. Tirian just has to be the primary character for this one. The children help, and we get some of their perspective, but mostly this is Tirian’s adventure. (For once, an adult main character!)
This is also probably the darkest of the Narnian stories. Well, it is the end of the world, after all. It’s surprising to me how quickly everything goes so hopelessly wrong in Narnia, though. It’s like things were going along just fine for hundreds of years, and then suddenly everything crashed over the course of a few weeks. Of course, it can’t possibly happen like that, so I have to think that there was a spirit of unbelief that had worked its way into the people so unobtrusively that no one really noticed, opening the way for a false Aslan to take power. Those who truly believed were able to spot the deception pretty quickly, but the more part of people had only been told stories about Aslan and were easy marks, even if their hearts were in the right place. And even when they reveal the deception, it doesn’t solve anything, because of all the people who never much believed in the first place and find the lie convenient for their own ends. Yes, this had to have been growing for a long, long time. And it leads to an awful lot of tragedy. I think I’m still a bit traumatized by what happens to the horses.
But in spite of the grim story, and the frankly awful behavior of the dwarves, and a magical kingdom that almost seems bereft of magic for a time and on the verge of being overrun by capitalism and industry, the ending makes everything worth it. Grown up Lucy is my favorite because she’s the one who seems most like she really gets it. But I’m still waiting for a redemption story for poor Susan.
Oh, and if you get the opportunity, definitely listen to the audiobook, because there's nothing quite like hearing Sir Patrick Stewart making frightened cat noises.