The Horse and His Boy, C.S. Lewis

The Horse and His Boy is the third book in the Narnia sequence, chronologically, and that’s the way I’ve always read the books. It was one of my favourites as a child: Calormene was so different to Narnia, and Aravis is so badass, and there’s so much adventure!

As an adult, it kind of felt a bit hollow, though… it feels like an afterthought: most of it doesn’t even happen in Narnia, and the events aren’t super-significant to Narnia as a country. It does give a bit more depth and breadth to the world, insofar as you find that rings true, but it’s also a mess in terms of yanking stuff from real-world cultures and demonising the fictional result (to some degree or another — I acknowledge that the existence of Aravis makes it more complex, and e.g. Lasaraleen isn’t actually terrible as a person).

It’s still a fun adventure, and there are some lovely descriptions… and I wish there was more of the Hedgehog and the Rabbit and the other talking animals Shasta meets when he arrives in Narnia, to be honest. The dwarves he was staying with get rather dropped, despite their kindness to and care for him!

Alas, though, I think this one I’ve just sort of grown out of, on the whole.

Rating: 3/5

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis

The second book of Narnia is perhaps the most famous: Lucy Pevensie walks through a wardrobe and finds herself in a mysterious land, shrouded in snow, and she and her three siblings get drawn into a deathly struggle against the Witch — that same Witch who entered Narnia at its very beginning in The Magician’s Nephew. In many ways this is a favourite, even if it totally lies about Turkish delight being tasty, and despite the heavy-handedness of the allegory.

This time, I couldn’t help but notice the little details that delight me: the titles of the books in Mr Tumnus’ cave, Mrs Beaver wanting to take her sewing machine on the run, the descriptions of the onrush of spring after winter is defeated. I do cringe a little at the bit about Father Christmas, though — it totally breaks the mood for me, though most of Lewis’ other mixing and matching of legend and mythology doesn’t bother me.

In the end, of course, Aslan sacrifices himself for Edmund, who is really a stupid human boy who has barely grown up… and actually, the allegory here works really well for me. Religion is a complicated subject for many, and I don’t really want to get into the personal stuff here, but the way it demonstrates the story of the crucifixion (and of why Jesus died) is really well done, in my books. It’s not just about Aslan sacrificing himself for Edmund, necessary to the prophecy as he is: as a child, that’s all I really saw (despite understanding the allegory), but this time it made me think of the fact that Christianity says Jesus sacrificed himself for everyone, petty and childish and ignorant about the world as we are.

I don’t like to pick Narnia apart too much, because in terms of worldbuilding and consistency and so on, it doesn’t bear much picking at. But that part worked for me, this time in particular.

It’s sort of surprising how quickly these books are over, reading them as an adult. They took up such a large chunk of my imagination as a kid, it felt like they were huge. But there are still worlds to be found here, even as an adult.

Rating: 4/5

The Magician’s Nephew, C.S. Lewis

It’s been a while, I think, but often when I’m feeling crap, I come back to the Narnia books. I always saw the Christian allegory when I was a kid, so I never had the moment of betrayal that a lot of other people seem to talk about; I always kind of took them as they were, and went off with the bits that suited me.

The Magician’s Nephew follows the start of Narnia, its creation myth, but it starts smaller than that with a little boy and a little girl in London, when “Mr Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road” (I’ve always loved that opening, somehow). Polly and Digory become friends very quickly, partly because there’s nothing much else to do. It starts with childish play when they try to get through to the deserted house further down the row, by climbing through the connected attics — but it becomes a little more serious when they accidentally find themselves in Digory’s uncle’s study, and he gives Polly a ring… which immediately makes her vanish away to another world.

I always rather enjoyed the little character studies of Uncle Andrew — his silliness, and greed, and overall cleverness-that-is-also-stupidity. He’s just rather delightfully mediocre, the delight being in the way he doesn’t know that and yet the reader can see it so clearly. I also enjoy the idea of Charn, the oppressive breathlessness of the time the children spend exploring it, and just imagining coming out into the long room full of images of people… It helps that my edition still has the same black-and-white sketch illustrations my childhood copies did.

In the end there’s a lot of magic in this book, a breathless wonder at creation and at Aslan’s love for it, but there’s also a lot of humanity in Digory’s struggles, in his stupid fights with Polly, and yes, in Uncle Andrew. It was still worth coming back to, for me, though this rating is no doubt half nostalgia.

Rating: 4/5