Once Upon a Bookshelf

I always have such a hard time deciding which one of the Narnian books are my favourites; it’s usually a toss up between this one, The Last Battle, and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I think it has partly to do with Eustace Scrubb, who, after Edmund Pevensie, is my favourite of the Narnian kids. (I shall avoid my spiel about how I positively adore the bratty kids in books for today.) So when I decided I wanted to read about Eustace Scrubb, I must’ve sat at my bookshelf for a good half hour before deciding that I wanted some Jill Pole and Puddleglum as well.

In this installment (the sixth in the series), Scrubb and Pole have been called to Narnia to go on a quest to find the King’s son who disappeared some 10 years previous. With Puddleglum as their guide, they head north into giant country, where they almost get eaten by giants, find their way into the Underland (a kingdom ruled by an evil sorceress many miles underground), and have to free the Prince from evil enchantment.

I was having a conversation the other day with someone about why I re-read books. They said they couldn’t do it because they know how the story’s going to end. As for me, I love re-reading books - though I haven’t done much of that as of late - too many other books that need to be read! There’s always something new that you find when you read a book again, some small little thing that you missed the previous time (times?) you’ve read the book. Or there’s something that you completely forgot about that touches you in a new way.

For example, this bit jumped out at me more this time than it ever has before. I had completely forgotten how amusing Puddleglum could be, with his depressing and sometimes morbid view on life. The kids and Puddleglum had just met a lady accompanied by a man who never said a word or make a sound, dressed all in a black suit of armour, with the visor of his helmet down.

“I was wondering,” remarked Puddleglum, “what you’d really see if you lifted up that visor and looked inside.”
“Hang it all,” said Scrubb. “Think of the shape of the armour! What could be inside it except a man?”
“How about a skeleton?” asked the Marsh-wiggle with ghastly cheerfulness.

Narnia and the North!

Every six months or so, I have an urge to pick up one of the Narnia books. These were my favourite books growing up, and they still hold a place dear to my heart. (Perhaps moreso than Anne of Green Gables, if you can believe that!)

I had been craving King Edmund as an adult lately (not sure if that’s a result of everyone saying that the grown-up Edmund in The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe movie, but it’s a possibility), so The Horse and His Boy seemed a likely choice. Oddly enough.

This has always been my least favourite of the Narnia books; it never really excited me like the other ones, so it’s been YEARS since the last time I read it. Nevertheless, I was craving Edmund, and I can’t say no to him. (Why is it always the kids who start out as total and complete brats that I adore?!) I have to say, though, that I enjoyed this book much more thoroughly than I normally do.

The Horse and His Boy was the fifth of the Narnia books written and published, though it’s actually the third book in the series - and yes, I’m one of those who prefer to read it in the chronological order of the world as opposed to the order they were published in. It is also the only book that doesn’t centre around children from our world finding themselves in Narnia.

Shasta is living with a fisherman in Calormen. He’s just overheard that the man he calls “Father” is about to sell him to a rich man as a slave. The rich man’s horse, Bree, convinces Shasta to run away with him to Narnia where men and beasts are free.

I have to wonder, if this was the first time I had ever read any of these books, if I had no clue that Lewis was a Christian, and if I didn’t know how he wrote them as an allegory type of book, would I realize it? Would I be able to pick up the hints, or would I just conclude that this book, like so many others, was based on bits and pieces of different mythologies? Sometimes it just is so obvious to me - in this one, what stands out is when Aslan and Shasta are walking through the mountains that divide Archenland and Narnia, when Shasta has just discovered that there had only ever been one lion on the journey, Aslan, and he had done the things he had to make sure they work out the right way in the end. But does everyone pick up on those moments?