Prince Caspian - CS Lewis

Published in an omnibus edition with the full Chronicles of Narnia series: "The Magician's Nephew"; "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe"; "The Horse and His Boy"; "Prince Caspian"; "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader"; "The Silver Chair"; "The Last Battle", by Harper Collins Publishers: Hammersmith, London, 2010. Originally published 1951.

 Prince Caspian is probably my least-favourite book in the Narnia series. It does a lot of 'place-setting' by returning the Pevensies to Narnia, introducing Caspian and his line, setting up the next return to Narnia, showing us that each return will happen in a different manner and showing how time passes differently between Narnia and our world (in order of publication this is the first time we realise that!). And yet in the big scheme of things - and particularly in terms of the storyline for the Pevensies - not a lot actually happens in Prince Caspian: the children arrive in Narnia, realise that time has passed, are told the story of Prince Caspian, travel to meet him, fight one battle and it all wraps up. The movie version at least makes some more "plot", even though much of it is unnecessary to the over-all arc of the story. And to add to that, elements of the book are also fairly weird: the whole Bacchus and Silenus sub-plot comes to mind!

Yet there are still some good moments within Caspian that can be discussed: the 'invisibility' of Aslan to all but Lucy is a nice allegory, and anything involving Reepicheep is fun...

Really, my main problem with Prince Caspian is that it all seems fairly insignificant. Much of the plot is done without the aid of the children at all, and it could potentially have been more effective if - like The Horse and His Boy - it had chosen to focus on the native-born Narnians (like Caspian) entirely, and just left the earth-children to be a minor side story, or even to not feature at all.

Still, it is worth remembering that these were written as children's stories... maybe I'm treating it a bit harshly. It is still entertaining, and contains elements worth thinking about.

Completed with Elise, 29 March 2020.


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